Concerning information, Mark Twain wrote that it appeared to stew out of
him naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. With
the narrator of this episodical history, however, things are very
different. And just how the good fairy, Maud Darling, was enabled to
keep her promises to the outlaws seems to him of no great moment. But
the money _was_ returned to the express company; the police _were_
called off; and the four robbers, with the woman to cook for them, went
to work at building a log house on the point of pines to be occupied in
the near future by the Carolinians.
They were not sorry to have been turned from a life of sin. It is only
when a life of sin is gilded, padded, and pleasant that people hate to
turn from it. When virtue entails being rained on, starved, and hunted,
it isn't a very pleasant way of life, either.
The face of the young female bandit lost its look of premature old age.
She went about her work singing, and the humming of the kettle was her
accompaniment. The four men looked the other men of the camp in the face
and showed how to lay trees by the heels in record time. To their
well-swung and even better-sharpened axes even the stems of oaks were as
wax candles. It became quite "the thing" for guests at The Camp to go
out to the point and admire the axe-work and all the processes of
frontier house-building.
When people speak of "love in a cottage," there rises nearly always, in
my mind, the memory of a log house that a friend of mine and I came
across by the headwaters of a great river in Canada.
It stood--the axe marks crisp, white, and blistered with pitch--upon the
brink of a swirling brown pool full of grilse. The logs of which it was
built had been dragged from a distance, so that in the immediate
neighborhood of the cabin was no desolation of dead tree-tops and dying
stumps. Everything was wonderfully neat, new, and in order. About the
pool and the cabin the maples had turned yellow and vermilion. And above
was the peaceful pale blue of an Indian-summer sky.
We opened the door, held by a simple latch, and found ourselves in the
pleasantest of rooms, just twenty feet by fifteen. The walls and the
floor had been much whitened and smoothed by the axe. The place smelt
vaguely of pitch and strongly of balsam. There was a fireplace--the fire
all laid, a bunk to lie on, a chair to sit on, a table to write on, a
broom to sweep with. And neatly set upon clean shelves were various jams
in glass, and meats, biscuits, and soups in tins. There was also a
writing (on birch bark) over the shelves, which read: "Help yourself."
We took down the shutters from the windows and let in floods of autumn
sun. Then we lighted the fire, and ate crackers and jam.
It hurt a little to learn at the mouth of our guide that the cabin
belonged to a somewhat notorious and decidedly crotchety New York
financier who controlled the salmon-fishing in those waters. I had
pictured it as built for a pair of eminently sensible and supernaturally
romantic honeymooners or for a poet. And I wanted to carry away that
impression. For in such a place love or inspiration must have lasted
just as long as the crackers and jam. And there is no more to be said of
a palace.
One day Mary Darling and Sam Langham visited the new cabin. And Sam
said: "If one of the happy pair happened to know something of cooking,
what a place for a honeymoon!"
Shortly afterward, Phyllis and Herring came that way, and Herring said:
"If I was in love, and knew how to use an axe, I'd build just such a
house for the girl I love and make her live in it. I believe I will,
anyway."
"Believe what?" asked Phyllis demurely. "Believe you will make her live
in it?"
"Yes," he said darkly--"no matter who she is and no matter how afraid of
the mice and spiders with which such places ultimately become infested."
Lee and Renier visited the cabin, also. They remarked only that it had a
wonderfully smooth floor, and proceeded at once thereon, Lee whistling
exquisitely and with much spirit, to dance a maxixe, which was greatly
admired by the ex-outlaws.
Maud came often with the Carolinians, and as for Eve, she came once or
twice all by herself.
Jealousy is a horrid passion. It had never occurred to Eve Darling that
she was or ever could be jealous of anybody. And she wasn't--exactly.
But seeing her sisters always cavaliered by attractive men and slipping
casually into thrilling and even dangerous adventures with them
disturbed the depths of her equanimity. It was delightful, of course, to
be made much of by Arthur and to go upon excursions with him as of old.
But something was wanting. Arthur's idea of a pleasant day in the woods
was to sit for hours by a pool and attempt to classify the croaks of
frogs, or to lie upon his back in the sun and think about the girl in
far-off China whom he loved so hopelessly.
Thanks to her excellent subordinate, and to her own administrative
ability, Laundry House made fewer and fewer encroachments upon Eve's
leisure. And often she found that time was hanging upon her hands with
great heaviness. Memory reminded her that things had not always been
thus; for there are men in this world who think that she was the most
beautiful of all the Darlings.
It was curious that of all the men who had come to The Camp, Mr. Bob
Jonstone had the most attraction for her. They had not spoken half a
dozen times, and it was quite obvious that his mind, if not his heart,
was wholly occupied with Maud. Wherever you saw Maud, you could be
pretty sure that the Carolinians, hunting in a couple, were not far off.
Of the two, Colonel Meredith was the more brilliant, the more showy, and
the better-looking. Added to his good breeding and lazy, pleasant voice
were certain Yankee qualities--a total lack of gullibility, a certain
trace of mockery, even upon serious subjects. Mr. Jonstone, on the other
hand, was a perfect lamb of earnestness and sincerity. If he heard of an
injustice his eyes flamed, or if he listened to the recital of some
pathetic happening they misted over. Once beyond the direct influence of
his cousin there was neither mischief in him nor devilment. It was for
this reason, and in this knowledge, that he had put his newly acquired
moneys in trust for himself.
In the little house by the lake where the cousins still slept,
conversation seldom flagged before one or two o'clock in the morning.
Having said good-night to each other at about eleven, one or the other
was pretty sure to let out some new discovery about the Darlings in
general and Maud Darling in particular, and then all desire for sleep
vanished and their real cousinly confidences began.
But these confidences had their limits, for neither confessed to being
sentimentally interested in the young lady, whereas, within limits, they
both were. And each enjoyed the satisfaction of believing (quite
erroneously) that he deceived the other. I do not wish to convey the
impression that they were actually in love with her.
When you are really in love, you are also in love before breakfast.
That is the final test. And when love begins to die, that is the time
when its weakening pulse is first to be concerned. What honest man has
not been mad about some pretty girl (in a crescendo of madness) from tea
time till sleep time and waked in the morning with no thought but for
toast and coffee the soonest possible? and gone about the business of
the morning and early afternoon almost heart-whole and fancy-free, and
relapsed once more into madness with the lengthening of the shadows? A
man who proposes marriage to a girl until he has been in love with her
for twenty-four consecutive hours is a light fellow who ought to be
kicked out of the house by her papa. As for the girl, let her be sure
that he is bread and meat to her, comfort and rest, demigod and man,
wholly necessary and not to be duplicated in this world, before she even
says that she will think about it.
In the early morning there would arise in the house of the Carolinians
the sounds of whistling, of singing, laughter, scuffling, and running
water. So that a girl who really wanted either of them must, in
listening, have despaired.
As for Maud Darling, she was disgusted with herself--theoretically. But
practically she was having the time of her life. In theory, she felt
that no self-respecting girl ought to be unable to decide which of the
two young men she liked the better. In practice, she found a constant
pondering of this delicate question to be delightful. It was very
comfortable to know that the moment she was free to play there were two
pleasant companions ready and waiting.
Sentiment and gayety attended their goings and comings. The Carolinians,
fortified by each other's presence, were veritable Raleighs of
extravagant devotion. In engineering, for instance, so that Maud should
not have to step in a damp place, there were displayed enough gallantry
and efficiency to have saved her from an onslaught of tigers. If the
trio climbed a mountain, Maud gave herself up to the heart-warming
delight of being helped when help was not in the least necessary. In
short, she behaved as any natural young woman would, and should. She
flirted outrageously. But in the depths of her heart a genuine
friendship for the Carolinians was conceived and grew in breadth and
strength. What if they did out-gallant gallantry?