TWILIGHT
The first of March! If only the dull weather would clear up I could
get more done these last days here. Fifteen brand-new canvases hang
from my ridge pole waiting for pictures to adorn them. To-day is the
only day that work out-of-doors has been quite out of the question. It
snows hard. Last Thursday morning Rockwell and I began to take our
morning baths in the bay--the snow having become too hard. And now at
just seven-fifteen--on cloudy mornings, clothed in sneakers we scamper
down the shore and plunge into the waves. Brrrrrrrr! it's cold, but
mighty good. Olson, after predicting for some time a dire end to our
morning performances, has at last evinced enough curiosity to drag
himself out of bed and come over to see. But he has not yet been early
enough to catch us.
The days are lengthening rapidly. It is now after six o'clock in the
evening and our lamp's not lighted!
Last time in Seward Olson bought a lot of odds and ends of molding for
picture frames. And now, with my help, all the little things that we
have given him are gorgeously framed. On the little picture of himself
that I painted he has what he calls a "comoflag" frame; it's made of
_different_ moldings on the four sides. Well, Olson is mighty proud of
his pictures. He's really very fond of us. People in Seward say he
talks of us continually. And there it is thought quite remarkable how
I have managed with the "crazy" old man. I guess the craziness
explains it. I picture with horror having as a constant companion here
one of the fine, stalwart, shrewd, honest, wholesome-to-sterility
Americans that our country likes to be so proud of.
I told Olson of Kathleen's amusement over the brusque ending of his
letter, "Answer this if you feel like it--and if you don't it's all
the same to me."
"Well," he said, "that's the way it is here in Alaska; if anyone don't
like the way a man does he can go to Hell!"
I've heard an amusing story about Olson and his goats at a little
Seward exposition at which they were shown. They put his two goats
into narrow packing boxes that their dirt might not fall onto the
floor of the building. Olson arrived and seeing the plight of his pets
flew into a rage. He lifted them out, hurled the packing boxes out of
the door into the street, and denounced the fair-committee for their
abuse of animals. And although the whole place tumbled about the old
man's ears, he won, and saw his goats given an honorable amount of
freedom in a special enclosure--curtained off, "admission to see the
goats ten cents,"--which notice Olson promptly disregarded, letting
everyone in--and a big crowd at that--free.
Monday, March third.
Inauguration day passed here without event. In this ideal community of
Fox Island we're so little concerned with law-the only law that bears
on us at all we delight in breaking--that one wonders how far _no
government_ can be carried. One goes back to first principles in such
speculation, endows man again with inalienable rights or at least
inalienable desires, and then has simply to wonder how much of the
love of order there is in the natural man. The fact that a large
proportion of mankind can live and die without any definite knowledge
of the laws of the community and without ever running counter to the
forces of law is sign enough that most of the law code is but a
writing down of what the average man naturally wants to do or keep
from doing. There's a sharp difference between such "common" law and
the exceptional law that strikes at the personal liberty of a man,
laws concerning morals, temperance, or that conscript unwilling men
for war. In all law there is tyranny, in these laws tyranny shows its
hand. The man who wants true freedom must escape from the whole thing.
If only such souls could gravitate to a common center and build the
new community with inherent law and order as its sole guide!--well, we
have returned to the problem. A state that was truly interested in
progress would dedicate a portion of its territory to such an
experiment. But no state is interested in anything but the gain of one
class, which means the oppression of the rest. How farcical sound
these days "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." "No
government without the consent of the governed," and other
old-fashioned principles. But they have still to be reckoned with till
the last Bolshevik has been converted into a prosperous tradesman and
the last idealist is dead. And now for Fox Island.
The weather is dull and gray--only last evening an hour before sundown
the clouds suddenly vanished out of the heavens and the sun shone as
warm and beautiful as on the fairest summer day. Then I sat
out-of-doors and painted while the snow and ice melted and dripped all
about. The mornings are cold, doubly cold it seems when in the
half-light of dawn and perhaps a driving snow squall we run naked down
the long stretch of beach and plunge into the bay. I work ceaselessly.
Time flies like mad and the day of our departure is close.
[Illustration: THE VISION]
Tuesday, March fourth.
A day of snow and rain spent by us indoors, Rockwell hard at work upon
his chart of "Trobbeabl Island"--a wonderful imaginary land where his
own strange species of wild animals live--and I washing and mending.
My seaman's bag, damaged on its way here in the hold of the steamer,
is now quite professionally patched, and the knee of my blue overalls
shines with a square patch of white canvas.
Olson was welcome and spent much of the day with us. He has reread
Kathleen's letter to him and is charmed with it. He feels authorized
by it to keep me here longer and surely does his best to persuade me.
He treasures the picture little Kathleen sent him. All these things,
the letters and little trifles that we have given him will be stored
away in his too empty box of treasures among a very few old letters
and a photograph or two of pioneer ladies and gentlemen in the
dress-up costumes of thirty years ago. These scant treasures, what a
memorial of a very lonely life! He showed me to-day a photograph of
Tom Crane, an old associate of his in Idaho, and two large, splendid
looking women, Crane's wife and his wife's sister. The wife was frozen
to death in the snow while on a short journey with her husband. He
lost both feet. Olson led the rescue party bringing in with great
difficulty the dead woman and then tending Crane through long, painful
days until his crippled recovery.
Thursday, March sixth.
It's mighty hard work, this painting under pressure. I'm too tired to
attempt more than the briefest record on this page of two days'
doings. Yesterday it was gray. At sundown it cleared giving us the
most splendid and beautiful sunset, the sun sinking behind the purple,
snowy mountains and throwing its rays upward into a seething red-hot
mass of clouds. I painted most of the afternoon out-of-doors.
To-day we bathed at sunrise, brisk and cold and clear. The morning
tide was so exceedingly low that I ran dry shod clear around the north
side of the cove until the whole upper bay was visible. Olson had not
known it could be done. Returning we put Olson's boat into the water
and Rockwell and I embarked with my painting outfit. I landed on the
point I had just visited afoot. Rockwell in jumping ashore with the
painter timed it badly, slipped, and fell full length into the surf of
the ground swell, the dory almost riding over him. I roared with
laughter--to his great fury. He rowed about in the harbor for almost
two hours returning to bring me home. In the afternoon we repeated our
excursion--all but the water sports--going this time to the south side
of the cove. Rockwell's a good little oarsman and above all to be
trusted to do as he's told to--a vice in grown-ups, a virtue in
children.
Friday, March seventh.
That to-day began in snow and cloud matters not,--it ended in a glory.
Olson, Rockwell, and I sat that late afternoon far out on the bay
basking in the warmth of a summer sun, rocked gently on a blue summer
sea. For hours we had explored the island's western shore, skirting
its tumbled reefs, riding through perilous straits right up to where
the eddying water seethed at some jagged chasm's mouth. That's fine
adventuring! flirting with danger, safe enough but close--so close to
death. We landed on the beach of Sunny Cove, found in the dark thicket
the moldering ruins of an old feed house of the foxes, gruesome with
the staring bones of devoured carcasses. And then we younger ones
dashed up the sheer, snow-covered eastward ridge--dashed on all fours
digging our feet into the snow, clinging with hands as to a ladder.
There at the top two or three hundred feet above the bay we overlooked
the farthest seaward mountains of Cape Resurrection, then Barwell
Island and the open sea.
Ah, to see again that far horizon! Wander where you will over all
the world, from every valley seeing forever new hills calling you to
climb them, from every mountain top farther peaks enticing you. Always
the _distant_ land looks fairest, till you are made at last a restless
wanderer never reaching home--_never_--until you stand one day on the
last peak on the border of the interminable sea, stopped by the
finality of that.
[Illustration: THE IMPERISHABLE]
From our feet the cliff dropped in a V-shaped divide straight down to
the green ocean; and at its base the ground swell curled, broke white
and eddied. The jagged mountains across shone white against black
clouds,--what peaks! huge and sharp like the teeth of the Fenris-Wolf.
We hurried back to Olson who waited in the boat. That side--the cove
and the more familiar mountains to the westward--lay half shrouded in
fast dissolving mist. The descent was real sport. We just sat down and
slid clear to the bottom, going at toboggan pace. Poor Olson, who
watched us from below, was aghast. On the shore I found a long, thick
bamboo pole, doubtless carried directly here from the orient by the
Japanese current. We longed to go across to Bear Glacier that we could
now see, a broad, inclined plane, spotless white, with the tallest
mountains rising steeply from its borders. But it was too late and we
returned home. The wonders of this country, of this one bay in fact,
it would take years to know!
Monday, March tenth.
On the eighth it snowed hard all day and both of us worked at our
trade indoors. The ninth dawned fresh and clear and cold. It was too
windy to go out onto the bay as we had intended, so, not to be
entirely cheated out of an excursion, we packed a bag of various
supplies and set off for the ridge to the eastward.
It was glorious in the woods. New fallen snow lay upon the tree
branches; the sun touched only the tallest tops, the wind rustled
them now and then and made it snow again below. We came out upon the
summit of the ridge more to the north than we had ever been before and
from there beheld again the open sea. Nothing can be more wonderful
than to emerge from the dense forest onto such a view! Right on the
ridge we built a fire beneath the arched roots of a large tree.
Rockwell will long remember that wonderful chimney beneath the roots.
I painted on one of the canvases I had brought while Rockwell played
about or cut wood for the fire. Presently the can of beans that we'd
laid in the ashes went pop!--and we knew that dinner was ready. So we
sat down and ate the good beans, bread and peanut butter, and
chocolate,--while our backs sizzled and our bellies froze. But we
loved it and Rockwell proposed that we spend three or four days there
like that. Then after more painting and some play in the snow we came
home again.
But the beautiful days must be busy ones for me. I painted out on the
lake for an hour or more; after that again-this time the glorious
sunset. After supper bread to bake and then, tired out, early to sleep
in our great, hard, comfortable bed. Olson would have started to-day
had the weather been moderate. But it has blown fiercely from the
north--and still it blows. All day I worked packing and now my boxes
are made and nearly filled. It is surely true that we are going! All
day it has seemed to me to be fall. We had thought of that before
during these recent days. We scent it and feel it. I believe that it's
the end of a real summer in our lives that we taste the sadness of.
Tuesday, March eleventh.
It blows incessantly, cold and clear,--blue days. I have painted most
of to-day, first indoors, and then outdoors commencing a large
picture. Olson has been with us much of the time. He treasures every
little memento we can give him. In his pocket-book are snapshots of
Kathleen, Clara, and Barbara. He wanted Barbara's curl that I
have--but I couldn't give him that. It looks as if we should all go to
Seward together. This wind is likely to hold until the full moon
passes--and that's still some days off. My trunk is about packed and
what remains can be done in a very few hours.
[Illustration: THE STAR-LIGHTER]
Speaking to Olson to-night about the possibility of a shipwrecked man
being able to support life on this coast for any length of time he
told of a native boy of Unga, "crazy Simyon," who lived four years at
Nigger Head, a wild part of Unga Island, with no shelter but a hole in
a sand bank, no fire, no weapons or clothes, or tools; a first-hand
story, long, wild, terrible, beginning with a boy's theft of
sacrificial wine, and ending in madness and murder.
Thursday, March thirteenth.
Last night was bitterly cold. I had to get up repeatedly to attend to
the fire. The wind howled and the vapor flew and Rockwell and I hugged
close together beneath the blankets. Day dawned still icy cold. By
noon it began to snow and the afternoon was calm and mild. And now
again the wind blows fiercely from the northeast and we're freezing
cold! The day was spent in packing. The dismantled cabin looks
forlorn.
Sunday, March sixteenth.
With the full moon has come the most perfect calm. If it holds through
to-morrow we shall leave the island. The past three days have been
busy ones. Bitterly cold weather has prevailed with the wind
unceasingly from the north--almost the coldest days of the winter.
Still I did some painting out-of-doors every day until yesterday,
trying hard to pin upon the canvas a little more of the infinite
splendors of this place. Meanwhile our packing was carried on. We have
made a thoroughly good job of it--I hope! But who can tell what
strain a trip of so many thousand miles will put upon our crates and
bundles? But for a promise we had made Olson to go with him to Sunny
Bay and Humpback Creek--on the eastern mainland--we'd have gone this
day to Seward.
By noon the most perfect calm had settled upon the water. The sky was
cloudless, and although really it was still very cold the bright sun
_looked_ like warmth--and that helped a lot. So Olson's little engine,
sputtering, stammering, stopping a great deal, carried us upon our
trip. At Humpback Creek there are falls maybe thirty feet high,
perfect falls tumbling sheer down from a plateau into a deep round
basin. The falls to-day were frozen and spread wide over the face of
the cliff; but it was easy to imagine the grace of their summer form.
We had to hurry from here or be stranded by the rapidly retreating
tide. Next we went to a spot on the bay where Rockwell and I might
have lived had we not met Olson that fair Sunday in August. A little
cabin stood there--open to the weather through doorway and window but
otherwise snug and comfortable. Still, even with that _great_ wonder,
the fall, so near, that spot was not to be compared with our own Fox
Island home. Next we went to Sunny Bay to visit the old trapper who
has been wintering there--the same who stopped last fall at our island
while on his way to camp. The old fellow came to meet us as we landed,
a feeble, emaciated figure. He has been sick all winter and has done
practically no trapping. What a forlorn latter end for a man! He drags
himself about each day, cuts wood, lugs water, cooks, and when he
stoops dizziness overcomes him. He sets a small circle of traps and
drags himself around to tend them. His whole winter's work is twelve
ermine and two mink-thirty or forty dollars' worth at the most. We
offered to bring the old man back with us and from here on to
Seward--but he preferred to stay there a few days longer.
And now I sit here with our packed household goods about me, empty
walls and a dismantled home. Still we hardly realize that this
beautiful adventure of ours has come to an end. The enchantment of it
has been complete; it has possessed us to the very last. How long such
happiness could hold, such quiet life continue to fill up the full
measure of human desires only a long experience could teach. The
still, deep cup of the wilderness is potent with wisdom. Only to have
tasted it is to have moved a lifetime forward to a finer youth.
Tuesday, March eighteenth.
Fox Island is behind us. Last August Olson picked us up as strangers
and towed us to his island; yesterday, after nearly seven months there
with him we climbed again into our dories and crossed the bay--and now
we extend the helping hand to the old man and tow him and his
faltering engine back to Seward. The day dawned cold and windy. We
proceeded however at once to the completion of our packing and the
loading of the boat.
A little after noon the wind moderating slightly we persuaded Olson to
come with us. My engine working beautifully carried both boats along
till the other little motor could be prevailed upon to start. In the
bay the wind was fresh and the chop high. Half-way across the wind had
risen and the water flew. Olson's engine worked so poorly that most of
the time I had the full strain of his dory on the line. I feared the
old man's courage would give out as the sea increased, and I grinned
at him reassuringly from time to time. Finally, however, as the
white-crested waves seemed to rush ever more fiercely upon us his face
grew solemn. He waved to us to turn and run back to the island. But
the tow line was fast in my boat and I neither chose to turn nor
loosen it. Showing our backs to him we ran for the shelter of Caine's
Head--and made it. From there onward we skirted the cliffs and found
it smooth enough. The wind again died out and we entered Seward over a
glassy sea.
* * * * *
And now at last it _is_ over. Fox Island will soon become in our
memories like a dream or vision, a remote experience too wonderful,
for the full liberty we knew there and the deep peace, to be
remembered or believed in as a _real_ experience in life. It was for
us life as it should be, serene and wholesome; love--but no hate,
faith without disillusionment, the absolute for the toiling hands of
man and for his soaring spirit. Olson of the deep experience, strong,
brave, generous and gentle like a child; and his island--like
Paradise. Ah God,--and now the world again!