Jean was left forlorn. While Agricola crowded close to her in silent
sympathy, she had watched the Kittiwake fade into a mere silver tern,
and felt that this was the end of everything.
Alas! She had not read The Tempest for nothing. She knew her natural
mate as certainly as Miranda did when she first changed eyes with
Ferdinand. It almost killed her to refuse him, and to see him the
patient log-bearer of some money-lord, for deep in her heart she felt
that nothing ill could dwell in such a temple.
She attended to her work all the morning, but found herself making
little mistakes. She prepared some dinner for herself, but could not
eat. In the middle of the afternoon she stole away from Agricola and
rowed over to the island. To her immense surprise she found the tent
still standing. Maybe the dreadful fight would have to be fought again.
She flitted all over the island, now stopping to touch some favorite
pine, now standing on the eastern rim to imagine how steamers would look
there. By and by she heard Agricola dolefully howling for her, and went
back.
She changed her moccasins for old shoes, put on overalls, and went up to
the barn to milk. But no beautiful Jersey greeted her. The naughty
Sempronia had failed to come home out of the bush. So she returned to
the house and changed back to skirt and moccasins, wistfully longing for
just one pretty dress.
It was beginning to rain, and she might expect to see the Kittiwake
returning soon. Even a rejected lover had to eat, and she would make
some hot corn bread.
She set the fire crackling to get a quick oven, and sifted some of the
Little Pine’s snowy flour in with some golden grains. She supposed that
the corn meal was cadmium yellow, but why? All she knew about Cadmus was
that he was a Tyrian prince who came over to defraud the Greeks in
business, and who sowed dissensions that slew all the Horatios.
The time slipped along, the rain fell drowsily on the roof, and at eight
o’clock the travelers had not arrived. Perhaps they had motored up the
Echo to see the wonderful lake, and were delayed in getting back. She
had paddled up that river in her childhood, and could still smell the
lilies and the buckwheat, mingled effluences sweeter than sandalwood,
and could see the rafts that often delayed a boat.
She sat down and read awhile. She rose and moved restlessly about the
house till she found herself in the storeroom, counting her treasures.
They had not seemed so imposing at first. Money bought few provisions
these days, and this array must have cost something like thirty dollars!
The mention of the sum recalled what she had jestingly said to Marvin
about English lessons. She studied the Little Pine’s note again, and
noticed that he said nothing as to how he “made quite much money.” The
thing began to look suspicious.
Shinguakonse had never told her a lie, but if he had run across Marvin
Mahan and been made the tool of compassion, her cup of humiliation was
full.
In an hour she could know. She would go to the birch-bark lodge which
she had helped build, and wake that boy up.
In a few minutes she had stepped into outer darkness, leaving poor
Agricola to whine. Once in her dory she fastened her lantern and tucked
her sweater under the deck. She worked her way out into the channel and
started north. Her blood was up, the night was dark, and she doffed her
blouse. Soon she had entered the old unlighted channel and extinguished
her light.
The winding swift stream was no place for an amateur. Many a rock barely
visible on a quiet morning will rip a canoe. If you stand on the
headland where Ojeeg’s ancestors used to watch for bear, you see below
you a flowing pavement, dark and uneven, warped and cracked, a street
that only the gull can tread. Now it was Jean’s business to climb it in
utter darkness, but she knew the way. She did not need the gleam of a
lantern on a blossom of foam. She could tell by the pull of the current
and the sound of the rapids.
She groped along the eastern shore of Seen-ze-bah-cud, and by ten
o’clock her right oar, like a fingertip, discovered Ojeeg’s sailboat.
She lighted her lantern and tied her boat to a birch that leaned out
over the water. Then she stepped ashore, hung her lantern on a hazel,
and put on her blouse. The lantern shone in the bush and pinked out the
tufted bunches of hazel-nuts, and shone on Jean herself as she lifted
her rosy arms.
Warm in her new sweater, she seized the lantern and started up a path.
Sometimes the light revealed a maple with scars, for the Indian
tomahawks his sugar trees. Here it flashed on the yellow of a certain
birch which draws on the same mysterious fountain as the wintergreen.
Here it glowed on ancient elms. Far above in the blackness their mighty
harps hung motionless, waiting like Memnon for the morning. A mile of
it, all fragrant and dark and virginal, and the sound of rain on the
leafy roof gave way. She was in Ojeeg’s clearing.
She moved softly past the house and came to the door of the birch-bark
lodge. It was open, and from within came a sudden growl. “Ahne-moosh!”
she whispered. A big Eskimo dog emerged and licked her hand in the dark.
Then she called softly, “Shinguakonse!”
No answer.
She threw the gleam of her lantern ahead. The lad was sound asleep on
his bed of birch, the deerskin thongs of which were visible beside the
blanket in which he was rolled.
She sat down on the silvery edge and touched him. He started, opened
bewildered eyes, and sat up.
“Tyah! Is Mainutung sick?”
“No.”
“Is Mahan drowned?”
“Not yet. But your question explains everything. He fell in again, and
gave you money for pulling him out. Do you have to be paid for saving
life?”
The boy looked at her flashing eyes and sank back on his bed.
“Shinguakonse, don’t think me ungrateful. See, I am wearing your
sweater. We give you lessons because we love you. And because you love
Mainutung, you shall bring him some deermeat as soon as the season is
open. How very, very pretty your lodge looks.”