A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK
It had continued to rain, and it was coming down hard by this time, a
cold, driving rain from the north, that would check the forest fire if
it lasted long enough. Larue’s camp was a miserable place, and far
from water-tight.
“We must ask them to come home with us,” Alice whispered to Bob. “We
can’t let the poor wretches stay here in the rain.”
Bob looked startled and a little reluctant, but Alice gave the
invitation without waiting for him to object.
“Mademoiselle is as good as ze angels,” said Mrs. Larue. “Certainely
we be glad to go, is it not, Baptiste?”
“Maybe it rain for two—tree days,” said the squatter, regarding the
sky. “Put ze fire out—good! But zis is terrible poor camp. _Oui_, we
go, and many t’anks!”
He put some of his most perishable possessions in his boat, covered
the rest well with bark and boughs, and took his family on board. It
was raining in torrents when they passed the clearing again on their
way back, and everything was a mist of smoke, steam, and rain. But
both the house and barn were still standing, and did not appear to be
now on fire.
It was a pretty tight fit for seven of them in the Harmans’ cabin, and
rather a severe strain on the larder. But Bob went down to the river
and caught a dozen trout. Larue sallied into the woods and came back
in an hour, soaked like a sponge, but bringing with him five
partridges. Mrs. Larue lent a hand at the cookery, and they produced a
meal that was at any rate abundant.
All that afternoon it rained, and, as Bob said, every drop was worth a
dollar to that imperiled forest country.
“We’ll be able to put our bees back off the island as soon as it lets
up,” said Carl. “The ground’ll be cooled off pretty well again. You
know, Larue,” he added, “we had a fire of our own yesterday. Nearly
burned up our bees at the lake.”
“Yes, and we fancied we saw you through the smoke. But most likely it
wasn’t,” said Bob.
Larue had been talking volubly and gaily, but his face suddenly fell.
“Yes, I guess you see me,” he said, looking sheepish. “By gar, I am a
beast, an assassin. But I have some bad viskey in me yesterday, and I
know no better.”
“I thought so,” said Bob, quietly. “Larue, what did you want to burn
us out for?”
“Surely you didn’t start the fire!” cried Carl, staring.
“_Voila!_” said the half-breed, contritely. “It was one rotten treek.
But, you see, you catch me in bear trap. Your bees sting my cow, kill
my hen, sting my dog, sting me mos’ to death. So I see ze bee-boxes up
there all alone, and I say, ‘He sting me no more, by gar!’ So I light
fires—here, dere, many places at once.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Larue!” cried Carl indignantly.
“Sure, I sorry I do it now. But, you know, I have ze viskey in me
yesterday. I get turned round in ze smoke, nearly get caught by ze
fire myself. I see you rafting off ze bee-boxes, and I guess you see
me too. And then—ze fire spread and spread, and ze wind he rise, and
go clear to ze slough and burn my house.”
“I guess you’re punished for it,” said Bob. “But we never meant to
quarrel with you or do you any harm. You took our honey, you know, and
you got stung when the bees went to bring it back. And we didn’t set
the trap to catch you. We thought it was some wild animal, from the
tracks you made.”
The half-breed grinned, shamefacedly, yet with just a touch of pride
as well.
“Good treek, eh?” he said. “I learn him from a man in ze lumber woods.
He steal hogs zat way—make track like bear.”
“Fine trick, yes,” agreed Bob. “Only you got the worst of it. In fact,
you’ve come out worst in all your tricks, I believe.”
“Serve me right, eh!” Larue admitted. “For ze honey, I steal him when
I need ze money bad. But nevaire mind. Zat is all over, and we forget.
I ask your pardon for all ze trouble I make you. You save _ma petite_,
and I never forget zat. After now, I am yours. You say to me, ‘Larue,
come!’ and I come. You say, ‘Larue, do zis—do zat!’ and I do zis, do
zat. No money, no pay. I can never pay you for what you do for me.”
“All right, Larue, we’re friends henceforth, and we’ll shake hands on
it,” said Bob; and they shook hands gravely all around to seal the
peace.
“You know, when we saw your big tracks we thought it was a wendigo,”
said Alice, laughing.
“Wendigo?” cried the half-breed, his face clouding. “When you see a
wendigo?”
“Why, there’s no such thing,” said Carl.
“Do not say zat. Ze wendigo—he is terrible! I have never see him,
no—but I know a man, a trapper at Lac Temagimi—”
And he plunged into a terrifying tale of Indian superstition. He was
an excellent story-teller, and as he sat with gesticulating hands, and
dark, flashing eyes, he held them all fascinated. From this he went on
to blood-curdling tales of the loup-garou, or werewolf, ghostly
huntsmen, and other horrors of French-Canadian tradition, till Alice
begged him to cease. She said she would be afraid to sleep that night.
“Don’t you like them?” said Alice privately to Carl that evening. “I
think Larue isn’t half a bad fellow, and the children are darlings. I
like his wife too, and she says she’ll teach me to speak French.”
“I’m afraid it’s a queer dialect she’d teach you,” Carl answered. “But
really they’re a pretty decent lot, now we get to know them. Anyway,
I’m tremendously glad we’ve made peace.”
It rained hard nearly all night, but in the morning only a drizzle was
falling, which presently ceased. It was cold and dismal, but the
squatter rowed down the river to look at his property. He came back
overjoyed. The clearing, he said, was choking with smoke and steam,
but the fires were all out, and the house and barn were both standing.
The roofs were gone, indeed, but a few days’ work would replace them.
“I get some of my friends to help me,” he said. “We make a bee, and
soon put him right.”
“We might let him have that lumber for the winter cases that we put
into the raft,” Carl whispered to his brother. “It’s scorched and
soaked with water now so that it would hardly do for hives, but it
would be all right to mend a roof.”
“Good idea!” Bob answered, “and we’ll help him mend it. We’re pretty
crowded here, and the sooner he can get into his own house again the
better for us.”
That afternoon Larue accompanied them to the lake apiary. Where the
yard had been was nothing but a waste of wet ashes and rocks, but the
fire was out, and at any rate the ground was thoroughly cleared at
last. From the shore they could see the hives scattered over the
little islet, with the raft aground beside them.
It was quite a problem how to get out to them. But finally, by Larue’s
advice, they constructed a small raft which carried the three of them
over, with a great deal of ricketing and splashing. The bees were all
safe, with the exception of three colonies that had been melted down
by the heat of the fire, and they set to work at once to load them on
the raft again.
Larue was useful at the rafting. It turned out that he was an expert
lumberman and river-driver. He seemed as strong and wiry as a panther,
worked gaily and heroically, unmindful of an occasional sting. In
fact, the boys could not help liking him, now that they met him on
terms of peace. He might have been lawless enough, but he insisted on
handling the heaviest end of everything, sang, chatted, laughed, and
seemed so determined to win their good feeling, that they were both
ready to forgive him all the trouble he had caused them.
The lumber in the raft was now really unfit for use in the bee-hives,
and Larue was intensely grateful when they offered it to him.
Immediately he went off and hunted up a friend of his, also a
half-breed, who had been living unsuspected all this time not five
miles away. This man owned a horse and wagon, and next morning he
hauled the lumber from the lake to the river, and they rafted it down
to Larue’s farm. He must also have sent word to Morton in some way,
for a couple of days later half a dozen dark-faced fellows came up the
river in canoes, carrying saws, hammers, and axes, to assist at the
“bee.”
Bob and Carl also took part. Two of the visitors were skilful
carpenters, and they made the house-roof tighter than it had been
before. There was not lumber enough for the barn, but the half-breeds
contrived a wonderfully ingenious thatch of logs, mud, and cedar
boughs which would turn water as well as shingles.
Bob took the opportunity of sending word back to the Morton sawmill
for more lumber. It arrived a few days later, and the boys were amazed
to find Larue and the same gang of half-breed helpers come with it.
They all went out to the lake, and unloaded the cargo. The half-breeds
had been under the impression that a house was to be built, but they
were all men who, with an axe and a knife, could make anything from a
gunstock to a boat. It was only necessary to show them how the winter
cases were to be made, and the speed with which the boards were cut up
and nailed together was marvelous. There was a constant fire of song
and chaff in French patois kept up, but the work was all finished so
early that the men went into the woods, cut timbers, and ran up the
framing of an extracting-house, which could be finished the next
season.
They would not hear of taking any pay for this work. However, they all
came back to the cabin, where Alice had a great supper prepared of
everything eatable that she could find within reach. It was the honey
that found greatest favor, however, with the guests; they all seemed
to have a child’s appetite for sweets, and it vanished in immense
quantities. Luckily there was plenty of it, and each of the men was
provided with some to take away.
Later in the evening they built a great fire in the clearing, and
there by the red light the half-breeds sang _voyageur_ songs,
_habitant chansons_, old songs that had been sung in Quebec for two
hundred years, and some of them in Normandy before that. The
half-breeds had excellent voices, and the songs were all new to the
Harmans—“Entre Paris et St. Denis,” “La Claire Fontaine,” and the
canoe song with the rattling chorus of “En Roulant ma Boule.” This
last was a particular favorite.
It was midnight when they broke off, and too late to go back to
Morton. Fortunately it was a fine night, and they camped by the fire
on heaps of spruce twigs. In the morning, after drinking an enormous
kettle of black coffee, and eating honey and bread, they started
homewards, all piled together in the single wagon, laughing and waving
farewells. The creaking of the wagon mingled with the diminishing
chorus of:
“Rouli, roulant ma boule roulante,
En roulant ma boule roulante,
En roulant ma boule.”
It was the gayest time the old cabin had ever known, and it seemed
almost lonely when they had gone.
“Jolly lot!” said Carl. “I fancy Mr. Farr wasn’t far wrong when he
said that Larue wasn’t a bad fellow when you get on the right side of
him. Anyhow, it’ll be a great relief to know that we can leave the
bee-yard without being afraid that it’ll be robbed or burned out
during the winter. I believe that forest fire was worth all the
trouble it made.”
When they had put the hives back into their winter cases and stored
the supplies carefully away in the cabin, the work for the season was
finished. Bob was anxious to get back to town for the fall term, and
neither Carl nor Alice were unwilling to leave. The bees would need no
more attention for six or eight months, and there was nothing to keep
them longer in the woods.
They left nearly all their house-keeping outfit in the shanty, boarded
up the windows, and nailed up the door. The wagon came from Morton for
their baggage, but they themselves preferred to go down to the railway
by the river.
It was a cloudy, chilly fall day when they got into the boat for the
last time, not without regret.
“Good-by, old shanty!” called Alice, as they pushed off. “I’ll be glad
to see you again in the spring.”
They stopped a moment at Indian Slough to leave a few pails of honey
for the Larues. The squatter promised to look after their cabin and
see that no harm came to anything about the place while they were
gone, and they left the whole family on the shore, waving good-by. It
was hard to believe that these people had been such bitter enemies a
few weeks earlier.
“Well, we haven’t done so badly,” said Bob, as they dropped down the
stream. “We had about $500 when we came in here. Now we’ve got nearly
$1000, besides about two hundred and ten good colonies of bees, that
will surely make $2000 for us next season.”
“And we’ve had a lot of fun over it, too,” Carl added. “And some
pretty tough times, along with fires, bears, wolves, and bee-stings.
But it’s been better than keeping a country store.”
“I should think so!” Bob exclaimed. “It was the luckiest thing that
ever happened when I heard of these bees for sale. I almost wish that
we could start at work with them again next month.”
“I almost wish that, too,” said Alice, “but not quite. I believe I’ve
had enough wild life for a few months. Now I’d like something quiet
and civilized for a little while—something just like Harman’s
Corners.”
THE END