The white-haired man closed his eyes and his voice sank low, and the
last words fell softly in a solemn silence that lasted for a long
moment after the lullaby was finished. Presently Sinth came to take the
sleeping child.
"These little folks will take our peace away from us," said he, in a
warning tone.
"Why?"
"The call of the sown land is in their voices," said he. "They give me
sad thoughts."
Sinth smiled and introduced the young man to Dunmore.
"Boneka!" said the latter as they shook hands.
The curiosity of Master was aroused by the strange greeting. He smiled,
and answered, modestly, "I don't understand you."
The stranger sat silent, gazing into the fire, until Silas, who was
evidently in the secret, said to his guest, "Tell 'em."
"There was once a very wise and honored chief," began Dunmore, after
a pause, and looking into the eyes of the young man. "Long before the
lumber hunter had begun to shear the hills, he dwelt among them, with
his good people. He was a great law-giver, and his law was all in two
words--'_Be kind._' Kindness begat kindness, and peace reigned, to be
broken only by some far-come invader. But as time went on quarrels arose
and the law was forgotten. Thereupon the chief invited a great council
and organized the Society of the Magic Word. Every member promised that
whenever the greeting 'Boneka' were given him, he would smile and bow
and answer, 'Ranokoli.' The greeting meant 'Peace,' and the answer, 'I
forgive.'
"Then, one by one, the law-giver called his councillors before him, and
to each he said: 'The Great Spirit is in this greeting. I defy you to
hear it and keep a sober face.'
"Then he said 'Boneka,' and the man would try to resist the influence
of the spirit, but soon smiled in spite of himself, amid the laughter of
the tribe, and said 'Ranokoli.' Thereafter, when a quarrel arose between
two people, an outsider, approaching, would greet them with the magic
word, and immediately they would bow and smile, and answer, 'I forgive.'
But, nevertheless, if one had wronged another he was justly punished by
the chief. So it was that a great ruler made an end of quarrels among
his people."
"A grand idea!" said young Master. "Let's all join that society."
"Those in favor of the suggestion will please say ay." It was Dunmore
who put the question, and, after a vote in its favor, dictated the
pledge, as follows:
_"For value received from my Loving Father, I promise to give to any of
His children, on demand, a smile and full forgiveness."_
All signed it, and so half in play the old Society of the Magic Word was
revived at Lost River camp.
The white-haired man rose and walked to the trail and turned suddenly.
"Strong," said he, "I'm leaving the woods for a week. If they need your
help at home they'll send word to you."
With that he disappeared in the dark trail.
The three other men still sat by the camp-fire.
"Who is Dunmore?" Master inquired, turning to Gordon.
The latter lighted his pipe and began the story.
"An odd man who's spent the most of his life in the woods," said Gordon.
"Came in here for his health long ago from I don't know where; grew
strong, and has always stuck to the woods. Had to work, like the rest of
us, when I knew him. Thirty years ago he began work in this part of the
country as a boom rat--so they tell me. It was on a big drive way down
the Oswegatchie.
"Before we bought the Bear Mountain and Lost River tracts we were looking
for a good cruiser--some one to go through here and estimate the timber
for us. Well, Dunmore was recommended for the job, and we hired him. He
and I travelled over some thirty thousand acres, camping wherever night
overtook us. It did not take me long to discover that he was a gifted
man. Many an evening, as we sat by our lonely fire in the woods, I have
wept and laughed over his poems."
"Poems!" Master exclaimed.
"That's the only word for it," Gordon went on. "The man is a woods
lover and a poet. One night he told me part of his life story. Sile,
you remember when the old iron company shut down their works at Tifton.
Well, everybody left the place except Tom Muir, the postmaster. He was a
widower, and lived with one child--a girl about nineteen years old
when the forest village died. Dunmore married that girl. He told me
how beautiful she was and how he loved her. Well, they didn't get along
together. He was fond of the woods and she was not.
"For five years they lived together in the edge of the wilderness. Then
she left him. Well--poor woman!--it was a lonely life, and some tourist
fell in love with her, they tell me. I don't know about that. Anyhow,
Dunmore was terribly embittered. A little daughter had been born to
them. She was then three years of age."
"She's the angel y-you met to-day over by the p-pond," Strong put in,
looking at Master.
Gordon lighted his pipe and went on with his story.
"Dunmore said that a relative had left him a little money. I remember we
were camping that night on the shore of Buckhorn. Its beauty appealed to
him. He said he'd like to buy that section and build him a camp on the
pond and spend the rest of his life there.
"'But,' said I, 'you couldn't bring up your daughter in the woods.'
Buckhorn was then thirty miles from anywhere.
"'That's just what I wish to do,' he answered. 'The world is so full of
d------d spaniels'--I remember that was the phrase he used--and there's
so much infamy among men, I'd rather keep her out of it. I want her to
be as pure at twenty as she is now. I can teach her all I wish her to
know.'
"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there
with the little girl and his mother--a woman of poor health and well
past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their
servants, and there they are to-day--Dunmore and his mother and the girl
and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."
"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too
incredible.
"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon
went on. "He has property--a good deal of property, I suppose, and has
to give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."
"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.
"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the
clearing since she was a baby?"
Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid
it down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to
do this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.
"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man--n-no further,"
Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept
one. That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with
it from the n-north th-three year ago."
"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to
get possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand,
the girl has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once
Dunmore referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,'
and spoke of her devotion to her grandmother."
Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the
young man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his
daughter and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this
lonely child of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.
"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."
"I don't know how to begin."
"She'll be there t-to-morrer sure," Strong declared.
"So shall I," said the young man.
"C-cal'late she's w-wownded, too," Strong suggested. "B-be careful.
She's like a w-wild deer."
They were leaving the fire on their way to bed. The young man stopped
and repeated the words incredulously--"Like a wild deer!"
"T-take the ch-childem with ye," Strong advised. "She'll w-want t'
look 'em over."
X
SOCKY woke early next morning, and lay looking up at the antlers, guns,
and rifles which adorned the wall. On a table near him were some of the
treasures of that sylvan household--a little book entitled _Melinda_, a
dingy Testament, a plush-covered photograph-album, and a stuffed bird on
a wire bough.
Sinth and the album were inseparable. She sometimes left the dingy
Testament or the little book entitled _Melinda_ at her Pitkin home, but
not the plush-covered album. That was the one link which connected her,
not only with the past, but with a degree of respectability, and even
with a vague hope of paradise. What a pantheon of family deities! What
a museum of hair and whiskers! What a study of the effect of terror,
headache, rheumatism, weariness, Sunday apparel, tight boots, and
reckless photography upon the human countenance!
Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a
daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more
cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth
recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly.
Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply
grease to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put
his hands in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a
little, it had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since
then the gear of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had
carried him far towards the goal of manhood.
Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured
some on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with
the look of them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made
everything look shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of
high accomplishment.
Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped
on the album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitled
_Melinda_. Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in
a corner, and who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped
through an open window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper
consideration of ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased
the shoes of his sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and
taken the latter into bed with him.
Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first
awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and
sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to
mind: "I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill
bears and send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a
rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny--he said he would."
He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the
bed just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been
interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled
the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the
back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace,
and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and
legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue
had awoke and begun to cry.
"What's the matter?" he inquired.
"I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed.
"Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky.
"I don't care."
"I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with
suppressed emotion.
Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large
and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea
occurred to him--why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the
deficiencies of the great man they had come to see?
"I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed
a bear."
"Where is he?"
"Dead on the floor there."
She covered her face with the blankets.
"I'm going to have a pair o' moccasins an' a rifle, an' I'll carry you
on my b-back." He had stammered on the last word after the manner of his
uncle.
Just then they heard a singular creaking outside the door, and before
either had time to speak it was flung open. They were both sitting up in
bed as their Uncle Silas entered.
"I tnum!" said he, cheerfully.
Suddenly he saw the bird and the books and the table-top and the
potatoes and the ramrod and the hands of Socky. He whistled ruefully;
his smile faded.
"W-well greased!" he said, looking down at the books and the bird.
He found a gun-rag and wiped up the oil as best he could.
"She'll r-raise--" The remark ended in a cough as he wiped the books.
Then he covered them with an empty meal-bag.
The children began to dress while Strong went half-way up the ladder and
called to Gordon, still asleep in the loft above. Then he sat on the bed
and helped the boy and girl get their clothes buttoned..
"My little f-fawns!" he muttered, with a laugh.
He had sat up until one o'clock at work in his little shop by the light
of a lantern. He had sawed some disks from a round beech log and bored
holes in them. He had also made axles and a reach and tongue, and put
them together. Then he had placed a cross-bar and a pivot on the front
axle and fastened a starch-box over all. The result was a wagon, which
he had arisen early to finish, and with which he had come to wake "the
little fawns." Now, when they were dressed, he sat them side by side in
the wagon-box and clattered off down the trail.
At first the children sat silent, oppressed as they were by the odor of
bear's-oil, not yet entirely removed from their hands and faces. As the
wagon proceeded they began to laugh and call the dog. Zeb peered from
under the friendly cover of the boat, and gave a yearning bark which
seemed to express regret, not wholly unmingled with accusation, that
on account of other engagements he would be unable to accept their kind
invitation. At the boat-house were soap and towel and glad deliverance
from the flavor of the bear. On their return "Mis' Strong" met them at
the door of the cook-tent. She raised both hands above her head.
"My album!" she gasped.
"T-y-ty!" the Emperor whispered.
"An' the book my mother gave me!" she exclaimed, her tone rising from
despair to anger. "They're ruined--Silas Strong!"
"N-nonsense," said her brother, calmly.
"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, tauntingly. "Silas Strong, do you know what
has been done to 'em?"
"G-greased," he answered, mildly. "D-do 'em good."
She ran into the cook-tent and returned with the sacred album. There
was an odd menace in her figure as she displayed the book. She spread it
open.
"Look at my grandfather!" she demanded.
The bear's-oil had added emphasis to a subtle, inherent suggestion of
smothered profanity in the image of her ancestor. It had, as it were,
given clearness to an expression of great physical discomfort.
"L-limber him up," said the Emperor, quite soberly.
Master and Gordon were now approaching. The former took off his hat and
bowed to the indignant Sinth and blandly remarked, "Boneka, madam."
The men had begun to laugh. Sinth changed color. She looked down. A
smile began to light her thin face. She turned away, repeated the
magic word in a low voice, and added, "I forgive." She walked hurriedly
through the cook-tent to her own quarters, and sat down and wept as if,
in truth, the oil had entered her soul. It was, in a way, pathetic--her
devotion to the tawdry plush and this poor shadow of her ancestor--and
the historian has a respect for it more profound, possibly, than his
words may indicate. She would have given her album for her friend, and
it may be questioned if any man hath greater love than this.
When she entered the dinner-tent and sat down to stir batter for the
excellent "flapjacks" of Lost River camp, the children came and kissed
her and stood looking up into her face. Socky had begun to comprehend
his relation to the trouble. Shame, guilt, and uncertainty were in his
countenance. Urgent queries touching the use and taste and constitution
of batter and its feeling on the index-finger of one's hand were
pressing upon him, but he saw that, in common decency, they must be
deferred.
"Aunt Sinthy," said the little Duke of Hillsborough.
"What?" she answered.
"I won't never grease your album again."
The woman laughed, placed the pan on the table, and put her arms around
the child. Then she answered, in a tone of good-nature, "If it had been
anything else in this world, I wouldn't have minded."
Just then Zeb slowly entered the cook-tent. He had got rid of some of
the oil, but had acquired a cough. The hair on every leg was damp
and matted. He seemed to doubt his fitness for social enjoyment. In a
tentative manner he surveyed the breakfast-party, as if to study his
effect upon the human species. The Emperor patted him and felt of his
legs.
"What's the matter o' him?" Sinth inquired.
"G-greased!" said the Emperor, with a loud laugh, in which the campers
joined, whereat the dog fled from the cook-tent.
"S-slippery mornin'!" Strong exclaimed, while he stood looking through
the doorway.
"Hard t' keep yer feet," said Sinth, who had caught the contagion of
good feeling which had begun to prevail. It was, indeed, a remark not
without some spiritual significance.
So it befell: the spirit of that old chief whose body had long been
given to the wooded hills came into Lost River camp.
Gordon hurried away after breakfast. While the children stood looking
down the trail and waving their hands and weeping, Silas Strong ran
past them two or three times with the noisy little wagon. Its consoling
clatter silenced them. There had been a deep purpose in the heart of
the Emperor while he spent half the night in his workshop. Gordon had
laughingly explained the cause of their disappointment on arriving at
Lost River camp. Strong was trying to recover their esteem.
"C-come on!" he shouted.
Soon Socky and Sue sat in the little wagon on their way to Catamount
Pond with their Uncle Silas and the young fisherman.