THE next was one of the slow-coming days that seem to be delayed by
the great burden of their importance. With eager, impatient curiosity,
Master had looked 'orward. Had he witnessed the first scenes of his own
life comedy? If so, what would the next be?
He rose early and dressed with unusual care, and was delighted to see a
sky full of warm sunlight. The children were awake, and he helped them
to put on their best attire while Sinth was getting breakfast in the
cook-tent. Soon, with Socky and Sue in the little wagon, he was on
the trail to Catamount Pond. Strong was to come later and bring their
luncheon and begin the construction of a camp.
On the way Master gathered wild flowers and adorned the children with
gay colors of the forest floor. They found their canoe at the landing,
and got aboard and pushed across the still water. The sky had never
seemed to him so beautiful and silent. From far up the mountain he could
hear the twittering of a bird--no other sound. The margin of the pond
was white with lilies in full bloom. Their perfume drifted in slow
currents of air. His canoe moved in harmony with the silence. He could
hear the bursting of tiny bubbles beneath his bow and around his paddle.
Soon they came in sight of Birch Cove. There stood the moss-covered
rock at the edge of the pond, but no maiden. Master felt a pang of
disappointment. A fear grew in his heart. Would she not come again? Was
it all a pleasant dream, and was there no such wonderful creature among
the children of men?
He shoved his bow on the little sand beach and helped the children
ashore.
In a moment they heard the voice of the crow laughing as if unable
longer to control himself.
"I'm going to find her," said Socky, as he ran up the deer-trail
followed by Sue.
In a moment they gave a cry of delight. Edith Dunmore had stepped from
behind a thicket, and, stooping, had put her arms around the children
and was kissing them. The cunning crow walked hither and thither and
picked at the dead leaves and chattered like a child at play.
"Oh, it has been such a long time!" said "the beautiful lady," looking
fondly into the faces of. the little folk. "Where is he?"
"Over there," said Socky, pointing in the direction of the canoe. "I'll
go and tell him."
"No," the maiden whispered, holding the boy closer.
"He wants to see you," said the boy,
"Me?--he would like to see me?" she asked.
"He wants you to go home with us," the boy went on, as if he were a
kind of Cupid--an ambassador of love between the two. He felt her hair
curiously and with a sober face.
"He has a beautiful watch an' chain," said Socky.
"An' a gol' pencil," said Sue.
"He's rich," the little Cupid urged, in a quaint tone of confidence.
"What makes you think he wants me?" the girl asked.
"He told Uncle Silas--didn't he, Sue?"
The face of Edith Dunmore was now glowing with color. She drew the
children close together in front of her.
"Don't tell him--don't tell him I am here," said she, under her breath,
as she trembled with excitement.
"He wouldn't hurt anybody," Sue volunteered.
The pet crow had wandered in the direction of the canoe. Catching sight
of Master, he ran away cawing.
The young man started slowly up the trail. For a moment the girl hid her
face behind the children. As he came near she rose and timidly gave him
her hand. Quickly she turned away. His hand had been like those of the
children--its touch had stirred new and slumbering depths in her.
"If--if you wish to be alone with the children," he said, "I--I will go
fishing."
For a little she dared not look in his face. But since her talk with
Miss Strong she was determined not to run away again for fear of him.
She stood without speaking, her eyes downcast.
"You do want her--don't you, Uncle Robert?" said the youthful
ambassador.
"You--you mustn't ask me to tell secrets," said the young man, as he
turned away with a little laugh of embarrassment.
"Is your father at home?" he asked.
"He will return Saturday."
"If he were willing, would--would you let me come to see you?"
She hesitated, looking down at the green moss. "I--I think not," said
she.
"You are right--you do not know me. But, somehow, I--I feel as if I knew
you very well."
"Where do you live?"
"At Clear Lake in the summer--in New York City the rest of the year."
"I have never seen a city," said she, turning and looking up at him. "My
father has told me they are full of evil men."
"There are both good and evil."
"Do you live in a palace?"
"It is a very large house, although we do not call it a palace."
"Tell me--please tell me about it."
Then he told her of his home and life and people. She listened
thoughtfully. When he had finished she said, "It must be like that
wonderful land where people go when they die." From far away they could
hear the sound of a steam-whistle. Its echoes were dying in the near
forest.
"It is the whistle," said she, looking away, her eyes wide open. "Every
time I hear it I long to go. Sometimes I think it is calling me."
Neither spoke for a moment.
"It comes from a distant village where there are many people," she
added. "Yesterday I climbed the mountain. Far away I could see the smoke
and great white buildings."
"I go to that village to-morrow," said Master.
She dropped her violets and looked down at them.
"Would you care if you never saw me again?" he asked.
She turned away and made no answer.
In the silence that followed the young man was thinking what he should
say next. She was first to speak, and her voice trembled a little.
"Could I not see the children?"
"If you would go to Lost River camp."
"I cannot," said she, with a touch of despair in her voice. "My father
has told me never to go there."
The young man thought a moment. She turned suddenly and looked up at
him.
"I know you are one of the good men," she declared.
"I am at least harmless," he answered, with a smile, "and--and you will
make me happy if you will let me be your friend."
"Tut, _tut!_" said the little crow as he flew into the tree above her
head.
"I would try to make you happier," the young man urged.
"How?" she asked.
"I could tell you about many wonderful things. You ought not to stay
here in the woods," he went on. "Do you never think of the future?"
She turned with a serious look in her eyes.
He continued: "You _cannot_ always live at Buckhorn. Your father is
growing old."
"And he is well," said she. "My father has always taught me that Death
comes only to those who think of him."
In the distance they could hear the thunder of a falling tree.
"Even the great trees have to bow before him," said the young man.
A moment of silence followed.
"Let me be your friend," he pleaded.
She thought of what her grandmother had lately said to her and looked up
at him sadly and thoughtfully.
"But you--you would make me love you," said she, "and when you were like
the heart in my breast--so I could not live without you--then--then you
would leave me."
"Ah, but you do not know," he answered. "I love you, and, even now, you
are like the heart in my breast--I cannot live without you."
He approached her as he spoke and his voice trembled with emotion. She
rose and ran a short distance up the trail and stopped.
"Will you not stay a little longer?" he pleaded.
She looked back at him with a curious interest and the least touch of
fear in her eyes. She moved her head slowly, negatively, as if to tell
him that she would love to stay but dared not.
"May I see you here to-morrow?" he asked.
She smiled and nodded and waved her hand to him and ran away.
The crow laughed as if her haste were amusing.
Master sat awhile after she had gone. He could not now endure the
thought of leaving. He had planned to go with Strong and visit a number
of woodsmen at their camps, and talk to the mill-hands in a few villages
on the lower river. It was a formality not to be neglected if one would
receive the votes of Pitkin, Till-bury, and Tifton. But suddenly he had
become a candidate for greater happiness, he felt sure, than was to be
found in politics. His election thereto depended largely on the vote of
one charming citizen of a remote corner of Till-bury township. Her favor
had now become more important, in his view, than that of all the voters
in the county. He would delay his canvass over the week's end.
So thinking, Master put off in his canoe with the children, gathering
lilies until he came at last to the landing. There Sinth and the Emperor
had just arrived.
"W-weasels," said Strong, with a little nod in the direction of his
sister, who stood on the shore.
With him, as Master knew, the weasel had come to be a symbol of needless
worry.
"About what?" Master inquired.
"L-little f-fawns."
"Keep thinkin' they're goin' to git lost or drownded," said she, giving
each of the children a sugared cooky.
"Don't worry. I shall always take good care of the children," said
Master.
"I know that, but I keep a-thinkin'. Sometimes I wisht there wasn't any
woods. I'm kind o' sick of 'em, anyway."
Those little people with the dress, talk, and manners of the town--with
a subtle power in their companionship, in their very dependence upon
her, which the woman felt but was not able to understand--were surely
leading her out of the woods. They had increased her work; they
had annoyed her with ingenious mischief; they had harassed her with
questions, but they had awakened something in her which had almost
perished in years of disappointment and utter loneliness. At first
they had reminded her of her dead sister, and that, in a measure, had
reconciled her to their coming. Later, the touch of their hands, the
call of their voices, had made their strong appeal to her. Slowly she
had begun to feel a mother's fondness and responsibility and a new
interest in the world.
Again sound-waves of the great whistle at Benson Falls swept wearily
through the silence above them.
"Makes me kind o' homesick," said Sinth, as she listened thoughtfully.
The Emperor had begun, just faintly, to entertain a feeling akin to
hers.
Master helped her up the hill on her way to camp with the children. He
returned shortly and gave a hand to the building of his little home
on the shore of Catamount. It was to be an open shanty, leaning on the
ledge, its pole roof covered with tar-paper, its floor carpeted with
balsam boughs.
"Migleys have gone into c-camp at Nick Pond," said the Emperor. "Tol 'em
I had t' go w-with you t'-morrer."
"I'm sorry that we have to delay our trip a little," said the young man.
Strong laughed.
"Mellered!" said he, merrily. He shook his head as he added, "You ain't
g-givin' her no slack line."
After a little silence the hunter added:
"Don't t-twitch too quick."
It was a phrase gathered from his experience as a fisherman.
The young man blushed but made no answer.
"K-keep cool an' use a l-long line," Strong added.