A JANUARY THAW
Just before school closed a disagreeable incident occurred.
It was one of the few times that the old Squire really reproved us
sternly. Often, of course, he had to caution us a little, or speak to us
about our conduct; but he usually did it in an easy, tolerant way,
ending with a laugh or a joke. But that time he was in earnest.
He had come home that night just at dark from Three Rivers, in Canada,
where he was engaged in a lumbering enterprise. He had been gone a
fortnight, and during his absence Addison, Halstead and I had been doing
the farm chores. The drive from the railway stations, on that bleak
January afternoon had chilled the old gentleman, and he went directly
into the sitting-room to get warm. So it was not until he came out to
sit down to supper with us that he noticed a vacant chair at table.
"Where is Halstead?" he asked. "Isn't Halstead at home?"
No one answered at first; none of us liked to tell him what had
happened. We had always found our cousin Halstead hard to get on with.
Lately he had been complaining to us that he ought to be paid wages for
his labor, when, as a matter of fact, what he did at the farm never half
repaid the old Squire for his board, clothes and the trouble he gave.
During the old gentleman's absence that winter Halstead had become worse
than ever and had also begun making trouble at the district school.
His special crony at school was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely
bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and
he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result
of which the school committee suspended them for three weeks.
That was unfortunate, for it turned the boys loose to run about in
company. Usually they quarreled by the time they had been together half
a day; but this time there seemed to be a special bond between them, and
they hatched a secret project to go off trapping up in the great woods.
They intended to stay until spring, when they would reappear with five
hundred dollar's worth of fur!
Addison and I guessed that something of the sort was in the wind, for we
noticed that Halstead was collecting old traps and that he was oiling a
gun he called his. We also missed two thick horse blankets from the
stable and a large hand sled. A frozen quarter of beef also disappeared
from the wagon-house chamber.
"Let him go, and good riddance," Addison said, and we decided not to
tell grandmother or the girls what we suspected. In fact, I fear that we
hoped Halstead would go.
The following Friday afternoon while the rest of us were at school both
boys disappeared. That evening Mrs. Batchelder sent over to inquire
whether Alfred was at our house. Halstead, to his credit, had shown that
he did not wish grandmother to worry about him. Shortly before two
o'clock that afternoon, he had come hastily to the sitting-room door,
and said, "Good-by, gram. I'm going away for a spell. Don't worry."
Then, shutting the door, he had run off before she could reply or ask a
question.
When we got home from school that night, Addison and I found traces of
the runaways. There had been rain the week before, followed by a hard
freeze and snow squalls, which had left a film of light snow on the hard
crust beneath. At the rear of the west barn we found the tracks of a
hand sled leading off across the fields toward the woods.
"Gone hunting, I guess," said Addison. "They are probably heading for
the Old Slave's Farm, or for Adger's lumber camp. Let them go. They'll
be sick to death of it in a week."
I felt much the same about it; but grandmother and Theodora were not a
little disturbed. Ellen, however, sided with Addison. "Halse will be
back by to-morrow night," she said. "He and Alfred will have a spat by
that time."
Saturday and Sunday passed, however, and then all the following week,
with no word from them.
On Tuesday evening, when they had been gone eleven days, Mrs. Batchelder
hastened in with alarming news for us. She had had a letter from Alfred,
she said, written from Berlin Falls in New Hampshire, where he had gone
to work in a mill; but he had not said one word about Halstead!
"I don't think they could have gone off together," she said, and she
read Alfred's letter aloud to us, or seemed to do so, but did not hand
it to any of us to read.
We had never trusted Mrs. Batchelder implicitly; and a long time
afterwards it came out that there was one sentence in that letter that
she had not read to us. It was this: "Don't say anything to any of them
about Halstead." Guessing that there had been trouble of some kind
between the boys, she was frightened; to shield Alfred she had hurried
over with the letter, and had tried to make us believe that the boys had
not gone off together.
Addison and I still thought that the boys had set out in company, though
we did not know what to make of Alfred's letter. We were waiting in that
disturbed state of mind, hoping to hear something from Alfred that would
clear up the mystery, when the old Squire came home.
"He has gone away, sir," Addison said at last, when the old gentleman
inquired for Halstead at supper.
"Gone away? Where? What for?" the old gentleman asked in much
astonishment; and then the whole story had to be told him.
The old Squire heard it through without saying much. When we had
finished, he asked, "Did you know that Halstead meant to go away?"
"We did not know for certain, sir," Addison replied.
"Still, you both knew something about it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did either one of you do anything to prevent it?"
We had to admit that we had done nothing.
The old Squire regarded us a moment or two in silence.
"In one of the oldest narratives of life that have come down to us," he
said at last, "we read that there were once two brothers living
together, who did not agree and who often fell out. After a time one of
them disappeared, and when the other--his name was Cain--was asked what
had become of his brother, he replied, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
"In this world we all have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire
continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and
safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and
crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a
family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his
best to make things go right."
That was a great deal for the old Squire to say to us. Addison and I saw
just where we had shirked and where we had let temper and resentment
influence us. Scarcely another word was said at table. It was one of
those times of self-searching and reflection that occasionally come
unbidden in every family circle. The old Squire went into the
sitting-room to think it over and to learn what he could from
grandmother. He was very tired, and I am afraid he felt somewhat
discouraged about us.
Addison and I went up to our room early that evening. We exchanged
scarcely a word as we went gloomily to bed. We knew that we were to
blame; but we also felt tremendously indignant with Halstead.
Very early the next morning, however, long before it was light, Addison
roused me.
"Wake up," he said. "Let's go see if we can find that noodle of ours and
get him back home."
It was cold and dark and dreary; one of those miserable, shivery
mornings when you hate to stir out of bed. But I got up, for I agreed
with Addison that we ought to look for Halstead.
After dabbling our faces in ice-cold water and dressing we tiptoed
downstairs. Going to the kitchen, we kindled a fire in order to get a
bit of breakfast before we started. Theodora had heard us and came
hastily down to bear a hand. She guessed what we meant to do.
"I'm glad you're going," said she as she began to make coffee and to
warm some food.
It was partly the bitter weather, I think, but Addison and I felt so
cross that we could hardly trust ourselves to speak.
"I'll put you up a nice, big lunch," Theodora said, trying to cheer us.
"And I do hope that you will find him at the Old Slave's Farm, or over
at Adger's camp. If you do, you may all be back by night."
She stole up to her room to get a pair of new double mittens that she
had just finished knitting for Addison; and for me she brought down a
woolen neck muffler that grandmother had knitted for her. Life brightens
up, even in a Maine winter, with a girl like that round.
Addison took his shotgun, and I carried the basket of luncheon. No snow
had come since Halstead and Alfred left, and we could still see along
the old lumber road the faint marks of their hand-sled runners. In the
hollows where the film of snow was a little deeper, two boot tracks were
visible.
"Halse wouldn't go off far into the woods alone, after Alf left him,"
said I.
"No, he is too big a coward," said Addison.
It was thirteen miles up to the Old Slave's Farm, where the negro--who
called himself Pinkney Doman--had lived for so many years before the
Civil War.
"We can make it in three hours!" Addison exclaimed. "If we find him
there, we shall be back before dark. And we had better hurry," he added,
with a glance at the sky. "For I guess there's a storm coming; feels
like it."
In a yellow-birch top at a little opening near the old road we saw two
partridges eating buds; Addison shot one of them and took it along,
slung to his gun barrel.
The faint trail of the sled continued along the old winter road all the
way up to the clearing where the negro had lived, and by ten o'clock we
came into view of the two log cabins. Very still and solitary they
looked under that cold gray sky.
"No smoke," Addison said. "But we'll soon know." He called once. We then
hurried forward and pushed open the door of the larger cabin. No one was
there.
But clearly the two truants had stopped there, for the sled track led
directly to the door of the cabin. There had been a fire in the stone
fireplace. Beside a log at the door, too, Addison espied a hatchet that
a while before we had missed from the tool bench in the wagon-house.
"Well, if that isn't like their carelessness!" he exclaimed, laughing.
"I'll take this along."
But the runaways had not tarried long. We found the sled track again,
leading into the woods at the northwest of the clearing.
"Well, that settles it," said Addison. "They haven't gone to Adger's,
for that is east from here. I'll tell you! They went to Boundary Camp on
Lurvey's Stream. And that's eighteen or nineteen miles from here." He
glanced at the sky. "Now, what shall we do? It will snow to-night."
"Perhaps we could get up there by dark," said I.
For a moment Addison considered. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It's a long
jaunt. But come on!"
On we tramped again, following that will-o'-the-wisp of a hand-sled
track into the thick spruce forest. For the first nine or ten miles
everything went well; then one of the dangers of the great Maine woods
in winter suddenly presented itself.
About one o'clock it began to snow--little icy pellets that rattled down
through the tree tops like fine shot or sifted sand. The chill, damp
wind sighing drearily across the forest presaged a northeaster.
"We've got to hurry!" Addison said, glancing round.
We both struck into a trot and, with our eyes fastened to the trail, ran
on for about two miles until we came to a brook down in a gorge. By the
time we had crossed that the storm was upon us and the forest had taken
on the bewildering misty, gray look that even the most experienced
woodsman has reason to dread.
The snow that had fallen had obscured the faint sled tracks, and
Addison, who was ahead, pulled up. "We can't do it," he said. "We shan't
get through."
My first impulse was to run on, to run faster; that is always your first
instinct in such cases. Then I remembered the old Squire's advice to us
what to do if we should ever happen to be caught by a snowstorm in the
great woods:
"Don't go on a moment after you feel bewildered. Don't start to run, and
don't get excited. Stop right where you are and camp. If you run, you
will begin to circle, get crazy and perish before morning."
Addison cast another uneasy glance into the dim forest ahead. "Better
camp, I guess," he said. Turning, we hurried back into the hollow.
A few yards back from the brook were two rocks, about six feet apart and
nearly as high as my head. Hard snow lay between them; but we broke it
into pieces by stamping on it, and succeeded in clearing most of it
away, so that we bared the leaves and twigs that covered the ground.
Then, while I hacked off dry branches from a fallen fir-tree, Addison
gathered a few curled rolls of bark from several birches near by and
kindled a fire between the rocks.
We kept the fire going for more than an hour, until all the remaining
snow was thawed and the frost and wet thoroughly dried out, and until
the rocks had become so hot that we could hardly touch them. Then, after
hauling away the brands and embers, we brushed the place clean with
green boughs, and thus made for ourselves a warm, dry spot between the
rocks.
With poles and green boughs, we made for our shelter a roof that was
tight enough to keep out the snow. Except that we made a little mat of
bark and dry fir brush, to lie on, and that Addison brought an armful of
curled bark from the birches and a quantity of dry sticks to burn now
and then, that was the extent of our preparation for the night. We had
as warm and comfortable a den as any one could wish for.
We decided not to cook our partridge, but to eat the food in our basket.
After our meal we got a drink of water at the brook, then crawled inside
our den and--as Maine woodsmen say--"pulled the hole in after us," by
stopping it with boughs.
"Now, let it storm!" Addison exclaimed.
Taking off our jackets and spreading them over us, we cuddled down there
by the warm rocks, and there we passed the night safely and by no means
uncomfortably.
It was still snowing fast in the morning; but the flakes were larger
now, and the weather had perceptibly moderated during the latter part of
the night. The forest, however, still looked too misty for us to find
our way through it.
"We might as well take it easy," Addison said. "If Halse is at Boundary
Camp, he will not leave in such weather as this."
All that forenoon it snowed steadily, and in fact for most of the
afternoon. More than a foot of snow had come. We opened the front of our
snow-coated den, kindled a fire there, and after dressing our partridge
broiled it over the embers. Still it snowed; but the weather now was
much warmer. By the following morning, we thought, we should have clear,
cold weather and should be able to set out again.
But never were weather predictions more at fault. The next morning it
was raining furiously; and our den had begun to drip. In fact, a
veritable January thaw had set in.
All that forenoon it poured steadily; and water began to show yellow
through the snow in the brook beside our camp. Addison crept out and
looked round, but soon came back dripping wet.
"Look here!" said he in some excitement. "There's a freshet coming, and
Lurvey's Stream is between us and Boundary Camp. If we don't start soon,
we can't get there at all."
Just as he finished speaking a deep, portentous rumbling began and
continued for several seconds. The distant mountain sides seemed to
reverberate with it, and at the end the whole forest shook with heavy,
jarring sounds. We both leaped out into the rain.
"What is it, Ad?" I cried.
"Earthquake," said Addison at last. "I've heard the old Squire say that
one sometimes comes in Maine, when there is a great winter thaw."
The deep jar and tremor gave us a strange sense of insecurity and
terror; there seemed to be no telling what might happen next.
Accordingly, we abandoned our moist den and set off in the rain. We went
halfway to our knees at every step in the now soft, slushy snow. Addison
went ahead with the hatchet, spotting a tree every hundred feet or so,
and I followed in his tracks, carrying the basket and the gun. In
fifteen minutes we were wet to our skins.
For three or four miles we were uncertain of our course. The forest then
lightened ahead, and presently we came out on the shore of a small lake
that looked yellow over its whole surface.
"Good!" Addison exclaimed. "This must be Lone Pond, and see, away over
there is Birchboard Mountain. Boundary Camp is just this side of it. It
can't be more than four or five miles."
Skirting the south shore of the pond, we pushed on through fir and cedar
swamps. Worse traveling it would be impossible to imagine. Every hole
and hollow was full of yellow slush. Finally, after another two hours or
so of hard going, we came out on Lurvey's Stream about half a mile below
the camp, which was on the other bank. A foot or more of water was
running yellow over the ice; but the ice itself was still firm, and we
were able to cross on it.
Even before we came in sight of the camp, we smelled wood smoke.
"Halse is there!" I exclaimed.
"It may be trappers from over the line," Addison said. "Be cautious."
I ran forward, however, and peeped in at the little window. Some one was
crawling on the floor, partly behind the old camp stove, and I had to
look twice before I could make out that it was really Halstead. Then we
burst in upon him, and Addison said rather shortly, "Well, hunter, what
are you doing here?"
Halstead raised himself slowly off the floor beside the stove, stared at
us for a moment without saying a word, and then suddenly burst into
tears!
It was some moments before Halstead could speak, he was so shaken with
sobs. We then discovered that his left leg was virtually useless, and
that in general he was in a bad plight. He had been there for eight days
in that condition, crawling round on one knee and his hands to keep a
fire and to cook his food.
"But how did you get hurt?" Addison asked.
"That Alf did it!" Halstead cried; and then, with tears still flowing,
he went on to tell the story--his side of it.
While getting their breakfast on the third morning after they had
reached the camp, they had had a dispute about making their coffee; hard
names had followed, and at last, in high temper, Alfred had sprung up
declaring that he would not camp with Halstead another hour. Grabbing
the gun, he had started off.
"That's my gun! Leave it here! Drop it!" Halstead had shouted angrily
and had run after him.
Down near the bank of the stream, Halstead had overtaken him and had
tried to wrest the gun from him. Alfred had turned, struck him, and then
given him so hard a push that he had fallen over sidewise with his foot
down between two logs. Alfred had run on without even looking back.
The story did not astonish us. For the time being, however, we were
chiefly concerned to find out how badly Halstead was injured, with a
view to getting him home. His ankle was swollen, sore and painful; he
could not touch the foot to the floor, and he howled when we tried to
move it.
Evidently he had suffered a good deal, and pity prevented us from
freeing our minds to him as fully as we should otherwise have done. The
main thing now was to get him home, where a doctor could attend him.
"We shall have to haul him on the hand sled," Addison said to me; and
fortunately the sled that Alfred and he had taken was there at the camp.
But first we cooked a meal of some of the beef, corn meal and coffee
they had taken from the old Squire's.
It was still raining; and on going out an hour later we found that the
stream had risen so high that we could not cross it. The afternoon, too,
was waning; and, urgent as Halstead's case appeared, we had to give up
the idea of starting that night. During the rest of the afternoon we
busied ourselves rigging a rude seat on the sled.
There were good dry bunks at the camp, but little sleep was in store for
us. Halstead was in a fevered, querulous mood and kept calling to us for
something or other all night long. Whenever he fell asleep he tumbled
about and hurt his ankle. That would partly wake him and set him crying,
or shouting what he would do to Alfred.
Throughout the night the roar of the stream outside grew louder, and at
daybreak it was running feather white. As for the snow, most of it had
disappeared; stumps, logs and stones showed through it everywhere; the
swamps were flooded, and every hole, hollow and depression was full of
water.
That was Wednesday. We made a soup of the beef bone, cooked johnny-cake
from the corn meal and kept Halstead as quiet as possible. We had left
home early Sunday morning and knew that our folks would be greatly
worried about all three of us.
As the day passed, the stream rose steadily until the water was nearly
up to the camp door.
"If only we had a boat, we could put Halse in it and go home," Addison
said.
We discussed making a raft, for if we could navigate the stream we could
descend it to within four miles of the old farm. But the roaring yellow
torrent was clearly so tumultuous that no raft that we could build would
hold together for a minute; and we resigned ourselves to pass another
night in the camp.
The end of the thaw was at hand, however; at sunset the sky lightened,
and during the evening the stars came out. At midnight, while
replenishing the fire, I heard smart gusts of wind blowing from the
northwest. It was clearing off cold. Noticing that it seemed very light
outside, I went to the door and saw the bright arch of a splendid aurora
spanning the whole sky. It was so beautiful that I waked Addison to see
it.
By morning winter weather had come again; the snow slush was frozen. The
stream, however, was still too high to be crossed, and the swamps and
meadows were also impassable. We now bethought ourselves of another
route home, by way of a lumber trail that led southward to Lurvey's
Mills, where there was a bridge over the stream.
"It is five miles farther, but it is our only chance of getting home
this week," Addison said.
We were busy bundling Halstead up for the sled trip when the door opened
and in stepped Asa Doane, one of our hired men at the farm, and a
neighbor named Davis.
"Well, well, here you are, then!" Asa exclaimed in a tone of great
relief. "Do you know that the old Squire's got ten men out searching the
woods for you? Why, the folks at home are scared half to death!"
We were not sorry to see Asa and Davis, and to have help for the long
pull homeward. We made a start, and after a very hard tramp we finally
reached the old farm, thoroughly tired out, at eight o'clock that
evening.
Theodora and grandmother were so affected at seeing us back that they
actually shed tears. The old Squire said little; but it was plain to see
that he was greatly relieved.
If the day had been a fatiguing one for us, it had been doubly so for
poor Halstead. We carried him up to his room, put him to bed and sent
for a doctor. He did not leave his room again for three weeks and
required no end of care from grandmother and the girls.
Little was ever said among us afterwards of this escapade of Halstead's.
As for Alfred, he came sneaking home about a month later, but had the
decency, or perhaps it was the prudence, to keep away from us for nearly
a year.