The Fall of the Tree.
Next morning the year had grown perceptibly older; or so it seemed to
Stephanie, as she stood in the doorway of the log-cabin, looking across
the misty clearing to the golden forests that encircled it. The fallen
leaves looked browner, each furred at the edge with a delicate fringe
of hoar-frost; and the newly risen sun strove as yet in vain to send
some heat through the faint, cold haze. It was more penetratingly
chill than if it had been the drier winter time. Stephanie snuggled
into her little gray shawl with a keen appreciation of its rough
warmth, and watched her breath floating as tiny silver clouds in the
almost motionless air.
She was a tall, strong girl, with an unexpectedly plaintive face--a
quaint, dark-eyed face which suited well with her quaint foreign name.
Already she looked older than Dick, for her eyes were grave, and her
mouth had taken a firm, responsible curve; it was a look which comes
sometimes to motherless girls who have men-folk to manage and care for.
The room behind her was neat and clean, but almost bare of even such
comforts as might have been found in pioneer homes. Here and there
some little stool or shelf showed that her brother's deft fingers had
been at work; but in this as in most things he lacked the steadiness of
application which would have served to better their lot. And Captain
Underwood was a broken man, plunged in a lethargy of remorse and
disappointment which threatened never to lighten. Since her mother's
death, life would have been almost unendurable to Stephanie had it not
been for two things: these were the passionate affection existing
between herself and Dick, and her intense love for and kinship with
nature. All her scanty hours of idleness she spent roaming about the
clearing or the edge of the forest--she knew the haunts of every weed
and flower for a mile around. In the winter, flocks of little hungry
birds were her pensioners, and it is likely that she would have
seriously diminished their own stores in feeding them, had not Dick
collected berries and wild rice and seeds in the fall as a provision
for emergencies.
On this keen autumn morning there were very few birds about; the robins
had flown, and the owls were going to bed; far away some noisy crows
wheeled and cawed above the trees, but no longer could Stephanie hear
the innumerable small twitterings and tentative songs of a morning in
the summer. The forest was very silent. Indeed, the only sound that
broke the half-awakened quietness was the distant thud and throb of
axes biting deep into the trunk of a tree.
It was a curiously insistent sound, that seemed to claim more notice
than it was worth. Very clearly on the clear air was borne the noise
of every blow, and occasionally a faint crack as of a blade being
wrenched away. It forced itself on Stephanie's attention, growing
louder and fainter as slight breaths of wind moved the hazy air, but
never ceasing in its continual, irregular thud--thud; thud--thud. Her
father and Dick were chopping down the half-dead pine; she could
distinguish the difference between the weight of their respective
strokes.
Half unconsciously she listened. There was no cessation in the dull
noise; and to her it seemed full of threat and menace. She fancied
that the other trees must be shaking all their remaining leaves in fear
that a like fate might befall them, and she hoped that Dick had
remembered to chase the chipmunk out of his hole. The chipmunk had
been a friend of hers, and she used to drop acorns at the foot of the
tree where he might find them. Vaguely she wondered whether she would
recognise the little fellow again if she saw him in some other tree,
and concluded that it was scarcely possible. While all the time the
thud--thud of the axes seemed to weave itself into a sort of irregular
accompaniment to her wandering thoughts. And then suddenly she was
aware that it had stopped, and that a brief silence had once more
fallen over the golden woods and the hazy field of corn.
The silence was broken by a sharp crack. Then a series of small
tearing, rushing, rending sounds ended in a mighty crash. Stephanie
knew that the tree was down, and an odd little feeling of regret came
over her; once more there was a moment of utter silence. Then, sharp
and keen and terribly distinct, she heard a wild cry from Dick.
She had run down the garden almost before that cry ceased to ring in
the air, and now she fled over the rough ground outside with as swift
and sure a step as a young deer might use. Her face was grey and drawn
with the sense of coming disaster, but neither her feet nor her breath
failed her as she breasted the low rise of ground, slippery with pine
needles, which lay between her and the place from which that cry had
come.
As she gained the crest of the hill, she staggered back a step and
almost fell, but recovered and ran on, though for a minute she was
blind and deaf and scarcely conscious.
The pine, shorn of its few branches, lay upon the ground, and near the
stump lay her father, with Dick kneeling beside him. When her sight
came back to her, she found that she also was kneeling there, staring
stupidly at her brother's agonised face, and at the great branch torn
from a neighbouring maple, which told all the terrible tale. Somewhere
in the silent woods a chipmunk chattered shrilly, and she wondered when
it would stop, for the noise hurt her head. Someone seemed to be
saying drearily over and over again, "What are we to do? What are we
to do?" and she felt angry with the momentous question. Surely silence
was the only fitting thing.
Then her senses seemed suddenly to wake into painful life again, and
she stood up and looked about in dry-eyed desperation. That her father
was seriously injured she knew, for the branch had struck him at the
base of the head. But he appeared to be still living; and what were
they to do for the best? A feeling of their utter loneliness swept
over her, bringing back that other irremediable loss of two years ago.
Once more she knelt in the rustling leaves, sobbing her heart out.
"Oh, mother!" she cried, "oh, mother, mother, mother!"
The words held the most passionate prayer she had ever prayed in her
life. And presently she rose to her feet again, with dimmed eyes and
trembling lips, but strong to do and to endure. She seemed almost to
have grown a woman in that moment, and unconsciously she took the lead,
though she was the younger of the two.
"Dick," she said steadily, "go and harness Murphy. We must take father
to the Collinsons."
Dick stumbled off blindly to do her bidding. Murphy was the one lean
ox who had done all their carting and ploughing; and before long the
boy came back again, driving the slow brute in the clumsy, creaking
ox-cart. Between them they managed to draw their father up two
inclined boards until his inert body rested safely in the cart; and
then fleet-footed Stephanie ran back to the cabin for all the coverings
and pillows in their poor store. Before half-an-hour had passed, the
clumsy conveyance was creaking down the rough old Indian trail which
led by many windings to the Collinson homestead, bearing the
unconscious Captain, while Dick and Stephanie walked beside, urging
Murphy to his best pace. Their hearts were sick with dread; motherless
they had been for two years--were they now to be fatherless also?
It had all been so terribly sudden they had scarcely time to think, but
it was the best thing they could do. At the Collinson homestead their
father would be certain to receive the tenderest care, and perhaps
medical attendance if things turned out fortunately. But would they
ever get him alive over those long, jolting miles? The same fear was
in the eyes of each as they looked at one another.
They were never to reach their journey's end. Before long the Captain
began slowly to regain consciousness, and his first question was a
faintly-uttered "What's this? Where are you taking me?"
They told him, with white, anxious faces bending over the rough sides
of the cart, while Murphy tried to reach a tempting bit of green grass
under the trees. But the injured man shook his head. "It is no use,
my dears," he said feebly, "another two miles would kill me at once.
And I must die where she died, for I cannot recover. Stephanie"--it
was curious how he turned from the elder child to his
younger--"Stephanie, take me back! Promise to take me back!"
Who could have withstood the pitiful appeal in his eyes? With aching
hearts they promised, and once more he relapsed into unconsciousness,
muttering fragments of old orders which he had given as captain of the
great merchantman Theseus, in the long ago days. They looked at each
other in miserable helplessness.
Dick broke the wretched silence. "Stephanie," he said, "you must take
him home again, and I must go on to the Collinsons--for if he will not
be taken to help, help must be brought to him. I shall be able to take
two or three short cuts, and they will ride or drive back with me, so
it won't be so very long. But oh, my dear, I do hate to leave you!"
Stephanie shook her head. "We are thinking of him now," she said
quietly, and without another word turned Murphy round. With a last
hurried look, Dick plunged rapidly into the bushes at the side of the
trail, and she could hear the rustling of his footsteps growing fainter
in the distance. Then began the weary journey home again.
They had only travelled a short distance from the little clearing, but
to Stephanie it seemed hours before the log-cabin and the field of corn
came into view. And having reached home, she had to face a new
difficulty. She could not, unaided, lift her father from the cart. So
she backed it into a sheltered place among the trees, and brought the
rough chairs and barrels from the log-cabin to support the shafts.
Then she unharnessed Murphy, and led him to his shed, moving as if she
were in some terrible dream.
Returning to the cabin, which already looked deserted and strange, she
ransacked every corner until she found a little of some coarse, crude
spirit in an old bottle. Mixing it with water, she strove to force
some into her father's mouth, but he did not seem able to swallow. So
she began her long helpless vigil beside the cart, knowing that there
was nothing she could do. If only Dick were there! The shadows grew
long and longer, and still the Captain lay motionless in the cart
beneath the great trees; and still Stephanie kept her patient watch
beside him. Only once did her father speak in all those terrible
hours. She had been bending over him adjusting his coverings, when she
found him looking up at her with a brighter, more gentle look than she
had seen upon his face for years. "I thought you were your mother,
little girl," he said faintly, "your hands move as hers did."
"They are not as soft as hers, father," said Stephanie in a broken
voice.
"No," answered the Captain, "they are not as soft, poor brave little
hands. But their touch is as tender, my dear, their touch is as
tender."
After that the silence fell again--a greater, deeper, more divine
silence, though Stephanie did not know it. And still she sat beside
the cart in the gathering shadows, waiting for the help that was to
come.