One autumn day after the leaves had faded and fallen, Nathan was busy
husking corn, with less thought upon his task and the growing pile of
yellow ears than of a promised partridge hunt on the morrow with his
good friend Job. His father was chopping in a new clearing. Silas had
been sent with the oxen to take some logs to Lemon Fair Mill. His mother
grew uneasy at her spinning, for Seth did not come home to dinner, nor
yet when the afternoon was half spent. After many times anxiously
looking and listening in the direction of the clearing, and as often
saying to herself, "What does keep father so?" she called to Nathan.
"I guess you'd better go and see what henders father so. I can't think
what it is. I hope it hain't anything."
"Perhaps he's gone over to Callenders or some o' the neighbors," said
Nathan. "I hain't heard a tree fall for ever so long nor his axe a goin'
for a long time."
"Mebby he's cut his foot or something," said Martha, beginning to cry.
"I can't hear nothin' of him for all the air's so holler and everything
sounds so plain," said Ruth, listening again. "You'd better go and see
what henders him. Mebby he can't git home."
As the boy anxiously hastened to the new clearing, the intense stillness
of the woods filled him with undefined dread. His ears ached for some
sound, the tapping of a woodpecker, the cry of a jay, but most of all,
for the sound of axe strokes or his father's voice. Silence pervaded the
clearing also.
There, on a stump, was his father's blue frock, one bit of color in the
sombre scene. And yes, there was some slight flitting movement near the
last tree that had been felled and lay untrimmed just as it had fallen,
but it was only a bevy of chickadees peering curiously at something on
the ground beneath them, yet voiceless as if their perennial
cheerfulness was dumb in the pervading silence. So sick with dread he
could scarcely move, the boy forced himself to approach the spot, and
look upon that which he felt was awaiting him, his father lying dead
beneath the huge, prone tree, that had crushed him in its fall.
The glowing sunset sky and the glistening waters of the lake grew black,
the earth reeled. With a piteous groan of "Father! father!" the boy sank
down as lifeless, for a space, as the beloved form that lay beside him
in eternal sleep.
He awoke as from a terrible dream to the miserable realization that it
was not a dream. Then walking, as still in a dream, not noting how he
went nor by any familiar object marking his way, he bore home the woeful
tidings.
Simple as were the funeral rites in the primitive communities, they were
not lacking in the impressiveness of heartfelt sorrow nor in the homely
expressions of sympathy for the bereaved and respect for the dead. So
Seth Beeman's neighbors reverently laid him to rest in the soil his own
hand had uncovered to the sunlight. They set at his head a rough slate
stone, whose rude lettering could be read half a century later, telling
his name and age, and the manner of his death.
Ruth was left in a sorry plight, so suddenly bereft of the strong arm
she had leaned upon, without a thought that it could ever be taken from
her. Now she had only her son, a sturdy lad, indeed, but of an age to be
cared for rather than to care for others. Toombs had proved better than
he looked, kind enough, and a good worker, and familiar with the needs
of the farm. When his time was out she had no means to pay his wages nor
could she well get along without him. So he staid on, taking a mortgage,
at length, on the premises in lieu of money, and becoming more and more
important in Ruth's estimation, though regarded with increasing dislike
and jealousy by her son, who found himself less and less considered.
Months passed, dulling sorrow and the sense of loss, and bringing many a
bitter change. The bitterness of Nathan's life was made almost
unbearable presently. His mother, of a weak and clinging nature,
inevitably drifted to a fate a more self-reliant woman would have
avoided. Worried with uncomprehended business, and assured by Toombs
that this was the only way to retain a home for herself and children,
yet unmoved by the kindly advice of Seth's honest friends and neighbors,
as well as the anger and entreaties of her son, she went with Toombs
over to the Fort, where they were married by the chaplain stationed
there.
With such a man in the place of his wise and affectionate father,
Nathan's life was filled with misery, nor could he ever comprehend his
mother's course. Though bestowing upon Martha and his mother indifferent
notice or none at all, towards the boy the stepfather exercised his
recently acquired authority with severity, giving him the hardest and
most unpleasant work to do, and treating him always with distrust, often
with cruelty.
"I hate him," he told Ruth. "He's sassed me every day since I come here,
and I've got a bigger job 'an that to settle, one that I'd ha' settled
with his father, if he hadn't cheated me by gettin' killed."
"Oh, what do you mean?" Ruth gasped. "I thought you and Seth was always
good friends."
"Friends!" he growled, contemptuously; "I hated the ground he walked on.
Look here," and Silas pulled out his leather pocketbook and took from it
a soiled paper which he held before her eyes.
She read the bold, clear signature of Ethan Allen, and, with a sickening
thrill, that of Seth Beeman under it.
"Yes, Ethan Allen and Seth Beeman and his neighbors whipped a man for
claimin' his own, and your boy went and gethered 'em in. Mebby you
re'collect it."
"I couldn't help it," she gasped. "I didn't see it. I run and hid and
stopped my ears."
"Well, 'Rastus Graves 'ould ha' settled his debts if he'd ha' lived. But
he died afore his back got healed over, and afore he died he turned the
job over to his brother, that's me, Silas Toombs, or Graves--they're the
same in the end."
Ruth stared at him in dumb amazement and horror, while he proceeded,
pouring forth his long concealed wrath.
"Well, I've got Seth Beeman's wife, and, what's wuth more, his farm, an'
his childern right 'nunder my thumb. I hope he knows on't. And now,
ma'am," lowering his voice from its passionate exultation, "you don't
want to breathe a word o' this to your nice neighbors or to your young
'uns. It wouldn't do no good and it might be unpleasant all round. You
don't want folks to know what a fool you be."
After this disclosure, Ruth lived, in weariness and vain regret, a life
that seemed quite hopeless but for looking forward to the time when her
son could assert his rights and be her champion. Her nature was one of
those that still bend, without being broken, by whatever weight is laid
on them.