OUT OF THE WOODS
For over an hour Hiram Hooker lay perfectly still at the creekside.
His wide-open eyes stared dreamily into the water. His mind was
stunned by the present situation. Feverishly and against his will his
thoughts went hurrying back over the years which had led up to this
momentous climax.
A woman moved frequently across the picture--a bent, tired, work-warped
woman--his mother. The pitiable leanness of the life of Hiram's mother
had been appalling. One word stood for the tenor of her days from sun
to sun--nothing. She had never seen a piano or a typewriter, or even a
washing machine. Silent, unmurmuring, she had given her life for
nothing and gone.
Swiftly came in the picture the likeness of Hiram's father--tall,
bewhiskered, strong as an ox, soft-voiced, and easy-going. Nothing but
kindness had emanated from the father to his wife and child. Foster
Hooker, too, had slaved his life away for nothing. The rocky land had
claimed him and held him down. They had had enough to eat and to keep
them warm--beyond that, nothing. Now he lay with Hiram's mother
between the big bull pines on Wild-cat Hill.
There was in Hiram's thoughts no bitterness against his parents. They
had been always kind and had given their best to him. The rocky land
had held them chained. It offered sustenance, and of the big
progressing world beyond they had lived afraid. In the early days they
had buried themselves in the big woods to make their fortune. But the
fortune was not there, and old age crept on. Old age told them that
the world outside had passed beyond them, and they were afraid.
After all, had they given Hiram nothing? In his bitter moments he had
thought so, but to-day his thoughts were mellowed. He was on the eve
of leaving everything that held memories of them. Had they not given
him of themselves a love for the grandeur of these woods which touched
no other soul, save Uncle Sebastian's, perhaps, in all the valley?
Hiram saw more in a redwood tree than the natives did; saw the beauty
of contrast in the open spots in the forest, where the others saw only
grazing ground for cattle; saw wonders in the rioting streams without a
thought of miners' inches. His father had taught him the love of
books, but there had been so few to love. He had taught him to think.
Hiram was weird, queer, a "leetle cracked" to the others of Bear
Valley. Uncle Sebastian alone had understood him--had sympathized with
him and helped him.
Now, though, it was over. He was leaving forever. One hundred
dollars! He had never possessed so much in his twenty-six starved
years! An exultation seized him which beat throbbingly in his temples
and fired his soul with recklessness. He was bound out into the Great
Unknown, where the promises of his dreams would be fulfilled. He would
do great things, live great adventures, then come back to scoff at them!
He sprang to his feet, collected the backless magazines, and climbed
the bank. With long strides he hurried along the bark road which wound
round the contour of the hills. An hour later he was trotting down a
manzanita slope to his cabin, nestled in the cup of the hills,
surrounded by the whispering firs.
Just within he paused and looked about as if seeing the sordidness of
his home for the first time. All the way up the hill the exultation of
impending departure had thrilled him. It thrilled him still, and a new
feeling of contempt of what he saw came over him.
A panther skin hung on the rough, unpainted wall above the black and
cheerless fireplace, three sets of antlers surrounding it. Near the
fireplace lay an unsightly pile of wood and chips. The doors of the
cracked and rusty stove were gaping wide. The remains of his breakfast
were on the clothless, homemade table. His rifle, the only thing well
kept, stood in a corner.
He passed through into the other room, separated from this by a thin
board partition. There, in oval walnut frames, hung the pictures of
the two who lay between the big bull pines on Wild-cat Hill. A slight
sense of depression seized him. The bed unmade, brought a sparkle of
anger to his eyes. He was disgusted with himself, but it did not last.
The thought of the adventures that lay beyond and beckoned came
uppermost once more. "The girl" beckoned, too.
Yes, there was a girl. Hiram had seen her only in his dreams. She was
not like Bear Valley girls. She was large and sturdy and strong, and
her hair was of such dark brown as to seem almost black, her eyes dark
and large and lustrous. She was a queen among women, this girl of his
dreams. About her hung some great mystery, and adventure followed in
her footsteps. Out there somewhere beyond Bear Valley she stood
beckoning him to come!
He went to bed early, to toss for hours and at last to drop into
fretful, torturing dreams. The scream of a panther awoke him once.
He was up before sunrise, cooking his bacon and coffee and frying
slices of cold biscuit in the bacon grease.
The east was pink when he left the cabin, carrying the rifle, which he
meant to give to Uncle Sebastian. Everything else he left behind. He
took a short cut over Wild-cat Hill. On its crest, between the two
bull pines, he stopped before two graces.
The red sun was peering through the saddle of Signal Hill. Cold mists
rose from the forest. In the air was the breath of the morning.
Weirdly the early wind moaned through the needles of the tall bull
pines. Up from the cañon came the roaring of Ripley Creek as it raced
to the sea.
A lump came in Hiram's throat that he could not down. At his feet lay
those who had lived and starved for him through the countless denials
of this wilderness. Below him lay the cabin which he had known as home
for twenty-six long years. About him stretched the grandeur of this
untarnished land. Scalding tears burst from his eyes. Some monstrous
ogre had arisen to crush him. They were driving him from his home,
from the land of his birth, from the spots he loved! No bitterer
period ever came in Hiram's life than when he stood that misty morning
and watched the sun rise on the turning point of his career. Blindly
he stumbled down Wild-cat Hill and took up the long road to Bixler's
store. They were driving him, like Hagar, from all that he held dear,
and there was hatred in his heart.