After a day or two of snow that turned to rain, and was followed by
warmer weather, there came one of the respites which keep up New
England hearts in December. The short, dark days seemed shorter and
darker than usual that year, but one morning the sky had a look of
Indian summer, the wind was in the south, and the cocks and hens of
the Packer farm came boldly out into the sunshine, to crow and cackle
before the barn. It was Friday morning, and the next day was the day
before Christmas.
John Packer was always good-tempered when the wind was in the south.
The milder air, which relaxed too much the dispositions of less
energetic men, and made them depressed and worthless, only softened
and tempered him into reasonableness. As he and his wife and daughter
sat at breakfast, after he had returned from feeding the cattle and
horses, he wore a pleasant look, and finally leaned back and said the
warm weather made him feel boyish, and he believed that he would take
the boat and go out fishing.
"I can haul her out and fix her up for winter when I git ashore," he
explained. "I've been distressed to think it wa'n't done before. I
expect she's got some little ice in her now, there where she lays just
under the edge of Joe Banks's fish-house. I spoke to Joe, but he said
she'd do till I could git down. No; I'll turn her over, and make her
snug for winter, and git a small boat o' Joe. I ain't goin' out a
great ways: just so's I can git a cod or two. I always begin to think
of a piece o' new fish quick 's these mild days come; feels like the
Janooary thaw."
"'T would be a good day for you to ride over to Bolton, too," said
Mrs. Packer. "But I'd like to go with you when you go there, an' I've
got business here to-day. I've put the kettle on some time ago to do a
little colorin'. We can go to Bolton some day next week."
"I've got to be here next week," said Packer ostentatiously; but at
this moment his heart for the first time completely failed him about
the agreement with Ferris. The south wind had blown round the vane of
his determination. He forgot his wife and daughter, laid down his
knife and fork, and quite unknown to himself began to hang his head.
The great trees were not so far from the house that he had not noticed
the sound of the southerly breeze in their branches as he came across
the yard. He knew it as well as he knew the rote of the beaches and
ledges on that stretch of shore. He was meaning, at any rate, to think
it over while he was out fishing, where nobody could bother him. He
wasn't going to be hindered by a pack of folks from doing what he
liked with his own; but neither was old Ferris going to say what he
had better do with his own trees.
"You put me up a bite o' somethin' hearty, mother," he made haste to
say. "I sha'n't git in till along in the afternoon."
"Ain't you feelin' all right, father?" asked Lizzie, looking at him
curiously.
"I be," said John Packer, growing stern again for the moment. "I feel
like a day out fishin'. I hope Joe won't git the start o' me. You seen
his small boat go out?" He looked up at his daughter, and smiled in a
friendly way, and went on with his breakfast. It was evidently one of
his pleasant days; he never had made such a frank acknowledgment of
the lovers' rights, but he had always liked Joe Banks. Lizzie's cheeks
glowed; she gave her mother a happy glance of satisfaction, and looked
as bright as a rose. The hard-worked little woman smiled back in
sympathy. There was a piece of her best loaf cake in the round wooden
luncheon-box that day, and everything else that she thought her man
would like and that his box would hold, but it seemed meagre to her
generous heart even then. The two women affectionately watched him
away down the field-path that led to the cove where the fish-houses
were.
All the Wilton farmers near the sea took a turn now and then at
fishing. They owned boats together sometimes, but John Packer had
always kept a good boat of his own. To-day he had no real desire to
find a companion or to call for help to launch his craft, but finding
that Joe Banks was busy in his fish-house, he went in to borrow the
light dory and a pair of oars. Joe seemed singularly unfriendly in his
manner, a little cold and strange, and went on with his work without
looking up. Mr. Packer made a great effort to be pleasant; the south
wind gave him even a sense of guilt.
"Don't you want to come, Joe?" he said, according to 'longshore
etiquette; but Joe shook his head, and showed no interest whatever. It
seemed then as if it would be such a good chance to talk over the tree
business with Joe, and to make him understand there had been some
reason in it; but John Packer could mind his own business as well as
any man, and so he picked his way over the slippery stones, pushed off
the dory, stepped in, and was presently well outside on his way to
Fish Rock. He had forgotten to look for any bait until Joe had pushed
a measure of clams along the bench; he remembered it now as he baited
his cod-lines, sitting in the swaying and lifting boat, a mile or two
out from shore. He had but poor luck; the cold had driven the fish
into deeper water, and presently he took the oars to go farther out,
and looking at the land for the first time with a consciousness of
seeing it, he sighted his range, and turned the boat's head. He was
still so near land that beyond the marshes, which looked narrow from
the sea, he could see his own farm and his neighbors' farms on the
hill that sloped gently down; the northern point of higher land that
sheltered the cove and the fish-houses also kept the fury of the sea
winds from these farms, which faced the east and south. The main road
came along the high ridge at their upper edge, and a lane turned off
down to the cove; you could see this road for three or four miles when
you were as far out at sea. The whole piece of country most familiar
to John Packer lay there spread out before him in the morning
sunshine. The house and barn and corn-house looked like children's
playthings; he made a vow that he would get out the lumber that winter
for a wood-shed; he needed another building, and his wood-pile ought
to be under cover. His wife had always begged him to build a shed; it
was hard for a woman to manage with wet wood in stormy weather; often
he was away, and they never kept a boy or man to help with farm-work
except in summer. "Joe Banks was terribly surly about something," said
Mr. Packer to himself. But Joe wanted Lizzie. When they were married
he meant to put an addition to the farther side of the house, and to
give Joe a chance to come right there. Lizzie's mother was liable to
be ailing, and needed her at hand. That eighty dollars would come in
handy these hard times.
John Packer liked to be cross and autocratic, and to oppose people;
but there was hidden somewhere in his heart a warm spot of
affectionateness and desire for approval. When he had quarreled for a
certain time, he turned square about on this instinct as on a pivot.
The self-love that made him wish to rule ended in making him wish to
please; he could not very well bear being disliked. The bully is
always a coward, but there was a good sound spot of right-mindedness,
after all, in John Packer's gnarly disposition.
As the thought of the price of his trees flitted through John Packer's
mind, it made him ashamed instead of pleasing him. He rowed harder for
some distance, and then stopped to loosen the comforter about his
neck. He looked back at the two pines where they stood black and
solemn on the distant ridge against the sky. From this point of view
they seemed to have taken a step nearer each other, as if each held
the other fast with its branches in a desperate alliance. The bare,
strong stem of one, the drooping boughs of the other, were
indistinguishable, but the trees had a look as if they were in
trouble. Something made John Packer feel sick and dizzy, and blurred
his eyes so that he could not see them plain; the wind had weakened
his eyes, and he rubbed them with his rough sleeve. A horror crept
over him before he understood the reason, but in another moment his
brain knew what his eyes had read. Along the ridge road came something
that trailed long and black like a funeral, and he sprang to his feet
in the dory, and lost his footing, then caught at the gunwale, and sat
down again in despair. It was like the panic of a madman, and he
cursed and swore at old Ferris for his sins, with nothing to hear him
but the busy waves that glistened between him and the shore. Ferris
had stolen his chance; he was coming along with his rigging as fast as
he could, with his quick French wood-choppers, and their sharp saws
and stubborn wedges to cant the trunks; already he was not far from
the farm. Old Ferris was going to set up his yellow sawdust-mill
there--that was the plan; the great trunks were too heavy to handle or
haul any distance with any trucks or sleds that were used nowadays. It
would be all over before anybody could get ashore to stop them; he
would risk old Ferris for that.
Packer began to row with all his might; he had left the sail ashore.
The oars grew hot at the wooden thole-pins, and he pulled and pulled.
There would be three quarters of a mile to run up-hill to the house,
and another bit to the trees themselves, after he got in. By that time
the two-man saw, and the wedges, and the Frenchmen's shining axes,
might have spoiled the landmark pines.
"Lizzie's there--she'll hold 'em back till I come," he gasped, as he
passed Fish Rock. "Oh, Lord! what a fool! I ain't goin' to have them
trees murdered;" and he set his teeth hard, and rowed with all his
might.
Joe Banks looked out of the little four-paned fish-house window, and
saw the dory coming, and hurried to the door. "What's he puttin' in so
for?" said he to himself, and looked up the coast to see if anything
had happened; the house might be on fire. But all the quiet farms
looked untroubled. "He's pullin' at them oars as if the devil was
after him," said Joe to himself. "He couldn't ha' heard o' that
petition they're gettin' up from none of the fish he's hauled in; 't
will 'bout set him crazy, but I was bound I'd sign it with the rest.
The old dory's jumpin' right out of water every stroke he pulls."