GALE
Meanwhile in a little, crude French Canadian farmhouse a slight dark
haired girl bent over her sewing while a roaring fire in the brick
fireplace sent its welcome warmth out into the room.
To Antoinette Bouchard the winter was the best season of the year. She
loved to sit warm and cozy in her brother’s house and listen to the wind
sing in the chimney and watch the swirl of snow outside. This storm was
the earliest she remembered. It was not yet deep winter, barely winter
at all, but the snow was piled high against the house and this morning
when François had shoveled a path from the door it had been up to his
knees.
The rocking chair in which she had been swaying gently to and fro
creaked suddenly and she looked up in alarm at the figure across the
hearth. Her eyes took on a compassionate gleam, her lips curled in a
smile, half admiration and half pity. When the other person did not
stir, Antoinette resumed her gentle rocking, but her eyes were not now
on her sewing and her work lay idle in her lap.
This other girl was not quite as old as she, Antoinette, and she was so
pretty. The reddish brown hair lay in soft curls about the pale, still
face. Her eyes were closed, but Antoinette could well remember the hurt,
clouded expression of them when they had first looked into hers that
morning. She could clearly remember the puzzled look on the girl’s face
when she had asked her questions, questions that had remained
unanswered.
It was last night François had brought the girl to their little house.
She remembered clearly the tale he had told her of the wrecked airplane,
the tree which he had moved to pull the girl from the wreckage, of
carrying her the long, long distance through the snow to his home
because he did not know where else to take her.
This morning she and François, when the girl had awakened from a sleep
which had at first seemed to refresh her, had asked questions but she
had been unable to tell them who she was. The little English that
Antoinette knew had been exhausted in an attempt to discover the
identity of the girl and from whence she had come.
The girl had been bewildered, frightened, and they hoped a quiet rest
would restore her memory. All day it had been so. She had sat with
closed eyes most of the time, but Antoinette guessed that her mind was
struggling to remember the details of who she was and what had happened.
Antoinette sighed and returned to her sewing. This morning François,
after he had cut some wood, was to start out on a trip back to the
airplane. Perhaps there he could have discovered someone searching for
the girl. But he was destined not to go. During his log splitting, the
axe had fallen upon his foot, making a nasty wound that would leave him
crippled for many days. There was nothing now to do but keep the girl
here and try to help her restore the past that had suddenly been blotted
from her mind.
Antoinette stole a glance at the young girl. She was amazed to see tears
stealing down the soft cheeks. Immediately she dropped her sewing and
fell upon her knees beside the other girl. She clasped her close and
murmured soothing words.
Gale merely clung tightly to Antoinette while sobs shook her slender
body. All day she had been thinking, thinking, trying to remember who
and what she was. But it was no use. Her mind was a complete blank. A
fog shrouded her memory and it would not lift. Not an inkling of the
airplane crash did she remember, or her friends or parents back in
Marchton. She knew only that this girl and her big brother were
marvelously kind to her. The tenderness of Antoinette had its effect and
slowly the sobs subsided, but Gale remained clasped in the little French
girl’s arms for a long while afterward. Then Antoinette helped Gale to
her feet and led her to the little bed in the other room that had been
Antoinette’s for years. Later she went into the third and last room of
the log building to sit with her brother.
“What are we to do, François?” she asked. “The girl is worried—she is
afraid.”
François nodded in quiet agreement. “It is sad. So young, so
lovely—perhaps in time she will remember.”
“We will keep her here, François?” Antoinette pleaded.
“You wish for a little sister?” her brother asked smilingly. “But of
course she will remain here. Where else would she go when she does not
remember anything? It would be cruel to send her away.” After a while he
spoke again. “If I but had not hurt myself. I might have been able to
learn something about her. In town they may know something.”
Antoinette shook her head. “The snow has blocked the roads. You could
not get to the town. We must wait.”
“She is well otherwise?” François asked.
“Yes. It is only her mind that is affected. She is so quiet,” Antoinette
said. “I know she is worried.”
François whistled in a low tone to a little bit of fluff curled up in
the corner. The dog, a young collie, perked up his ears and trotted
obediently over to his master. There he sat while the man stroked his
fur.
“She is sweet,” Antoinette murmured dreamily.
“But we love Antoinette, eh Toto?”
The dog licked his master’s fingers in agreement while the girl laughed
with pleasure. For years the two had lived here in this house built by
François and his father. At first there had been the three of them but
now there was but the girl and her brother. François earned enough money
by his work in logging camps during certain months of the year to keep
the little farm running smoothly. Toto was the very last addition to
their mansion and he was the gayest of company for the girl when her
brother was away.
In the other little room Gale sat up in the bed and stared out the small
window at the snow. The ground was white in the moonlight, and unbroken
save for the path from the door of the cabin. She clasped her knees in
her arms and rested her chin on them. Her eyes were dark, like the
waters of a bottomless pool. She didn’t cry any more. Her tears were all
gone; instead had come a queer sort of fatality. She realized now that
no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t remove that gray blanket from
her thoughts. It was as if she had never known anything but this day, as
if there had never been any yesterdays. She knew nothing beyond the
walls of this cabin, and no one but Antoinette and her brother.
Gale lay back on her pillow and stared up at the darkness. Her heart was
heavy and she felt listless. Suppose her memory never came back? With a
little sense of comfort she remembered the French girl’s words of
earlier that evening.
“Chérie, you must not weep. A little time and everything will be well
again.”
She must believe that! The thought that somewhere there might be someone
looking for her, she not knowing where they were, unable to go to them,
made her heart beat longingly.
Her hand had been hanging over the side of the bed and now something
cold and wet was pushed into it. With a little startled cry she pulled
away until in the moonlight she saw the form of woolly Toto. In his
exploring the household for a warm friendly place to spend the night, he
had come into her room. She patted the bed beside her and with
difficulty, for his legs were rather short and clumsy yet, he jumped up
into her arms and snuggled close.
In the morning Antoinette found them, the dog still curled in the crook
of Gale’s arm, both sound asleep. She smiled to herself and gently
lifted the dog to the floor. He let out a protesting grunt at being
roused from his delicious slumbers and Gale opened her eyes.
“Bad Toto!” Antoinette scolded. “Waking Chérie. You are wicked!”
Toto merely blinked in the sunlight and dabbed carelessly at his paw
with his red tongue before hopping up to resume his place in Gale’s
arms.
Antoinette laughed. “He has already fallen in love with you,” she said
in uncertain English.
Gale laid her cheek on the dog’s soft head. She could feel the fast
beating of his little heart. She rubbed his ear and he cocked his head
in appreciation.
“I like him,” she said.
Antoinette smiled. The stranger looked much better this morning. A
little color was coming back to the white cheeks and Toto had already
succeeded in rousing a smile. Antoinette brought Gale’s breakfast in to
her, after which, while Antoinette was out of the room, Gale got up and
dressed herself, glad to know she was physically capable of anything.
Toto looked on with silent, doggy admiration. Upon slipping her blouse
over her head, Gale’s fingers came in contact with a light golden chain
upon which hung a small round locket. She turned it over in her fingers
and in the bright morning light could barely make out the word engraved
on its surface.
“What is it?” Antoinette had entered unperceived by Gale. Over her
shoulder Antoinette looked at the locket. “Ah! Your name—Gale!”
So it was that Antoinette and her brother learned the name of the
stranger. Of course they did not know her last name and save for giving
them a name for her the discovery did not help much. Evidently the name
meant nothing to the girl herself. It stirred absolutely no familiar
memories.
Days passed, days spent entirely in the little cabin or with Antoinette
in the snow outside. They never went far from the house, so it was not
strange that word from the outside world did not reach Antoinette or her
brother. They could not know, having no radio, receiving no newspaper or
visitors, that the girl in their home was the object of a nationwide
search. Gale endeared herself to the two in the cabin and worked readily
into the scheme of their everyday life. She shared the daily chores with
Antoinette and that girl, on her part, was teaching Gale to speak her
own familiar language.
At night was the most difficult time for Gale. During the day she would
be busy with Antoinette or playing with Toto. But at night, when she had
gone to her room and the others were asleep, she often lay awake
thinking, trying to find a thread that would unravel the mystery of her
past life. Tonight was one of the nights when she could not sleep.
Silently she got up and put on her coat. She tiptoed to the door and
stepped out into the cold, Canadian night. For a while she stood in the
moonlight, then slowly she walked to the group of trees off to the
right. The scent of pine was in the air and the wind stirred the
branches faintly. She breathed deeply of the cool air and felt the blood
tingling to her very fingertips. The silence and friendliness of the
night stirred a faint memory of another such night. Somewhere, sometime
she had stood exactly so, in the quiet darkness of night. But where or
when she did not know.
She felt keenly alive, standing there in the snow and silence. She knew
she was in much better health than that morning when she had first
awakened in the little cabin, but it was not alone that. She had learned
things during her stay with Antoinette and her brother in their humble
home. Subconsciously her mind had stored the value of the simple life
they led, of the freshness and cleanness of the life here. Once more
standing there she tried to bring the dark past into the light. But it
was no use, it only baffled her and gave her that depressed, hopeless
feeling. Slowly she turned and made her way from the clump of trees back
to the little cabin.
Half way across the clearing a humming noise broke the stillness of the
night. She raised her eyes to the stars. An airplane was winging its way
across the path of the moon. Gale gave the flying thing no name. She
merely stood and watched until it had faded into the west.
For a moment she almost grasped the remembrance of her flight with
Brent. Then the memory was gone and she could not recall it. The clouds
had seemed ready to break when she looked at the airplane but now her
mind was darker than before.
She returned slowly to the cabin and to bed but she could not sleep. All
night long she thought of the sense of familiarity she had experienced
as she watched the airplane. It must be a key to her past, part of the
puzzle of her memory, if only she could fit it into the right place!
Along toward dawn she fell into a light sleep but she was up at the
first sound from Antoinette and all day she tried to connect an airplane
with her thoughts. If only she could remember!
She helped Antoinette with the little housework there was to do, sewed
two buttons on her jacket and romped with Toto before luncheon.
After the midday meal Antoinette proposed that she and Gale walk in to
the little town where they could replenish the supply of flour and
canned goods that was dwindling rapidly. François was at first reluctant
to let his sister make the trip, but she finally coaxed forth his
permission.
In her coat, the same woolly one that had kept her warm in Brent’s
airplane, and one of Antoinette’s close-fitting caps over her curls,
Gale started out walking briskly between Antoinette and the leaping,
frolicking Toto. The two girls talked gayly, Antoinette learning more
and more about this girl who had come so strangely into their life.
It was a good hour’s walk to the little French village where Antoinette
and her brother purchased their supplies. There while Antoinette greeted
friend after friend and entered little stores to procure their
provisions, Gale, with Toto at her heels, went through the little
crooked, cobbled stone streets, both of them keenly delighted with the
sights. Toto delighted because there were so many little nooks and
crannies for him to explore and Gale because every street warranted her
a pleasant surprise.