Silas Strong 10

Silas Strong 10

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, raising one of her hands and letting it

fall again; "she looks like Sister Thankful--don't she, don't she,

Silas?"

 

Sinth wiped her eyes with her apron. The heart of Silas Strong had also

been deeply touched.

 

"R-reg'lar angel!" he exclaimed, thoughtfully. After a moment of silence

he added, "K-kind o' like leetle f-fawns."

 

They turned away, proceeding to the cook-tent. Sinth looked as if she

were making up her mind; Silas as if his were already made up. Sinth

began to rattle the pots and pans.

 

"Sh-h!" Silas hissed, as he fixed the fire.

 

"What's the matter?" she demanded.

 

"W-wake 'em up."

 

"Hope I will," she retorted, loudly.

 

Strong strode off in the trail to Catamount Pond, where he was to get

Master.

 

Zeb, the bear-dog, had been digging at a foxhole over in Birch Hollow.

Growing weary and athirst, by-and-by he relinquished his enterprise,

crossed to the trail, and, discovering the scent of strangers, hurried

home. Soon he found those curious little folks down in the potato-hole.

He had never seen a child before. He smelled them over cautiously. His

opinion was extremely favorable. His tail began to wag, and, unable to

restrain his enthusiasm, he expressed himself in a loud bark.

 

The children awoke, and Zeb retreated. Socky and Sue rose, the latter

crying, while that little, yellow snip of a bear-dog, with cross-eye and

curving tail, surveyed them anxiously. He backed away as if to coax them

out of the hole. When they had come near he seemed to be wiping one foot

after another upon the ground vigorously. As he did so he growled in a

manner calculated to inspire respect. Then he ran around them in a wide

circle at high speed, growling a playful challenge. Socky, who had some

understanding of dogs, dashed upon Zeb, and soon they were all at play

together.

 

 

 

 

IX.

 

ON Catamount Pond young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an

expert fisherman, but the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than

fish to him: of it was a barren ridge, from the top of which a broken

column of dead pine, like a shaft of wrought marble, towered straight

and high above the woods. The curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads,

starred here and there with white tufts. Around thickets of birch, on

a point of land, a little cove was the end of all the deer-trails that

came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the gateway of the pond for all who

journeyed thither to eat and drink. There were white columns on either

side, and opposite the cove's end was a thicket of tamarack, clear of

brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came to the water's edge. When one

had rounded the point in his canoe, he could see into those cool, dark

alleys of the deer, leading off through slender tamaracks. A little

beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain, five hundred' feet

above the water.

 

The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his

pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the

dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft,

leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered

straight across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like

the cleaving of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below

him and flung a cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw

his warning loop around the head of the intruder and boomed out of

hearing. Those threads of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth,

and to connect his soul with the great silence into which they ran.

 

Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between

college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He

would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of

"the new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to

try to make his way in politics.

 

He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had

saved the day for his _alma mater_ more than once on the track and the

gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard

work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of

health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a

man with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition

and not by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of

good-nature that made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some

twenty miles away, his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his

father were fond of their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They

loved better the grand life and the great highways of travel.

 

Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle

which lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his

life work but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he

would love, had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat,

and his dark hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the

pond. In a moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove.

Two fawns were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with

the dignity of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them.

The fawns gambolled in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then

dashing their muzzles in the cool water. Their red coats were starred

white as if with snow-flakes. The deer stood a moment looking at Master,

stamped her feet, and retired into one of the dark alleys. In a moment

her fawns followed.

 

Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In

the shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty

feet from his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit

jacket and gray skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of

light hair that fell curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a

berry, her features of a noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and

large, made their potent appeal to the heart of Master. They were like

those of his dreams--he could never forget them. So far it's the old

story of love at sight--but listen. For half a moment they looked into

each other's eyes. Then the girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and

disappeared among the columns of white birch.

 

Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until

he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for

the landing.

 

"L-lucky?" Strong asked.

 

"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."

 

"Where?"

 

"Sitting on the shore of Birch Cove. Any camp near?"

 

The Emperor shook his head thoughtfully as he lighted his pipe. The two

made their way up the trail.

 

"W-wonder if it's her?" Strong whispered to himself as he walked along.

 

After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a

bonfire--a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp. Soon

he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and Sue

on his back.

 

"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a

seat by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children

laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"

 

"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting,

wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" she

exclaimed.

 

The "Emperor of the Woods" sat on a log, breathing heavily, with Sue and

Socky upon his knees.

 

"B-bears plenty, Mis' Strong," was the gentle reply of Silas.

 

"Mis' Strong!" said she, as if insulted. "What ye Mis' Strongin' me

for?"

 

When others were present she was wont to fling back upon him this

burning query. Now it seemed to stimulate him to a rather unusual

effort.

 

"S-some folks b-better when ye miss 'em," he suggested, with a smile of

good-nature.

 

Miss Strong gathered up her knitting and promptly retired, from the

scene. Sue and Socky lay back on the lap of their Uncle Silas looking

into the fire. They now saw in him great possibilities. Socky, in

particular, had begun to regard him as likely to be useful if not highly

magnificent.

 

Sue lay back and began to make a drowsy display of her learning:

 

"Intry, mintry, cutry com,

 

Apple-seed an' apple-thorn,

 

Wire, brier, limber lock,

 

Twelve geese all in a white flock;

 

Some fly east an' some fly west

 

An' some fly over the cuckoo's nest."

 

Miss Strong returned shortly and found the children asleep on the knees

of their uncle. In a moment Silas turned his ear and listened.

 

"Hark!" he whispered.

 

They could hear some one approaching on the dark trail. A man oddly

picturesque, with a rifle on his shoulder, strode into the firelight.

He wore knee-breeches and a coat of buckskin. He had a rugged face, a

sturdy figure, and was, one would have guessed, some sixty years of age.

 

A fringe of thin, white hair showed below his cap. He had a white

mustache, through which a forgotten cigar protruded. His black eyes

glowed in the firelight beneath silvered brows. He nodded as they

greeted him. His ruddy face wrinkled thoughtfully as he turned to

Gordon.