Silas Strong 13
At first the children sat silent, oppressed as they were by the odor of
bear's-oil, not yet entirely removed from their hands and faces. As the
wagon proceeded they began to laugh and call the dog. Zeb peered from
under the friendly cover of the boat, and gave a yearning bark which
seemed to express regret, not wholly unmingled with accusation, that
on account of other engagements he would be unable to accept their kind
invitation. At the boat-house were soap and towel and glad deliverance
from the flavor of the bear. On their return "Mis' Strong" met them at
the door of the cook-tent. She raised both hands above her head.
"My album!" she gasped.
"T-y-ty!" the Emperor whispered.
"An' the book my mother gave me!" she exclaimed, her tone rising from
despair to anger. "They're ruined--Silas Strong!"
"N-nonsense," said her brother, calmly.
"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, tauntingly. "Silas Strong, do you know what
has been done to 'em?"
"G-greased," he answered, mildly. "D-do 'em good."
She ran into the cook-tent and returned with the sacred album. There
was an odd menace in her figure as she displayed the book. She spread it
open.
"Look at my grandfather!" she demanded.
The bear's-oil had added emphasis to a subtle, inherent suggestion of
smothered profanity in the image of her ancestor. It had, as it were,
given clearness to an __EXPRESSION__ of great physical discomfort.
"L-limber him up," said the Emperor, quite soberly.
Master and Gordon were now approaching. The former took off his hat and
bowed to the indignant Sinth and blandly remarked, "Boneka, madam."
The men had begun to laugh. Sinth changed color. She looked down. A
smile began to light her thin face. She turned away, repeated the
magic word in a low voice, and added, "I forgive." She walked hurriedly
through the cook-tent to her own quarters, and sat down and wept as if,
in truth, the oil had entered her soul. It was, in a way, pathetic--her
devotion to the tawdry plush and this poor shadow of her ancestor--and
the historian has a respect for it more profound, possibly, than his
words may indicate. She would have given her album for her friend, and
it may be questioned if any man hath greater love than this.
When she entered the dinner-tent and sat down to stir batter for the
excellent "flapjacks" of Lost River camp, the children came and kissed
her and stood looking up into her face. Socky had begun to comprehend
his relation to the trouble. Shame, guilt, and uncertainty were in his
countenance. Urgent queries touching the use and taste and constitution
of batter and its feeling on the index-finger of one's hand were
pressing upon him, but he saw that, in common decency, they must be
deferred.
"Aunt Sinthy," said the little Duke of Hillsborough.
"What?" she answered.
"I won't never grease your album again."
The woman laughed, placed the pan on the table, and put her arms around
the child. Then she answered, in a tone of good-nature, "If it had been
anything else in this world, I wouldn't have minded."
Just then Zeb slowly entered the cook-tent. He had got rid of some of
the oil, but had acquired a cough. The hair on every leg was damp
and matted. He seemed to doubt his fitness for social enjoyment. In a
tentative manner he surveyed the breakfast-party, as if to study his
effect upon the human species. The Emperor patted him and felt of his
legs.
"What's the matter o' him?" Sinth inquired.
"G-greased!" said the Emperor, with a loud laugh, in which the campers
joined, whereat the dog fled from the cook-tent.
"S-slippery mornin'!" Strong exclaimed, while he stood looking through
the doorway.
"Hard t' keep yer feet," said Sinth, who had caught the contagion of
good feeling which had begun to prevail. It was, indeed, a remark not
without some spiritual significance.
So it befell: the spirit of that old chief whose body had long been
given to the wooded hills came into Lost River camp.
Gordon hurried away after breakfast. While the children stood looking
down the trail and waving their hands and weeping, Silas Strong ran
past them two or three times with the noisy little wagon. Its consoling
clatter silenced them. There had been a deep purpose in the heart of
the Emperor while he spent half the night in his workshop. Gordon had
laughingly explained the cause of their disappointment on arriving at
Lost River camp. Strong was trying to recover their esteem.
"C-come on!" he shouted.
Soon Socky and Sue sat in the little wagon on their way to Catamount
Pond with their Uncle Silas and the young fisherman.
XI.
THE sky was clear, and the rays of the sun fell hot upon the dry woods
that morning when Master and the children and their Uncle Silas reached
the landing at Catamount. Its eastern shore lay deep under cool shadows.
The water plane was like taut canvas on which a glowing picture of
wooded shore and sky and mountain had been painted. Golden robins darted
across a cove and sang in the tree-tops.
Master righted his canoe and put the children aboard and took his place
in the stern-seat.
"I'll slip over to R-Robin," said the Emperor as he shoved the canoe
into deep water. With him to "slip" meant to go, and in his speech he
always "slipped" from one point to another.
Master pushed through the pads and slowly cut the still shadow. The
inverted towers of Painter Mountain began to quake beneath his canoe.
Sue sat in the bow and Socky behind her. The curly hair of the girl,
which had, indeed, the silken yellow of a corn-tassel, showed beneath
her little pink bonnet. Something about her suggested the rose half
open. Socky wore his rabato and necktie and best suit of clothes. They
were both in purple and fine linen, so to speak---no one had thought to
tell them better.
As they came near the point of Birch Cove, Master began to turn the bow
and check his headway. There, on a moss-covered rock, stood the maiden
whom he had seen the day before. A crow with a small scarlet ribbon
about his neck clung upon her shoulder. The girl was looking at the two
children. The bird rose on his wings and, after a moment of hesitation,
flew towards them, the ends of the scarlet ribbon fluttering in the
air. Socky drew back as the crow lighted on a gunwale near his side. Sue
clung to the painter and sat looking backward with curiosity and fear
in her face. The crow turned his head, surveying them as if he were,
indeed, quite overcome with amazement.
"Sit still," said Master, quietly. "He won't hurt you."
The bird rose in the air again, and, darting downward, seized a shiny
buckle above the visor of the boy's cap, which lay on the canoe bottom,
and bore cap and all to his young mistress. Socky began to cry with
alarm.
Master reassured him and paddled slowly towards the moss-covered rock.
Silently his bow touched the shore. He stuck his paddle in the sand. He
stepped into the shallow water and helped the children ashore. In the
edge of the tamaracks and now partly hidden by their foliage, Miss
Dunmore stood looking at the children. Her figure was tall, erect, and
oddly picturesque. Somehow she reminded Master of a deer halted in its
flight by curiosity. Her face, charming in form and __EXPRESSION__, betrayed
a childish timidity and innocence. Her large, blue eyes were full of
wonder. Pretty symbols of girlish vanity adorned her figure. There
were fresh violets on her bodice, and a delicate, lacy length of the
moss-vine woven among her curls. The girl's hair, wonderfully full and
rich in color, had streaks of gold in it. A beaded belt and holster of
Indian make held a small pistol.
"Miss Dunmore, I believe?" he ventured.
The girl retired a step or two and stood looking timidly, first at him
and then at the children. Her manner betrayed excitement. She addressed
him with hesitation. "My--my name is Edith Dunmore," she said, in a
tone just above a whisper. With trembling hands she picked a spray of
tamarack that for a moment obscured her face.
"You are the nun of the green veil. I have heard of you," said Master.
"I--I must not speak to you, sir," she said, as she retreated a little
farther.
"My name is Master--Robert Master," said he. "I shall stay only a
minute, but these children would like to know you." While speaking he
had returned to his canoe. Socky and Sue stood still, looking up at the
maiden.
"Children!" she exclaimed, in a low, sweet, tremulous, tone, as she took
a step towards them. "The wonderful little children?"
"Sometimes I think they are brownies," he answered, with a smile of
amusement. "But their uncle calls them little fawns."
Her right hand, which held the spray of tamarack, fell to her side; her
left hand clung to a branch on which the crow sat a little above her
shoulder, and her cheek lay upon her arm as she looked down wistfully,
fondly, at the children. Her blue eyes were full of curiosity.
Socky and Sue regarded the beautiful maiden with a longing akin to that
in her. In all there was a deep, mysterious desire which had grown out
of nature's need--in them for a mother, in her for the endearing touch
of those newly come into the world and for their high companionship.
Moreover, these two little ones, who had now a dim and imperfect
recollection of their mother, had shaped an ideal--partly through the
help of Gordon--to take its place. Therein they saw a lady, young and
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