Silas Strong 31

Silas Strong 31

The children climbed upon his knees, and he began a curious chant with

closed eyes and trembling voice. The firelight fell upon his face while

he chanted as follows:

 

"I hear the voices of little children ringing like silver

 

bells,

 

And the great bells answer them--they that hang

 

in the high towers--

 

The dusky, mouldering towers of the old time, of

 

hope and love and friendship.

 

They call me in the silence and have put a new

 

song in my mouth."

 

So he went on singing this rough, unmeasured song of the old time as if

his heart were full and could not hold its peace. He sang of childhood

and youth and of joys half forgotten.

 

Sinth stood waiting, with the food in her hands, before he finished.

 

He let the children go and began eating.

 

"This is good," said he, "and I feel like blessing every one of you.

Sometimes I think God looks out of the eyes of the hungry."

 

After a moment he added: "Strong, do you remember that song I wrote for

you? It gives the signs of the seasons. I believe we called it 'The Song

of the Venison-Tree.'"

 

The Emperor looked thoughtfully at the fire and in a moment began to

sing. It is a curious fact that many who stammer can follow the rut of

familiar music without betraying their infirmity. His tongue moved at an

easy pace in the song of

 

THE VENISON-TREE

 

[Illustration: 0261]

 

[Illustration: 0262]

 

[Illustration: 0263]

 

[Illustration: 0264]

 

[Illustration: 0265]

 

 

As the Emperor ceased, Dunmore turned quickly, his black eyes glowing in

the firelight. Raising his right hand above his head, he chanted these

lines:

 

"The wilderness shall pass away like Babylon of old,

 

And every tree shall go to build a thing of greater mould;

 

The chopper he shall fall to earth as fell the mighty tree,

 

And his timber shall be used to build a nobler man than he."

 

 

"Wh-what do ye mean by his t-timber?" Strong asked.

 

"His character," Dunmore answered. "Men are like trees. Some are

hickory, some are oak, some are cedar, some are only basswood. Some are

strong, beautiful, generous; some are small and sickly for want of air

and sunlight; some are as selfish and quarrelsome as a thorn-tree. Every

year we must draw energy out of the great breast of nature and put on

a fresh ring of wood. We must grow or die. You know what comes to the

rotten-hearted?"

 

"Uh-huh," said the hunter.

 

"There's good timber enough in you and in that little book of yours,"

Dunmore went on. "If it's only milled with judgment--some of it would

stand planing and polishing--there's enough, my friend, to make a

mansion. Believe me, it will not be lost."

 

Strong looked very thoughtful. He shook his head. "Ain't nothin' b-but

a woodpecker's drum," he answered. After a moment of silence he asked,

"What'll become o' the country?"

 

"Without forests it will go the way of Egypt and Asia Minor," said the

white-haired man. "They were thickly wooded in the day of their power.

Now what are they? Desert wastes!" Dunmore rose and filled his lungs,

and added: "As you said to me one day, 'People are no better than the

air they breathe.' There's going to be nothing but cities, and slowly

they will devour our substance. Indigestion, weakness, impotency,

degeneration will follow.

 

"Strong, I'm already on the downward path. Half a day's walk has undone

me. I'll get to bed and go home in the morning."

 

 

 

 

XXVII

 

DUNMORE was up at daybreak. He set out in the dusk and, as the sun

rose, entered the hollow of Catamount. Master met him on the trail.

 

They greeted each other. Then said the young man, "I have something to

say regarding one very dear to me and to you."

 

Promptly and almost aggressively the query came, "Regarding whom?"

 

"Your daughter."

 

Dunmore took a staggering step and stopped and looked sternly at Master.

 

"I met her by chance--" the other began to say. Dunmore interrupted him.

 

"I will not speak with you of my daughter," he said. He turned away,

frowning, and resumed his journey.

 

"You are unjust to her and to me," said Master. "You have no right to

imprison the girl."

 

The white-haired man hurried on his way and made no answer.

 

Master had seen a strange look come into the eyes of Dunmore. That

trouble, of which he had once heard, might have gone deeper than any one

knew. It might have left him a little out of balance.

 

Full of alarm, the young lover hastened to Lost River camp. He found

his friend at the spring and told of his ill luck. Without a word Strong

killed the big trout which he had taken that day he fished with the

pouters.

 

"D-didn't tell him 'bout that t-trout," he said to Master as he wrapped

the fish in ferns and flung him into his pack. "Th-thought I b-better

wait an' s-see."

 

He asked the young man to "keep cool," and made off in the trail to

Buckhorn.

 

Always when starting on a journey he reckoned his task and set his pace

accordingly and kept it up hill and down. He was wont to take an easy,

swinging stride even though he was loaded heavily. Woodsmen who followed

him used to say that he could bear "weight an' misery like a bob-sled."

That day he lengthened his usual stride a little and calculated to

"fetch up" with Dunmore about a mile from Buckhorn. The older man had

hurried, however, and was nearing the pond when Strong overtook him.

 

"What now?" Dunmore inquired.

 

"B-business," was the cheerful answer of Strong.

 

"It'll be part of it to paddle me across the pond. I'm tired," said the

other.

 

They walked in silence to the shore. Strong launched a canoe and held it

for the white-haired man. Without a word he pulled to the camp veranda

where Dunmore's mother and daughter stood waiting. The old gentleman

climbed the steps and greeted the two with great tenderness.

 

"Snares!" he muttered, as he touched the brow of his daughter. "The

devil is setting snares for my little nun."

 

Edith and her grandmother went into the house. Dunmore sat down with a

stem, troubled look.

 

"Got s-suthin' fer you," said Strong as he held up the big fish.

"C'ris'mus p-present!"

 

Dunmore turned to the hunter, and instantly a smile seemed to brush the

shadows from his wrinkled face.

 

"It's your t-trout," the Emperor added. "S-see there!"

 

He opened the jaws of the fish and showed the encysted remnant of a

black gnat.

 

"Bring him here," Dunmore entreated, with a look of delight.

 

Strong mounted the steps and put the trout in his hands.

 

"Sit down and tell me how and where you got him," said Dunmore.

 

Strong told the story of his capture, and the old gentleman was

transported to that familiar place in the midst of the quick-water. The

Emperor had not finished his account when the other interrupted him.

Dunmore told of days, forever memorable, when he had leaned over the

bank and seen his flies come hurtling up the current; of moments when

he had heard the splash of the big trout and felt his line hauling; of

repeated struggles which had ended in defeat. The white-haired man was

in his best humor. Strong saw his opportunity.

 

"I w-want a favor," said he.

 

Dunmore turned with a look of inquiry. The Emperor urged his lazy

tongue.

 

"Master w-wants t' go t' Albany an' f-fight them air cussed ballhooters.

W-wisht you'd g-go out to caucus."

 

A "ballhooter" was a man who rolled logs, and Strong used the word in a

metaphorical sense.

 

"I don't vote," said Dunmore, and in half a moment he added just what

the Emperor had hoped for:

 

"What do you know about him?"

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