CHAPTER XVII

The Loggin’-Bee

Logging-bees were not uncommon events among the Bushwhackers. But usually logging-bees were held after the winter snows had fallen, when with oxen and sleds the men moved the great logs to where they were wanted.

But, as Mrs. Declute explained it, this was “a sorter unusual loggin’;” it was “more of a raisin’ than a loggin’,”—all of which was quite true. Mrs. Declute had set her mind upon having a new cow-stable erected, one that would be tight and warm, “with no chinks to let in death to the poor dumb critters.” Ander, at first adverse to the idea, had reluctantly given in to having a bee, and bee it was to be.

Thursday morning dawned clear and bright, and with it came all the Bushwhackers, big and little, in Bushwhackers’ Place.

Buck and Bright, the champion ox-team, bedecked with a new yoke of white elm in honor of the occasion, were driven forth to the contest by their proud master, who cracked his whip in time to the rattle of the long chains, and commanded, “gee there, Buck; haw, Bright,” in a voice that Mrs. Ross declared could be heard “quite plain on the Point.” Peeler with his span of oxen was already on the ground, and by the time he and Big McTavish had got through chaffing each other on the respective deficiencies of each other’s team, three more span with their owners had arrived on the scene.

An hour later all throughout the nearby wood could be heard the “k-whack” of axes, and every now and again a great tree would fall with a swish and a crash that seemed to jar the earth.

While the young men chopped down and trimmed the trees, the older ones laid out the foundation of the new building. So thoroughly was this done that Declute avowed in the hearing of his good wife, who naturally was close at hand to admonish and advise the architects, that he wouldn’t be surprised but that he’d desert the house and live in the new cow-stable himself. Whereupon that good woman flashed a look of scorn upon him and jeeringly remarked: “A cow-stable is too good for a man what allars smells o’ rat-musk an’ can’t take a skunk outin a trap without scentin’ up th’ whole neighborhood.” The little man hid his discomfiture by suggesting that the men who claimed their oxen could haul two tons of green timber “at a wallop” come along and prove it. Laughing, the men sought their patient cattle and proceeded with a chorus of “gees” and “haws” to haul the trimmed tree-trunks up to the clearing.

It was a great trial of strength and patience and endurance on the part of both team and driver, the hauling of those heavy logs across rough ground to the wide square marked off in the clearing. The young men left off trimming trees to watch the oxen pull. There was much excitement while the rival teams pitted their muscle against one another. The spans were very evenly matched, and it is likely the friendly contest would have ended in a draw had not a circumstance arisen to put McTavish’s Buck and Bright away to the fore.

A great basswood log had nosed itself deep into a bank of moss, where, held securely by root-tendrils, it refused to budge to the repeated tugs of Peeler’s red oxen. Two other teams tried to break it out without success, and then Big McTavish, smiling broadly, declared that he would show them what a real span of oxen could do when they wanted to. Sure enough, Buck and Bright after tremendous exertion did break the log out, and lowering their broad, burly heads, and snorting and puffing, haul the timber up to the clearing. Peeler declared that McTavish had been “feedin’ up for this tug-o’-war for a month,” and Big Mac contended that he had “been starvin’ the poor oxen for weeks just so’s they wouldn’t beat the other spans too bad.”

Oh, they were a happy crowd, these young boys and old boys; happy in the hauling up, the mortising of the timber, and the laying “true” of the first logs for the building. They one and all forgot, for the time being, that new apprehension which had crept among them and stayed, and worked them up to disquietude. The bush-world was theirs still, and it was a very beautiful world with its autumn scents and sounds and colors.

High above, through the tree-tops, was the yellow-gold of the sky; on the tree-tops the old-gold of late fall; on the forest aisles an amber-gold commingled with the green moss that glowed through the yellow leaf-carpet.

By noon the mortised logs had been gathered into a great pile, ready to be thrown up into a roomy building, and the men went in to dinner. Dinner was usually a hurried meal, supper being the main “feedin’ event,” as Paisley termed it.

There were twenty-three men at the logging: Jim Peeler and his two sons, almost men grown; Big McTavish with his “body guard,” as the six Indians present from Point Aux Pins were called; Alex Lapier, a French trapper from Indian Creek, and his two swarthy sons; Injun Noah; four men from Bridgetown; Boy McTavish; and the Broadcrook family. The Broadcrooks were not popular. In fact, they were not liked any too well by their honest bush-neighbors. They bore evil reputations, and they were a sullen, ill-conditioned lot. But on account of their size, and from the fact that peace amounted to something, they were always invited to an affair of this kind. Broadcrook, senior, was a tall, lean, white-haired old man, with hawk-like eyes and hatchet face. He was surly and quarrelsome, and he never attempted to do anything much save scoff at the efforts of others. Three of his strapping sons were present with him, and the old man leeringly assured Declute that Amos, the fourth and worst of the gang, would be “along in time fer supper.”

“It’s to be hoped he won’t strain hisself none gittin’ here,” returned that gentleman; “howsomever, he’ll be welcome.”

The captains having chosen their men, the word was given, and the boys attacked the pile of logs with cant-hooks and hand-spikes. “He-o-heave!” roared the captains, and in an incredibly short space of time the cow-stable began to grow and take on the shape of a building. By three o’clock in the afternoon the four sides of the building were nearly laid, and now began the finish for first laurels. The side that was first able to lay its upper plates and rafters would win the day. Men ran nimbly along the slippery logs shouting orders and handing long, slender pipe-poles below.

“Now, lads, up with her, all together.—He-o-heave!” rang the cry, and the boys responded with a will. It was a close race, and excitement ran high.

All the ladies of Bushwhackers’ Place had gathered outside to witness the finish. Mrs. Declute had her hands full admonishing the little Declutes to keep from under the great plates that were being raised. Mrs. Ross and several other women kept clapping their hands and cheering the workers on.

Gloss McTavish and Mary Ann Ross stood some distance apart from the older women, and more than one of those sweating, striving workers threw a glance in the direction of the two girls.

“Our side is goin’ to win, after all,” laughed Gloss, clapping her hands. “Oh, look, Mary Ann, do look at Boy running along that slippery plate. It makes me shudder.”

“And look at Bill Paisley liftin’ that heavy log,” returned her friend. “My, but he _must_ be strong, Gloss!”

“You young ladies are taking a personal interest in the raising, I see.”

Simpson, the teacher, had come up in time to hear the remarks of the girls, and his face, in spite of the smile it wore, showed anything but pleasure.

“I let my pupils go at three o’clock,” explained the man. “I wanted to see what a Bushwhackers’ bee was like.”

“Better look more and talk less, then,” counseled Mary Ann, turning her back on him. She moved slowly away, and Simpson spoke in low tones to Gloss.

“Did you think I would come?”

His voice was not quite steady and he swayed slightly as he spoke. A look of abhorrence swept across the girl’s face and her big gray eyes were ominous as she answered:

“I wasn’t givin’ any thought to you at all, Mr. Simpson.”

“But you will,” he almost threatened; “you must, Gloss. Do you suppose I would come here among these—these people, if it weren’t just to catch a glimpse of you?”

“Please go away,” she pleaded.

“No, I’m going to stay by you.”

“Then _I_ will go.”

She turned toward the house and he turned and walked beside her.

“You can’t help my seeing you, you can’t help my loving you, you can’t help my winning you,” he whispered fiercely.

She paused and faced him.

“You will make me hate you,” she said quietly; “please go away.”

They were in the shadow of the milk-house and the building hid them from the others.

“I ask you to marry me, will you?”

“No.”

He caught his breath.

“I come of good family. I will take you to a big city. I will give you a fine home,” he urged.

The girl recoiled from him. He reached out for her, but she sprang aside, and bracing her feet, she struck out with all her young strength. She was no weak lady, reared in an artificial atmosphere. She was a woman of the Wild, strong and supple and courageous. It never occurred to her to call out. She obeyed the law she knew: she struck out.

Simpson caught the full force of her blow on his face and, already unsteady from the effects of drink, he staggered back and would have fallen had not the building supported him. He struggled up, sobered materially by surprise and pain.

She stood before him tall and straight, her eyes blazing, her face set like marble, her fine nostrils dilated.

From across the clearing came the cheering voices of the winners of the day.

Once in the low-lying bushlands Simpson had seen a doe brought to bay by a timber-wolf. He remembered the picture now.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“What else could I do?” she answered.

She pulled down a branch of a maple and leaned her head against it. The rough bark caressed her hot cheek and the sweet sappy aroma entered her soul and soothed it.

“Why did you not call out or scream like other girls would have done?”

She lifted her head and looked at him with compassion almost.

His eyes fell.

“I understand,” he murmured.

From the newly raised structure came renewed cheering.

“If they knew—if Boy knew——” she commenced, then checked herself.

He started, and the perspiration broke out on his forehead.

“That would mean hanging for him,” he laughed uneasily.

“That’s why I didn’t call out like other girls would have done,” she returned quietly.

His hands clenched and the blood mounted to his cheeks.

“Then I count for nothing,” he said bitterly.

“I can’t understand why you will take risks,” she said, ignoring his last utterance. “The folks of the woods have learned a lot from the wild things here. Nothin’ in all this wide woods ever goes where it’s dangerous to go, if they know it. You had better go back to the clearin’, teacher. I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t seem to want anythin’ hurt. You had better go back to the clearin’.”

“Boy McTavish advised me to do that in those very words,” he sneered. “But listen, I’m neither a fool nor a coward. I have made up my mind to have you, Gloss, and have you I will—remember that.”

He turned away into the timber.

Gloss entered the house and lit the candles. Twilight had swept down, a twilight fresh with wood-scented dews and fragrant with smoke of the clearing-fires. On the floor beside the fireplace sprawled the form of Daft Davie. He was fast asleep, and Pepper, the ’coon, lay coiled up close beside him. One of the lad’s arms encircled the pet and the little animal’s pointed nose was hidden among the long golden curls. Gloss bent and stroked those curls softly and something warm and wet splashed down and awoke the Nature child.

He scrambled up, his great eyes blinking at the light; then, bending, the boy raised Pepper and placed him in Gloss’s arms.

She sat down on a stool before the fire and gathered the little bush-children close to her. The raccoon sniffed her red cheeks and nosed her soft throat caressingly, and Davie, clinging to her hands, poured forth the story of his day’s adventures. The girl listened, now and then smiling, understanding, as she did so well, those little pictures that the daft child was painting for her. She saw the gray tangle of marsh with the great dead elm lying across it; saw the ragged home of the mink and the tall elm where his enemy, the bald-headed eagle, sat poised and watchful.

When, at last, happy voices were heard coming down the path, she arose with all the old-time gladness astir in her heart. No new and strange shadow could linger for long where the joy-songs of many glad days could be brought to life by memory. And hugging the tiny daft boy close to her she whispered:

“What could I do without you, Davie?”

“Well, I do declare,” cried Mrs. Declute, as she came panting in, “if here she ain’t, right here, and that blessed boy Davie with her, too. Give my life if it don’t beat all, Mrs. Ross.”

“Bless her,” exclaimed the widow, “and to think that we’ve been wonderin’ where she had slipped off to. I’ll just swing the kettle on, Mrs. Declute, so’s we needn’t keep them hungry men waitin’. My, but I do expect they’ll enjoy that custard.”

“Leave us alone for that,” laughed Peeler, who had entered and was drying his face on the long towel hanging behind the door.

Declute came forward, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in red flannel shirt and buckskins.

“Here’s Amos Broadcrook,” grinned the master of the house, “an’ he declares he’s fearful hungry.”

“You’re right welcome, Amos,” cried Mrs. Declute, pushing her progeny into a neat pile in one corner of the room, “but I’m sorry to see you’ve been drinkin’ again.”

“Goin’ to quit now,” pledged Broadcrook, seating himself on a stool.

His head was small and bullet-shaped, his neck thick, and his hair a light-red. His heavy face was coarse and made further unbeautiful from the fact that he had but one eye, having had the other knocked out by an arrow in early youth while playing buffalo-hunt with his brothers. Having spoken, he relapsed into sullen silence, and glowered about him occasionally, venturing no remark and making no move until supper was announced. Then he sprang up and was one of the first to seat himself at the long table in the inner room.

Watching him, Mrs. Ross sighed and shook her head so forcefully that the tea she was pouring from the great tin pot missed the cup and splashed down on the upturned nose of Goliath, thereby changing that agreeable canine into a yelping bunch of legs and fur that speedily made its way out through the open door.

“Poor thing,” sympathized Mrs. Ross.

“Pshaw, he ain’t hurt any. It serves him right. He’s allars snoopin’ ’round where he ain’t wanted, anyway,” cried Mrs. Declute, placing a dripping roast of venison on a big platter.

“I ain’t talkin’ about the dog. I mean Amos Broadcrook,” said the widow. “Ain’t it too bad he drinks so hard and is so shiftless?”

“I’ll tell you somethin’ that is no secret,” whispered the hostess. “Thar ain’t no Broadcrook alive that’s wuth anythin’, an’ if thar’s any of ’em dead as is, then only old Nick hisself knows it.”

Mrs. Peeler, a little, small-faced woman with mild eyes, looked up from her potato-mashing with a start.

“My, my,” she sighed, “are they that bad, Mrs. Declute?”

That lady nodded grimly.

“While they be eatin’ in my hum I will say no more than what I have concernin’ them,” she affirmed, “as that wouldn’t be hospitable o’ me. But after they’ve et an’ gone——” she compressed her lips and frowned severely, “then I’ll tell you more about them outlaws.”

“Dear me,” sighed Mrs. Peeler again. Then she glanced around. “Where is Mary Ann and Gloss gone?” she asked.

“Oh, they slipped over t’ Mac’s to see how the little mother was restin’,” answered Mrs. Ross. “The poor woman took a bad turn last night, you know. They’ll be comin’ back soon. Libby, dear, just help me dish out this custard, will you? They are callin’ for it in there, don’t you hear ’em?”

“I hear your Tom’s voice,” laughed Mrs. Peeler.

“And your boy, Ed. Do you know what that boy said to me when I was in givin’ a second helpin’ of tea just now? He said, ‘Missus Ross,’ says he, ‘I haven’t et anythin’ worth while as yet, ’cause I’ve been waitin’ for that custard.’ The sly rascal!”

Mrs. Peeler’s blue eyes danced with pride.

“Ed is awful lively,” she smiled. “There’s no keepin’ him quiet.”

“Mr. Simpson says he’s a smart boy,” said Mrs. Ross; “says he takes to book larnin’ like a squirrel t’ a nut.”

“Oh, and how do you like the teacher, widder?”

“I like him first-rate.”

“And Mary Ann?”

Mrs. Ross glanced about her. Then she bent over and whispered in the other woman’s ear.

“No!” exclaimed that little lady; “you don’t say so!”

“Judgin’ from appearances, it looks that way, dear,” smiled the widow. “But not a word to anyone else, Libby. I haven’t told a single soul but you.”

“It don’t seem to me that Mary Ann would take to a man like him,” said Mrs. Peeler. “He don’t seem to fit her somehow. I always thought and hoped that Bill Paisley would meet her favor, widder.”

Mrs. Ross opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again on second thought.

“My, I must get in with th’ custard,” she cried, and hurried away.

Gloss and Mary Ann entered the kitchen with Daft Davie between them.

“Oh, you’ve come back, my dears, have you!” smiled Mrs. Peeler. “I’m glad you got back so soon. How’s she now, Glossie?”

“Awful bad,” answered Gloss. “I’m goin’ right back, and will you tell uncle to come soon? Don’t say anythin’ to Boy, but just whisper to uncle to come as soon’s he can. She misses him so much. Now, I must go. You explain to ’em all how it is, Mrs. Peeler, will you?”

“You’re not goin’ back alone,” protested Mary Ann. “Just wait, we’ll send——”

Gloss put her hand on her friend’s arm.

“I don’t want anyone to know just how bad she is—not to-night. It would only spoil the evenin’s fun for them, and I’m not scared—why, I have little Davie.”

She put her arm about the boy’s shoulders. “You don’t know what company Davie is, and it’s scarcely dark yet. No, I don’t want anybody else. Good-night.”

She slipped out, her arm still around the daft boy, and the two passed down the path that stretched like a thread of silver in the moonlight. The lad talked to her in his strange language and she let him go on without paying much attention to him, for her heart was heavy with a great fear. They reached the creek path where the gray rushes stood and the deep creek slept beneath the moon. The lad laughed and swept his arms about, as the shrill wing-whistles of a migrating flock of pin-tails sang out and died away high above them. They turned up the path, and a whip-poor-will woke up and uttered his plaintive call from a nearby copse. Davie imitated the call, and then all about them the night-birds awoke and made the world alive with sound.

Further on the lad hooted like an owl and from the swales the feathered prowlers of the night answered him. He clapped his hands in glee, and Gloss’s arm tightened about him.

“Oh, Davie,” she whispered, “you are just like the birds—glad and free. Are you just what God intended us all to be, I wonder? Are you, Davie?”

He stroked her hand, and Pepper climbed from his shoulder over to hers.

“Do you know we are goin’ to lose her—do you?” said the girl chokingly. “Yes, you both know.”

When they reached the fork in the path Gloss put the little animal in the boy’s arms. Then she bent and kissed him.

“Davie must run along to Granny, now,” she said, “and he can come over to see Boy to-morrow.”

Davie put his hands to his lips and gave a low call, then bent his head to listen. From a far-off swale there came the answering cry of a lynx, and the boy with a happy laugh flung his arms in the air and darted away through the grove. Gloss, standing with the moonlight laving her face, sweet to-night with a new pathos, prayed:

“Oh, God, who looks after Davie, look after the little ma. Don’t take her from us, God.” Then, leaning her face against the rough bark of a beech tree, she sobbed:

“Mother, let her stay with us a little longer—just a little longer.”