CHAPTER VIII

Through the Deep Wood

Gloss, standing in the kitchen doorway, gazed outward across the bronze-tipped trees to the drab-colored sky resting above Rond Eau.

There was a smile on her lips and her eyes were alive with the light of genuine girlish happiness. She did not know why she should be so glad; but to-day she felt like singing; like racing out into the hardwoods and tramping the long leaf-carpeted aisles. She wanted to be out in the open. A flock of wild geese wedged their way between two tiny strips of blue sky and were lost in a heavy snow-cloud above the Point. The girl clapped her hands joyfully and, springing backward like a young gazelle, she snatched her cap from a peg and tiptoed into the inner room.

Granny McTavish looked up from her knitting, a smile on her wrinkled face.

“Lass,” she said softly, “but ye are gettin’ mair like your dear mither every day. And she was bonnie, aye, she was bonnie, lassie.”

The girl sank on her knees and took the old hands in hers.

“Am I like my mother, Granny?” she asked eagerly. “Very like her?”

“Aye, dearie, ye have her eyes and ye have her beautiful hair; ye have her face and ye have her smile. Ye tak me awa back to the time I first saw your mither, Gloss. Ye will na gangin’ oot i’ th’ snaw, pet,” noting with concern that Gloss had on her cap and coat. “I ne’er lak ta see ye ramblin’ aboot i’ th’ woods after th’ snaw falls on account o’ th’ wolves, cheeld.”

“And she was beautiful, and I am like her,” said the girl softly. “Oh, Granny, I’m beginnin’ to miss my mother!”

“Cheeld, cheeld,” said the old woman, drawing the girl over to her bosom. “It’s ever the way. The mither is missed always, but the cheeld canna miss her lak the woman. And ye are growin’ into a woman, Gloss; ye are growin’ into a woman fast, lassie.”

She picked up her knitting and rocked to and fro, crooning to herself. The girl arose and, bending, kissed her softly on the smooth white hair. Then she crossed the kitchen and peeped into the larger of the bedrooms.

“She’s sleepin’, lass; best slip awa’ and no disturb her,” whispered Granny. “She’ll no last much langer, dearie; she’ll no last much langer, I fear.”

A look of sorrow came into the girl’s eyes and her mouth trembled.

“God won’t let her die, Granny,” she said chokingly; “He knows we need her so much.”

“Maybe He needs her th’ mair, lassie.”

“No, no, He can’t. And, Granny, she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t be happy away from Boy and—and us.”

“Ye dinna ken, lassie, ye dinna ken; it’s a braw warld and your mither has been lookin’ for her comin’ full lang, I ha’ noo doot. They were greet friends. They looed ain anither reet weel.”

“But mother would not mind waitin’ some longer, Granny. I know she would rather let auntie live a while longer for our sakes. She has got used to waitin’.”

“Lass, you mus’na cry,” said the old woman gently. “If she gangs awa’ it wull be God’s good pleasure. If she bides ’twull be His mercy. We wull hope and pray for the best, Glossie.”

When Gloss sought the wood a white, sweet-scented mist was rising from the leafy carpet where a thin veil of snow had rested. The low calls of the feathered denizens of the Wild sounded mellow and indistinct from the soft-wood swales, for the sky was changing to the slate-blue of eventide. Down in the stumpy potato-patch Boy and Big McTavish were busily engaged in turning the snowy tubers out of the black soil.

Gloss skirted the patch, keeping a thicket between her and the workers, and passed on southward until she reached a wide ridge of giant beech trees, whose long outstretched arms were fruited with the toothsome nuts which the first frost of autumn would send in a shower to the earth.

Black and red squirrels were busy among the trees, garnering their winter’s food. They worked noisily, chattering and scolding. They were a busy little body of workers, and they could not afford to pay much attention to the wood-nymph whom they had become accustomed to see in their kingdom. The old-time restfulness and happiness had stolen back to the heart of the girl. Her great eyes were alive with life and joy, and she passed on, humming a merry tune to herself, drinking in the golden beauty, the songs, and the scents of nature.

Beyond a tangled clump of trees Gloss came unexpectedly upon another creature of the wood. A young doe was browsing among the tender shoots of the brush-pile, and at the girl’s soft footsteps it lifted its shapely head and stood quivering, its nostrils dilated and its sides heaving. And so the two animals of the Wild gazed at each other with a deep and growing wonder.

Nature had built those two after the same fashion. Both were slender and graceful; both were alert and watchful; both possessed long-lashed eyes; both were wild, free, and beautiful.

The doe stood with her slender muzzle lifted, her sensitive lips a-tremble, her humid eyes fastened upon the girl of the forest, who, instinctively, she felt, would do her no harm.

For a moment the two creatures stood gazing at each other. The doe reached forward timidly and plucked another mouthful of the juicy twigs, then with a sudden start leaped into the thicket on the right.

Gloss turned quickly. A little man with a small face fringed with whiskers, and light-blue eyes blinking from beneath a coon-skin cap, stepped out from behind a tree and lowered the hammer of his long rifle.

“Jinks and ironwood!” he ejaculated; “you stud right in my way, Glossie. I’d o’ had that doe sure pop if I hadn’t been a trifle timid about hittin’ you.”

“Did—did you want to shoot that pretty little thing, Ander?” asked Gloss, her cheeks aflame.

“Wall, I don’t know,” laughed the little man, coming forward. “I tell you that war as fine a doe as I’ve seen this season, girl.”

“Poor thing,” sighed Gloss; then hotly, “I’m glad she got away; I’m glad she got away.”

“Somebody else’ll get her,” said the man. “She’s pretty tame and she’ll get shot sooner or later.”

The girl stood looking away through the wood.

“Ander,” she said, “I know you are a pretty good man. I want you to promise me that you won’t shoot things—things like her. It’s terrible. Why, they are so young they don’t know any danger. You’ll give them all a chance, won’t you?”

Declute looked puzzled. He scratched his head and grinned; then he looked down.

“Why, I don’t mind promisin’ that,” he stammered. “I ain’t carin’ much to shoot—any deer without givin’ it somethin’ of a chance. And I will say that to shoot ’em _without_ goes somethin’ again’ my grain. All right, Gloss, old Ander’ll promise not to shoot that doe or any other like her. Dang me, but you and her seemed a lot, a lot alike to me somehow. I reckon I’m good enough of a shot to have got by you, girl; but somethin’ kept my rifle down. I see you two lookin’ at each other—her eyes, your eyes—wall, I can’t say what makes me think you two are alike, but you are. No, siree, Ander won’t shoot any more does—at least, not this season. Now, Gloss, I want you t’ come along over to my place and see my missus. She’s bound to have a loggin’-bee right soon, and she wants you to help her lay out the eatin’ line. I can’t say much—you know what Rachel’s like. When she takes a notion to do a thing I might as well give in right on the start and save trouble. I don’t know why we wanter log, but that don’t matter—we’re goin’ to log ’cause Rachel says so. Come along over and sorter give th’ old woman a tip or two about what she should get together for the table. I’ll see you back through th’ bush, ’cause I wanter see Boy about some traps.”

They started out, the man keeping up a running fire of conversation, his short legs taking two steps to the tall girl’s one, and his little eyes, by force of habit, shooting here and there through the bush.

As they approached Declute’s home, a house of logs close to the shore of Rond Eau, a couple of wire-haired mongrel curs came yelping out to meet them.

“There’s David and Goliath,” said Ander. “Rachel named them dogs. She’s great on Bible names, is Rachel—too danged great,” he finished in a lower key.

Gloss opened the door and stepped inside. Mrs. Declute turned slowly from the table and a smile spread across her flour-streaked face.

“Oh, you dear,” she said, pounding forward and implanting a resounding smack on the girl’s rosy cheek. “You little dear, to come just now of all times, when I most wanted to see you.”

Mrs. Declute smiled again and a bit of powder fell from her face. It was a big matronly face, with big-heartedness written clean across it, and real kindness gleaming in its large black eyes. She was a big woman, “nigh two hundred and thirty,” as Ander put it.

“Where are the babies?” asked Gloss, sitting down on a stool and glancing about the small room.

“Sleepin’ like angels, th’ troublesome little good-fer-nothin’s,” smiled the woman fondly. “Moses is just that troublesome I think sometimes I’ll have to tie him up. Only this mornin’ he upsot the cradle and spilt little Martha out on the floor ker-bump. Give my life if I wasn’t so provoked I could have beeched him if he hadn’t been just gettin’ over th’ jaundice.”

“Ander tells me that you are thinkin’ of havin’ a loggin’,” said Gloss. “Is there anythin’ I could help you to do, Mrs. Declute?”

“Just what I was wantin’ to see you about,” cried the beaming woman, sitting down and wiping her face with her apron. “Thought first as I’d run across to Totherside and ask widder Ross to come over. Then I thought about her havin’ that teacher boardin’ there, and I didn’t want to put her out any. Fine cook is the widder, but somehow I can’t think as anybody can cook meats and sarve ’em up quite like you, Glossie. I’m fixin’ up some dried-apple pies. Sent over to Bridgetown this mornin’ by Jim Peeler for the dried-apples. Guess he’ll be along soon.”

“He’s comin’ right now,” called Declute from the door. “I’ll go along and give him a hand, I guess. He’s got some tobaccer for me—leastways I hope he has; I sent for some.”

“Ain’t that a man for you?” winked Mrs. Declute. “Ain’t that a man, though? Glossie, my dear, don’t you ever marry a man; don’t you ever do it. You’ll be sorry all the days of your life if you do. Even I am almost sorry sometimes, an’ Ander’s an exception of a man. There ain’t no other like him. And sakes alive, he’s bad enough, dear knows.”

Ander and a short, heavy-set man entered, and the latter laid a number of parcels on the table. He had a jolly round red face with crow’s-feet about the corners of brown eyes, stamped there by much smiling. It was said of Jim Peeler that he had never been known to lose his temper. He stood a short rifle in a corner and sat down near the table. Mrs. Declute arose and brought a steaming teapot from the hearth, also a plate of bread and cold meat.

After disposing of a goodly portion of the victuals before him, Jim turned to Gloss with the question:

“How’s the sick?”

“No better,” answered Gloss, her face growing grave.

“Dear me, how thinkless I am!” exclaimed Mrs. Declute. “I knowed there was somethin’ I wanted to ask you, Gloss. That’s it. How’s th’ dear little woman?”

Ander was cutting off a piece of black chewing-tobacco from a big slab.

“Why don’t you tell old Betsy ’bout her, Glossie?” he asked.

“Shet up, Ander,” flashed his wife. “Be you a Christian, or be you a heathen as believe in witches?”

“There, there,” laughed Peeler soothingly, “I guess Ander is a good Christian. But I was talkin’ to a _real_ Christian to-day; a real pious, right-down good man.”

“Smythe?” questioned Declute, the piece of tobacco poised half-way to its expectant goal.

“The same,” answered Peeler. “And, by the way, I met that man Watson as I was comin’ home. He must have been over here, eh?”

“He was here this mornin’,” said Gloss. “He was tryin’ to—to buy our place.”

“Oh, was he?”

Peeler’s face lost its smile and his bushy eyebrows met in a scowl. “How about you, Ander?”

Declute squirmed.

“Oh, I ain’t thinkin’ much about it, Jim. I ain’t worryin’ none.”

His wife gazed at him contemptuously.

“You ain’t brains enough to worry about anythin’,” she exclaimed. “Was Watson ridin’ alone, Jim?”

“Well, no, he wasn’t. That teacher chap was with him. He was ridin’ the bay belongin’ to Hallibut’s engineer.”

Gloss looked up, her eyes wide.

“Then they were together?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Peeler. “I suppose the teacher was seein’ him through part of the bush. I was talkin’ to Blake, the sawyer, over at the mill a while ago, and he tells me Colonel Hallibut has hired Smythe and Watson to help get our timberland.”

“Where’bouts on the trail did you meet ’em?” asked Declute.

“Why, they had only got nicely started, I guess. It wasn’t more than two or three miles out at most.”

“Where has Watson been all day, I wonder?” cried Gloss. “He was at our place shortly after sun-up.”

From the next room came a commotion, and three round-eyed youngsters, between the ages of three and six, protruded their heads from beneath the buckskin door-curtain.

“Get back in thar, Moses and Zaccheus,” commanded the mother; “you ain’t had half enough sleep yet.”

“Oh, let me hug them, Mrs. Declute,” pleaded Gloss.

She ran across and gathered the babies up, all together, in her arms. They twined their chubby arms about her neck and rubbed their sleepy eyes against her face. They were sweet, wholesome youngsters, and the girl loved them. She kissed them all, three times around, then set them down.

“Guess we’d better be goin’, Ander,” she said, “that is, if you _have_ to come. But I’m not the least timid about goin’ alone.”

“Course he’ll go,” declared Mrs. Declute, “and you, too, Jim Peeler, ’cause I’ve got to get on with them pies. Tell Libby the bee’s next Thursday, and I’ll want her to help with the table. Much ’bliged for your kindness, Jim. Good-night, Glossie.”