Chapter 11
The first is of just such bunches of horses that were being brought through the winter with practically no yard feeding at all; and consequently their healthy outdoor looks, and their velvety rumps were very conspicuous as they scattered away from the trail on our approach. Several times we dashed right in among them, and I had to shout in order to clear the road. They did not like to leave the firm footing on the trail, where they fed by pawing away the snow on both sides and baring the weeds. Sometimes a whole bunch of them would thunder along in a stampede ahead of us till they came to a cross-trail or to a farmyard; there we left them behind. Sometimes only one of them would thus try to keep in front, while the rest jumped off into the drifts; but, being separated from his mates, he would stop at last and ponder how to get back to them till we were right on him again. There was, then, no way to rejoin those left behind except by doing what he hated to do, by getting off the trail and jumping into the dreaded snow, thus giving us the right of way. And when, at last, he did so, he felt sadly hampered and stopped close to the trail, looking at us in a frightened and helpless sort of way while we dashed by.
The next sight, too, impressed me with the degree to which snow handicaps the animal life of our plains. Not more than ten feet from the heads of my horses a rabbit started up. The horses were going at a gallop just then. There it jumped up, unseen by myself until it moved, ears high, eyes turned back, and giving a tremendous thump with its big hind feet before setting out on its wild and desperate career. We were pretty close on its heels and going fast. For maybe a quarter of a mile it stayed in one track, running straight ahead and at the top of its speed so that it pulled noticeably away. Every hundred yards or so, however, it would slow down a little, and its jumps, as it glanced back without turning--by merely taking a high, flying leap and throwing its head aloft--would look strangely retarded, as if it were jumping from a sitting posture or braking with its hind feet while bending its body backward. Then, seeing us follow at undiminished speed, it would straighten out again and dart away like an arrow. At the end of its first straight run it apparently made up its mind that it was time to employ somewhat different tactics in order to escape. So it jumped slantways across the soft, central cushion of the trail into the other track. Again it ran straight ahead for a matter of four or five hundred yards, slowing down three or four times to reconnoitre in its rear. After that it ran in a zigzag line, taking four or five jumps in one track, crossing over into the other with a gigantic leap, at an angle of not more than thirty degrees to its former direction; then, after another four or five bounds, crossing back again, and so on. About every tenth jump was now a high leap for scouting purposes, I should say. It looked breathless, frantic, and desperate. But it kept it up for several miles. I am firmly convinced that rabbits distinguish between the man with a gun and the one without it. This little animal probably knew that I had no gun. But what was it to do? It was caught on the road with us bearing down upon it. It knew that it did not stand a chance of getting even beyond reach of a club if it ventured out into the deep, loose snow. There might be dogs ahead, but it had to keep on and take that risk. I pitied the poor thing, but I did not stop. I wished for a cross-trail to appear, so it would be relieved of its panic; and at last there came one, too, which it promptly took.
And as if to prove still more strikingly how helpless many of our wild creatures are in deep snow, the third sight came. We started a prairie chicken next. It had probably been resting in the snow to the right side of the trail. It began to run when the horses came close. And in a sudden panic as it was, it did the most foolish thing it possibly could do: it struck a line parallel to the trail. Apparently the soft snow in which it sank prevented it from taking to its wings. It had them lifted, but it did not even use them in running as most of the members of its family will do; it ran in little jumps or spurts, trying its level best to keep ahead. But the horses were faster. They caught up with it, passed it. And slowly I pulled abreast. Its efforts certainly were as frantic as those of the rabbit had looked. I could have picked it up with my hands. Its beak was open with the exertion--the way you see chickens walking about with open beaks on a swooningly hot summer day I reached for the whip to lower it in front of the bird and stop it from this unequal race. It cowered down, and we left it behind...
We had by that time reached the narrow strip of wild land which separated the English settlements to the south from those of the Russian Germans to the north. We came to the church, and like everything else it rushed back to the rear; the school on the correction line appeared.
Strangely, school was still on in that yellow building at the corner. I noticed a cutter outside, with a man in it, who apparently was waiting for his children. This is the fourth of the pictures that stand out in my memory. The man looked so forlorn. His horse, a big, hulking farm beast, wore a blanket under the harness. I looked at my watch. It was twenty-five minutes past four. Here, in the bush country where the pioneers carve the farms out of the wilderness, the time kept is often oddly at variance with the time of the towns. I looked back several times, as long as I could see the building, which was for at least another twenty minutes; but school did not close. Still the man sat there, humped over, patiently waiting. It is this circumstance, I believe, which fixed in my memory the exact hour at which I reached the correction line.
Beyond, on the first mile of the last road east there was no possibility of going fast. This piece was blown in badly. There was, however, always a trail over this mile-long drift. The school, of course, had something to do with that. But when you drive four feet above the ground, with nothing but uncertain drifts on both sides of the trail, you want to be chary of speeding your horses along. One wrong step, and a horse might wallow in snow up to his belly, and you would lose more time than you could make up for in an hour’s breathless career. A horse is afraid, too, of trotting there, and it takes a great deal of urging to make him do it.
So we lost a little time here; but when a mile or so farther on we reached the bush, we made up for it. This last run of five or six miles along the correction line consisted of one single, soft, smooth bed of snow. The trail was cut in sharply and never drifted. Every successive snowfall was at once packed down by the tree-fellers, and whoever drove along, could give his horses the lines. I did so, too, and the horses ran.
I relaxed. I had done what I could do. Anxiety there was hardly any now. A drive over more than forty miles, made at the greatest obtainable speed, blunts your emotional energies. I thought of home, to be sure, did so all the time; but it was with expectation now, with nothing else. Within half an hour I should know...
Then the bush opened up. The last mile led along between snow-buried meadows, school and house in plain view ahead. There lay the cottage, as peaceful in the evening sun as any house can look. Smoke curled up from its chimney and rose in a nearly perpendicular column. I became aware of the colder evening air, and with the chill that crept over me I was again overwhelmed by the pitifully lonesome looks of the place.
Mostly I shouted when I drew near to tell of my coming. To-day I silently swung up through the shrubby thicket in which the cottage and the stable behind it lay embedded and turned in to the yard. As soon as the horses stopped, I dropped the lines, jerked the door of the cutter back, and jumped to the ground.
Then I stood transfixed. That very moment the door of the cottage opened. There stood my wife, and between her knee and the door-post a curly head pushed through, and a child’s voice shouted, “Daddy, come to the house! Daddy, come to the house!”
A turn to the better had set in sometime during the morning. The fever had dropped, and quickly, as children’s illness will come, it had gone. But the message had sped on its way, irrevocable and, therefore, unrevoked. My wife, when she told me the tale, thought, well had she reason to smile, for had I not thus gained an additional holiday?
SEVEN. Skies and Scares
We had a “soft spell” over a week end, and on Monday it had been followed by a fearful storm--snowstorm and blizzard, both coming from the southeast and lasting their traditional three days before they subsided. On Thursday, a report came in that the trail across the wild land west of Bell’s corner was closed completely--in fact, would be impassable for the rest of the winter. This report came with the air of authority; the man who brought it knew what he was talking about; of that I had no doubt. For the time being, he said, no horses could possibly get through.
That very day I happened to meet another man who was habitually driving back and forth between the two towns. “Why don’t you go west?” he said. “You angle over anyway. Go west first and then straight north.” And he described in detail the few difficulties of the road which he followed himself. There was no doubt, he of all men should certainly know which was the best road for the first seventeen miles. He had come in from that one-third-way town that morning. I knew the trails which he described as summer-roads, had gone over them a good many times, though never in winter; so, the task of finding the trail should not offer any difficulty. Well and good, then; I made up my mind to follow the advice.
On Friday afternoon everything was ready as usual. I rang off at four o’clock and stepped into the hall. And right there the first thing went wrong.
Never before had I been delayed in my start. But now there stood three men in the hall, prominent citizens of the town. I had handed my resignation to the school-board; these men came to ask me that I reconsider. The board, so I had heard, was going to accept my decision and let it go at that. According to this committee the board did not represent the majority of the citizens in town. They argued for some time against my stubbornness. At last, fretting under the delay, I put it bluntly. “I have nothing to reconsider, gentlemen. The matter does no longer rest with me. If, as I hear, the board is going to accept my resignation, that settles the affair for me. It must of necessity suit me or I should not have resigned. But you might see the board. Maybe they are making a mistake. In fact, I think so. That is not my business, however.” And I went.
The time was short enough in any case; this cut it shorter. It was five o’clock before I swung out on the western road. I counted on moonlight, though, the fickle luminary being in its first quarter. But there were clouds in the north and the weather was by no means settled. As for my lights, they were useless for driving so long as the ground was completely buried under its sheet of snow. On the snow there form no shadows by which you can recognize the trail in a light that comes from between the two tracks. So I hurried along.
We had not yet made the first three miles, skirting meanwhile the river, when the first disaster came. I noticed a rather formidable drift on the road straight ahead. I thought I saw a trail leading up over it--I found later on that it was a snowshoe trail. I drove briskly up to its very edge; then the horses fell into a walk. In a gingerly kind of way we started to climb. And suddenly the world seemed to fall to pieces. The horses disappeared in the snow, the cutter settled down, there was a sharp snap, I fell back--the lines had broken. With lightning quickness I reached over the dashboard down to the whiffletrees and unhooked one each of the horses’ traces. That would release the others, too, should they plunge. For the moment I did not know what they were doing. There was a cloud of dust dry snow which hid them. Then Peter emerged. I saw with horror that he stood on Dan who was lying on his side. Dan started to roll over; Peter slipped off to the right. That brought rebellion into Dan, for now the neck yoke was cruelly twisting his head. I saw Dan’s feet emerging out of the snow, pawing the air: he was on his back. Everything seemed convulsed. Then Peter plunged and reared, pulling Dan half-ways up; that motion of his released the neck yoke from the pole. The next moment both horses were on their feet, head by head now, but facing each other, apparently trying to pull apart; but the martingales held. Then both jumped clear of the cutter and the pole; and they plunged out, to the rear, past the cutter, to solid ground.
I do not remember how I got out; but after a minute or so I stood at their heads, holding them by the bridles. The knees of both horses shook, their nostrils trembled; Peter’s eye looked as if he were going to bolt. We were only a hundred yards or so from a farm. A man and a boy came running with lanterns. I snapped the halter ropes into the bit rings and handed the horses over to the boy to be led to and fro at a walk so as to prevent a chill; and I went with the man to inspect the cutter. Apparently no damage was done beyond the snapping of the lines. The man, who knew me, offered to lend me another pair, which I promptly accepted. We pulled the cutter out backwards, straightened the harness, and hitched the horses up again. It was clear that, though they did not seem to be injured, their nerves were on edge.
The farmer meanwhile enlightened me. I mentioned the name of the man who had recommended the road. Yes, the road was good enough from town to town. This was the only bad drift. Yes, my adviser had passed here the day before; but he had turned off the road, going down to the river below, which was full of holes, it is true, made by the ice-harvesters, but otherwise safe enough. The boy would go along with his lantern to guide me to the other side of the drift. I am afraid I thought some rather uncharitable things about my adviser for having omitted to caution me against this drift. What I minded most, was, of course, the delay.
The drift was partly hollow, it appeared; the crust had thawed and frozen again; the huge mass of snow underneath had settled down. The crust had formed a vault, amply strong enough to carry a man, but not to carry horse and cutter.
When in the dying light and by the gleam of the lantern we went through the dense brush, down the steep bank, and on to the river, the horses were every second ready to bolt. Peter snorted and danced, Dan laid his ears back on his head. But the boy gave warning at every open hole, and we made it safely. At last we got back to the road, I kept talking and purring to the horses for a while, and it seemed they were quieting down.
It was not an auspicious beginning for a long night-drive. And though for a while all things seemed to be going about as well as I could wish, there remained a nervousness which, slight though it seemed while unprovoked, yet tinged every motion of the horses and even my own state of mind. Still, while we were going west, and later, north into the one-third-way town, the drive was one of the most marvellously beautiful ones that I had had during that winter of marvellous sights.
As I have mentioned, the moon was in its first quarter and, therefore, during the early part of the night high in the sky. It was not very cold; the lower air was quiet, of that strange, hushed stillness which in southern countries is the stillness of the noon hour in midsummer--when Pan is frightened into a panic by the very quiet. It was not so, however, in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. It was a night of skies, of shifting, ever changing skies. Not for five minutes did an aspect last. When I looked up, after maybe having devoted my attention for a while to a turn in the road or to a drift, there was no trace left of the picture which I had seen last. And you could not help it, the sky would draw your eye. There was commotion up there--operations were proceeding on a very vast scale, but so silently, with not a whisper of wind, that I felt hushed myself.
A few of the aspects have persisted in my memory, but it seems an impossible task to sketch them.
I was driving along through open fields. The trail led dimly ahead. Huge masses of snow with sharp, immovable shadows flanked it. The horses were very wide awake. They cocked their ears at every one of the mounds; and sometimes they pressed rump against rump, as if to reassure each other by their mutual touch.
About halfway up from the northern horizon there lay a belt of faintest luminosity in the atmosphere--no play of northern lights--just an impalpable paling of the dark blue sky. There were stars, too, but they were not very brilliant. Way down in the north, at the edge of the world, there lay a long, low-flung line of cloud, black, scarcely discernible in the light of the moon. And from its centre, true north, there grew out a monstrous human arm, reaching higher and higher, up to the zenith, blotting the stars behind it. It looked at first--in texture and rigid outline--as the stream of straw looks that flows from the blower of a threshing machine when you stand straight in its line and behind it. But, of course, it did not curve down. It seemed to stretch and to rise, growing more and more like an arm with a clumsy fist at its end, held unconceivably straight and unbending. This cloud, I have no doubt, was forming right then by condensation. And it stretched and lengthened till it obscured the moon.
Just then I reached the end of my run to the west. I was nearing a block of dense poplar bush in which somewhere two farmsteads lay embedded. The road turned to the north. I was now exactly south of and in line with that long, twenty-mile trail where I had startled horses, rabbit, and partridge on the last described drive. I believe I was just twenty-five miles from the northern correction line. At this corner where I turned I had to devote all my attention to the negotiating of a few bad drifts.
When I looked up again, I was driving along the bottom of a wide road gap formed by tall and stately poplars on both sides--trees which stood uncannily still. The light of the moon became less dim, and I raised my eyes. That band of cloud--for it had turned into a band now, thus losing its threatening aspect--had widened out and loosened up. It was a strip of flocculent, sheepy-looking, little cloudlets that suggested curliness and innocence. And the moon stood in between like a goodnatured shepherd in the stories of old.
For a while I kept my eyes on the sky. The going was good indeed on this closed-in road. And so I watched that insensible, silent, and yet swift shifting of things in the heavens that seemed so orderly, pre-ordained, and as if regulated by silent signals. The clouds lost their sheeplike look again; they became more massive; they took on more substance and spine, more manliness, as it were; and they arranged themselves in distinct lines. Soldiers suggested themselves, not soldiers engaged in war, but soldiers drilling in times of peace, to be reviewed, maybe, by some great general. That central point from which the arm had sprung and which had been due north had sidled over to the northwest; the low-flung line along the horizon had taken on the shape of a long wedge pointing east; farther west it, too, looked more massive now--more like a rather solid wall. And all those soldier-clouds fell into a fan-shaped formation--into lines radiating from that common central point in the northwest. This arrangement I have for many years been calling “the tree.” It is quite common, of course, and I read it with great confidence as meaning “no amount of rain or snow worth mentioning.” “The tree” covered half the heavens or more, and nowhere did I see any large reaches of clear sky. Here and there a star would peep through, and the moon seemed to be quickly and quietly moving through the lines. Apparently he was the general who reviewed the army.
Again there came a shifting in the scenes. It looked as if some unseen hands were spreading a sheet above these flocculent clouds--a thin and vapoury sheet that came from the north and gradually covered the whole roof of the sky. Stars and moon disappeared; but not, so far, the light of the moon; it merely became diffused--the way the light from an electric bulb becomes diffused when you enclose it in a frosted globe. And then, as the sheet of vapour above began to thicken, the light on the snow became dim and dimmer, till the whole of the landscape lay in gloom. The sheet still seemed to be coming, coming from the north. But no longer did it travel away to the south. It was as if it had brought up against an obstacle there, as if it were being held in place. And since there was more and more of it pressing up--it seemed rather to be pushed now--it telescoped together and threw itself into folds, till at last the whole sky looked like an enormous system of parallel clothes-lines over all of which one great, soft, and loose cloth were flung, so that fold after fold would hang down between all the neighbouring pairs of lines; and between two folds there would be a sharply converging, upward crease. It being night, this arrangement, common in grey daylight, would not have shown at all, had it not been for the moon above. As it was, every one of the infolds showed an increasingly lighter grey the higher it folded up, and like huge, black udders the outfolds were hanging down. This sky, when it persists, I have often found to be followed within a few days by heavy storms. To-night, however, it did not last. Shifting skies are never certain signs, though they normally indicate an unsettled condition of the atmosphere. I have observed them after a blizzard, too.
I looked back over my shoulder, just when I emerged from the bush into the open fields. And there I became aware of a new element again. A quiet and yet very distinct commotion arose from the south. These cloth-clouds lifted, and a nearly impalpable change crept over the whole of the sky. A few minutes later it crystallised into a distinct impression. A dark grey, faintly luminous, inverted bowl stood overhead. Not a star was to be seen above, nor yet the moon. But all around the horizon there was a nearly clear ring, suffused with the light of the moon. There, where the sky is most apt to be dark and hazy, stars peeped out--singly and dimly only--I did not recognize any constellation.
And then the grey bowl seemed to contract into patches. Again the change seemed to proceed from the south. The clouds seemed to lift still higher, and to shrink into small, light, feathery cirrus clouds, silvery on the dark blue sky--resembling white pencil shadings. The light of the moon asserted itself anew. And this metamorphosis also spread upward, till the moon herself looked out again, and it went on spreading northward till it covered the whole of the sky.