Part 5

"Before we bought the Bear Mountain and Lost River tracts we were looking for a good cruiser--some one to go through here and estimate the timber for us. Well, Dunmore was recommended for the job, and we hired him. He and I travelled over some thirty thousand acres, camping wherever night overtook us. It did not take me long to discover that he was a gifted man. Many an evening, as we sat by our lonely fire in the woods, I have wept and laughed over his poems."

"Poems!" Master exclaimed.

"That's the only word for it," Gordon went on. "The man is a woods lover and a poet. One night he told me part of his life story. Sile, you remember when the old iron company shut down their works at Tifton. Well, everybody left the place except Tom Muir, the postmaster. He was a widower, and lived with one child--a girl about nineteen years old when the forest village died. Dunmore married that girl. He told me how beautiful she was and how he loved her. Well, they didn't get along together. He was fond of the woods and she was not.

"For five years they lived together in the edge of the wilderness. Then she left him. Well--poor woman!--it was a lonely life, and some tourist fell in love with her, they tell me. I don't know about that. Anyhow, Dunmore was terribly embittered. A little daughter had been born to them. She was then three years of age."

"She's the angel y-you met to-day over by the p-pond," Strong put in, looking at Master.

Gordon lighted his pipe and went on with his story.

"Dunmore said that a relative had left him a little money. I remember we were camping that night on the shore of Buckhorn. Its beauty appealed to him. He said he'd like to buy that section and build him a camp on the pond and spend the rest of his life there.

"'But,' said I, 'you couldn't bring up your daughter in the woods.' Buckhorn was then thirty miles from anywhere.

"'That's just what I wish to do,' he answered. 'The world is so full of d------d spaniels'--I remember that was the phrase he used--and there's so much infamy among men, I'd rather keep her out of it. I want her to be as pure at twenty as she is now. I can teach her all I wish her to know.'

"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there with the little girl and his mother--a woman of poor health and well past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their servants, and there they are to-day--Dunmore and his mother and the girl and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."

"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too incredible.

"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon went on. "He has property--a good deal of property, I suppose, and has to give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."

"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.

"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the clearing since she was a baby?"

Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid it down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to do this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.

"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man--n-no further," Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept one. That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with it from the n-north th-three year ago."

"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to get possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand, the girl has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once Dunmore referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,' and spoke of her devotion to her grandmother."

Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the young man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his daughter and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this lonely child of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.

"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."

"I don't know how to begin."

"She'll be there t-to-morrer sure," Strong declared.

"So shall I," said the young man.

"C-cal'late she's w-wownded, too," Strong suggested. "B-be careful. She's like a w-wild deer."

They were leaving the fire on their way to bed. The young man stopped and repeated the words incredulously--"Like a wild deer!"

"T-take the ch-childem with ye," Strong advised. "She'll w-want t' look 'em over."

X

SOCKY woke early next morning, and lay looking up at the antlers, guns, and rifles which adorned the wall. On a table near him were some of the treasures of that sylvan household--a little book entitled _Melinda_, a dingy Testament, a plush-covered photograph-album, and a stuffed bird on a wire bough.

Sinth and the album were inseparable. She sometimes left the dingy Testament or the little book entitled _Melinda_ at her Pitkin home, but not the plush-covered album. That was the one link which connected her, not only with the past, but with a degree of respectability, and even with a vague hope of paradise. What a pantheon of family deities! What a museum of hair and whiskers! What a study of the effect of terror, headache, rheumatism, weariness, Sunday apparel, tight boots, and reckless photography upon the human countenance!

Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly.

Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply grease to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put his hands in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a little, it had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since then the gear of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had carried him far towards the goal of manhood.

Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured some on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with the look of them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made everything look shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of high accomplishment.

Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped on the album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitled _Melinda_. Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in a corner, and who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped through an open window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper consideration of ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased the shoes of his sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and taken the latter into bed with him.

Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to mind: "I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill bears and send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny--he said he would."

He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the bed just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace, and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue had awoke and begun to cry.

"What's the matter?" he inquired.

"I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed.

"Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky.

"I don't care."

"I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with suppressed emotion.

Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea occurred to him--why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the deficiencies of the great man they had come to see?

"I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed a bear."

"Where is he?"

"Dead on the floor there."

She covered her face with the blankets.

"I'm going to have a pair o' moccasins an' a rifle, an' I'll carry you on my b-back." He had stammered on the last word after the manner of his uncle.

Just then they heard a singular creaking outside the door, and before either had time to speak it was flung open. They were both sitting up in bed as their Uncle Silas entered.

"I tnum!" said he, cheerfully.

Suddenly he saw the bird and the books and the table-top and the potatoes and the ramrod and the hands of Socky. He whistled ruefully; his smile faded.

"W-well greased!" he said, looking down at the books and the bird.

He found a gun-rag and wiped up the oil as best he could.

"She'll r-raise--" The remark ended in a cough as he wiped the books. Then he covered them with an empty meal-bag.

The children began to dress while Strong went half-way up the ladder and called to Gordon, still asleep in the loft above. Then he sat on the bed and helped the boy and girl get their clothes buttoned..

"My little f-fawns!" he muttered, with a laugh.

He had sat up until one o'clock at work in his little shop by the light of a lantern. He had sawed some disks from a round beech log and bored holes in them. He had also made axles and a reach and tongue, and put them together. Then he had placed a cross-bar and a pivot on the front axle and fastened a starch-box over all. The result was a wagon, which he had arisen early to finish, and with which he had come to wake "the little fawns." Now, when they were dressed, he sat them side by side in the wagon-box and clattered off down the trail.

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 beautiful and more like this one who stood before them than like any they had yet beheld. Sue grasped the hand of her brother, and both stood gazing at the maiden, but neither spoke nor moved for a moment. Edith Dun-more leaned forward a little, looking into their faces.

"Can you not speak to me?" she asked.

Socky began to be embarrassed; his eyes fell; he shook his head doubtfully.

Edith Dunmore looked up at the stalwart figure of the young man. Their eyes met. She quickly turned away. The tame crow, on the bough above, began to laugh and chatter as if he thought it all an excellent joke.

"May--I--take them in my arms?" she asked, with hesitation.

"Yes; but I warn you--they have a way of stealing one's heart."

"Ah-h-h-h-h!" croaked the little crow, in a warning cry, as if he had seen at once the peril of it.

She had begun to move slowly, almost timidly, towards the children. She knelt before them and took the little hand of Sue in hers and looked upon it with wonder. She touched it with her lips; she pressed it against her cheek; she trembled beneath its power. The touch of the child's hand was, for her, it would almost seem, like that of One on the eyes of Bartimeus. Suddenly, as by a miracle, Edith Dunmore rose out of childhood. The veil of the nun was rent away. She was a woman fast coming into riches of unsuspected inheritance. She put her arms about the two and gently drew them towards her and held them close. Her embrace and the touch of her breast upon theirs were grateful to them, and they kissed her. Her eyes were wet, her sweet voice full of familiar but uncomprehended longing when she said, "Dear little children!"

"Tut, _tut!_" said the tame crow, who had crept to the end of his branch, where he stood looking down at them. In a moment he began to break the green twigs and let them fall on the head of his mistress.

Sue felt the hair and looked into the face and eyes of the maiden with wondering curiosity. Socky ran his fingers over the beaded belt. Both had a suspicion which they dared not express that here was an angel in some way related to their mother.

"You are a beautiful lady," said the boy, with childish frankness.

Master has often tried to describe the scene. He confesses that words, even though vivid and well spoken, cannot make one to understand the something which lay beneath all said and done, and which went to his heart so that for a time he turned and walked away from them.

"Do you remember when you were fairies?" the girl asked of the children.

The latter shook their heads.

"Tell us about the fairies," Sue proposed, timidly.

"They are old, old people--so my father has told me," said the beautiful lady. "They came into this world thousands of years ago riding in a great cloud that was drawn by wild geese. The fairies came down, each on a big flake of snow, and got off in the tree-tops and never went away. At first they were the teentiest folks--so little that a hundred of them could stand on a maple leaf--and very, very old. My father says they were never young in their lives, and I guess they have always lived. They rode around on the backs of the birds and saw everything in the world and had such a good time they all began to grow young. Now, as they grew young they grew bigger and bigger, and every spring a lot more of the little old people came out of the sky and began to grow young like the others. And by-and-by some of them were as big as your thumb and bigger."

"How big do they grow?" the boy asked.