Part 3

At last the doctor allowed them to see the invalid—at first one at a time, and at last all together. One was allowed to put cologne on her handkerchief, one to change her pillows, one to bring the milk for her, and one just to hang over her and kiss her now and then, till Ally felt rather important, and thought it wasn’t such a bad thing to have a simple fracture after all.

“I wish it had been my arm,” said Will, one day, when Ally had been brought down stairs into the sitting-room, and was lying on the lounge. “Then I shouldn’t have to be bothering my head about subjunctives in Latin and aorists in Greek, and dear knows what!”

It was at about this time that a supply-team was starting for the logging-camp in the far woods. That day Old Uncle had taken Aunt Susan up with him, in the driving-sleigh, saying she really needed some sort of an outing.

When Will had seen the prancing black horses shaking off showers of bell-tones, he had begged hard to go, and harder still when he heard there was a hatchet and knife in the sleigh, and saw Old Uncle examining his revolvers, there being a rumor of wolves on the way, although probably a baseless rumor. But Will’s entreaties had been promptly silenced, and he was told that he must stay and attend to his lessons if he wanted to enter Bowdoin year after next.

Well, Will didn’t want to enter Bowdoin. He wanted to go to the logging-camp. Year after next was a great way off. The woods, the life there, the stories, the games, the hunting for bears, the gathering of gum, the deer-hunt, the escape from panthers or gray, gaunt wolves, the coming down with the drive in the spring, the jam of the logs at the falls with the raftsmen skipping round on them as lightly as Mercury in the mythology, handling them with long hooks, and springing for dear life as one dexterous thrust loosened the whole mass and sent them rearing, rolling, plunging, and shooting over the cataracts,—all that was close at hand. And Will, as he thought of it, was bound to be a lumberman.

“I want to go up and stay all winter, and come down on the drive and shoot the rapids,” grumbled Will, when he went in. “And I might bring home a caribou’s horns and a catamount’s pelt.”

“You!” said Charlie. “A catamount would tear you to bits with his great claws before you could run! You’d be scared to death nights just hearing him cry round the camp!”

“Will,” said Aunt Rose, as she gathered up her work and left the room, “it’s quite enough for you to read of the killings in your Virgil, if you want to reach Bowdoin before you’re gray.”

“Oh, Bowdoin, Bowdoin! I don’t want to reach Bowdoin! Ever!” shouted Will. “I’m tired and sick of hearing about Bowdoin. I’m going to take my nose-money, and buy a township up in the Aroostook and cut off the timber and be a lumberman, just as much as I please!”

“How many bears and wolves would have to be killed, do you think,” said Charlie, who rather loved to tease, “before you’ve got enough nose-money to buy a township?”

“Oh, don’t bother me with your sums!” cried Will.

For the backwoodsmen brought to Old Uncle, who was a justice of the peace, the black and brown noses of the wolves and bears and cubs which they destroyed; and he gave them a certificate which entitled them to collect the bounty paid by the State for the killing of the creatures. Then he gave to the children the small silver piece each man paid as fee, all sharing the fund together. It would require, indeed, quite an arithmetical process to tell just when Will’s share would amount to enough to buy one of the plantations in the Aroostook.

“I don’t care,” continued Will, “I haven’t the making of a scholar in me!”

“No one has, without work,” said Charlie, going away to learn his own lesson, as he said, in peace.

“But I _should_ be a very good—”

“You just be a very good boy now,” said Janet, in a patronizing way, “and mind Ally for me while I go and get my eggs. I found old Speckle’s nest yesterday.”

Pretty work for a boy who had “the making of a very good logger” in him, who could swing an axe in a circle round his head! He pretended not to see when Ally held out her little hand to him—the well hand—not even when her dear lip began to tremble.

He left the room, and sauntered out into the yard; and meeting Janet, with her apron full of eggs, he said, gruffly: “Your sister’s all alone.”

Then he looked up the axe, and hacked at the chopping-block, feeling much too ill-humored even to make his chopping useful with kindling-sticks.

He chopped till his blood began to circulate, and he was almost in a happy mood when he threw down the axe. He had reached a determination that was highly satisfactory to himself, without a thought of the trouble and anxiety he was going to give everyone in the house.

VIII.

A WILFUL BOY.

THE determination which Will had made was that if he couldn’t be allowed to go to the woods properly, then he would go improperly.

He would be off. Yes, sir—he would be off, just ahead of the supply-team, which had not yet gone, and the men would feel obliged to take him on when they overtook him. They couldn’t leave him there, and they couldn’t spare the time to turn about and take him home—and so he would get to the logging-camp in spite of everyone.

As he stood thinking, he heard Janet, who had a pretty talent for music, at her practicing, playing in childish fashion the Spinning Song. He half heard in it the whirr of the wheel, the beat of the treadle, the song of the spinning girl, the rustle of leaves outside her, the hum of bees and stir of wind, and twitter of birds in the branches. And that was the last Will heard and saw of home that day. For he put on his reefer, pulled his sealskin cap over his ears, hung his skates on his arm, and with his hands buried in his pockets went down the field to take a short cut and get the start of the team.

Will felt himself very ill-used. There he was, kept at his books, with a woman to teach him, and obliged to look forward to a life of study, when he wanted to be using his muscles, to be shooting and trapping, following the deer, snaring small game!

It was very short-sighted and a great injustice on Old Uncle’s part, Will reasoned; and he couldn’t see what Aunt Susan had been thinking of; and he was very indignant with his Aunt Rose, who had insisted on those horrid rules in the subjunctive; and as for Janet she could chop all the Latin she wished—he preferred to chop wood!

Nursing his wrath, Will ran and walked and skipped along. Reaching the highway, he got a lift of some miles by clinging to the runners of a surveying party’s cutter. He got a bowl of bread and milk at a wayside shanty, for which he paid all the pennies in his pocket, then had another ride of a couple of hours on a slow ox-team laboring along to an isolated farm.

And now he was already in the woods, not the deep forest of the loggers in the remote north—that was still a journey off—but where the highway was to be guessed by the open spaces between the lower hills, as there were no marks of travel on the snow-crust. The air was already obscure, although he could see a belt of sunset through the boles of the trees. He began to have a very desolate sensation.

Will was not afraid—oh, no, not he! It was simply mighty lonesome. He trudged away, all the same, and began to whistle.

Presently he stopped whistling. He wondered why the supply-team did not come along. Had he made a mistake—was it to-morrow noon they had been going to start? Pincher had certainly told him they would be off within the hour. Probably they were only waiting for Diane to put up the cold beef and bottle the coffee. He expected to hear the bells every moment.

How surprised Old Uncle would be when he saw him come into the camp with Pincher and Jo! How angry, too, perhaps, at first! But the fact that Aunt Susan was along would counterbalance that. Will could see her sweet serene face in the white fur hood. Well, Old Uncle would understand how impossible it was to drive a boy out of his bent. Yes, he would, sir! Will reflected with pride that now he had taken things into his own hands, and walked on with great resolution. For a fellow who had taken things into his own hands could not afford to be down-hearted because the road was lonely, long, or dark. If he was—he would not say the word “afraid” even to himself. Well, if he was, what would he be in the deep woods of the caribou and the catamount? Thereat a picture came before his eyes of a huge caribou plunging down the forest-depths with great bounds, his nostrils dilating, his black eyes burning, his mighty horns laid back along his shoulders; and if ever any one was glad it was Will when he heard a far-off tinkle, and presently a peal of sledge-bells, and turned about and stood still to meet the supply-team with Pincher and Jo.

“Wal, he’s a chap of speerit, I vum!” cried Pincher, when the boy in the middle of the way raised his hand to halt the horses. “I do’ ’no’s we got anythin’ ter du but ter take him on. But I guess we’ll cure him!”

“Ol’ man’ll be mad,” suggested Jo—Old Uncle wearing that appellation on account of his mastership, by no means on account of his years.

“Can’t leave the boy here in this woodsy place, and night comin’ on, if he is,” said Pincher. “Pretty kittle o’ fish! Up with ye, youngster!”

Tucked under a lot of horse-blankets on top of the load, Will knew but little more till late the next morning. Then he found they were still jogging on. He had a vague, delightful memory of a misty scene of swinging lanterns and shouting voices, and of their changing horses in the middle of the night at the remote half-way house.

Feeling a little stiff and sore, he stretched himself, and got down to walk a bit and limber up with Pincher. And he found the cold beef and sausage and biscuit and bottled coffee as good as nectar and ambrosia.

So they plodded on through the day, with a bite here and a sup there. Just at dusk they stopped in a sheltered spot where they were to camp for the night in a rude hut built there for the logging-parties.

“Well, this is great,” said Will, standing with his legs far apart in front of the fire that Pincher had snapping outside and sending up whirls of sparks. Pincher was cooking some squirrels he had shot.

After a savory repast, Will went to sleep on a pile of hemlock-boughs, covered with another pile. He seemed to be on the brink of surprising experiences. When Jo waked him in the first glow of red sunrise through the chinks, he felt as if he had been floating on a cloud in the upper sky.

“We must hurry up,” exclaimed Jo. “’T’s thickening for foul weather.” So they broke their fast as they went along, Will refreshing himself with a huge icicle. He felt that even were he sent back to his books, and obliged to learn all about Hector and Andromache by way of punishment, it would be a cheap price to pay for the joy and satisfaction of this trip.

Still, as they approached the camp, Will’s heart was not quite as light, though they were welcomed by the baying of dogs, the chorus of clinking axes, and the shouts of the men driving the oxen that hauled the felled trees to the lake. But it rose again when he heard that Old Uncle and Aunt Susan had gone on toward the upper camp, and would not be back for some hours.

Will lost no time in making himself familiar with his new surroundings—the long low house of logs with the bunks inside, the deacon-seat where so many good stories were told, the huge fire where the sturdy little cook was frying a barrel of doughnuts at a time.

“How do you like life here?” said he to the cook.

“First-rate,” was the cook’s reply, as he dropped his dough into the fat.

“Ever seen a catamount?” Will asked.

“Cry round the camp soon’s it’s dark.”

Will’s eyes opened wider. “Really?”

“Cry like a child ter toll the men out.”

“Do the men ever go?”

“What’d they go fer? Ter be torn ter pieces?”

“Say! You got any gum?”

The cook pointed to a canister full of the daintiest-looking lumps of pink transparency.

“I suppose you have all the venison you want?” said Will, sampling the gum.

“Jes’ comes up and asks ter be et!”

Taking a doughnut, Will went out to investigate the oxen, the logging-roads, and the long frozen lake upon which the logs were being hauled to be all afloat and ready with the breaking up of the ice in the spring.

The ice lay glittering. In less than no time Will had his skates on, and was out careering over the crystal glare, doing his fancy tricks, and speeding away from reach to reach among the islands with which the great lake was sprinkled.

It was daylight much longer out on the open ice than in the woody places. And exhilarated with the glow of his swift motion, Will did not think anything about time until he saw large snow-flakes dancing about him. When he turned, he at once noticed that what light there was was only that of a gray gloaming, and that a chill damp wind was blowing in his face with a snow-storm on its wings.

However, there would be no trouble about skating back; and Will went flying campward against the wind, when the screw of one of his skates snapped and sent him tumbling headlong, rolling over and over. When he had picked himself up, and adjusted the skate again, he could not tell in which direction he had been going, up or down, along or across the lake.

The shores all looked alike. There were no lights of the camp to be seen, whether hidden by the islands or by the projecting shores. Try as he might to find the track of his skates he could not see any, either for the dim light, or for the snow that had fallen and was covering the lake more and more.

When he had skated perhaps a mile, and still saw no lights of the camp, Will was sure he had been turned about, and he reversed his motion and went in the other direction. But still there were no lights—not a twinkle anywhere, and when he hallooed no answer came but a far-off echo.

Well, this would never do, Will said. Some one of all the logging-paths would lead to camp, of course. He took off his skates and climbed the shore, and went trudging and whistling along. Still no lights. But hadn’t the camp been on the edge of the lake? He would wind along the edge, then, and sooner or later he _must_ come to it!

But Will soon found it more than dusky among the trees; and the broad gleam of the lake was gone; and the main logging-path along the shore was gone. He did not know which one of all the dim openings was the right one; the snow was bewildering; it was already dark; he was lost.

IX.

THE NIGHT-STORM IN THE WOODS.

WHEN Will realized that he was lost in the woods, of a stormy winter’s night, for a few moments he ran blindly forward, anyhow, anywhere, till he stopped simply because he had not another breath in him.

He leaned against a tree then, to quiet himself. Setting his wits at work he remembered that when he had been skating away from camp the wind had been directly behind him. If now he faced the wind he must be facing toward the camp. Everything was easy enough, after all.

But in a few moments he found that in among the eddies of the wood, face which way he might, he was always facing the wind!

As soon as he had breath enough he shouted with all his might, over and over again; a dull, faint echo answered him—an echo like a child’s cry.

All at once he recollected that catamount tolling the men out with a child’s cry, and his heart stood still. If that sound were a catamount! He began to run—tripping, stumbling, hitting outstretched boughs and fetching down on himself plunges of snow. Finally he brought up against a moss-covered giant of the wood, his lungs a furnace, his throat like burning brass.

He sat down on a fallen log. The snow was floating and eddying and falling round him. Now and again a soft bough swept low and touched his cheek in a sort of cold caress. He thought he would lie down presently under the lee of the log and stay all night, he was so tired.

Perhaps sitting there, his head bent on his knees, Will did lose himself an instant; for he started suddenly as if from a dream of the Wild Huntsman and the Spirits of the Wood streaming by with lights and shouts in the forest.

He recalled directly Old Uncle’s once saying that a person lost in the woods should on no account go to sleep, but should keep on moving. He rose, pulled up the collar of his reefer, pulled down the ears of his cap, and set out to keep moving. He had a singular feeling in doing so that somehow he was obeying Old Uncle and got a sort of comfort from it.

It was a mild storm, but Will was obliged to use a good deal of effort to walk in the damp snow. He felt that he must now be really making headway somewhere; and he trudged and trudged and trudged, quite sure his way pointed to camp at last, for if he were able to keep it up and go on he _must_ skirt the whole lake before morning, and so come to the camp. And on he walked and walked.

His legs ached, his back ached, his throat ached, his feet ached, his toes tingled. By and by he stumbled over another great log. What was this? His skates that he had dropped the time he had sat down and had come near falling asleep? Oh, it was the same log! He had come back to it! He had been traveling round and round in a circle!

Will sat down on the log again and leaned against the tree. In spite of himself the tears spurted forth. He was lost in the woods. He was going to freeze and die there. He was going to be buried in the snow. He would never see Aunt Susan again. Oh, if he had only been good to Ally when she held out her little well hand to him the other morning! The Spinning Song, that Janet had been playing when he threw down his axe, sent its sweet sound whirring in his ears.

Oh, if he could sit down by Aunt Rose again with his Greek! Oh! why had he been such an idiot? Why hadn’t he understood that Old Uncle knew best? How tired he was! How hungry he was! Why had he left Aunt Susan’s broiled chicken and slices of bread and jam, his own white bed, that crackling fire on the old winking and blinking knights-at-arms andirons, the boys’ games, little Essie and Ally? Even Erminie and Bobbo, who regarded him as the torment of their lives, seemed dear to him at that moment. Oh! was it true that they were all so happy, so warm, so comfortable, never dreaming of him alone and lost and dying in these dark stormy woods full of wild beasts!

Yes. It was all up with him. He had been a wicked boy; he must take what came. But how they would all feel! Ally and Essie would cry fit to break their hearts. Old Uncle and Uncle Billy—oh, it would be dreary in the Valley! And his dear, dear, dear Aunt Susan, the only mother he had ever known—the image of her pale sweet face was too much for him, and he was crying himself with all his might. And then, wearied out, and sending up now a prayer to Heaven that he might not die, and now a prayer that they might not feel too bad at home—all at once he was sound asleep, and the great hemlock-tree was bending down its branches heavy with snow about him, and sheltering him.

When at last, aroused by a disturbance about him, the cry of voices, the blast of horns, the flash of lanterns, Will sleepily opened his eyes again, he might have thought it was heaven, with some great light glowing on a heavenly spirit’s face, only that he knew he deserved nothing of that sort! In another moment he saw that it was Aunt Susan, and without asking how she came there he threw himself into her arms.

The facts in the case were, that when Will had not returned to the camp there had been an alarm given. The whole body of men had gone out in search-parties after him and Pincher; for Pincher, too, was gone. It was one of these parties, passing in the distance, that had given Will his instant’s dream of the Wild Huntsman.

And Old Uncle, driving down from the upper camp, with a jingle of bells and flashing of sleigh-lamps, was passing just as a group of the men had paused wondering at the place not far from the wayside where for a circle of some hundred yards in diameter the snow was somewhat trodden down around the old post-office tree (the very circle where poor Will had done his tramping), and naturally Old Uncle had stopped and come to see what was the cause of the excitement. Aunt Susan had alighted too, and followed, and had been first of all to see Will in beneath the broad hemlock boughs.

In that moment of joy and relief and gratitude, Will never noticed the big pea-jacket that had been spread over him and from which Pincher was shaking the snow.

“I’ll—I’ll go to Bowdoin, Uncle,” Will was saying, standing between Old Uncle and Aunt Susan. “I’ll—I’ll learn the lines of the Greek ships by heart. I’ll—I’ll go to Bowdoin!”

Then he was in the sleigh, cuddled under the robes, ready for the drive to the lean-to of bark and boughs beside the long low log house of the camp, where Old Uncle and Aunt Susan were going to rough it for the night.

“I guess he’s cured,” muttered Pincher to Old Uncle, handing up the reins. “I guess he’s cured. I ain’t been fur off none er the time. And I guess he’s hed all he wants o’ loggin.’ And I’ll warrant he won’t run away to sea, nuther! He’s cured.”

X.

THE CHRISTMAS-TREE ON THE CLIFF.

IT was lucky for the Children of the Valley, as Maria said, that Master Will got home from the woods and put his heart into his books before Christmas-time. “There’d been no Christmas-tree,” said she, “if that child’d got lost in the woods. I declare it makes my blood run cold a-thinkin’ of them catamounts!”

But still the very day before Christmas had arrived, and the expectant little southern children saw with some dismay no preparations for a Christmas-tree about the house. They had, themselves, prepared the most elaborate gifts in their power for the grown-up people. Jack had made a wooden paper-knife for Old Uncle, whittling and sand-papering it to a fine edge; and Janet had made Uncle Billy a pen-wiper, and for its central ornament Ally had given her tiny glass goose, which Janet had fastened in; and Essie had made Aunt Susan a blotter, and pasted her best paper doll on the cover, daubing herself stiff with the mucilage. But except for the scarf of pink wool for Aunt Rose, in the knitting of which all had taken turns, they had not been able to do more; and they had decided to make an exchange of possessions for each other.

“I’d rather give the paper-cutter to Will, now he’s going to college,” said Jack, a little wistfully, as twilight fell on Christmas Eve, and they were feeling a trifle misused. “Old Uncle won’t want it, and he’ll only grunt.”

“He’ll be very pleased inside,” said Essie.

“Hurrah!” said Will, coming in just then, “you’re all to be allowed to sit up, and we’re all bound for a big sleigh-ride as soon as supper’s over!”

“Isn’t there any Christmas-tree?” asked Essie.

“Oh, yes! there’ll be a Christmas-tree,” said Will.

And then Aunt Rose swept them all out to their hot milk and zweibach, and the thin pancakes rolled in jelly, which were a special treat. And after that, there was a wild hustling up-stairs and into thick clothes and wraps; and the sleigh-bells were jangling and wrangling, and they were rushing out and in, and the hot soap-stones were at their feet, and the furs tucked round them, and Pincher was driving—and it was certain that the whole household were along, either in the big sleigh or the little ones, except Uncle Billy and Charlie.

The dusk was all about them and clear starlight over head; and soon silence fell upon the wondering little ones who seemed to themselves to be on the edge of some strange beautiful unknown other world.