CHAPTER VI

A ONE-SIDED STORY

Adrian was not a gymnast, though he had seen and admired many wonderful feats performed by his own classmates. But he had never beheld a miracle, and such he believed had been accomplished when, upon reaching the foot of that terrible tree, he found Margot sitting beneath it, pale and shaken, but, apparently, unhurt.

She had heard his breathless crashing up the slope and greeted him with a smile and the tremulous question:--

“How did you know where I was?”

“You aren’t--dead?”

“Certainly not. I might have been, though, but God took care.”

“Was it my cheers frightened you?”

“Was it you, then? I heard something, different from the wood sounds, and I looked quick to see. Then my foot slipped and I went down--a way. I caught a branch just in time, and--please, don’t tell uncle. I’d rather do that myself.”

“You should never do such a thing. The idea of a girl climbing trees at all, least of any such a tree as that!”

He threw his head back and looked upward, through the green spiral, to the brilliant sky. The enormous height revived the horror he had felt as he leaped through the window and rushed to the mountain.

“Who planned such a death-trap as that, anyway?”

“I did.”

“You! A girl!”

“Yes. Why not? It’s great fun, usually.”

“You’d better have been learning to sew.”

“I can sew, but I don’t like it. Angelique does that. I do like climbing and canoeing and botanizing and geologizing and astronomizing and--”

Adrian threw up his hands in protest.

“What sort of creature are you, anyway?”

“Just plain girl.”

“Anything but that!”

“Well, girl, without the adjective. Suits me rather better,” and she laughed in a way that proved she was not suffering from her mishap.

“This is the strangest place I ever saw. You are the strangest family. We are certainly in the backwoods of Maine, yet you might be a college senior, or a circus star, or--a fairy.”

Margot stretched her long arms and looked at them quizzically.

“Fairies don’t grow so big. Why don’t you sit down? Or, if you will, climb up and look toward the narrows on the north. See if Pierre’s birch is coming yet.”

Again Adrian glanced upward, to the flag floating there, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Excuse me, please. That is, I suppose I could do it, only, seeing you slip--I prefer to wait awhile.”

“Are you afraid?”

There was no sarcasm in the question. She asked it in all sincerity. Adrian was different from Pierre, the only other boy she knew, and she simply wondered if tree-climbing were among his unknown accomplishments.

It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and his brief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad of spirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestion of cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed aside his rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the great pine tree.

“Why, it’s easy! It’s grand!” he called back, and went up swiftly enough.

Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance. Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected by great spikes driven into the trunk, and he had but to clasp these in turn to make a safe ascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shaded his eyes and peered northward.

“He’s coming! Somebody’s coming!” he shouted. “There’s a little boat pushing off from that other shore.”

Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself and called forth a bit of praise from Margot.

“I’m so glad you can climb. One can see so much more from the tree-tops; and, oh! there is so much, so much to find out all the time! Isn’t there?”

“Yes. Decidedly. One of the things I’d like to find out first is who you are and how you came here. If you’re willing.”

Then he added, rather hastily: “Of course, I don’t want to be impertinently curious. It only seems so strange to find such educated people buried here in the north woods. I don’t see how you live here. I--I--”

But the more he tried to explain the more confused he grew, and Margot merrily simplified matters by declaring:--

“You are curious, all the same, and so am I. Let’s tell each other all about everything, and then we’ll start straight without the bother of stopping as we go along. Do sit down and I’ll begin.”

“Ready.”

“There’s so little, I shan’t be long. My dear mother was Cecily Dutton, my Uncle Hugh’s twin. My father was Philip Romeyn, uncle’s closest friend. They were almost more than brothers to each other, always; though uncle was a student and, young as he was, a professor at Columbia. Father was a business man, a banker or a cashier in a bank. He wasn’t rich, but mother and uncle had money. From the time they were boys, uncle and father were fond of the woods. They were great hunters then, and spent all the time they could get up here in northern Maine. After the marriage mother begged to come with them, and it was her money bought this island, and the land along the shore of this lake as far as we can see from here. Much farther, too, of course, because the trees hide things. They built this log cabin, and it cost a great, great deal to do it. They had to bring the workmen so far, but it was finished at last, and everything was brought up here to make it--just as you see.”

“What an ideal existence!”

“Was it? I don’t know much about ideals, though uncle talks of them sometimes. It was real, that’s all. They were very, very happy. They loved each other so dearly. Angelique came from Canada to keep the house, and she says my mother was the sweetest woman she ever saw. Oh! I wish--I wish I could have seen her! Or that I might remember her. I’ll show you her portrait. It hangs in my own room.”

“Did she die?”

“Yes, when I was a year old. My father had died long before that, and my mother was broken-hearted. Even for uncle and me she could not bear to live. It was my father’s wish that we should come up here to stay, and Uncle Hugh left everything and came. I was to be reared ‘in the wilderness, where nothing evil comes,’ was what both my parents said. So I have been, and--that’s all.”

Adrian was silent for some moments. The girl’s face had grown dreamy and full of a pathetic tenderness, as it always did when she discussed her unknown father and mother, even with Angelique; though, in reality, she had not been allowed to miss what she had never known. Then she looked up with a smile and observed: “Your turn.”

“Yes--I--suppose so. May as well give the end of my story first--I’m a runaway.”

“Why?”

“No matter why.”

“That isn’t fair.”

He parried the indignation of her look by some further questions of his own. “Have you always lived here?”

“Always.”

“You go to the towns sometimes, I suppose.”

“I have never seen a town, except in pictures.”

“Whew! Don’t you have any friends? Any girls come to see you?”

“I never saw a girl, only myself in that poor broken glass of Angel’s; and, of course, the pictured ones--as of the towns--in the books.”

“You poor child!”

Margot’s brown face flushed. She wanted nobody’s pity, and she had not felt that her life was a singular or narrow one till this outsider came. A wish very like Angelique’s, that he had stayed where he belonged, arose in her heart, but she dismissed it as inhospitable. Her tone, however, showed her resentment.

“I’m not poor. Not in the least. I have everything any girl could want, and I have--uncle! He’s the best, the wisest, the noblest man in all the world. I know it, and so Angelique says. She’s been in your towns, if you please. Lived in them, and says she never knew what comfort meant until she came to Peace Island and us. You don’t understand.”

Margot was more angry than she had ever been, and anger made her decidedly uncomfortable. She sprang up hastily, saying:--

“If you’ve nothing to tell I must go. I want to get into the forest and look after my friends there. The storm may have hurt them.”

She was off down the mountain, as swift and sure-footed as if it were not a rough pathway that made him blunder along very slowly. For he followed at once, feeling that he had not been fair, as she had accused, in his report of himself; and that only a complete confidence was due these people who had treated him so kindly.

“Margot! Margot! Wait a minute! You’re too swift for me! I want to--”

Just there he caught his foot in a running vine, stumbled over a hidden rock, and measured his length, head downward on the slope. He was not hurt, however, though vexed and mortified. But when he had picked himself up and looked around the girl had vanished.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

APRIL

FROM “IN MEMORIAM”

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And, drowned in yonder living blue, The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood; that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens, too; and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest.

WOOD-FOLK TALK

By J. ALLISON ATWOOD

HOW OWL BECAME A NIGHT BIRD.

Why anybody, especially such a sociable fellow as Owl, should stay indoors all day and go out only after the other birds are asleep, would be hard to guess. Yet there is a reason, and a good one, too.

It was the third year after the king’s reception that Owl moved into Birdland. He was a stranger to every one and, moreover, he seemed reserved, seldom joining in any of the social functions. Indeed, he was considered by many to be a wizard, so eccentric was he. Wren had once remarked, Owl always seemed to have something on his mind. Whereupon Brown Thrasher, with his usual sarcasm, replied that he didn’t think that Owl had any mind. Of course, this created a laugh at Owl’s expense, but he took it good-naturedly, for he knew that Thrasher’s opinions were as airy as his flight.

Owl’s first great trouble was house hunting. He had been brought up and accustomed to live in a hollow tree, and, if the truth must be told, he was far too clumsy to build such a house for himself. No wonder, then, that he was overcome with gratitude when Flicker offered him the one which he had built the year before. Like all the woodpeckers, Flicker was a good deal of a carpenter and always persisted in building himself a new house each spring, even though it might be but a short flight from his last year’s home.

Flicker had taken quite a liking to Owl, who always behaved like a gentleman, but the real reason was because of Thrasher’s attempt to tease him. Flicker and Thrasher were not very good friends. Many years ago Thrasher had insinuated that Flicker wore a black patch of feathers on his breast so that he might claim relationship with Meadow Lark. This, of course, was not true, and Flicker, who, by means of the red mark on the back of his head, could trace his ancestry back to the great Ivory Bill, could well laugh at the accusation. Nevertheless, he had always remembered it, and it was, therefore, with a double pleasure that he let Owl occupy his last year’s house.

As for Owl, it mattered little as to the real reason of his getting the house. So pleased was he that he even contemplated holding a reception in his new home. But then, as he thought how plain and old-fashioned it would seem to such a fastidious housekeeper as Oriole, his desire left him.

Now, when Sparrow Hawk, who had just arrived in Birdland, learned that Flicker had given one of his houses to Owl, he was very angry, for he had wanted it himself. He resolved to outwit Owl. Being rather stupid himself, he could not believe that Owl was really a bright fellow. So, with this object in view, Sparrow Hawk chose a nice, quiet spot in the nearby underbrush. Song Sparrow, who lived in the thicket, moved to the other end. He had never been fully satisfied as to how Sparrow Hawk received his name. However, Sparrow Hawk did not disturb him in the least, but remained hidden in the brush. “When Owl goes out to dinner,” thought he, “I’ll take possession of his house.” But Owl saw through his plan with half an eye and remained at home. At night, as soon as it became dark, he would slip quietly out and get himself a very comfortable meal. Then he would go back chuckling to himself as he thought of Sparrow Hawk’s plan. This went on for many days, and each morning Sparrow Hawk would say to himself, “He must come out to-day or he will starve.” Little did he know how Owl was getting ahead of him.

At length Sparrow Hawk became tired of hiding and flew up to Owl’s door. He expected to find the latter dead from starvation, or at least too weak to make any resistance. But when he saw Owl, plump and healthy, puff out his chest with an angry snap of his bill, he changed his mind and left in a hurry.

He was at a loss to account for Owl’s sleek condition. One day, however, he overheard one of his neighbors say that he had seen Owl fly out of his house late on the evening before.

Sparrow Hawk was more angry than ever. He saw that Owl had outwitted him. He resolved to be revenged, yet he knew that he could not stay awake all night to get possession of Owl’s house. Instead, he made up a lot of scandalous stories about Owl, and even went so far as to say that he ate other birds. At first Birdland would not believe these stories about Owl, but, when finally they learned his queer habits, they began to think that they must be true. So it happened that Owl became confirmed in his night-going habits.

One time he stayed out later than usual, and it was daybreak when he got near home. Instead of going in immediately, he remained in a nearby pine tree. It was so much more pleasant outside than in the house. His eyes had been troubling him of late, so he closed them. Then, before he knew it, Owl fell asleep. Very soon the sun rose and all Birdland was in a great bustle. Suddenly Chick-a-dee, who was searching for his breakfast, gave a startled little shriek. Who was that in the pine tree? It must be Owl. Blue Jay, too, was excited when Chick-a-dee, breathless and with feathers in disorder, hurried to him with the news. And so it spread. Everybody was indignant, for they remembered the stories told by Sparrow Hawk. Owl, they thought, should be put out of the way. This they whispered excitedly to each other as they surrounded the tree. Flicker was the only one who had heard the news and would not join the gathering. He sat on his doorstep watching them as they silently approached Owl, and he trembled, for it would be a very easy matter to kill poor Owl while he was asleep.

Sparrow Hawk was exultant. Now at last he would be revenged. Everybody believed Owl to be a villain and wished to kill him.

But to tell the truth, the birds were afraid of Owl. Even Sparrow Hawk hesitated about attacking him. Finally, it was planned that every one should fly at him at once while he slept, unconscious of his danger. As Flicker understood their plan, he became alarmed almost to distraction, and then, as if on a sudden thought, his anxious voice rang out, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

For a moment the birds were speechless. Then, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” cried Sparrow Hawk, and at that instant they all flew at him. Owl’s big eyes popped open and his feathers stood on end. So large did he appear and so terrible did the snap of his bill seem that, for the minute, his enemies stopped half way in their flight, and then, before they could collect their scattered wits, Owl darted noiselessly into his house.

It is very easy for us to understand now how all the scandals about Owl were started and why he lives such a hermit’s life. We know, too, why Flicker and Sparrow Hawk cannot get along together since the former saved Owl’s life. To tell the truth, Flicker is not a bit afraid of Sparrow Hawk, but when he sees him coming, hides behind a tree and calls, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” just to anger him. Sparrow Hawk knows well that he would have little chance of catching Flicker, who can dodge around the tree as nimbly as any squirrel, so his only retort is to call out to an imaginary ally, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS

BY ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD