第6章

He was unarmed.He did not even wear a knife.But the thought rose in his mind of how rapidly the forest also was changing its character.The Indians were gone.Two years had passed since they had for the last time flecked the tender green with tender blood.And the deadly wild creatures--the native people of earth and tree--they likewise had fled from the slaughter and starvation of their kind.A little while back and a maddened buffalo or a wounded elk might have trodden him down and gored him to death in that thicket and no one have ever learned his fate--as happened to many a solitary hunter.He could not feel sure that hiding in the leaves of the branches against which his hat sometimes brushed there did not lie the panther, the hungrier for the fawns that had been driven from the near coverts.A swift lowering of its head, a tense noiseless spring, its fangs buried in his neck,--with no knife the contest would not have gone well with him.But of deadly big game he saw no sign that day.Once from a distant brake he was surprised to hear the gobble of the wild turkey; and more surprised still--and delighted--when the trail led to a twilight gloom and coolness, and at the green margin of a little spring he saw a stag drinking.

It turned its terrified eyes upon him for an instant and then bounded away like a gray shadow.

When he had gone about two miles, keeping his face steadily toward the sun, he came upon evidences of a clearing: burnt and fallen timber; a field of sprouting maize; another of young wheat; a peach orchard flushing all the green around with its clouds of pink; beyond this a garden of vegetables;and yet farther on, a log house.

He was hurrying on toward the house; but as he passed the garden he saw standing in one corner, with a rake in her hand, a beautifully formed woman in homespun, and near by a negro lad dropping garden-seed.His eyes lighted up with pleasure; and changing his course at once, he approached and leaned on the picket fence.

"How do you do, Mrs.Falconer?"

She turned with a cry, dropping her rake and pushing her sun-bonnet back from her eyes.

"How unkind to frighten me!" she said, laughing as she recognized him; and then she came over to the fence and gave him her hand--beautiful, but hardened by work.A faint colour had spread over her face.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he replied, smiling at her fondly."But Ihad rapped on the fence twice.I suppose you took me for a flicker.Or you were too busy with your gardening to hear me.Or, may be you were too deep in your own thoughts.""How do you happen to be out of school so early?" she asked, avoiding the subject.

"I was through with the lessons."

"You must have hurried."

"I did."

"And is that the way you treat people's children?""That's the way I treated them to-day."

"And then you came straight out here?"

"As straight and fast as my legs could carry me--with a good many interruptions."She searched his face eagerly for a moment.Then her eyes fell and she turned back to the seed-planting.He stood leaning over the fence with his hat in his hand, glancing impatiently at the house.

"How can you respect yourself, to stand there idling and see me hard at work?" she said at length, without looking, at him.

"But you do the work so well--better than I could! Besides, you are obeying a Divine law.I have no right to keep you from doing the will of God.Iobserve you as one of the daughters of Eve--under the curse of toil.""There's no Divine command that I should plant beans.But it is my command that Amy shall.And this is Amy's work.Aren't you willing to work for her?"she asked, slowly raising her eyes to his face.

"I am willing to work for her, but I am not willing to do her work!" he replied." If the queen sits quietly in the parlour, eating bread and honey"--and he nodded, protesting, toward the house.

"The queen's not in the parlour, eating bread and honey.She has gone to town to stay with Kitty Poythress till after the ball."She noted how his expression instantly changed, and how, unconscious of his own action, he shifted his face back to the direction of the town.

"Her uncle was to take her in to-morrow," she went on, still watching him, "but no! she and Kitty must see each other to-night; and her uncle must be sure to bring her party finery in the gig to-morrow.I'm sorry you had your walk for nothing; but you'll stay to supper?""Thank you; I must go back presently."

"Didn't you expect to stay when you came?"He flushed and laughed in confusion.

"If you'll stay, I'll make you a johnny-cake on a new ash shingle with my own hands.""Thank you, I really must go back.But if there's a johnny-cake already made, I could easily take it along.""My johnny-cakes do not bear transportation.""I wouldn't transport it far, you know."

"Do stay! Major Falconer will be so disappointed.He said at dinner there were so many things he wanted to talk to you about.He has been looking for you to come out.And, then, we have had no news for weeks.The major has been too busy to go to town; and I!--I am as dry as one of the gourds of Confucius."His thoughts settled contentedly upon her once more and his face cleared.

"I can't stay to supper, but I'll keep the Indians away till the major comes," he said."What were you thinking of when I surprised you?""What was I thinking of?" She stopped working while she repeated his words and folded her hands about the handle of the rake as if to rest awhile.Aband of her soft, shining hair, loosened by its own weight when she had bent over to thin some seed carelessly scattered in the furrow, now fell across her forehead.She pushed her bonnet back and stood gathering it a little absently into its place with the tips of her fingers.Meanwhile he could see that her eyes rested upon the edge of the wilderness.It seemed to him that she must be thinking of that; and he noted with pain, as often before, the contrast between her and her surroundings.From every direction the forest appeared to be rushing in upon that perilous little reef of a clearing--that unsheltered island of human life, newly displaying itself amid the ancient, blood-flecked, horror-haunted sea of woods.And shipwrecked on this island, tossed to it by one of the long tidal waves of history, there to remain in exile from the manners, the refinement, the ease, the society to which she had always been accustomed, this remarkable gentlewoman.