The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Then when she was quite strong, she had gone to the natatorium. Aggie and I went along, not that we were any good in emergency, but because Tish had convinced us there would be no emergency. And Tish went in at the deep end of the pool, head first, according to diagram, and did not come up.

  Well, there seemed to be nothing threatening in what Tish was reading this time. She had ordered some books for Maria Lee's children and was looking them over before she sent them. The "Young Woods-man" was one and "Camper Craft" was another. How I shudder when I recall those names!

  Aggie had baked an angel cake and I had brought over a jar of cookies. But Tish only thanked us and asked Hannah to take them out. Even then we were not suspicious. Tish sat back among her pillows and said very little. The conversation was something like this:--

  Aggie: Well, you're up again: I hope to goodness it will be a lesson to you. If you don't mind, I'd like Hannah to cut that cake. It fell in the middle.

  Tish: Do you know that the Indians never sweetened their food and that they developed absolutely perfect teeth?

  Aggie: Well, they never had any automobiles either, but they didn't develop wings.

  Lizzie: Don't you want that window closed? I'm in a draft.

  Tish: Air in motion never gave any one a cold. We do not catch cold; we catch heat. It's ridiculous the way we shut ourselves up in houses and expect to remain well.

  Aggie: Well, I'b catchig sobethig.

  Lizzie (changing the subject): Would you like me to help you dress? It might rest your back to have your corset on.

  Tish (firmly): I shall never wear a corset again.

  Aggie (sneezing): Why? Didn't the Iddiads wear theb?

  Tish is very sensitive to lack of sympathy and she shut up like a clam. She was coldly polite to us for the remainder of our visit, but she did not again refer to the Indians, which in itself was suspicious.

  Fortunately for us, or unfortunately, Tish's new scheme was one she could not very well carry out alone. I believe she tried to induce Hannah to go with her, and only when Hannah failed her did she turn to us. Hannah was frightened and came to warn us.

  I remember the occasion very well. It was Mr. Wiggins's birthday anniversary, and we usually dine at Aggie's and have a cake with thirty candles on it. Tish was not yet able to be about, so Aggie and I ate together. She always likes to sit until the last candle is burned out, which is rather dispiriting and always leaves me low in my mind.

  Just as it flickered and went out, Hannah came in.

  "Miss Tish sent over Mr. Charlie's letter from London," said Hannah, and put it in front of Aggie. Then she sat down on a chair and commenced to cry.

  "Why, Hannah!" said Aggie. "What in the world has happened?"

  "She's off again!" sniveled Hannah; "and she's worse this time than she's ever been. No sugar, no tea, only nuts and fruit, and her windows open all night, with the curtains getting black. I wisht I had Mr. Charlie by the neck."

  I suppose it came over both of us at the same time--the "Young Woodsman," and the "Camper Craft," and no stays, and all that. I reached for Charlie Sands's letter, which was always sent to Tish and meant for all of us. He wrote:--

  Dear Three of a Kind: Well, the French President has came and went, and London has taken down all the brilliant flags which greeted him, such tactful bits as bore Cressy and Agincourt, and the pretty little smallpox and "plague here" banners, and has gone back to such innocent diversions as baiting cabinet ministers, blowing up public buildings, or going out into the woods seeking the Simple Life.

  The Simple Lifers travel in bands--and little else. They go barefooted, barearmed, bareheaded and barenecked. They wear one garment, I believe, let their hair hang and their beards grow, eat only what Nature provides, such as nuts and fruits, sleep under the stars, and drink from Nature's pools. Rather bully, isn't it? They're a handsome lot generally, brown as nuts. And I saw a girl yesterday--well, if you do not hear from me for a time it will be because I have discarded the pockets in which I carry my fountain pen and my stamps and am wandering barefoot through the Elysian fields.

  Yours for the Simple Life,

  CHARLIE SANDS.

  As I finished reading the letter aloud, I looked at Aggie in dismay. "That settles it," I said hopelessly. "She had some such idea before, and now this young idiot--" I stopped and stared across the table at Aggie. She was sitting rapt, her eyes fixed on the smouldering wicks of Mr. Wiggins's candles.

  "Barefoot through the Elysian fields!" she said.

  II

  I am not trying to defend myself. I never had the enthusiasm of the other two, but I rather liked the idea. And I did restrain them. It was my suggestion, for instance, that we wear sandals without stockings, instead of going in our bare feet, which was a good thing, for the first day out Aggie stepped into a hornet's nest. And I made out the lists.

  The idea, of course, is not how much one can carry, but how little. The "Young Woodsman" told exactly how to manage in the woods if one were lost there and had nothing in the world but a bootlace and a wire hairpin.

  With the hairpin one could easily make a fair fish-hook--and with a bootlace or a good hemp cord one could make a rabbit snare.

  "So you see," Tish explained, "there's fish and meat with no trouble at all. And there will be berries and nuts. That's a diet for a king."

  I was making a list of the necessaries at the time and under bootlaces and hairpins I put down "spade."

  "What in Heaven's name is the spade for?" Tish demanded.

  "You've got to dig bait, haven't you?"

  Tish eyed me with disgust.

  "Grasshoppers!" she said tersely.

  There was really nothing Tish was not prepared for. I should never have thought of grasshoppers.

  "The idea is simply this," observed Tish: "We have surrounded ourselves with a thousand and one things we do not need and would be better without--houses, foolish clothing, electric light, idiotic servants--Hannah, get away from that door!--rich foods, furniture and crowds of people. We've developed and cared for our bodies instead of our souls. What we want is to get out into the woods and think; to forget those pampered bodies of ours and to let our souls grow and assert themselves."

  We decided finally to take a blanket apiece, rolled on our shoulders, and Tish and I each took a strong knife. Aggie, instead of the knife, took a pair of scissors. We took a small bottle of blackberry cordial for emergencies, a cake of soap, a salt-cellar for seasoning the fish and rabbits, two towels, a package of court-plaster, Aggie's hay-fever remedy, a bottle of oil of pennyroyal to use against mosquitoes, and a large piece of canvas, light but strong, cut like the diagram.

  [Illustration]

  Tish said it was the regulation Indian tepee, and that a squaw could set one up in an hour and have dinner cooked inside it in thirty minutes after. She said she guessed we could do it if an Indian squaw could, and that after we'd cut the poles once, we could carry them with us if we wished to move. She said the tent ought to be ornamented, but she had had no time, and we could paint designs on it with colored clay in the woods when we had nothing more important to do!

  It made a largish bundle, but we did not intend to travel much. We thought we could find a good place by a lake somewhere and put up the tent, and set a few snares, and locate the nearest berry-bushes and mushroom-patches, and then, while the rabbits were catching themselves, we should have time to get acquainted with our souls again.

  Tish put it in her terse manner most intelligently. "We intend to prove," she stated to Mrs. Ostermaier, the minister's wife, who came to call and found us all sitting on the floor trying to get used to it, for of course there would be no chairs, "we shall prove that the trappings of civilization are a delusion and a snare. We shall bring back 'Mens sana in corpore sano'."

  The minister's wife thought this was a disease, for she said, "I hope not, I'm sure," very hastily.

  "We shall make our own fire and our own shelter," said Tish from the floor. "We shall wear o
ne garment, loose enough to allow entire freedom of movement. We shall bathe in Nature's pools and come out cleansed. On the Sabbath we shall attend divine service under the Gothic arches of the trees, read sermons in stones, and instead of that whining tenor in the choir we shall listen to the birds singing praise, overhead."

  Mrs. Ostermaier looked rather bewildered. "I'm sure I hope so," she said vaguely. "I don't like camping myself. There are so many bugs."

  As Tish said, some ideas are so large that the average person cannot see them at all.

  We had fixed on Maine. It seemed to combine all the necessary qualities: woods and lakes, rabbits, game and fish, and--solitude. Besides, Aggie's hay fever is better the farther north she gets. On the day we were leaving, Mr. Ostermaier came to see us.

  "I--I really must protest, ladies," he said. "That sort of thing may be all right for savages, but--"

  "Are we not as intelligent as savages?" Tish demanded.

  "Primitive people are inured to hardships, and besides, they have methods of their own. They can make fire--" "So can I," retorted Tish. "Any fool can make a fire with a rubbing-stick. It's been done in thirty-one seconds."

  "If you would only take some matches," he wailed, "and a good revolver, Miss Letitia. And--you must pardon this, but I have your well-being at heart--if I could persuade you to take along some--er--flannels and warm clothing!"

  "Clothing," said Tish loftily, "is a matter of habit, Mr. Ostermaier."

  I think he got the idea from this that we intended to discard clothing altogether, for he went away almost immediately, looking rather upset, and he preached on the following Sunday from "Consider the lilies of the field.... Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

  We left on Monday evening, and by Tuesday at noon we were at our destination, as far as the railroad was concerned. Tish had a map with the lake we'd picked out, and we had figured that we'd drive out to within ten miles or so of it and then send the driver back. The lake was in an uninhabited neighborhood, with the nearest town twenty-five miles away. We had one suitcase containing our blankets, sandals, short dresses, soap, hairpins, salt-box, knives, scissors, and a compass, and the leather thongs for rabbit snares that we had had cut at a harness shop. In the other suitcase was the tepee.

  We ate a substantial breakfast at Tish's suggestion, because we expected to be fairly busy the first day, and there would be no time for hunting. We had to walk ten miles, set up the tent, make a fire and gather nuts and berries. It was about that time, I think, that I happened to recall that it was early for nuts. Still there would be berries, and Tish had added mushrooms to our menu.

  We found a man with a spring wagon to drive us out and Tish showed him the map.

  "I guess I can get you out that way," he said, "but I ain't heard of no camp up that direction."

  "Who said anything about a camp?" snapped Tish. "How much to drive us fifteen miles in that direction?"

  "Fifteen miles! Well, about five dollars, but I think--"

  "How much to drive us fifteen miles without thinking?"

  "Ten dollars," said the man; and as he had the only wagon in the town we had to pay it.

  It was a lovely day, although very warm. The morning sun turned the woods to fairylike glades. Tish sat on the front seat, erect and staring ahead.

  Aggie bent over and touched my arm lightly. "Isn't she wonderful!" she whispered; "like some adventurer of old--Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean, or Joan of Arc leading the what-you-call-'ems."

  But somehow my enthusiasm was dying. The sun was hot and there were no berry-bushes to be seen. Aggie's fairy glades in the woods were filled, not with dancing sprites, but with gnats. I wanted a glass of iced tea, and some chicken salad, and talcum powder down my neck. The road was bad, and the driver seemed to have a joke to himself, for every now and then he chuckled, and kept his eyes on the woods on each side, as if he expected to see something. His manner puzzled us all.

  "You can trust me not to say anything, ladies," he said at last, "but don't you think you're playing it a bit low down? This ain't quite up to contract, is it?"

  "You've been drinking!" said Tish shortly.

  After that he let her alone, but soon after he turned round to me and made another venture.

  "In case you need grub, lady," he said,"--and them two suitcases don't hold a lot,--I'll bring out anything you say: eggs and butter and garden truck at market prices. I'm no phylanthropist," he said, glaring at Tish, "but I'd be glad to help the girl, and that's the truth. I been married to this here wife o' mine quite a spell, and to my first one for twenty years, and I'm a believer in married life."

  "What girl?" I asked.

  He turned right round in the seat and winked at me.

  "All right," he said. "I'll not butt in unless you need me. But I'd like to know one thing: He hasn't got a mother, he says, so I take it you're his aunts. Am I on, ladies?"

  We didn't know what he was talking about, and we said so. But he only smiled. A mile or so from our destination the horse scared up a rabbit, and Tish could hardly be restrained from running after it with a leather thong. Aggie, however, turned a little pale.

  "I'll never be able to eat one, never!" she confided to me. "Did you see its eyes? Lizzie, do you remember Mr. Wiggins's eyes? and the way he used to move his nose, just like that?"

  At the end of fifteen miles the driver drew up his horses and took a fresh chew of tobacco.

  "I guess this is about right," he said. "That trail there'll take you to the lake. How long do you reckon it'll be before you'll need some fresh eggs?"

  "We are quite able to look after ourselves," said Tish with hauteur, and got out of the wagon. She paid him off at once and sat down on her suitcase until he had driven out of sight. He drove slowly, looking back every now and then, and his last view of us must have been impressive--three middle-aged and determined women ready to conquer the wilderness, as Tish put it, and two suitcases.

  It was as solitary a place as we could have wished. We had not seen a house in ten miles, and when the last creak of the wagon had died away there was a silence that made our city-broke ears fairly ache. Tish waited until the wagon was out of sight; then she stood up and threw out her arms.

  "At last!" she said. "Free to have a lodge in some vast wilderness--to think, to breathe, to expand! Lizzie, do you suppose if we go back we can get that rabbit?"

  I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock and there was not a berry-bush in sight. The drive had made me hungry, and I'd have eaten a rabbit that looked like Mr. Wiggins and called me by name if I'd had it. But there was absolutely no use going back for the one we'd seen on our drive.

  Aggie was opening her suitcase and getting out her costume, which was a blue calico with short sleeves and a shoe-top skirt.

  "Where'll I put it on?" she asked, looking about her.

  "Right here!" Tish replied. "For goodness sake, Aggie, try to discard false modesty and false shame. We're here to get close to the great beating heart of Nature. Take off your switch before you do another thing."

  None of us looked particularly well, I admit; but it was wonderful how much more comfortable we were. Aggie, who is very thin, discarded a part of her figure, and each of us parted with some pet hypocrisy. But I don't know that I have ever felt better. Only, of course we were hungry.

  We packed our things in the suitcases and hid them in a hollow tree, and Tish suggested looking for a spring. She said water was always the first requisite and fire the second.

  "Fire!" said Aggie. "What for? We've nothing to cook."

  Well, that was true enough, so we sent Aggie to look for water and Tish and I made a rabbit snare. We made a good many snares and got to be rather quick at it. They were all made like this illustration.

  [Illustration]

  First Tish, with her book open in front of her, made a running noose out of one of the buckskin thongs. Next we bent down a sapling and tied the noose to it, and last of all we bound the free part
of the thong round a snag and thus held the sapling down. The idea is that a rabbit, bounding along, presumably with his eyes shut, will stick his head through the noose, kick the line clear of the snag and be drawn violently into the air. Tish figured that by putting up half a dozen snares we'd have three or four rabbits at least each day.

  It was about three when we finished, and we drew off to a safe distance to watch the rabbit bound to his doom. But no rabbits came along.

  I was very empty and rather faint, but Tish said she had never been able to think so clearly, and that we were all overfed and stodgy and would be better for fasting.

  Aggie came in at three-thirty with a hornet sting and no water. She said there were no springs, but that she had found a place where a spring had existed before the dry spell, and there was a naked footprint in the mud, quite fresh! We all went to look at it, and Tish was quite positive it was not a man's footprint at all, but only a bear's.

  "A bear!" said Aggie.

  "What of it?" Tish demanded. "The 'Young Woodsman' says that no bear attacks a human unless he is hungry, and at this time of the year with the woods full of food--"

  "Humph!"--I could not restrain myself--"I wish you would show me a little of it. If no rabbit with acute melancholia comes along to commit suicide by hanging on that gallows of yours, I think we'll starve to death."

  "There will be a rabbit," Tish said tersely; and we started back to the snare.

  I was never so astonished in my life. There was a rabbit! It seems we had struck a runway without knowing it, although Tish said afterward that she had recognized it at once from the rabbit tracks. Anyhow, whether it died of design or curiosity, our supper was kicking at the top of the sapling, and Tish pretended to be calm and to have known all along that we'd get one. But it was not dead.