AN ALIEN IN THE PINES
I
A man and a woman were pacing up and down the wintry station platform,waiting for a train. On every side the snow lay a stained and crumpledblanket, with here and there a light or a chimney to show the villagesleeping beneath.
The sky was a purple-black hemisphere, out of which the stars glitteredalmost white. The wind came out of the west, cold but amiable; thecracked bell of a switch-engine gurgled querulously at intervals,followed by the bumping of coupling freight-cars; roosters were crowing,and sleepy train-men were assembling in sullen silence.
The couple walked with arms locked like lovers, but the tones of theirvoices had the quality which comes after marriage. They were man andwife.
The woman's clear voice arose. "Oh, Ed, isn't this delicious? What onemisses by not getting up early!"
"Sleep, for instance," laughed her husband.
"Don't drag me down. You know what I mean. Let's get up early everymorning while we're up here in the woods."
"Shouldn't wonder if we had to. There'll be a lot to do, and I want toget back to Chicago by the 1st of February."
"This is an experience! Isn't it still? When is our train due?"
"Due now; I think that is our headlight up the track."
As he spoke an engine added its voice to the growing noise of thestation, and drew solemnly down the frosty steel.
An eruption of shapeless forms of men from the depot filled the onegeneral coach of the train. They nearly all were dressed in some sort offur coat, and all had the look of men accustomed to out-doorlife--powerful, loud-voiced, unrefined. They were, in fact, travellingmen, business men, the owners of mills or timber. The stolid or patientox-like faces of some Norwegian workmen, dressed in gay Mackinacjackets, were sprinkled about.
The young wife was a fine type of woman anywhere, but these surroundingsmade her seem very dainty and startlingly beautiful. Her husband had thefair skin of a city man, but his powerful shoulders and firm stepdenoted health and wholesome living. They were both good to look at.
They soon felt the reaction to sleepiness which comes to those notaccustomed to early rising, and the wife, soothed by the clank of thetrain, leaned her head on her husband's shoulder and dozed. He lookedout upon the landscape, glad that his wife was not observing it. He didnot know such desolation existed in Wisconsin.
On every side were the evidences of a ruined forest land. A landscape offlat wastes, of thinned and burned and uprooted trees. A desolate andapparently useless land.
Here and there a sawmill stood gray and sagging, surrounded by littlecabins of unpainted wood, to testify to the time when great pines stoodall about, and the ring of the swamper's axe was heard in the intervalsof silence between the howls of a saw.
To the north the swells grew larger. Birch and tamarack swampsalternated with dry ridges on which an inferior pine still grew. Theswamps were dense tangles of broken and uprooted trees. Slenderpike-like stumps of fire-devastated firs rose here and there, black andgrim skeletons of trees.
It was a land that had been sheared by the axe, torn by the winds, andblasted by fire.
Off to the west low blue ridges rose, marking the boundaries of thevalley which had been washed out ages ago by water. After the floodspine forest had sprung up, and these in their turn had been sheared awayby man. It lay now awaiting the plough and seeder of the intrepidpioneer.
Suddenly the wife awoke and sat up. "Why, we haven't had any breakfast!"
He smiled at her childish look of bewilderment. "I've been painfullyaware of it for some time back. I've been suffering for food while youslept."
"Why didn't you get into the basket?"
"How could I, with you on my manly bosom?"
She colored up a little. They had not been married long, evidently. "Howconsiderate you are!"
They were soon eating a breakfast with the spirit of picnickers.Occasionally she looked out of the window.
"What a wild country!" she said. He did not emphasize its qualities toher; rather, he distracted her attention from its desolation.
The train roared round its curves, conforming with the general course ofthe river. On every hand were thickening signs of active lumberindustry. They flashed by freight trains loaded with logs or lumber orties. Mills in operation grew thicker.
The car echoed with the talk of lumber. A brisk man with a red mustachewas exhibiting a model of a machine to cut certain parts of machineryout of "two by fours." Another was describing a new shingle-mill he hadjust built.
A couple of elderly men, one a German, were discussing the tariff onlumber. The workmen mainly sat silent.
"It's all so strange!" the young wife said, again and again.
"Yes, it isn't exactly the Lake Shore Drive."
"I like it. I wish I could smell the pines."
"You'll have all the pines you can stand before we get back to Chicago."
"No, sir; I'm going to enjoy every moment of it; and you're going to letme help, you know--look over papers, and all that. I'm the heiress, youmust remember," she added, wickedly.
"Well, we won't quarrel about that until we see how the legacy turnsout. It may not be worth my time up here. I shall charge you roundly asyour lawyer, depend on that."
The outlook grew more attractive as the train sped on. Old Mosinee rose,a fine rounded blue shape, on the left.
"Why, there's a mountain! I didn't know Wisconsin had such a mountain asthat."
"Neither did I. This valley is fine. Now, if your uncle's estates onlyincluded that hill!"
The valley made off to the northwest with a bold, large, and dignifiedmovement. The coloring, blue and silver, purple-brown and bronze-green,was harmonious with the grouping of lines. It was all fresh and vital,wholesome and very impressive.
From this point the land grew wilder--that is to say, more primeval.There was more of Nature and less of man. The scar of the axe was hereand there, but the forest predominated. The ridges of pine foliagesbroke against the sky, miles and miles, in splendid sweep.
"This must be lovely in summer," the wife said, again and again, as theyflashed by some lake set among the hills.
"It's fine now," he replied, feeling the thrill of the sportsman. "I'dlike to shoulder a rifle and plunge into those snowy vistas. How itbrings the wild spirit out in a man! Women never feel that delight."
"Oh, yes, we do," she replied, glad that something remained yetunexplained between them. "We feel just like men, only we haven't thestrength of mind to demand a share of it with you."
"Yes, you feel it at this distance. You'd come back mighty quick thesecond night out."
She did not relish his laughter, and so looked away out of the window."Just think of it--Uncle Edwin lived here thirty years!"
He forebore to notice her inconsistency. "Yes, the wilderness is allright for a vacation, but I prefer Chicago for the year round."
When they came upon Ridgeley, both cried out with delight.
"Oh, what a dear, picturesque little town!" she said.
"Well, well! I wonder how they came to build a town without a row ofbattlemented stores?"
It lay among and upon the sharp, low, stumpy pine ridges in haphazardfashion, like a Swiss village. A small brook ran through it, smotheredhere and there in snow. A sawmill was the largest figure of the town,and the railway station was the centre. There was not an inch of paintedboard in the village. Everywhere the clear yellow of the pine flamedunstained by time. Lumber piles filled all the lower levels near thecreek. Evidently the town had been built along logging roads, and therewas something grateful and admirable in its irregular arrangement. Thehouses, moreover, were all modifications of the logging camps; even thedrug store stood with its side to the street. All about were stumps andfringes of pines, which the lumbermen, for some good reason, had passedby. Charred boles stood purple-black out of the snow.
It was all green and gray and blue and yellow-white and stern. The skywas not more illimitable than the rugged forest which ex
tended on everyhand.
"Oh, this is glorious--glorious!" said the wife. "Do I own some of thistown?" she asked, as they rose to go out.
"I reckon you do."
"Oh, I'm so glad!"
As they stepped out on the platform, a large man in corduroy andwolf-skin faced them like a bandit.
"Hello, Ed!"
"Hello, Jack! Well, we've found you. My wife, Mr. Ridgeley. We've comeup to find out how much you've embezzled," he said, as Ridgeley pulledoff an immense glove to shake hands all round.
"Well, come right over to the hotel. It ain't the Auditorium, but then,again, it ain't like sleeping outdoors."
As they moved along they heard the train go off, and then the sound ofthe saw resumed its domination of the village noises.
"Was the town named after you, or you after the town?" asked Field.
"Named after me. Old man didn't want it named after him; would kill it,"he said.
Mr. and Mrs. Field found the hotel quite comfortable and the dinnerwholesome. They beamed upon each other.
"It's going to be delightful," they said.
Ridgeley was a bachelor, and made his home at the hotel also. That nighthe said: "Now we'll go over the papers and records of your uncle'sproperty, and then we'll go out and see if the property is all there. Iimagine this is to be a searching investigation."
"You may well think it. My wife is inexorable."
As night fell, the wife did not feel so safe and well pleased. The loudtalking in the office below and the occasional whooping of a crowd ofmill-hands going by made her draw her chair nearer and lay her fingersin her husband's palm.
He smiled indulgently. "Don't be frightened, my dear. These men are nothalf so bad as they sound."
II
Mrs. Field sat in the inner room of Ridgeley's office, waiting for thereturn of her husband with the team. They were going out for a drive.
Ridgeley was working at his books, and he had forgotten her presence.
She could not but feel a deep admiration for his powerful frame and hisquick, absorbed action as he moved about from his safe to his desk. Hewas a man of great force and ready decision.
Suddenly the door opened and a stranger entered. He had a sullen andbitter look on his thin, dark face. Ridgeley's quick eyes measured him,and his hand softly turned the key in his money drawer, and as he facedabout he swung shut the door of the safe.
The stranger saw all this with eyes as keen as Ridgeley's. A cheerlessand strange smile came upon his face.
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "I'm low, but I ain't as low as that."
"Well, sir, what can I do for you?" asked Ridgeley. Mrs. Field halfrose, feeling something tense and menacing in the attitude of the twomen.
But the intruder quietly answered, "You can give me a job if you wantto."
Ridgeley remained alert. His eyes ran over the man's tall frame. Helooked strong and intelligent, although his eyes were fevered and dull.
"What kind of a job?"
"Any kind that will take me out into the woods and keep me there."
There was a self-accusing tone in his voice that Ridgeley felt.
"What's your object? You look like a man who could do something else.What brings you here?"
The man turned with a sudden resolution to punish himself. His voiceexpressed a terrible loathing.
"Whiskey, that's what. It's a hell of a thing to say, but I can't letliquor alone when I can smell it. I'm no common hand, or I wouldn't beif I--But let that go. I can swing an axe, and I'm ready to work. That'senough. Now the question is, can you find a place for me?"
Ridgeley mused a little. The young fellow stood there, statuesque,rebellious.
Then Ridgeley said, "I guess I can help you out that much." He picked upa card and a pencil. "What shall I call you?"
"Oh, call me Williams; that ain't my name, but it'll do."
"What you been doing?"
"Everything part of the time, drinking the rest. Was in a livery-stabledown at Wausau last week. It came over me, when I woke yesterday, that Iwas gone to hell if I stayed in town. So I struck out; and I don't carefor myself, but I've got a woman to look out for--" He stopped abruptly.His recklessness of mood had its limits, after all.
Ridgeley pencilled on a card. "Give this to the foreman of No. 6. Themen over at the mill will show you the teams."
The man started toward the door with the card in his hand. He turnedsuddenly.
"One thing more. I want you to send ten dollars of my pay every twoweeks to this address." He took an envelope out of his pocket. "It don'tmatter what I say or do after this, I want that money sent. The restwill keep me in tobacco and clothing. You understand?"
Ridgeley nodded. "Perfectly. I've seen such cases before."
The man went out and down the walk with a hurried, determined air, as ifafraid to trust his own resolution.
As Ridgeley turned toward his desk he met Mrs. Field, who faced him withtears of fervent sympathy in her eyes.
"Isn't it awful?" she said, in a half whisper. "Poor fellow, what willbecome of him?"
"Oh, I don't know. He'll get along some way. Such fellows do. I've had'em before. They try it awhile here; then they move. I can't worry aboutthem."
Mrs. Field was not listening to his shifty words. "And then, think ofhis wife--how she must worry."
Ridgeley smiled. "Perhaps it's his mother or a sister."
"Anyway, it's awful. Can't something be done for him?"
"I guess we've done about all that can be done."
"Oh, I wish I could help him! I'll tell Ed about him."
"Don't worry about him, Mrs. Field; he ain't worth it."
"Oh yes, he is. I feel he's been a fine fellow, and then he's soself-accusing."
Her own happiness was so complete, she could not bear to think ofothers' misery. She told her husband about Williams, and ended byasking, "Can't we do something to help the poor fellow?"
Field was not deeply concerned. "No; he's probably past help. Such menare so set in their habits, nothing but a miracle or hypnotism can savethem. He'll end up as a 'lumber Jack,' as the townsmen call the hands inthe camps."
"But he isn't that, Edward. He's finer, some way. You feel he is. AskMr. Ridgeley."
Ridgeley merely said: "Yes, he seemed to me to be more than a commonhand. But, all the same, it won't be two weeks before he'll be in hereas drunk as a wild cat, wanting to shoot me for holding back his money."
In this way Williams came to be to Mrs. Field a very important figure inthe landscape of that region. She often spoke of him, and on thefollowing Saturday night, when Field came home, she anxiously asked, "IsWilliams in town?"
"No, he hasn't shown up yet."
She clapped her hands in delight. "Good! good! He's going to win hisfight."
Field laughed. "Don't bet on Williams too soon. We'll hear from himbefore the week is out."
"When are we going to visit the camp?" she asked, changing the subject.
"As soon as it warms up a little. It is too cold for you."
She had a laugh at him. "You were the one who wanted to 'plunge into thesnowy vistas.'"
He evaded her joke on him by assuming a careless tone. "I'm not plungingas much as I was; the snow is too deep."
"When you go I want to go with you--I want to see Williams."
"Ha!" he snorted, melodramatically. "She scorns me faithful heart. Sheturns--"
Mrs. Field smiled faintly. "Don't joke about it, Ed. I can't get thatwife out of my mind."
III
A few very cold gray days followed, and then the north wind cleared thesky; and, though it was still cold, it was pleasant. The sky had only asmall white cloud here and there to make its blueness the more profound.
Ridgeley dashed up to the door with a hardy little pair of broncoshitched to a light pair of bobs, and Mrs. Field was tucked in like ababe in a cradle.
Almost the first thing she asked was, "How is Williams?"
"Oh, he's getting on nicely. He re
fused to sleep with his bunk-mate, andfinally had to lick him, I understand, to shut him up. Challenged thewhole camp, then, to let him alone or take a licking. They let himalone, Lawson says. G'lang there, you rats!"
Mrs. Field said no more, for the air was whizzing by her ears, and shehardly dared look out, so keen was the wind; but as soon as they enteredthe deeps of the forest it was profoundly still.
The ride that afternoon was a glory she never forgot. Everywhereyellow-greens and purple shadows. The sun in a burnished blue skyflooded the forests with light, striking down through even the thickestpines to lay in fleckings of radiant white and gold upon the snow.
The trail (it was not a road) ran like a graceful furrow over thehills, around little lakes covered deep with snow, through tamarackswamps where the tracks of wild things thickened, over ridges of tallpine clear of brush, and curving everywhere amid stumps, wheredismantled old shanties marked the site of the older logging camps.Sometimes they met teams going to the store. Sometimes they crossedlogging roads--wide, smooth tracks artificially iced, down whichmountainous loads of logs were slipping, creaking, and groaning.Sometimes they heard the dry click-clock of the woodsmen's axes or thecrash of falling trees deep in the wood. When they reached the firstcamp Ridgeley pulled up the steaming horses at the door and shouted,"Hello, the camp!"
A tall old man with a long red beard came out. He held one bare red armabove his eyes. He wore an apron.
"Hello, Sandy!"
"Hello, Mr. Ridgeley!"
"Ready for company?"
"Am always ready for company," he said, with a Scotch accent.
"Well, we're coming in to get warm."
"Vera weel."
As they went in, under the roofed shed between the cook's shanty and theother and larger shanty, Mrs. Field sniffed. Sandy led them past a largepyramid composed of the scraps of beef bones, egg-shells, cans, and teagrounds left over during the winter. In the shed itself hung great slabsof beef.
It was all as untidy and suggestive of slaughter as the nest of a broodof eagles.
Sandy was beginning dinner on a huge stove spotted with rust and pancakebatter. All about was the litter of his preparation. Beef--beef on allsides, and tin dishes and bare benches and huge iron cooking-pans.
Mrs. Field was glad to get out into the sunlight again. "What a horribleplace! Are they all like that?"
"No, my camps are not like that--or, I should say, _our_ camps,"Ridgeley added, with a smile.
"Not a gay place at all," said Field, in exaggerated reserve.
But Mrs. Field found her own camps not much better. True, the refuse wasnot raised in pyramidal shape before the front door, and the beef was alittle more orderly, but the low log huts, the dim cold light, the dingywalls and floors, the lack of any womanly or home touch, the tin dishes,the wholesale cooking, all struck upon her with terrible force.
"Do human beings live here?" she asked Ridgeley, when he opened the doorof the main shanty of No. 6.
"Forty creatures of the men kind sleep and house here," he replied.
"To which the socks and things give evidence," said Field, promptly,pointing toward the huge stove which sat like a rusty-red cheese in thecentre of the room. Above it hung scores of ragged gray and red socksand Mackinac boots and jackets which had been washed by the menthemselves.
Around were the grimy bunks where the forty men slept like tramps in asteamer's hold. The quilts were grimy, and the posts greasy and shiningwith the touch of hands. There were no chairs--only a kind of rude stoolmade of boards. There were benches near the stove, nailed to the roughfloor. In each bunk, hanging to a peg, was the poor littleimitation-leather hand-bag which contained the whole wardrobe of eachman, exclusive of the tattered socks and shirts hanging over the stove.
The room was chill and cold and gray. It had only two small windows. Itsdoors were low. Even Mrs. Field was forced to stoop in entering. Thishelped to make it seem like a den. There were roller-towels in thecorner and wash-basins, and a grindstone which made it seem like abarn. It was, in fact, more cheerless than a barn, and less wholesome.
"Doesn't that hay in the bunks get a--a--sometimes?" asked Field.
"Well, yes, I shouldn't wonder, though the men are pretty strict aboutthat. They keep pretty free from bugs, I think. However, I shouldn'twant to run no river chances on the thing myself." Ridgeley smiled atMrs. Field's shudder of horror.
"Is this the place?" The men laughed. She had asked that question somany times before.
"Yes, _this_ is where Mr. Williams hangs out. Say, Field, you'll need tomake some new move to hold your end up against Williams."
Mrs. Field felt hurt and angry at his rough joke. In the dim corner acough was heard, and as a yellow head raised itself over the bunk-boarda man presented a ghastly face. His big blue eyes fixed themselves onthe lovely woman with a look of childish wonder.
"Hello, Gus--didn't see you! What's the matter--sick?"
"Yah, ai baen hwick two days. Ai tank ai lack to hav doketer."
"All right, I'll send him up. What seems the matter?"
As they talked, Mrs. Field again chilled with the cold graycomfortlessness of it all: to be sick in such a place! The silentappearance of the man out of his grim corner was startling. She was gladwhen they drove out into the woods again, where the clear sunshine felland the pines stood against the blazing winter sky motionless as irontrees. Her pleasure in the ride was growing less. To her delicate sensethis life was sordid, not picturesque. She wondered how Williams enduredit. They arrived at No. 8 just as the men were trailing down the road towork, after eating their dinner. Their gay-colored jackets of Mackinacwool stood out like trumpet notes in the prevailing white and blue andbronze-green.
The boss and the sealer came out and met them, and after introductionsthey went into the shanty to dinner. The cook was a deft youngNorwegian--a clean, quick, gentlemanly fellow with a fine brownmustache. He cleared a place for them at one end of the long table, andthey sat down.
It was a large camp, but much like the others. On the table were thesame cheap iron forks, the tin plates, and the small tin basins (fortea) which made up the dinner-set. Basins of brown sugar stood about.
"Good gracious! Do people still eat brown sugar? Why, I haven't seen anyof that for ages!" cried Mrs. Field.
The stew was good and savory, and the bread fair. The tea was not allclover, but it tasted of the tin. Mrs. Field said:
"Beef, beef--everywhere beef. One might suppose a menagerie of desertanimals ate here. Edward, we must make things more comfortable for ourmen. They must have cups to drink out of; these basins are horrible."
It was humorous to the men, this housewifely suggestion.
"Oh, make it napkins, Allie!"
"You can laugh, but I sha'n't rest after seeing this. If you thought Iwas going to say, 'Oh, how picturesque!' you're mistaken. I think it'sbarbarous."
She was getting impatient of their patronizing laughter, as if she werea child. They changed their manner to one of acquiescence, but thoughtof her as a child just the same.
After dinner they all went out to see the crew working. It was thebiggest crew anywhere in the neighborhood. Ridgeley got out and hitchedthe team to a tree, and took Field up to the skidway. Mrs. Fieldremained in the sleigh.
Near her "the swamping team," a span of big, deep-red oxen, came andwent among the green tops of the fallen pines. They crawled along theirtrails in the snow like some strange machinery, and the boy in a bluejacket moved almost as listlessly. Somewhere in the tangle of refuseboughs the swampers' axes click-clocked, saws uttered their grating,rhythmic snarl, and great trees at intervals shivered, groaned, and fellwith soft, rushing, cracking sweeps into the deep snow, and the swampersswarmed upon them like Lilliputians attacking a giant enemy.
There was something splendid (though tragic) in the work, but thethought of the homelessness of the men, their terrible beds, and theirlong hours of toil oppressed the delicate and refined woman. She beganto take on culpability. She wa
s partly in authority now, and this systemmust be changed. She was deep in plans for improvement, in shanties andin sleeping-places, when the men returned.
Ridgeley was saying: "No, we control about thirty thousand acres of pineas good as that. It ain't what it was twenty years ago, but it's worthmoney, after all."
It was getting near to dark as they reached No. 6 again, and Ridgeleydrew up and helped them out and into the cook's shanty.
Mrs. Field was introduced to the cook, a short, rather sullen, butintelligent man. He stood over the red-hot stove, laying great slices ofbeef in a huge dripping-pan. He had a taffler, or assistant, in theperson of a half-grown boy, at whom he jerked rough orders like hunks ofstove wood. Some hit the boy and produced noticeable effects, others didnot.
Meanwhile a triumphant sunset was making the west one splendor of purpleand orange and crimson, which came over the cool green rim of the pineslike the _Valhalla March_ in Wagner.
Mrs. Field sat there in the dim room by the window, seeing that splendorflush and fade, and thinking how dangerous it was to ask where one'swealth comes from in the world. Outside, the voices of the menthickened; they were dropping in by twos and fours, with teams and onfoot.
The assistant arranged the basins in rows, and put one of the iron forksand knives on either side of each plate, and filled the sugar-basins,and dumped in the cold beans, and split the bread into slabs, and putsmall pots of tea here and there ready for the hands of the men.
At last, when the big pans of toast, the big plates of beef, were placedsteaming on the table, the cook called Field and Ridgeley, and said:
"Set right here at the end." He raised his arm to a ring which dangledon a wire. "Now look out; you'll see 'em come--sidewise." He jerked thering, and disappeared into the kitchen.
A sudden tumult, shouts, trampling, laughter, and the door burst openand they streamed in: Norwegians, French, half-breeds--dark-skinnedfellows, all of them, save the Norwegians. They came like a flood, butthey fell silent at sight of a woman, so beautiful and strange to them.
All words ceased. They sank into place beside the table with the thumpof falling sand-bags. They were all in their shirt-sleeves, but withfaces cleanly washed, and the most of them had combed their hair; butthey seemed very wild and hairy to Mrs. Field. She looked at her husbandand Ridgeley with a grateful pleasure; it was so restful to have themclose beside her.
The men ate like hungry dogs. They gorged in silence. Nothing was heardbut the clank of knives on tin plates, the drop of heavy platters offood, and the occasional muttered words of some one asking for the breador the gravy.
As they ate they furtively looked with great curiosity and admiration upat the dainty woman. Their eyes were bright and large, and gleamed outof the obscure brown of their dimly lighted faces with savageintensity--so it seemed to Mrs. Field, and she dropped her eyes beforetheir glare.
Her husband and Ridgeley tried to enter into conversation with thosesitting near. Ridgeley seemed on good terms with them all, and ventureda joke or word, at which they laughed with terrific energy, and fell assuddenly silent again.
As Mrs. Field looked up the second time she saw the dark, strange faceof Williams a few places down, and opposite her. His eyes were fixed onher husband's hands with a singular intensity. Her eyes followed his,and the beauty of her husband's hands came to her again with new force.They were perfectly shaped, supple, warm-colored, and strong. Theircolor and deftness stood out in vivid contrast to the heavy, brown,cracked, and calloused, paw-like hands of the workmen.
Why should Williams study her husband's hands? If he had looked at hershe would not have been surprised. The other men she could read. Theyexpressed either frank, simple admiration or furtive desire. But thisman looked at her husband, and his eyes fell often upon his own hands,which trembled with fatigue. He handled his knife clumsily, and yet shecould see he, too, had a fine hand--a slender, powerful hand, like thatpeople call an artist hand--a craftsman-like hand.
He saw her looking at him, and he flashed one enigmatical glance intoher eyes, and rose to go out.
"How you getting on, Williams?" Ridgeley asked.
Williams resented his question. "Oh, I'm all right," he said, sullenly.
The meal was all over in an incredibly short time. One by one, two bytwo, they rose heavily and lumbered out with one last, wistful look atMrs. Field. She will never know how seraphic she seemed sitting thereamid those rough surroundings--the dim, red light of the kerosene lampfalling across her clear pallor, out of which her dark eyes shone withliquid softness, made deeper and darker by her half-sorrowful tendernessfor these homeless fellows.
An hour later, as they were standing at the door, just ready to take totheir sleigh, they heard the scraping of a fiddle.
"Oh, some one is going to play!" Mrs. Field cried, with visions of therollicking good times she had heard so much about, and of which she hadseen nothing so far. "Can't I look in?"
Ridgeley was dubious. "I'll go and see," he said, and entered the door."Boys, Mrs. Field wants to look in a minute. Go on with your fiddling,Sam--only I wanted to see that you weren't sitting around in dishabill."
This seemed a good joke, and they all howled and haw-hawed gleefully.
"So go right ahead with your evening prayers. All but--you understand!"
"All right, captain," said Sam, the man with the fiddle.
When Mrs. Field looked in, two men were furiously grinding axes; severalwere sewing on ragged garments; all were smoking; some were dressingchapped or bruised fingers. The atmosphere was horrible. The socks andshirts were steaming above the huge stove; the smoke and stench for amoment were sickening, but Ridgeley pushed them just inside the door.
"It's better out of the draught."
Sam jigged away on the violin. The men kept time with the cranks of thegrindstone, and all faces turned with bashful smiles and bold grins atMrs. Field. Most of them shrank a little from her look, like shyanimals.
Ridgeley threw open the window. "In the old days," he explained to Mrs.Field, "we used a fireplace, and that kept the air better."
As her sense of smell became deadened the air seemed a little moretolerable to Mrs. Field.
"Oh, we must change all this," she said. "It is horrible."
"Play us a tune," said Sam, extending the violin to Field. He did notthink Field could play. It was merely a shot in the dark on his part.
Field took it and looked at it and sounded it. On every side the menturned face in eager expectancy.
"He can play, that feller."
"I'll bet he can. He handles her as if he knew her."
"You bet your life. Tune up, Cap."
Williams came from the obscurity somewhere, and looked over theshoulders of the men.
"Down in front!" somebody called, and the men took seats on the benches,leaving Field standing with the violin in hand. He smiled around uponthem in a frank, pleased way, quite ready to show his skill. He played_Annie Laurie_, and a storm of applause broke out.
"_Hoo-ray!_ Bully for you!"
"Sam, you're out of it!"
"Sam, your name is Mud!"
"Give us another, Cap!"
"It ain't the same fiddle!"
He played again some simple tune, and he played it with the touch whichshowed the skilled amateur. As he played, Mrs. Field noticed a growingrestlessness on Williams' part. He moved about uneasily. He gnawed athis finger-nails. His eyes glowed with a singular fire. His handsdrummed and fingered. At last he approached, and said, roughly:
"Let me take that fiddle a minute."
"Oh, cheese it, Williams!" the men cried. "Let the other man play."
"What do _you_ want to do with the fiddle--think it's a music-box?"asked Sam, its owner.
"Go to hell!" said Williams. As Field gave the violin over to him, hishands seemed to tremble with eagerness.
He raised his bow, and struck into an imposing, brilliant strain, andthe men fell back in astonishment.
"Well, I'll be damned!" gasped
the owner of the violin.
"Keep quiet, Sam."
Mrs. Field looked at her husband. "Why, Ed, he is playing _Sarasate_!"
"That's what he is," he returned, slangily, too much astonished to domore than gaze. Williams played on.
There was a faint defect in the high notes, as if his fingers did nottouch the strings properly, but his bow action showed cultivation andbreadth of feeling. As he struck into one of those difficultoctave-leaping movements his face became savage. On the E string asqueal broke forth; he flung the violin into Sam's lap with a ferociouscurse, and then, extending his hands, hard, crooked to fit theaxe-helve, calloused and chapped, he said to Field:
"Look at my hands! Lovely things to play with, aren't they?"
His voice trembled with passion. He turned and went outside. As hepassed Mrs. Field his head was bowed, and he was uttering a groaning crylike one suffering physical pain.
"That's what drink does for a man," Ridgeley said, as they watchedWilliams disappear down the swampers' trail.
"That man has been a violinist," said Field. "What's he doing up here?"
"Came to get away from himself, I guess," Ridgeley replied.
"I'm afraid he's failed," said Field, as he put his arm about his wifeand led her to the sleigh.
The ride home was made mainly in silence. "Oh, the splendid stillness!"the woman kept saying in her heart. "Oh, the splendid moonlight, themarvellous radiance!" Everywhere a heavenly serenity--not a footstep,not a bell, not a cry, not a cracking tree--nothing but vivid light,white snow dappled and lined with shadows, and trees etched against astarlit sky. Unutterable splendor of light and sheen and shadow. Widewastes of snow so white the stumps stood like columns of charcoal. Anight of Nature's making, when she is tired of noise and blare of color.
And in the midst of it stood the camp, with its reek of obscenity, foulodors, and tobacco smoke, to which a tortured soul must return.
IV
The following Saturday afternoon, as Ridgeley and Field entered theoffice, Williams rose to meet them. He looked different--finer some way,Field imagined. At any rate, he was perfectly sober. He was freshlyshaven, and though his clothes were rough, he appeared the man ofeducation he really was. His manner was cold and distant.
"I'd like to be paid off, Mr. Ridgeley," he said. "I guess what's leftof my pay will take me out of this."
"Where do you propose to go?" Ridgeley asked, with kindly interest.
Williams must have perceived his kindliness, for he answered: "I'm goinghome to my wife, to my violin. I am going to try living once more."
After he had gone out, Field said, "I wonder if he'll do it?"
"Oh, I shouldn't wonder. I've seen men brace up just as mysteriously asthat and stay right by their resolutions. I thought he didn't look likea common lumber Jack when he came in."
"Ed, your playing did it!" Mrs. Field cried, when she heard of Williams'resolution. "Oh, how happy his wife will be! She'll save him yet!"
"Well, I don't know; depends on what kind of a woman she is."
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