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believe I would have liked him better."
Lucy might have confessed that deep in her heart she had done this very thing
herself, but the fact was not acceptable to her.
"Joe is the best of the Denmeades, and quite the nicest boy I ever knew," she
said earnestly. "What do you think of him, Clara?"
"It's dreadful of me, but I like to be with him," whispered Clara. "He's
so--so sweet. That's the only word. But it does not fit him, either. He has
the same strong qualities as Edd...Lucy, that boy rests me. He soothes me. He
makes me ashamed...Tell me all about him."
"Well, Joe's ears will burn," laughed Lucy and then she began her estimate of
Joe Denmeade. She was generous. But in concluding with the facts about him
that had come under her observation and been told by his people, Lucy held
rigidly to truth.
"All that!" murmured Clara thoughtfully. "And I'm the only girl he ever looked
at?...Poor Joe!"
Next morning there was a white frost. Lucy felt it and smelled it before she
got up to peep out behind the curtain of the tent door. The sun had just
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tipped the great promontory, a pale blaze that made the frost on grass and
logs shine like an encrustment of diamonds.
"Ooooo, but it's cold!" exclaimed Lucy as she threw on her dressing-gown. "Now
I know why Edd insisted on installing this stove. Any old 'morning now I'd
wake up frozen!"
"Come back to bed," advised Clara sleepily.
"I'll start the fire, then slip back for a little. Oh, I wonder--will we have
to give up living out here when winter comes?"
The stove was a wood-burning one, oval in shape, and flat on top, with a
sheet-iron pipe running up through the roof of the tent. Lucy had thought it
sort of a toy affair, despite Edd's assertion as to its utility. He had laid
the pine needles, and splinters and billets of wood, so that all Lucy had to
do was to strike a match. She was not an adept at building fares, and expected
this to go out. Instead it flared up, blazed, crackled, and roared.
Fortunately Lucy recollected Edd's warning to have a care to turn the damper
in the stove-pipe.
"This stove is going to be a success. How good it feels!"
Then she noticed the neat pile of chips and billets of red-wood stacked behind
the stove, and a small box full of pine needles. Edd Denmeade was thoughtful.
Lucy put a pan of water on the stove to heat, and slipped back into bed. Her
hands and feet were like ice, matters that Clara was not too sleepy to note.
Soon the tent-room was cosy and warm. Lucy felt encouraged to think it might
be possible for her and Clara to occupy this lodging all winter. Edd had
averred the little stove would make them as snug as birds in a nest. To make
sure, however, that they could live outdoors, he had suggested boarding the
tent wall half-way up and shingling the roof.
"Sleepy-head!" called Lucy, shaking her sister.
"Ah-h!...I just never can wake up," replied Clara. "It's so good to sleep
here...I didn't sleep much down there in the desert."
"My dear, you've slept three-fourths of the time you've been here, day as well
as night. It's this mountain air. I was almost as bad. Well, good sleep is
better than wasted waking hours. Now I'm going to be heroic."
By nine o'clock all trace of frost had vanished from grass and logs. Edd
presented himself at the tent.
"Wal, I'm a-rarin' to go."
"Yes, you are!" called Lucy banteringly. "Here I've been ready these last two
hours."
"City girl! You can't line bees till the sun gets warm."
"Backwoods boy! Why not?"
"Bees don't work so early. You see, it's gettin' along towards fall."
"I'll be right out...Let's see--my gloves and knapsack...Well, sister mine,
why do you stare at me?"
Clara was sitting at the little table, with speculative gaze fastened upon
Lucy. It made Lucy a little sensitive to her attire. This consisted of a
slouch felt hat, a red scarf round the neck of her brown blouse, corduroy
riding trousers, and high boots. On the moment Lucy was slipping on her
gauntlets.
"Clara, it'll be a long, hard tramp, up and down," declared Lucy, as if in
self-defence.
"You look great," rejoined Clara, with one of her sweet, rare smiles. "I'm not
so sure about your welfare work, in that get-up. I think it's plain murder?"
Clara made an expressive gesture, to indicate Edd outside. Lucy was not quite
equal to a laugh. Sometimes this realistic sister of hers forced home a
significance that escaped her idealistic mind.
"If you only could go!" sighed Lucy. "I--I think I need you as much as you
need me...Don't forget your welfare work. Good-bye."
Edd carried a gun, a small black tin bucket, and a package which he gave to
Lucy to put in her knapsack.
"Ma reckoned you'd like somethin' to eat," he explained.
So they set off across the lane, through the strip of woods, and out into the
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sorghum-field. Lucy experienced an unaccountable embarrassment. She felt like
a callow girl taking her first walk with a boy. She did not feel at all at her
ease in this riding garb, though the freedom of it had never been so manifest.
She was guilty of peering round to see if any of the Denmeades were in sight,
watching them cross the field. She could not see anyone, which fact helped a
little. Then she did not discover her usual fluency of speech. Finding herself
alone with this stalwart bee hunter, facing a long day in the wilderness, had
turned out to be something more than thrilling. Lucy essayed to throw off the
handicap.
"What's in your little black bucket?" she inquired. "Honey. I burn it to make
a sweet, strong smell in the woods. That shore fetches the bees."
"What's the gun for?"
"Wal, sometimes a bear smells the honey an' comes along. Bears love sweet
stuff, most of all honey."
"Bears! In broad daylight?" ejaculated Lucy.
"Shore. One day not long ago I had four bears come for my honey. Didn't have
no gun with me, so I slipped back an' hid. You should have seen the fun they
had stickin' their noses an' paws in my bucket of honey. They stole it, too,
an' took it off with them."
"You won't leave me alone?" queried Lucy fearfully.
"Wal, if I have to I'll boost you up into a tree," drawled Edd.
"I wonder if this is going to be fun," pondered Lucy. Suddenly she remembered
the proclivity for playing tricks natural to these backwoods boys. "Edd,
promise me you will not try to scare me. No tricks! Promise me solemnly."
"Aw, I'm shore not mean, Lucy," he expostulated. "Fun is fun an' I ain't above
little tricks. But honest, you can trust me."
"I beg your pardon. That about bears--and boosting me up into a tree--somehow
flustered me a little."
Soon they crossed the clearing to the green wall of cedars and pines. Here Edd
led into a narrow trail, with Lucy at his heels. His ordinary gait was
something for her to contend with. At once the trail began to wind down over
red earth and round the head of rocky gullies, choked with cedars, and
downward under a deepening forest growth.
Lucy had never been on this trail, which she knew to be the one that led over
the Rim. She thrilled at the thought of climbing to the lofty summit of that
black-fringed mountain mesa, but she was sure Edd would not put her to that
ascent without a horse. The low hum which filled her ears grew into the roar
of a brawling brook.
"Bear track," said her guide, halting to point at a rounded depression in the
dust of the trail. Lucy saw the imprint of huge toes. Her flesh contracted to
a cold, creeping sensation. "That old Jasper went along here last night.
Reckon he's the bear that's been killin' our little pigs. Pa shore will be
rarin' to chase him with the hounds."
"Edd! Is there any danger of our meeting this old Jasper, as you called him?"
inquired Lucy.
"Reckon not much. Shore we might, though. I often run into bears. They're
pretty tame. Hope we do meet him. I'd shore have some fun."
"Oh, would you? I don't believe it'd be very funny for me," declared Lucy.
"Wal, in case we do, you just mind what I say," concluded Edd. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]