Part 1 (1/2)
The Secret of the Storm Country.
by Grace Miller White.
CHAPTER I
THE SQUATTER FOLK
The lazy warmth of a May afternoon, the spring following Orn Skinner's release from Auburn Prison, was reflected in the att.i.tudes of three men lounging on the sh.o.r.e in front of ”Satisfied” Longman's shack. At their feet, the waters of Cayuga Lake dimpled under the rays of the western sun. Like a strip of burnished silver, the inlet wound its way through the swamp from the elevators and railroad stations near the foot of south hill. Across the lake rose the precipitous slopes of East Hill, tapestried in green, etched here and there by stretches of winding white road, and crowned by the buildings on the campus of Cornell University.
Stretched from the foot of State Street on either side of the Lehigh Valley track lay the Silent City, its northern end spreading several miles up the west sh.o.r.e of the Lake. Its inhabitants were ca.n.a.lers, fishermen and hunters, uneducated, rough and superst.i.tious. They built their little huts in the simplest manner out of packing boxes and rough lumber and roofed them with pieces of tin and sheet iron. Squatters they were appropriately named, because they paid no attention to land t.i.tles, but stuck their shacks wherever fancy indicated or convenience dictated.
The people of the Silent City slept by day and went very quietly about their work under the cover of darkness, for the game laws compelled the fishermen to pull their nets at night, and the farmers' chickens were more easily caught, his fruit more easily picked when the sun was warming China.
Summers, their lives were comparatively free from hards.h.i.+ps. Fish were plentiful and easy to take; the squatter women picked flowers and berries in the woods and sold them in the city and the men worked occasionally, as the fit struck them. But the winters were bitter and cruel. The countryside, buried deep in snow, made travel difficult.
When the mercury shrank timidly into the bulb and fierce winds howled down the lake, the Silent City seemed, indeed, the Storm Country.
”I were up to the Graves' place yesterday, helpin' Professor Young,”
said Jake Brewer, the youngest and most active of the three men.
”Never had no use fer that duffer, Dominie Graves, myself,” answered Longman. The speaker turned a serious face to the third member of the party. ”Ner you nuther, eh, Orn?”
Orn Skinner was an enormous man, some six and a half feet tall. Two great humps on his shoulders accentuated the breadth and thickness of his chest while they tended to conceal the length of his arms. A few months before he'd been in the death house at Auburn. Through the efforts of Deforrest Young, the dean of the Law College at Cornell, he'd been pardoned and sent home.
The gigantic squatter removed his pipe from his mouth and smoothed the thready white beard, straggling over his chin.
”Nope, I hated 'im,” he muttered. ”He done me dirt 'nough. If it hadn't been fer Tess an' Lawyer Young, he'd a hung me sure.”
”Ye didn't git the deed to yer shack land afore he died, did ye, Orn?”
interrupted ”Satisfied” Longman. ”Tessibel told ma the preacher promised it to ye.”
A moody expression settled in Skinner's eyes. ”So he did promise it,” he explained. ”He writ Tess a letter. He said as how he were sorry for his meanness an' would give me the deed. But he didn't!”
A shrill voice calling his name brought ”Satisfied” Longman to his feet, and he hobbled away toward the shack.
”'Pears like 'Satisfied' ain't got much strength any more,” said Skinner. ”He ain't been worth much of anythin' sence I got back.”
”Him an' Ma Longman've failed a lot sence Myry an' Ezry died,” agreed Jake. ”An' no wonder! Them two didn't amount to much to my way o'
thinkin', but their pa an' ma set considerable store by 'em ... Ben Letts were a bad 'un, too. It used to make me plumb ugly to see 'im botherin' Tess when ye was shet up, Orn, an' him all the time the daddy of Myry's brat.”
”Yep, Ben were bad,” agreed Skinner. ”I were sure he done the shootin', but 'tweren't till Ezry swore he saw 'im that the lawyer could prove I didn't do it. But Tess says Myry loved Ben. Women air queer critters, ain't they?”
”Myry sure was,” a.s.sented Brewer, thoughtfully. ”In spite of Ezry's tellin' her, Ben'd most drowned him, an' done the killin' they was goin'
to hang you fer, up she gits an' takes the brat an' goes off with Ben.
It were the worst storm of the year. No wonder him, Myry an' their brat all was drowned.”
Longman, coming out of the shack, overheard the last remark. The other two fell silent. After he'd sat down again, he dissipated their embarra.s.sment by saying,
”But Tess says Myry air happy now 'cause she air got Ben. Fer myself, I dunno, though. But, if Myry air satisfied, me an' ma air satisfied, too.”
The other two nodded in solemn sympathy. After a moment, Jake took out his pipe and filled it. Holding the lighted match above the bowl, he glanced at Skinner.