Part 3 (1/2)
Like all young persons born far from war, and having no knowledge of death even in its quiet forms, he had the most powerful organic repugnance toward a corpse. He kept his eye on it as though it were a sleeping horror, likely at a sudden sound to rise and walk. More than this, there had always been something peculiarly sacred in the form of a woman, and in his calmer moments the dead mother appealed to him with irresistible power.
At last, with a sort of moan through his set teeth, he approached the bed and threw the sheet over the figure, holding it as in a sling; then, by a mighty effort, he swung it stiffly off the bed into the box.
He trembled so that he could hardly spread the remaining quilts over the dead face. The box was wide enough to receive the stiff, curved right arm, and he had nothing to do but to nail the cover on, which he did in feverish haste. Then he rose, grasped his tools, rushed outside, slammed the door, and set off in great speed across the snow, pushed on by an indescribable horror.
As he neared home, his fresh young blood a.s.serted itself more and more; but when he entered the cabin he was still trembling, and dropped into a chair like a man out of breath. At sight of the ruddy face of Anson, and with the aid of the heat and light of the familiar little room, he shook off part of his horror.
”Gi' me a cup o' coffee, Ans. I'm kind o' chilly an' tired.”
Before drinking he wiped his face and washed his hands again and again at the basin in the corner, as though there were something on them which was ineffably unclean. The little one, who had been weeping again, stared at him with two big tears drying on her hollow cheeks.
”Well?” interrogated Anson.
”I nailed her up safe enough for the present. But what're we goin' to do next?”
”I can't see 's we can do anythin' as long as such weather as this lasts. It ain't safe f'r one of us to go out an' leave the other alone.
Besides, it's thirty below zero, an' no road, Moccasin's full of snow; an' another wind likely to rise at any time. It's mighty tough on this little one, but it can't be helped. As soon as it moderates a little, we'll try to find a woman an' a preacher, an' bury that--relative.”
”The only woman I know of is ol' Mrs. Cap Burdon, down on the Third Moccasin, full fifteen miles away.”
CHAPTER IV.
FLAXEN ADOPTS ANSON AS ”PAP.”
For nearly two weeks they waited, while the wind alternately raved and whispered over them as it scurried the snow south or east, or s.h.i.+fted to the south in the night, bringing ”the north end of a south wind,”
the most intolerable and cutting of winds. Day after day the restless snow sifted or leaped across the waste of glittering crust; day after day the sun shone in dazzling splendor, but so white and cold that the thermometer still kept down among the thirties. They were absolutely alone on the plain, except that now and then a desperate wolf or inquisitive owl came by.
These were long days for the settlers. They would have been longer had it not been for little Elga, or ”Flaxen,” as they took to calling her.
They racked their brains to amuse her, and in the intervals of tending the cattle and of cooking, or of was.h.i.+ng dishes, rummaged through all their books and pictures, taught her ”cat's cradle,” played ”jack-straws” with her, and with all their resources of song and pantomime strove to fill up the little one's lonely days, happy when they succeeded in making her laugh.
”That settles it!” said Bert one day, whanging the basin back into the empty flour-barrel.
”What's the matter?”
”Matter is, we've reached the bottom o' the flour-barrel, an' it's got to be filled; no two ways about that. We can get along on biscuit an'
pancakes in place o' meat, but we can't put anythin' in the place o'
bread. If it looks favorable to-morrow, we've got to make a break for Summit an' see if we can't stock up.”
Early the next morning they brought out the s.h.i.+vering team and piled into the box all the quilts and robes they had, and bundling little Flaxen in, started across the trackless plain toward the low line of hills to the east, twenty-five or thirty miles. From four o'clock in the morning till nearly noon they toiled across the sod, now ploughing through the deep snow where the unburned gra.s.s had held it, now sc.r.a.ping across the bare, burned earth, now wandering up or down the swales, seeking the shallowest places, now shovelling a pathway through.
The sun rose un.o.bscured as usual, and shone down with unusual warmth, which afforded the men the satisfaction of seeing little Flaxen warm and merry. She chattered away in her own tongue, and clapped her little hands in glee at sight of the s...o...b..rds running and fluttering about.
As they approached the low hills the swales got deeper and more difficult to cross, but about eleven o'clock they came to Burdon's Ranch, a sort of half-way haven between their own claim and Summit, the end of the railway.
Captain Burdon was away, but Mrs. Burdon, a big, slatternly Missourian, with all the kindliness of a universal mother in her swarthy face and flaccid bosom, ushered them into the cave-like dwelling set in the sunny side of Water Moccasin.