Part 9 (2/2)

TWO LITTLE COOKS

The kitchen of the log cabin had one window and a door which opened out into what Gerry called the ”back-yard part of their ledge.” It was only about fifty feet to the very edge, and Gerry crept on hands and knees to look over, that he might see where their ”back-yard went.” He lifted a face filled with awe and beckoned his sister to advance with caution.

Lying flat, the two children gazed over the rim of the ledge, straight down a wall of rock, far below which the road could be seen curving.

”Ohee!” Julie drew back with a shudder. ”What if our cabin should slide right off this shelf that it's built on?”

”It can't, if it wants to,” the boy told her confidently. ”We're safe here as anything. That's two ways a bear can't come,” he continued; ”but on the other side, where the creek is, and in front, where the stone steps are, I suppose the bear came in one of those two ways.”

The small girl looked frightened. ”Oh, Gerry,” she said, ”what if a bear should come again? What would we do?”

”Why, Dan would shoot it, just the way Dad did,” the boy replied with great a.s.surance. His big brother was his hero, and that he could not perform any feat required was not to be thought of for one moment.

”But Dan hasn't a gun, has he?” Julie was not yet convinced.

”Indeed he has, silly. Do you s'pose Dad would let us come into this wild country without guns? Dan has two in his trunk. One's a big fellow! Dad let me hold it once, and, Oh, boy, I'm telling you it's a heavy one. I most had to drop it, and I've got bully muscle. Look at what muscle I've got!”

Gerry crooked his bare arm, but his sister turned away impatiently, saying: ”Oh, I don't want to! You make me feel what muscle you've got most every day.”

Julie returned to the kitchen, but Gerry followed, and, if he were offended by her lack of interest in his brawniness, he did not show it.

He was far too interested in the subject under discussion. ”That big gun I was telling you about is the very one Dad used when he shot the grizzly, and if it shot one bear, then of course it can shoot another bear.”

The little girl was convinced. That seemed clear reasoning, but she interrupted when the boy began again, by saying: ”Gerald Abbott, do stop telling bear stories, and help me clean up this kitchen. Jane won't be any more use than nothing and we might as well do things and pretend she isn't here, the way I wish she wasn't.”

”I sort of wish she hadn't come, myself,” Gerry confessed. ”Now, let's see. Here's a cupboard all nailed up. I guess I can pull out the nails, but first I'd better make a fire in this old stove. I'll have to fetch in some wood.”

”No, you won't! Not just at first. There's a box full behind the stove.

Big, knotty pieces; pine, I suppose; but maybe we do need some kindling.

Then bring me some water from the creek and I'll wash up everything. Dad said we'd find some dishes in the cupboard, if they hadn't been stolen.”

”Gee, I hope they haven't!” The boy, who was as handy about a home as was his small sister, soon had a fire in the stove, and then, having found a pail, he went to the creek, stealing around past the front porch and under his sister's window as quietly as he possibly could. Although dry twigs creaked and snapped, the two sleepers did not waken.

Such fun as those youngsters had putting the kitchen in order. In the cupboard they found all of the dishes which their father had mentioned.

Although the china was coa.r.s.e, the green fern pattern was attractive.

Gerald, standing on a chair, handed it out, piece by piece, to the small girl, who put them in hot, sudsy water and then dried them till they shone. Gerald, meantime, was was.h.i.+ng the shelves. Then they replaced the dishes and stood back to admire their handiwork.

”Oh, aren't we having fun?” Julie chuckled. ”Now, we're all ready to get the lunch.”

It was one o'clock when Julie went to waken Jane, and Gerald, at the same time, went out on the porch where Dan had been sleeping, but the older boy was sitting up on the edge of his cot drinking in the beauty of the scene which, to him, was an ever-changing marvel. He sprang up, wonderfully refreshed, and going to the packing trunk, he procured a towel.

”h.e.l.lo, Jane,” he called brightly to the tall girl, who appeared in the open door. Then he gave a long whistle. ”Sister,” he exclaimed, love and admiration ringing in his voice, ”I hope that Jean Sawyer, who is coming to dine with us day after tomorrow, has a heart of adamant. I pity him if he hasn't! I honestly never saw anyone so beautiful as you are, with the flush of slumber on your cheeks and your eyes so bright.”

Jane came out smiling. This was the sort of adulation she desired and required, but her brother felt a twinge of guilt, for, even as he had been talking, he had seen in memory a slender, alert little creature with eyes, star-like in their dusky radiance, gazing out at him from under dark, curling lashes.

But they were so unlike, these two, he told himself. The one proud, imperious, ultra-civilized; the other, a wild thing, untamed, or so she had appeared to him in that one moment's glance, a native of the mountains.

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