Part 1 (1/2)
A Countess from Canada
by Bessie Marchant
CHAPTER I
Beyond the Second Portage
”Oh dear, how I should love to go out!”
Katherine Radford stretched her arms wearily above her head as she spoke There had been five days of persistent snowfall; but thisstrips and patches of blue sky, and there was bright sunshi+ne flooding the world again, with hard and sparkling frost
”Why don't you go?” deest ”Miles anda holiday at all”
”Speak for yourself if you like,” growled Miles, as thirteen; ”but I want to get this schooling business over and done with, so that I can start doing sorammatically, please, or else keep silent You should have said, 'Miles and I',” renity, as she turned from theto take her place at the table once ue in his cheek, after the manner beloved of small boys, and subsided into silence and an abstracted study of his spelling book
The schoolroom was a small chamber, partitioned off from the store by a wall of boards so thin that all conversation about buying and selling, with the gossip of the countryside thrown in, was plainly audible to the pupils, whose studies suffered in consequence The stovepipe fro it comfortably warm, and in winter 'Duke Radford and the boys slept there, because it was so terribly cold in the loft
Katherine had coe in July, determined to teach school all winter, and topart of the world But even the et on if there are no scholars to teach, and at present she had only Miles and Phil, her two brothers, as pupils This wasto Katherine's patience, for, of course, if there had only been pupils enough, she could have had a properly constituted school, and a salary also She ular schoolhouse to teach in, instead of being co h the autuainst hope forthe boys she kept the books for her father, and even attended to the wants of an occasional customer when 'Duke Radford was busy or absent
The store at Roaring Water Portage ardly placed for business It stood on a high bank overlooking the rapids, and when it was built, five years before, had been the centre of a e had been abandoned for three years now, because the vein of copper had ended in a thick seam of coal, which, under present circu Now the nearest approach to a village was at Seal Cove, at the mouth of the river, nearly three miles ahere there were about half a dozen wooden huts, and the liquor saloon kept by Oily Dave when he was at ho expeditions
Although houses were so scarce, there was no lack of trade for the lonely store in the woods All through the summer there was a procession of birchbark canoes, filled with reddown the river to the bay, laden with skins of wolf, fox, beaver, wolverine, squirrel, and skunk, the harvest of the winter's trapping Then in winter the cove and the river were often croith boats, driven to anchorage there by the ice, and to escape the fearful stor over the bay The river was e than the cove, because it was more sheltered, and also because there was open water at the foot of the rapids even in the severest winter, and had been so long as anyone could re wore on, Katherine's mood became even more restless, and she simply yearned for the fresh air and the sunshi+ne She was usually free to go out-of-doors in the afternoons, because the boys only worked until noon, and then again in the evening, when it was night school, and Katherine did her best with such of the fisher folk as preferred learning to loafing and ga in Oily Dave's saloon
Even Miles seeood worker; while Phil was quite hopeless Both boys were bitten with the snowbrilliancy of sunshi+ne, frost, and snow Noon came at last, books were packed away; the boys rushed off like s, while Katherine went -roo-roo too young to be called a woman, but who nevertheless was a , and theon the floor and playing with a big, shaggy wolfhound She was Nellie, Mrs Burton, whose husband had been drohile sealing when the tere twelve months old Mrs Burton had come home to live then, and keep house for her father, so that Katherine o to Montreal to finish her education
”Did you see Father as you cah the store?” Mrs Burton asked, as she rapidly spread the dinner on the table in the centre of the roo on with the twins and the dog
”No, he was not there,” Katherine answered
”He wants you to go up to the second portage with hi with some mails on board, and there are stores to be taken for Astor M'Kree,” said Mrs Burton
”That will be lovely!” cried Katherine, giving Lotta a toss up in the air, after which Beth had to be treated in a si to be outside in the sunshi+ne and the cold I have been wishi+ng all the , trapping, or even lu”
Mrs Burton smiled ”I expect if you were a man you would just do as other , and so never breathe fresh air at all”
”That is not the sort of man I would be,” retorted Katherine, with a toss of her head
Then she put the twins into their high chairs: her father and the boys caan It was a hasty meal, as early dinner has to be when half of the day's work lies beyond it, and in less than half an hour Katherine was getting into a thick pilot coat, fur cap, h the sun was so bright, the cold was not to be trifled with
'Duke Radford, short for Mar man of fifty Twenty-five years of pioneer life in the Keewatin country had worn him considerably, and he looked older than his years But he was a strong e with stores to draw his which drew the other sledge