Part 23 (1/2)
There was so much to be done, work of the hands; a cabin to build, and a stable; hay to be cut and stacked so that their horseswinter--which already heralded his approach with sharp, stinging frosts at night, and flurries of snow along the higher ridges
Bill staked the tent beside the spring, fashi+oned a rude fork out of a pronged , and fitted a handle to the scythe he had brought for the purpose Frorass which carpeted the bottom Behind him Hazel piled it in little h it blistered her hands and brought furious pains to her back If her hten the burden hat strength she had
And with two pair of hands to the task, the piles of hay gathered thick on the ed that the supply reached twenty tons, he built a rude sled with a rack on it, and hauled in the hay with a saddle horse
”Amen!” said Bill, when he had emptied the rack for the last time, and the hay rose in a neat stack ”That's another load off my mind I can build a cabin and a stable in six feet of snow if I have to, but there would have been a sli once a storrubstake for the winter worse than we do, because they can't eat h to feed an arround to the south”
”There's everything that one needs, almost, in the wilderness, isn't there?” Hazel observed reflectively ”But still the law of life is awfully harsh, don't you think, Bill? Isolation is a terrible thing when it is so absolutely co?
There's no help, and no mercy--absolutely none You could die here by inches and the woods and mountains would look cal for thousands of years It's like prison regulations You _must_ do this, and you _must_ do that, and there's no excuse for et close to her, is so inexorable”
Bill eyed her a second Then he put his aretting on your nerves already, little person?” he asked
”Nothing's going to go wrong I've been in wild country too often to et careless And those are the two crimes for which the North--or any wilderness--inflicts rather serious penalties Life isn't a bit harsher here than in the hu is more direct; cause and effect are linked up close There are no complexities It's all done in the open, and if you don't play the gao down and out That's all there is to it There's no doctor in the next block, nor a grocer to take your order over the phone, and you can't run out to a cafe and take dinner with a friend But neither is the air swarossips to blast you with their tongues, nor rent and taxes to pay every time you turn around Nor am I at the mercy of a job And what does the old, settled country do to you when you have neither money nor job? It treats you worse than the worst the North can do; for, lacking the price, it denies you access to the abundance that mocks you in every shop , and bars you out of the houses that line the streets Here, everything needful is yours for the taking If one is ignorant, or unable to convert wood and water and game to his own uses, he must learn how, or pay the penalty of incompetence No, little person, I don't think the law of life is nearly so harsh here as it is where the les for its daily bread It's more open and aboveboard here; more up to the individual
But it's lonely souess that's what ails you”
”Oh, pouf!” she denied ”I'ot you But so to you--sickness and accidents, and all that One can't help thinking what et it!” Bill exhorted ”That's the worst of living in this big, still country--it makes one introspective, and so confoundedly conscious of what puny atos are, after all But there's less chance of sickness here than any place Anye've got to take a chance on things now and then, in the course of living our lives according to our lights We're playing for a stake--and things that are worth having are never handed to us on a silver salver
Besides, I never had worse than a stomachache in my life and you're a pretty healthy speci fireplace at one end We'll be s will look a little rosier This thing of everlasting hurry and hard work gets on anybody's nerves”
The best of the afternoon was still unspent when the haystacking tered a line on a liht the pools of the strea He prophesied that in certain black eddies pluood at the first pool Hazel elected herself gun-bearer to the expedition, but before long Bill took up that office while she snared trout after trout froler herself under Bill's schooling And when they were frying the fish that evening he suddenly observed:
”Say, they were game little fellows, these, weren't they? Wasn't that better sport than taking a street car out to the park and feeding the swans?”
”What an idea!” she laughed ”Who wants to feed swans in a park?”
But when the fire had sunk to dull e shyly in the open flap of their tent, she whispered in his ear:
”You , Billy-boy, when I make remarks like I did to-day I love you a heap, and I'd be happy anywhere with you And I'm really and truly at home in the wilderness Only--only so; as if I were afraid It seems silly, but this is all so different fro --as if ere trespassers or so”
”I know” Bill drew her close to him ”But that's just mood I've felt that sa
All the out-of-the-way places of the earth produce that effect, if one is at all i, and the eternal stillness I've caughtto hear Makes a fellow feel like a s--awesome Sure, I know it It would be hard on the nerves to live here always But we're only after a stake--then all the pleasant places of the earth are open to us; with that little, old log house up by Pine River for a refuge whenever we get tired of the world at large Cuddle up and go to sleep You're a dead-gao”
And, next day, to Hazel, sitting by watching his of their winter home, it all seemed foolish, that heaviness of heart which sometimes assailed her
She was perfectly happy In each of the aainst illness They had plenty of food In a few brief old from the treasure house of the North, and they would journey hoes Why should she brood? It was sheer folly--a mere ebb of spirit
Fortune favored the the October storms remain in abeyance until Bill finished his cabin, with a cavernous fireplace of rough stone at one end He split planks for a door out of raw tiraced his house with ts--one of four s all the way from Hazleton, the other a two-foot square of deerskin scraped parchht to enter The floor was plain earth, a condition Bill pros were co much that would have made for comfort, still it served its purpose, and Hazel made shi+ft contentedly
Followed then the erection of a stable to shelter the horses Midway of its construction a cloud bank blew out of the northeast, and a foot of snow fell Then it cleared to brilliant days of frost Bill finished his stable At night he tied the horses therein By day they were turned loose to rustle their fodder from under the crisp snow It was necessary to husband the stock of hay, for springThe third day Bill shot two lade ten miles afield It took them two more days to haul in the frozen meat on a sled
”Looks like one side of a butcher shop,” Bill re on a pole scaffolding beyond reach of the wolves
”It certainly does,” Hazel replied ”We'll never eat all that”