Part 37 (2/2)

”Four days ve vill make it by der ranch,” Jake chuckled ”Mit der mule und Gretchen, der cow, von veek it take ether pleasant and satisfying days they were to Hazel The worst of the fly pests were vanished for the season A crisp touch of frost sharpened the night winds Indian suent air that sifted through the forests seemed doubly sweet after the vitiated atridiron of dusty streets and stone paveht say, from days of imprisonment in the narrow confines of a railway coach, she drank the winey air in hungry gulps, and joyed in the soft yielding of the turf beneath her feet, the fern and pea-vine carpet of the forest floor

It was her pleasure at night to sleep as she and Bill had slept, with her face bared to the stars She would draw her bed a little aside from the ca the nirotesque shadows cast by Jake and his frau as theyclear-headed, alert, grateful for the pleasant woodland s wholesomely from the fecund bosom of the earth

Lauer pulled up before his own cabin at mid-afternoon of the fourth day, unloaded his own stuff, and drove to his neighbor's with the rest

”I'll walk back after a little,” Hazel told hioods in one corner of the kitchen

The rattle of the wagon died away She was alone--at home Her eyes filled as she roved restlessly fro-room and on into the bedroos were down, the books stowed in fa spread in seone aithout troubling to smooth it out in housewifely fashi+on

She ca chair

She had expected to be lonely, very lonely But she was not Perhaps that would come later For the present it see, as if she were very tired, and had gratefully coaze out the open door where the forest fell away in vast undulations to a range of snow-capped mountains purple in the autumn haze, and a verse that Bill had once quoted ca Where the Trail leaps down

I could never learn the way And wisdom of the Town”

She blinked The town--it seerown remote, a fantasy in which she had played a puppet part But she was hoh to carry her through whatever black days ladly have cooked her supper in the kitchen fireplace, and laid down to sleep under her own roof It see to do But she had not expected to find the cabin livably arranged, and she had proht with theh the woods

CHAPTER xxxIV

AFTER MANY DAYS

September and October trooped past, and as they rew yellow and brown, and carpeted the floor of the woods with fallen leaves Shrub and tree bared gaunt limbs to every autumn wind Only the spruce and pine stood forth in their year-round habilihts grew long, and bitter with frost Snow fell, blanketing softly the dead leaves Old Winter cracked his whip masterfully over all the North

Day by day, between tasks, and often while she worked, Hazel's eyes would linger on the edges of the clearing Often at night she would lift herself on elbow at so ith expectation And always she would lie down again, and sometimes press her clenched hand to her lips to keep back the despairing cry

Always she adjured herself to be patient, to wait doggedly as Bill would have waited, to make due allowance for iht overtake ato his hoht hold hiht not come

Meantime, with only a dim consciousness of the fact, she underwent ain adaptation, self-restraint She had work of a sort, tasks such as every housewife finds self-imposed in her own home

She was seldom lonely She marveled at that It was unique in her experience All her old dread of the profound silence, the pathless forests which infolded like a prison wall, distances which seemed impossible of span, had vanished In its place had fallen over her an abiding sense of peace, of security The lusty stor a restful lullaby When the wolves lifted their weird, melancholy plaint to the cold, star-jeweled skies, she listened without the old shudder These things, which ont to oppress her, to send her i morbid ways, seemed but a natural aspect of life, of which she herself was a part

Often, sitting before her glowing fireplace, watching a flame kindled with her own hands ood she herself had carried from the pile outside, she pondered this It defied her powers of self-analysis

She could only accept it as a fact, and be glad Granville and all that Granville stood for had withdrawn to a round She could look out over the frost-spangled forests and feel that she lacked nothing--nothing save herto be elsewhere, to do otherwise It was home, she reflected; perhaps that hy

A simple routine served to fill her days She kept her house shi+ning, she cooked her food, carried in her fuel Except on days of forthright storm she put on her snowshoes, and with a little rifle in the crook of her arave her pleasure to range sturdily afield, partly for the physical brace of exertion in the crisp air Otherwise she curled co out of Bill's catholic assortiven her, also, to learn the true hborliness, that kindliness of spirit which is stifled by stress in the crowded places, and stis where life is noncomplex, direct, where cause and effect tread on each other's heels

Every day, if she failed to drop into their cabin, cahbors to see if all ith her Quite as a reat pile of firewood

Or they would coling up of an evening behind the frisky bays And while the bays staff's stable, they would cluster about the open hearth, popping corn for the children, talking, alith cheerful optimism

Behind Lauer's mild blue eyes lurked a s He had lived and worked and read, and, pondering it all, he had suiffen us, und ve must off ita few books he had borrowed to read at hoo not astray afder der voolish dings--und if der self-breservation struggle vears us not out so dot ve gannot enjoy being alife So le und slave under terrible conditions Und it iss largely because off ignorance Ve know not vot ve can do--und ve shrink vrom der unknown Here iss acres by der dousand vree to der man vot can off it make use--und dousands vot liffs und dies und neffer hass a holean air--und in der she of tuberculosis Der balance iss not true Und in der own vay der rich iss full off drouble--drunk citement, veary mit bleasures Ach, der voods und hbor--iss not dot enough? Only der abnorely dot der h-bressure cifilization makes for der abnormal, vedder a man iss a millionaire or vorks in der brewery, contentic it vill content find in der sis”