text:
Billy Boy

HE clearing at the edge of the wood was filled with tall, dry grass that shone gray in the sun; the bushes scattered here and there had occasional gleams of red or yellow, brilliant among the green; and the clump of sumachs, that had lost their leaves, except stray ones, showed transparent silver twigs against the hemlocks. The clearing had once been the center of an estate; but only a grassy road that disappeared into the forest showed by its turnings where buildings had once stood, and a curve to the left revealed a broken gateway toward the town.

A woman seated in the clearing on a bit of fallen timber was writing on a pad on her knee. Every now and then her eyes left the pad and rested absently on the sunshine that filled the clearing; the eyes were dark, with a look that touched them as the sun touched the edge of the forest where the road went—and revealed nothing. The air was so still that sounds from the distant town came faintly—a trolley burring on its rails, or the sharp sound of metal striking on metal; then there was a sharper sound, a quick "ping," and the woman lifted her head, glancing toward the forest; but its quiet revealed only the great trees that crossed and interlaced their branches, and the sunshine falling through them and flecking the road.

Her eyes rested on the sunlight dreamily—and there came again the sharp "ping." She shivered a little and drew her cloak about her and went on writing on the pad on her knee: "I woke this morning to a prison—not only of spirit, but of mind and body. I have come into a close, dark place and there is no way out. I am shut off from life, and from myself—and from every one. If I could not write these words I should suffocate; there is no one to whom I can speak, or who will listen. I am alone! I think—" What she thought she did not put down, for there was a sound behind her in the clearing—a faint touch on dry grass, and cautious, whispered words and clumsy feet stealing upon her.

She waited till they came close before she lifted her head. Then she spoke over her shoulder, not looking behind her: "I am glad you have not a gun. I have been hearing some one shooting off there—and I was terribly afraid I might get shot."

They circled about her slowly and came in range of her half-smiling gaze—two unkempt boys, eight and ten, it might be. They surveyed her with eager, curious eyes and stood half poised, ready for flight.

She returned the gaze frankly.

Slowly the tension relaxed. The older boy withdrew his hands from his pockets—unfolding as they came—and waved the right one toward the woods and the curving road.

"These are Baxter's woods," he said, reassuringly; "the' ain't anybody let to shoot in these woods."

"Baxter'd get after anybody that was shootin' here!" broke in the other, quickly.

"Yes, sir, he would!"—even more reassuringly from the first. They shifted from foot to foot and regarded her.

She took it quietly, with a little smile. "I am glad of that; I should hate to have my head shot right off, sitting here."

"The' won't anybody hurt you here," said the older one. He spoke protectingly, and he was looking at her with large, kind gaze.

It was evident that they had not expected to find a middle-aged woman sitting in the midst of the old clearing; and the pad on her knee and the writing on it had to be reckoned with. But every one has a right to be held innocent until he is proved guilty. They surveyed the writing, and drew nearer.

Her eyes regarded them idly. "How does it happen that you are not in school?" she asked.

They stopped. "It's Columbus Day!" They moved forward together.

"What is that—Columbus Day?"

They tumbled over each other to get in the words: "Columbus he was a man, and he—" "America was discovered in 14—"

The other cast a withering look at him. "Fred, will you keep still and let me tell this!"

Fred stopped. He had red hair, and a quick mouth that kept opening and shutting in time to the words that followed. But he withdrew in favor of Billy's eloquence. "Go ahead," he said, sullenly. His heel dug a hole in the ground.

And Billy went gloriously on: "Columbus he was a man, and he sailed—and sailed—till he come to a new world, and he called it America, and so we have a holiday. It was hundreds—"

"1492," said Fred, glibly.

But Billy's look withered him—"hundreds of years ago," he finished up.

The woman's gaze was full of interest. "That's fine!—to have a holiday just because a man sailed—and sailed! What are you going to do with it?"

They looked at each other questioningly, and then behind them at the dark wood.

"We got a camp," said Billy, indifferently.

"It's a dandy camp!" broke in Fred. "The's a big tree, you know—"

Billy pushed him aside. "It's holler—oh, it's awful big"—he looked about him—"bigger'n any tree," he said, reflectively. "An' we got inside it—"

"You can't both get in!"

"Yes, sir!" quickly, from both. They came nearer.

"It's held four of us," said Billy, without reserve.

She looked her surprise.

"And we have put a chair in it, too. We could get it in—but we couldn't turn it around," regretfully but truthfully.

There had been other camps, it seemed, in these woods. One they had—oh, it was a fine one!—and some other boys came and put up a door—and wrote things all over it.... Billy's eye lifted a minute, as if hoping she would not understand—and hoping she would.

"And when we come and found it, we tore it down, me and Fred—! And then they came back and tore it, and then we tore it some more—and it was all gone." It was a thoroughly demolished camp before they were done with it. And as Billy talked, they drew nearer to this strange woman who seemed to understand. "Like enough we'll find some boys over there now." He glanced toward the dark woods. "It's a dandy camp, this one!" He sat down on a rock near by, his hands clasped about his knees and his back carefully turned to the woman.

Fred looked at the back with sudden suspicion, and then at the woman. "Oh, come on, Billy! What's the use staying here all day?" He fidgeted a little on his way toward the wood. But Billy's back was imperturbable.

"I'm goin' to stay here; I ain't in any hurry."

"There isn't anything to do here!"

"Well, I like it, and I'm goin' to stay." Billy surveyed the woods before him with kindly, impersonal gaze.

Fred's mouth opened and shut.

"What have you in your pocket that sticks out so?" asked the woman. She was looking at Fred's pocket that bulged alarmingly.

His hand made a dive. "Horse-chestnuts."

Billy leaped to his feet. "I got a string six feet long!"

The woman weighed it with a half-quizzical smile. "That isn't a snake story, is it?"

"No, sir! It isn't a snake story." He came nearer to her.... Anyway, he had counted up as high as a hundred and twenty inches.

"Why, let me see—how many inches make a foot?"

"Twelve," helpfully, from Fred.

"And that goes in a hundred and twenty ten times—ten feet! That's even longer than you said." She looked at him reflectively. "It might be; it wouldn't take more than a hundred and twenty chestnuts— They're an inch wide, aren't they?"

"Not more'n half an inch—" Fred produced a handful from his pocket.

The woman reached out a hand. "How beautiful it is!" she said, softly.

They leaned forward, their eyes fairly shining. "Do you want some more?"

"But what could I do with horse-chestnuts? I have no pockets."

"But you have a bag," from Billy, eagerly. "You're sitting on it!"

"So I have—" And while she said it, consideringly, they were filling her lap—a kind of shamefaced competition in their gestures. She ran her fingers slowly over the brown surfaces.

Fred reached down half shyly and took one back, putting in its place a delightfully tiny one. "That's the littlest one I've got," he said. "You may have it!"

Billy's eye was on it grudgingly. "I had a little one once—no bigger'n a button!"

But he hadn't it now, or he would lay it in her lap. That was certain. He would give her anything he had.

Fred watched him distrustfully. "Oh, come on to the camp!"

"I like it well enough here. The' ain't any hurry," said Billy.

The woman's eyes swept the hemlock woods. "Aren't you ever afraid in the woods?"

No, they were never afraid. Why, they had been through these woods as late as eight o'clock at night—pitch dark!... And the way the woods were in winter—she ought to see 'em!

But Fred had drawings toward the camp—and, besides, he had never seen Billy like this; there was some kind of baleful influence at work on him. It was safer to go—and at last he had him started—with a parting request from the woman that if they saw the man who was shooting over there, they would tell him it was against the law.

She took up her pad and read thoughtfully what she had written, and tried to regain the thread. But before she could gather it up the two figures reappeared—Billy far ahead and breathless; Fred a little reluctant.... The woman, too, was reluctant; there were things she wanted to say to her pad—if only she could gather them out of the darkness that seemed closing about her.

But Billy was a person who knew when he had found what he wanted. He sat down on his rock, with his back to her, and surveyed the wood.

She looked at the back and smiled a little. She had been wooed many times and in many ways, but never more valiantly than by Billy's back....

She considered subjects, and decided on "War." Would they like to have it all stop? People were talking about having war everywhere stopped; and probably about the time they got to be men it would be decided. It would depend a great deal on how boys like them felt about it.

Well—they'd "like it stopped."

"Don't you like to fight?" "Oh, no!" "But you do fight?" "Yes, you have to fight." "But why?" "Oh, you just have to!" "But you don't like it?" "No." "Nor to see other boys?" Assuredly not.

There was some kind of mysterious prompting, it seemed, that urged one on to fight; and if you were a boy—a real boy—you had to do it; but you didn't like it.... It was strange that any one should not know such a simple thing as that; but since she did not know it, and was obviously interested, they would gladly tell her more if they could—only there was nothing to tell. You just "had to." This afternoon they were going to climb one of the tall trees, the tallest one they could find, to watch the airship go up from Bayside. But Fred was keeping a watchful eye on Billy. It was time they were off.

The woman, with a faint smile, watched the movements of his mind—and his legs! She suggested that they skirt the camp of the enemy, who had sent them scurrying back, and play the enemy were Indians.

Fred's eye was grateful and eager.

Billy surveyed the plan and decided against it. He was contented where he was.

The situation grew serious from now on—almost epic in its detail and human quality. Here was Billy, the all-powerful, the callous, the companionable, refusing to budge. Here was an unknown female who apparently had something to do with this uncanny conduct of Billy's; and here was Fred, irritated, watchful, uncomprehending, driven by an awful force that he himself did not understand, to "act up."

He circled the rock and came close behind the mysterious woman and blew a shrill shriek between his two fingers. Over her head, as he did it, he could see Billy's back.

Billy had not turned his head, but he spoke in the tone of one to be obeyed. "Fred, you quit that."

Fred gave another ear-splitting yell, the yell of defiant comradeship gone wrong.

And Billy, very mildly, "Fred, you quit that, or I'll fix you."

Fred quit. His hand found a horse-chestnut, and he squared off to throw it high in the air. Then he circled in front of the woman and threw another, with proud, lofty swing—and then another; they rose and skimmed along the topmost leaves of the trees.

Billy's eye followed them with careless gaze and the shrugging remark that he couldn't throw 'cause he'd hurt his arm. Whereupon presently he rose, and, picking up a stone, sent it whizzing over the top of the tallest tree.

The woman turned to watch; and Billy sent a horse-chestnut flying over the same track.

"I'll bet I can find that one!" exclaimed Fred, and was off on a run.

The woman looked at Billy. "That was not bad—for a lame arm," she said.

"'Twa'n't nothin'," responded Billy.

He came over to her rock and sat down on the edge of it—still with his back carefully turned to her—and they fell to talking of many things. They were so absorbed that when Fred returned, proudly holding out the chestnut, the woman only looked up casually, with laughing eyes, and said, "You didn't really find it, did you?"

"Yes, sir, I did! Here, I'll mark one, and he can throw it, and then you'll see!" He set his teeth savagely into a tough shell and bit a piece and spat it out. "Now!" He handed it to Billy. "Throw it!"

It was almost a menace, and Billy threw it with a careless swinging shrug of his thin shoulders. But it did not mount over the tree this time; it deflected from a branch to the ground, and the search for it was long. Billy and the woman returned to their talk—he sitting well on the edge of the rock and tossing the words back over his shoulder to her, as she listened with gentle glance.

Fred, searching among the underbrush for the lost chestnut, lifted a lowering head to gaze at them from time to time. They had forgotten him. Billy had gone back on him! He lifted his head with a shrill yell; it called out echoes from the camping boys in the woods, but no response from Billy and the woman on the rock.

He abandoned the search and hurried over. "Come on, Billy," he urged.

The woman glanced at Billy's indifferent back and gave a little laugh. "You'll have to lasso him," she suggested.

"He couldn't do nothin'," said Billy, quietly.

"I couldn't, couldn't I?" Fred fairly danced.

"No, you couldn't; I'd just wind it once around a tree and then you couldn't budge it."

Fred stuttered his retort. "I'd run around the tree—the other way 'round—and then I'd yank you!"

Billy, imperturbable, "You couldn't do nothin'!"

Fred approached the rock, breathing hard. He made a swift dart and was seated between them. It was a last heroic act—for the sake of Billy's soul.

Billy, unmoved, bent to pick up a bit of stone. Fred snatched at it—and the next moment they were on the ground by the rock, Fred underneath and very red in the face. Billy rose slowly and released him. Then, before the eye could follow, they had moved a little to one side and stood glaring at each other; there were broken words and retorts, and feints of sparring, a quick thrust or two—and Fred had started for home.

The woman looked after him, bewildered.

Billy looked after him, smoldering.

The woman turned her head a little. "Oh, Fred!" she called, "come back! You call him!" she said, swiftly.

And Billy called. But it was only a feeble, half-hearted attempt. He shook his head. "He won't come for me," he muttered. He's mad at me!"

They returned to the rock and resumed their talk. "Let him go," said the woman. But every now and then he bubbled up to the surface of Billy's thought and broke through.

"It'll be a week now, maybe more, before him and me get over that—"

"What will you do?" she asked, quietly.

"Oh, I'll have to make up, somehow."

"Yes— How will you do it?" "I dunno." He surveyed the woods. "I'll give him something, like enough."

"What do you suppose you'll give him?" She turned the knife gently in the wound.

"Oh, I dunno; 'most anything. Maybe I'll just holler out to him, or something like that."

"I suppose you don't often have fights?" she suggested.

"We're always havin' 'em," said Billy, gloomily. Then he added, balefully, "He's hidin' over there in the woods, maybe."

But these are only interjections that rise to the surface to be cast off. The main subject is the exploration of Billy's soul and of the woman's soul. It is surprising how many things they have in common now that Fred is out of the way and they can talk in peace. Snakes come up, and water-rats, and a black-and-yellow caterpillar that Billy sees and darts down to get and that curls into a round ball in Billy's dirty hand.

"You see—he's afraid," said the woman. "He doesn't know what's going to happen to him."

"I ain't goin' to do nothin' to him."

"No—but he doesn't know that yet."

The caterpillar, discarded, drops down in front of them, and after a while begins his journey again. Billy darts down to him, and this time the caterpillar does not curl up, but travels slowly across his hand.

"You see," said the woman, "he's not afraid this time; he knows you didn't hurt him before."

Snakes come up again. Billy had seen one once when he and some other boys were going up to Great Hill. "You ever been to Great Hill?" he turned to her. It was as if he said, "You ever been to Egypt?"

No, she had never been to Great Hill.

"Well, me and some other boys were goin' up there one day and we see a snake in the road that was cut right in two—"

The woman remarks casually that it seems too bad that animals have to suffer; if people suffer, it makes them brave—but animals seem different.

Billy, almost shyly, "Seems 's if they ought to chloroform them."

Then followed the story of their kitten that had fits; and it was one day when mother was cleaning the parlor, and she had the rug rolled up out on the piazza; and this kitten had one—a fit, you know—and ran right into the rug; and mother said to Mrs. Bell—she was there—she said, "You take that shawl and I'll shake out the rug." And she did, and they threw the shawl over it; and then mother sent for ten cents' worth of chloroform, to the drug-store, and she had a tub of water all ready—and so they done it."

"A tub of water!" said the woman, perplexed.

"Yes, she had it ready."

The woman does not interrupt again, though the mystery of the tub remains in her face. "So they chloroformed the kitten?" she suggested.

Billy sighed. "That's all I know. I was to school when it happened. When I come home it was all over." He had been allowed to dig it up after a time, it seemed—"much as a year after, maybe," but the sides and bottom of the box were all that was left, "not a single bone of that kitten!" he said, dramatically.

"That seems strange!"

"It had evaporated, you know," he explained kindly.

"But still it does seem strange, doesn't it?"

"It was more'n a year after, I guess, that I did the diggin'. It had all evaporated, you see."

So they let it go at that. The snake that had been cut in two recurred. "We put stones on him—both parts of him, so's he shouldn't—suffer," gulping a little shamefacedly at the word.

"Wasn't he dead?" The woman sat up.

"No"—very matter-of-course from Billy. "So we covered him with stones—both parts of him; and when we come back—maybe it was two hours later—he was just through. We took the stones off, and his tail give one last yank—and that was all."

They were silent a minute, contemplating the snake.

"Him and me has been friends an awful long time," said Billy; "oh, as much as four years, I should think."

"It's old friends, like that, that we care a great deal for," said the woman, quietly.

"Yes"—a sigh. "Oh, we shall make it up somehow. He won't speak to me— You see!" A few minutes of silence.

The woman seemed considering the subject. "Well—you know he didn't really want to stay, anyway."

"He stays—when anything's goin' on. I'll say, 'Come on,' and he'll say, ' Just a minute; wait just a minute while I see this.' He's always doin' it!"

"Yes, he's the kind of boy that likes to be where things are going on; I could see that."

Fred drifts out of the way as allusively as he came in, and the woman is telling him how she first came to find the woods.

"I was out walking alone," she said, a little wistfully. "I have been ill a long time and I was lonely."

Billy gazes stoically at the trees in front of them. His back is not turned to her now.

"I was lonely and I longed to be in the woods; but I did not know there were woods near—I thought it was all town." She motioned to the gateway behind them. "And then I made a beeline—straight for this; and you were here!"

"Yes," said Billy. He turned to her, his face lighting up—as if something had touched a spring that opened a secret place. "I tell you what I'd like!" he said, swiftly: "I'd like—better'n anything—to have a house on the edge of a big woods, and live there always!"

"So should I!" She is looking at him with puzzled eyes. It is what one has always wanted—that little house on the edge of a great wood.

They were looking at each other understandingly, into each other's soul.

"You could see everything, you know"—he waved his hand—"miles and miles in front—and the woods right close."

"Yes—I know."

He sits a little closer to her. There is no one near them—but the woods and the sunshine and the dry grass of the clearing. "You don't live around here, do you?" he asks, very quietly.

"No—I live a long way off." Her eyes are following the figure of a man seen through the trees; he is going along the path to the woods.

The boy sees him, and his back gives a guilty start; flight is in his heels. His hand makes a cautious gesture. "That man's got it in for me!" he half whispers. But the man passing along the path to the wood does not glance in their direction.

It comes out, a jerk at a time, one eye on the receding man. "He's janitor over to the High School; and some of us boys, you know, the other day, was climbing up half-way on the building, on the outside—"

"What were you doing that for?"—a little curious.

"Oh—just for fun—and he come out and chased us; and he told me if he caught me he'd skin me alive!"

"Do you suppose he knows who you are?"

"Oh yes, he knows! He knows my father!"—He is still following with watchful eye—"I've got a fight on with him, all right!" He sighs a little.... "Seems 's if everybody had a fight on with me around here—" He is looking at her, half ashamed—half hoping she will understand.

She smiles at him. "It is funny about men," she said. "They do things when they are boys—I don't doubt he did just the kind of thing you were doing when he was a boy—and then, when they grow up, they seem to forget everything!"

Billy's eyes danced. "Hi! I'll remember that to tell him next time he chases me!" His face is full of it.

"Do you like to go to school?" asks the woman.

And the glinting face fell. "You just bet I don't! I'd stop to-day and never go again—if I could."

"What would you do?"

"I'd go to work. I'd do anything!" He spoke as one who wrestles with fate.

"I suppose we have to learn to read and write—or we would be just savages," suggested the woman.

"I can't write very well." The boy said it regretfully, half thoughtfully. "Someway I can't!" He was gazing at his hands where the caterpillar crawled. The finger-nails were very dirty and thin. The thin body was ill-nourished. But something slumbered in it—a force like steel in the glance he lifted to her. "Someway I can't!" he said.

"Someway you will!" said the woman. She had gathered up the pad from her knee. "What time is it?" she asked. "It must be almost twelve if the janitor is going home."

"He goes half-past eleven some days," said Billy, quickly. But the noon whistle broke across his cheerful lie; and he watched her put the chestnuts in her bag and place the little pad on top of them and get up from her rock.

"I have had a very pleasant morning," she said.

"So have I!" said Billy. No such compliment had ever been paid her as the depth of Billy's emphasis.

She looked down at him, smiling. "I suppose we shall never see each other again," she said.

It was sheer, dramatic wickedness on her part. But Billy's eyes were fixed on a black-and-brown caterpillar crawling on the rock just back of where she had been sitting. He pointed to it.

"Two of them!" she exclaimed. They watched them crawl. "It would be rather good fun, wouldn't it," she said, slowly, "since there are two of them, to each take one and see if they really do—turn into butterflies!"

It is all in Billy's eyes—"And you can have this one that's got kind o' tame; and I'll take the other and get him used to me.

Something tugged at the woman's heart as she held out a bit of tissue paper for the brown-and-black caterpillar and placed it in her bag. She drew out the pad. "See, I will write my name and address and give it to you, and you shall give me yours—and we will let each other know if they really do turn into butterflies."

He watched her pen gravely. "My name is Clarence—Clarence Henderson," he said.

"So you are called 'Billy.'"

"Yes"—matter-of-fact.

She set it down. Then he stood waiting, very close, while the pen traced her own name and address.

"When are you going to that place?" he asked, soberly.

"That place—?"

"Where you live." He touched the paper with the writing on it.

"Oh, I don't know—a few weeks, perhaps."

"Do you suppose you will come to these woods again?" He looked about them at the dark, encircling hemlocks and the path going into them.

"I don't know." She spoke slowly. "It depends on so many things, you know—on whether it rains, and on the wind and the sun—"

Yes, it depended on many things. He gathered up the caterpillar from the rock, and they moved apart.

"I hope you will make up with Fred all right," she called. "Why don't you do it to-day?"

He gave her a swift, backward look and a smile. "I guess I will." It was full of reassurance. She was not to worry. They understood.

She turned again and moved toward the wood. But at the edge she paused and looked back. Perhaps she hoped that Billy would be looking, too; and she would wave a friendly hand. But there was only the dirty-brown boy going very slowly and looking down at something that he carried in his careful hand—the caterpillar that was going to "get used to him."

She watched the shabby figure a minute. Then she turned and went into the wood. And the clearing was left to the sunshine and the dry grass, and a little drifting movement of the leaves that fell through the sunlit air.

title: Billy Boy


text: Talk:Billy Boy

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Billy Boy


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 1

ES, I ’m shif’less. I ’m gen’ally considered shif’less,” said William Benslow. He spoke in a tone of satisfaction, and hitched his trousers skilfully into place by their one suspender.

His companion shifted his easel a little, squinting across the harbor at the changing light. There was a mysterious green in the water that he failed to find in his color-box.

William Benslow watched him patiently. “Kind o’ ticklish business, ain’t it?” he said.

The artist admitted that it was.

“I reckon I would n’t ever ’a’ done for a painter,” said the old man, readjusting his legs. “It ’s settin’-work, and that ’s good; but you have to keep at it steady-like—keep a-daubin’ and a-scrapin’ and a-daubin’ and a-scrapin’, day in and day out. I should n’t like it. Sailin’ ’s more in my line,” he added, scanning the horizon. “You have to step lively when you do step, but there ’s plenty of off times when you can set and look and the boat just goes skimmin’ along all o’ herself, with the water and the sky all round you. I ’ve been thankful a good many times the Lord saw fit to make a sailor of me.”

The artist glanced a little quizzically at the tumble-down house on the cliff above them and then at the old boat, with its tattered maroon sail, anchored below. “There ’s not much money in it?” he suggested.

“Money? Dunno ’s there is,” returned the other. “You don’t reely need money if you ’re a sailor.”

“No, I suppose not—no more than an artist.”

“Don’t you need money, either?” The old man spoke with cordial interest.

“Well, occasionally—not much. I have to buy canvas now and then, and colors—”

The old man nodded. “Same as me. Canvas costs a little, and color. I dye mine in magenta. You get it cheap in the bulk—”

The artist laughed out. “All right, Uncle William, all right,” he said. “You teach me to trust in the Lord and I ’ll teach you art. You see that color out there,—deep green like shadowed grass—”

The old man nodded. “I ’ve seen that a good many times,” he said. “Cur’us, ain’t it?—just the color of lobsters when you haul ’em.”

The young man started. He glanced again at the harbor. “Hum-m!” he said under his breath. He searched in his color-box and mixed a fresh color rapidly on the palette, transferring it swiftly to the canvas. “Ah-h!” he said, again under his breath. It held a note of satisfaction.

Uncle William hitched up his suspender and came leisurely across the sand. He squinted at the canvas and then at the sliding water, rising and falling across the bay. “Putty good,” he said approvingly. “You ’ve got it just about the way it looks—”

“Just about,” assented the young man, with quick satisfaction. “Just about. Thank you.”

Uncle William nodded. “Cur’us, ain’t it? there ’s a lot in the way you see a thing.”

“There certainly is,” said the painter. His brush moved in swift strokes across the canvas. “There certainly is. I ’ve been studying that water for two hours. I never thought of lobsters.” He laughed happily.

Uncle William joined him, chuckling gently. “That ’s nateral enough,” he said kindly. “You hain’t been seein’ it every day for sixty year, the way I hev.” He looked at it again, lovingly, from his height.

“What’s the good of being an artist if I can’t see things that you can’t?” demanded the young man, swinging about on his stool.

“Well, what is the use? I dunno; do you?” said Uncle William, genially. “I ’ve thought about that a good many times, too, when I ’ve been sailin’,” he went on—“how them artists come up here summer after summer makin’ picters,—putty poor, most on ’em,—and what ’s the use? I can see better ones settin’ out there in my boat, any day.—Not but that ’s better ’n some,” he added politely, indicating the half-finished canvas.

The young man laughed. “Thanks to you,” he said. “Come on in and make a chowder. It ’s too late to do any more to-day—and that ’s enough.” He glanced with satisfaction at the glowing canvas with its touch of green. He set it carefully to one side and gathered up his tubes and brushes.

Uncle William bent from his height and lifted the easel, knocking it apart and folding it with quick skill.

The artist looked up with a nod of thanks. “All right,” he said, “go ahead.”

Uncle William reached out a friendly hand for the canvas, but the artist drew it back quickly. “No, no,” he said. “You ’d rub it off.”

“Like enough,” returned the old man, placidly. “I gen’ally do get in a muss when there ’s fresh paint around. But I don’t mind my clothes. They ’re ust to it—same as yourn.”

The young man laughed anxiously. “I would n’t risk it,” he said. “Come on.”

They turned to the path that zigzagged its way up the cliff, and with bent backs and hinged knees they mounted to the little house perched on its edge.

title: Uncle William/Chapter 1


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 2

HE old man pushed open the door with a friendly kick. “Go right along in,” he said. “I ’ll be there ’s soon as I ’ve got an armful of wood.”

The artist entered the glowing room. Turkey-red blazed at the windows and decorated the walls. It ran along the line of shelves by the fire and covered the big lounge. One stepped into the light of it with a sudden sense of crude comfort.

The artist set his canvas carefully on a projecting beam and looked about him, smiling. A cat leaped down from the turkey-red lounge and came across, rubbing his legs. He bent and stroked her absently.

She arched her back to his hand. Then, moving from him with stately step, she approached the door, looking back at him with calm, imperious gaze.

“All right, Juno,” he said. “He ’ll be along in a minute. Don’t you worry.”

She turned her back on him and, seating herself, began to wash her face gravely and slowly.

The door opened with a puff, and she leaped forward, dashing upon the big leg that entered and digging her claws into it in ecstasy of welcome.

Uncle William, over the armful of wood, surveyed her with shrewd eyes. He reached down a long arm and, seizing her by the tail, swung her clear of his path, landing her on the big lounge. With a purr of satisfaction, she settled herself, kneading her claws in its red softness.

He deposited the wood in the box and stood up. His bluff, kind gaze swept the little room affectionately. He took off the stove-lid and poked together the few coals that glowed beneath. “That ’s all right,” he said. “She ’ll heat up quick.” He thrust in some light sticks and pushed forward the kettle. “Now, if you ’ll reach into that box behind you and get the potatoes,” he said, “I ’ll do the rest of the fixin’s.”

He removed his hat, and taking down a big oil-cloth apron, checked red and black, tied it about his ample waist. He reached up and drew from behind the clock a pair of spectacles in steel bows. He adjusted them to his blue eyes with a little frown. “They ’re a terrible bother,” he said, squinting through them and readjusting them. “But I don’t dare resk it without. I got hold of the pepper-box last time. Thought it was the salt—same shape. The chowder was hot.” He chuckled. “I can see a boat a mile off,” he said, lifting the basket of clams to the sink, “but a pepper-box two feet ’s beyond me.” He stood at the sink, rubbing the clams with slow, thoughtful fingers. His big head, outlined against the window, was not unlike the line of sea-coast that stretched below, far as the eye could see, rough and jagged. Tufts of hair framed his shining baldness and tufts of beard embraced the chin, losing themselves in the vast expanse of neckerchief knotted, sailor fashion, about his throat.

Over the clams and the potatoes and the steaming kettles he hovered with a kind of slow patience,—in a smaller man it would have been fussiness,—and when the fragrant chowder was done he dipped it out with careful hand. The light had lessened, and the little room, in spite of its ruddy glow, was growing dark. Uncle William glanced toward the window. Across the harbor a single star had come out. “Time to set my light,” he said. He lighted a ship’s lantern and placed it carefully in the window.

The artist watched him with amused eyes. “You waste a lot of oil on the government, Uncle William,” he said laughingly. “Why don’t you apply for a salary?”

Uncle William smiled genially. “Well, I s’pose the guvernment would say the’ wa’n’t any reel need for a light here. And I don’t s’pose the’ is, myself—not any reel need. But it ’s a comfort. The boys like to see it, comin’ in at night. They ’ve sailed by it a good many year now, and I reckon they ’d miss it. It ’s cur’us how you do miss a thing that ’s a comfort—more ’n you do one ’t you reely need sometimes.” He lighted the lamp swinging, ship fashion, from a beam above, and surveyed the table. He drew up his chair. “Well, it ’s ready,” he said, “such as it is.”

“That ’s all airs, Uncle William,” said the young man, drawing up. “You know it ’s fit for a king.”

“Yes, it ’s good,” said the old man, beaming on him. “I ’ve thought a good many times there wa’n’t anything in the world that tasted better than chowder—real good clam chowder.” His mouth opened to take in a spoonful, and his ponderous jaws worked slowly. There was nothing gross in the action, but it might have been ambrosia. He had pushed the big spectacles up on his head for comfort, and they made an iron-gray bridge from tuft to tuft, framing the ruddy face.

“There was a man up here to Arichat one summer,” he said, chewing slowly, “that e’t my chowder. And he was sort o’ possessed to have me go back home with him.”

The artist smiled. “Just to make chowder for him?”

The old man nodded. “Sounds cur’us, don’t it? But that was what he wanted. He was a big hotel keeper and he sort o’ got the idea that if he could have chowder like that it would be a big thing for the hotel. He offered me a good deal o’ money if I ’d go with him—said he ’d give me five hunderd a year and keep.” The old man chuckled. “I told him I would n’t go for a thousand—not for two thousand,” he said emphatically. “Why, I don’t s’pose there ’s money enough in New York to tempt me to live there.

“Have you been there?”

“Yes, I ’ve been there a good many times. We ’ve put in for repairs and one thing and another, and I sailed a couple of years between there and Liverpool once. It ’s a terrible shet-in place,” he said suddenly.

“I believe you ’re right,” admitted the young man. He had lighted his pipe and was leaning back, watching the smoke. “You do feel shut in—sometimes. But there are a lot of nice people shut in with you.”

“That ’s what I meant,” he said, quickly. “I can’t stan’ so many folks.”

“You ’re not much crowded here.” The young man lifted his head. Down below they could hear the surf beating. The wind had risen. It rushed against the little house whirlingly.

The old man listened a minute. “I shall have to go down and reef her down,” he said thoughtfully. “It ’s goin’ to blow.”

“I should say it is blowing,” said the young man.

“Not yet,” returned Uncle William. “You ’ll hear it blow afore mornin’ if you stay awake to listen—though it won’t sound so loud up the shore where you be. This is the place for it. A good stiff blow and nobody on either side of you—for half a mile.” A kind of mellow enthusiasm held the tone.

The young man smiled. “You are a hermit. Suppose somebody should build next you?”

“They can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I own it.”

“A mile?”

The old man nodded. “Not the shore, of course. That ’s free to all. But where anybody could build I own.” He said it almost exultantly. “I guess maybe I ’m part Indian.” He smiled apologetically. “I can’t seem to breathe without I have room enough, and it just come over me once, how I should feel if folks crowded down on me too much. So I bought it. I ’m what they call around here ‘land-poor.’” He said it with satisfaction. “I can’t scrape together money enough to buy a new boat, and it ’s ’s much as I can do to keep the Jennie patched up and going. But I ’m comfortable. I don’t really want for anything.”

“Yes, you ’re comfortable.” The young man glanced about the snug room.

“There ain’t a lot of folks shying up over the rocks at me.” He got up with deliberation, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I ’m goin’ to make things snug and put down the other anchor,” he said. “You stay till I come back and we ’ll have suthin’ hot.”

He put on his oil-skin hat and coat, and taking the lantern from its hook, went out into the night.

Within, the light of the swinging lamp fell on the turkey-red. It glowed. The cat purred in its depths.

title: Uncle William/Chapter 2


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 3

HE artist had been dreaming. In his hand he held an open locket. The face within it was dark, like a boy’s, with careless hair brushed from the temples, and strong lines. The artist knew the lines by heart, and the soft collar and loose-flowing tie and careless dress. He had been leaning back with closed eyes, watching the lithe figure, tall and spare, with the rude grace of the Steppes, the freshness of the wind.... How she would enjoy it—this very night—the red room perched aloft in the gale!

A fresh blast struck the house and it creaked and groaned, and righted itself. In the lull that followed, steps sounded up the rocky path. With a snap, the young man closed the locket and sat up. The door opened on Uncle William, shining and gruff. The lantern in his hand had gone out. His hat and coat were covered with fine mist. He came across to the fire, shaking it off.

“It ’s goin’ to blow all right,” he said, nodding to the artist.

“And it ’s raining. You ’re wet.”

“Well, not wet, so to speak.” He took off his hat, shaking it lightly over the stove. A crackling and fine mist rose from the hot drops. Juno lifted her head and yawned. She purred softly. The old man hung his hat and coat on the wooden pegs behind the door and seated himself by the stove, opening wide the drafts. A fresh blaze sprang up. The artist leaned forward, holding out his hands to it.

“You were gone a good while,” he said. The locket had slipped from his fingers and hung lightly on its steel chain, swinging a little as he bent to the fire.

The old man nodded. “I see the Andrew Halloran had dragged her anchor a little, as I went out, and I stopped to fix her. It took quite a spell. I could n’t find the extry anchor. He ’d got it stowed away for’ard somewheres, and by the time I found it she was driftin’ putty bad. I found a good bottom for her and made things fast before I left. I reckon she ’ll hold.”

“Won’t he be down himself to look after her?”

“Mebbe not. It ’s a goodish step, from his place, down and back. He knows I keep an eye out for her.

“Why does n’t he anchor up there,” said the artist, “near by?”

The old man shook his head. “He ’s a kind o’ set man, Andy is—part Irish and part Scotch. He al’ays has anchored here and I reckon he al’ays will. I told him when I bought the land of him he was welcome to.”

“It was his land, then?”

“Most on it—I do’ know as he wanted to sell reely, but I offered him more ’n he could stan’. He’s a little near—Andy is.” He chuckled.

The artist laughed out. “So he keeps the anchorage and right of way and you look after his boat. I don’t see but he ’s fairly well fixed.”

“Yes, he ’s putty well fixed,” said the old man, slowly. “’S fur as this world’s goods go Andy is comf’tably provided for.” His eyes twinkled a little, but most of the big face was sober. “We ’ve been neighbors, Andy ’n’ me, ever sence we was boys,” he said. “I guess there ain’t a mean thing about Andy that I don’t know, and he the same about me. I should feel kind o’ lonesome nights not to hev his boat to look after—and know, like as not, in the mornin’ he ’ll come down, cussin’ and swearin’ ’cause she wa’n’t fixed jest right.” He peered into the kettle on the stove. “’Most empty.” He filled it from the pail by the sink, and resumed his seat, stretching his great legs comfortably. Juno sprang from the lounge and perched herself on his knee. He tumbled her a little, in rough affection, and rubbed his big fingers in her neck. She purred loudly, kneading her claws with swift strokes in the heavy cloth. He watched her benignly, a kind of detached humor in his eyes. “Wimmen folks is a good deal alike,” he remarked dryly. “They like to be comf’tabul.”

“Some of them,” assented the artist.

The old man looked up with a swift twinkle. “So-o?” he said.

The artist sat up quickly. The locket swayed on its chain and his hand touched it. “What do you mean?” he said.

“Why, nuthin’, nuthin’,” said Uncle William, soothingly. “Only I thought you was occupied with art and so on—?”

“I am.”

Uncle William said nothing.

Presently the artist leaned forward. “Do you want to see her?” he said. He was holding it out.

Uncle William peered at it uncertainly. He rose and took down the spectacles from behind the clock and placed them on his nose. Then he reached out his great hand for the locket. The quizzical humor had gone from his face. It was full of gentleness.

Without a word the artist laid the locket in his hand.

The light swung down from the lamp on it, touching the dark face. The old man studied it thoughtfully. On the stove the kettle had begun to hum. Its gentle sighing filled the room. The artist dreamed.

Uncle William pushed up his spectacles and regarded him with a satisfied look. “You ’ve had a good deal more sense ’n I was afraid you ’d have,” he said dryly.

The artist woke. “You can’t tell—from that.” He held out his hand.

Uncle William gave it up, slowly. “I can tell more ’n you ’d think, perhaps. Wimmen and the sea are alike—some ways a good deal alike. I ’ve lived by the sea sixty year, you know, and I ’ve watched all kinds of doings. But what I ’m surest of is that it ’s deeper ’n we be.” He chuckled softly. “Now, I would n’t pertend to know all about her,”—he waved his hand,—“but she ’s big and she ’s fresh—salt, too—and she makes your heart big just to look at her—the way it ought to, I reckon. There ’s things about her I don’t know,” he nodded toward the picture. “She may not go to church and I don’t doubt but what she has tantrums, but she ’s better ’n we be, and she— What did you say her name was?”

“Sergia Lvova.”

“Sergia Lvova,” repeated the old man, slowly, yet with a certain ease. “That ’s a cur’us name. I ’ve heard suthin’ like it, somewhere—”

“She’s Russian.”

“Russian—jest so! I might ’a’ known it! I touched Russia once, ran up to St. Petersburg. Now there ’s a country that don’t hev breathin’ space. She don’t hev half the sea room she ’d o’t to. Look at her—all hemmed in and froze up. You hev to squeeze past all the nations of the earth to get to her—half choked afore you fairly get there. Yes, I sailed there once, up through Skager Rack and Cattegat along up the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, just edging along—” He held out his hand again for the locket, and studied it carefully. “Russian, is she? I might ’a’ known it,” he said nodding. “She ’s the sort—same look—eager and kind o’ waitin’.” He looked up. “How ’d you come to know her? You been there?”

“In Russia? No. She ’s not there now. She ’s in New York. She lives there.”

“Is that so? Poor thing!” Uncle William looked at the pictured face with compassion.

The artist smiled. “Oh, it ’s not so bad. She ’s happy.”

“Yes, she ’s happy. I can see that easy enough. She ’s the kind that ’s goin’ to be happy.” He looked again at the clear, fearless eyes. “You could n’t put her anywheres she would n’t sing—”

“She does sing. How did you know?”

Uncle William’s eyes twinkled to the boyish face. “Well, I did n’t know it—not jest that way. I did n’t know as she sung songs on a platform, dressed up, like I ’ve heard ’em. What I meant was, her heart kind o’ bubbles and sings—”

“Yes”—the artist leaned forward—“that is Sergia. It ’s the way she is. She does n’t sing in public. But her voice”—his eyes grew dark—“it makes you want to laugh and cry. It ’s like the wind and the sun shining—” He broke off, listening.

The old man’s eyes dwelt on him kindly. “She ’s with her folks, is she?”

He roused himself. “She has n’t any. They all died over there—her father and brother in the riots, her mother after that. She has no one. She teaches music—piano and violin—night and day. Sometimes she gives a recital with her pupils—and she has me.” He laughed a little bitterly. “It is n’t an exciting life.”

“I dunno ’s I ’d say jest that,” said Uncle William, slowly. “It ain’t exactly the things that happen—” He broke off, looking at something far away. “Why, I ’ve had things happen to me—shipwreck, you know—winds a-blowin’ and sousin’ the deck—and a-gettin’ out the boats and yellin’ and shoutin’— Seems ’s if it ought to ’a’ been excitin’. But Lord! ’twa’n’t nuthin’ to what I ’ve felt other times—times when it was all still-like on the island here—and big—so ’s ’t you kind o’ hear suthin’ comin’ to ye over the water. Why, some days it ’s been so ’s I ’d feel ’s if I ’d bust if I did n’t do suthin’—suthin’ to let off steam.”

The young man nodded. “You ought to be an artist. That ’s the way they feel—some of them.”

Uncle William beamed on him. “You don’t say so! Must be kind o’ hard work, settin’ still and doin’ art when you feel like that. I gen’ally go clammin’, or suthin’.”

The artist laughed out, boyishly. He reached out a hand for the locket.

But Uncle William held it a moment, looking down at it. “Things happen to her—every day,” he said. “You can see that, plain enough. She don’t hev to be most drowned to hev feelin’s.” He looked up. “When you goin’ to be married?”

“Not till we can afford it—years.” The tone was somber.

Uncle William shook his head. “Now, I would n’t talk like that, Mr. Woodworth!” He handed back the locket and pushed up his spectacles again, beaming beneath them. “Seems to me,” he said slowly, studying the fire—“seems to me I would n’t wait. I ’d be married right off—soon ’s I got back.”

“What would you live on?” said the artist.

Uncle William waited. “There ’s resk,” he said at last—“there ’s resk in it. But there ’s resk in ’most everything that tastes good. I meant to get married once,” he said after a pause. “I did n’t. I guess it ’s about the wust mistake I ever made. I thought this house wa’n’t good enough for her.” He looked about the quaint room. “‘T wa’n’t, neither,” he added with conviction. “But she ’d ’a’ rather come—I did n’t know it then,” he said gently.

The artist waited, and the fire crackled between them.

“If I ’d ’a’ married her, I ’d ’a’ seen things sooner,” went on the old man. “I did n’t see much beauty them days—on sea or land. I was all for a good ketch and makin’ money and gettin’ a better boat. And about that time she died. I begun to learn things then—slow-like—when I had n’t the heart to work. If I ’d married Jennie, I ’d ’a’ seen ’em sooner, bein’ happy. You learn jest about the same bein’ happy as you do bein’ miserable—only you learn it quicker.”

“I can’t give up my art,” said the young man. He was looking at Uncle William with the superior smile of youth, a little lofty yet kind. “You don’t allow for art,” he said.

“I dunno ’s I do,” returned Uncle William. “It ’s like makin’ money, I guess—suthin’ extry, thrown in, good enough if you get it, but not necessary—no, not necessary. Livin ’s the thing to live for, I reckon.” He stopped suddenly, as if there were no more to be said.

The artist looked at him curiously. “That ’s what all the great artists have said,” he commented.

Uncle William nodded. “Like enough. I ain’t an artist. But I ’ve had sixty year of livin’, off and on.”

“But you ’ll die poor,” said the artist, with a glance about the little room. He was thinking what a dear old duffer the man was—with his curious, impracticable philosophy of life and his big, kind ways. “You ’ll die poor if you don’t look out,” he said again.

“Yes, I s’pose I shall,” said Uncle William, placidly, “’thout I make my fortune aforehand. That hot water looks to me just about right.” He eyed the tea-kettle critically. “You hand over them glasses and we ’ll mix a little suthin’ hot, and then we ’ll wash the dishes and go to bed.”

The artist looked up with a start. “I must be getting back.” He glanced at the dark window with its whirling sleet.

“You won’t get back anywheres to-night,” said Uncle William. “You could n’t hear yourself think out there—let alone findin’ the path. I ’ll jest shake up a bed for ye here on the lounge,—it ’s a fust-rate bed; I ’ve slep’ on it myself, time and again,—and then in the mornin’ you ’ll be on hand to go to work—save a trip for ye. Hand me that biggest glass and a teaspoon. I want that biggest there—second one—and a teaspoon. We ’ll have things fixed up fust-rate here.”

Far into the night the artist watched the ruddy room. Gleams from the fire darted up the wall and ran quivering along the red. Outside the wind struck the house and beat upon it and went back, hoarse and slow.

Down the beach the surf boomed in long rolls, holding its steady beat through the uproar. When the wind lulled for a moment the house creaked mysteriously, whispering, and when the gale returned a sound of flying missiles came with it. Now and then something struck the roof and thudded to the ground with heavier crash.

About three o’clock Uncle William’s round face was thrust through the crack of the door. “You can go to sleep all right, now,” he said soothingly. “There wa’n’t but seven bricks left in the chimney, anyhow, and the last one ’s jest come down. I counted ’em fallin’.”

title: Uncle William/Chapter 3


text:
Page:Floras Lexicon-1840.djvu/52

EE ORCHIS. . Class 19,. Order:. This plant is singularly beautiful in its appearance, which so much resembles the bee, that it is frequently mistaken for one resting on the plant. It commonly grows near woods, and in the open meadows. The most successful method of cultivation is by choosing a soil and situation as natural to them as possible, and by suffering the grass to grow around them.

title: Page:Floras Lexicon-1840.djvu/52


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 4

HE artist stood on the beach, his hands in his pockets. Near by, seated on a bit of driftwood, a man was cleaning fish. For a few minutes the artist watched the swift motion of the knife, flashing monotonously. Then he glanced at the harbor and at the two sailboats bobbing and pulling their ropes. He was tired with a long strain of work. The summer was almost done. For weeks—since the night of the big storm—he had worked incessantly. A new light had come over things,—“The light that never was on sea or land,” he called it,—and he had worked feverishly. He saw the water and the rugged land as Uncle William saw them. Through his eyes, he painted them. They took on color and bigness—simplicity. “They will call it my third style,” said the artist, smiling, as he worked. “They ought to call it the Uncle William style. I did n’t do it—I shall never do it again,” and he worked fast.

But now the sketches were done. They were safely packed and corded. To-morrow he was going. To-day he would rest himself and do the things he would like to remember.

He looked again at the man cleaning fish. “Pretty steady work,” he said, nodding toward the red pile.

The man looked up with a grunt. “Everything ’s steady—that pays,” he said indifferently.

The artist’s eyebrows lifted a little. “So?”

“Yep.” The man tossed aside another fish. “Ye can’t earn money stan’in’ with your hands in your pockets.”

“I guess that ’s so,” said the artist, cheerfully. He did not remove the hands. The fingers found a few pennies in the depths and jingled them merrily.

“There ’s Willum,” said the man, aggressively, sweeping his red knife toward the cliff. “He ’s poor—poor as poverty—an’ he al’ays will be.”

“What do you think is the reason?” asked the artist. The tone held respectful interest.

The man looked at him more tolerantly. “Too fond of settin’.”

The artist nodded. “I ’m afraid he is.”

“An’ then he ’s al’ays a-givin’—a little here and a little there. Why, what Willum Benslow ’s give away would ’a’ made a rich man of him.”

“Yes?”

“Yep. I don’t s’pose I know half he’s give. But it’s a heap, Lord knows! And then he’s foolish—plumb foolish.” He rested his arms on his legs, leaning forward. “How much d’ you s’pose he give me for that land—from here to my house?” He pointed up the coast.

The artist turned and squinted toward it with half-closed lids. It glowed—a riot of color, green and red, cool against the mounting sky. “I have n’t the least idea,” he said slowly.

“Well, you won’t believe it when I tell you;—nobody ’d believe it. He paid me five hunderd dollars for it—five hunderd! It ain’t wuth fifty.”

The artist smiled at him genially. “Well—he ’s satisfied.”

“But it ain’t right,” said the man, gloomily. He had returned to his fish. “It ain’t right. I can’t bear to have Willum such a fool.”

“I think I ’ll go for a sail,” said the artist.

The other glanced at the horizon. “It ’s going to storm,” he said indifferently.

“I ’ll keep an eye out.”

“Ye better not go.”

“Think not?” He looked again at the harbor. “It ’s my last chance for a sail—I ’ll watch out.”

“All right. ’T ain’t my business,” said the man. He went on slitting fish.

harbor held a still light—ominously—grey with a tinge of yellow in its depths. Uncle William hurried down the face of the cliff, a telescope in his hand. Now and then he paused on the zigzag path and swept the bay with it. The grey stillness deepened.

On the beach below, the man paused in his work to look up. As Uncle William approached he grunted stiffly. “She ’s off the island,” he said. He jerked a fishy thumb toward the water.

Uncle William’s telescope fixed the boat and held it. His throat hummed, holding a kind of conversation with itself.

The man had returned to his fish, slitting in rough haste and tossing to one side. “Fool to go out—I told him it was coming.”

The telescope descended. Uncle William regarded him mildly. “I o’t to ’a’ kept an eye on him,” he said humbly. “I did n’t jest sense he was goin’. I guess mebbe he did mention it. But I was mixin’ a batch of biscuit and kind o’ thinkin’ to myself. When I looked up he wa’n’t there.” He slid the telescope together and slipped it into his pocket. “I ’ll hev to go after him,” he said.

The other looked up quickly. “How ’ll you go?”

Uncle William nodded toward the boat that dipped securely at anchor. “I ’ll take her,” he said.

The man laughed shortly. “The Andrew Halloran? I guess not!” He shut his knife with a decisive snap and stood up. “I don’t trust her—not in such a storm as that ’s going to be.” He waved his arm toward the harbor. The greyness was shifting rapidly. It moved in swift green touches, heavy and clear—a kind of luminous dread. In its sallow light the man’s face stood out tragically. “I won’t resk her,” he cried.

“You ’ll hev to, Andrew.” Uncle William bent to the bow of the dory that was beached near by. “Jump in,” he said.

The man drew back a step. The hand with the clasped knife fell to his side. “Don’t you make me go, William,” he said pacifically. “You can take the boat in welcome, but don’t take me. It’s too much resk!”

“It’s al’ays a resk to do your duty,” said Uncle William. “Jump in. I can’t stand talkin’.” An edge of impatience grazed the words.

The man stepped in and seized the oars. “I ’ll help get her off,” he said, “but I won’t go.”

In the green light of the harbor a smile played over Uncle William’s face grotesquely. He gave a shove to the boat and sprang in. “I guess you ’ll go, Andrew,” he said; “you would n’t want a man drowned right at your door-yard.”

“You can’t live in it,” said Andrew. He lifted his face to the light. Far to the east a boat crawled against it. “It ’ll strike in five minutes,” he said.

“Like enough,” said Uncle William—“like enough. Easy there!” He seized the stern of the Andrew Halloran and sprang on board. They worked in swift silence, hoisting the anchor, letting out the sail,—a single reef,—making it fast. “All she ’ll stan’,” said Uncle William. He turned to the helm.

Andrew, seated on the tiller bench, glared at him defiantly. “If she ’s going out, I take her,” he said.

“You get right over there and tend the sheet, Andy,” said Uncle William.

In silence the other obeyed. He undid the rope, letting it out with cautious hand. The low sail caught the breeze and stiffened to it. The boat came round to the wind, dipping lightly.

She moved through the murky light as if drawn by unseen hands.

The light thickened and grew black—clouded and dense and swift. Then, with a wrench, heaven parted about them. The water descended in sheets, gray-black planes that shut them in—blinded them, crushed them. Andrew, crouching to the blows, drew in the sheet, closer, closer—hugging the wind with tense grasp. About them, the water flattened like a plate beneath the flood. When the rain shifted a second they saw it, a gray-white floor, stretching as far as the eye could reach. Uncle William bent to it, scanning the east. “Hold her tight, Andy,” he yelled. His leg was braced against the tiller, and his back strained to it. His hat was gone. The tufts of hair, lashed flat to the big skull, were mere lines. “Hold her tight! Make fast!” he yelled again.

Through the dark they drove, stunned and grim. The minutes lengthened to ages and beat them, eternally, in torment. Water and clouds were all about them—underneath them, and over. The boat, towering on each wave, dropped from its crest like a ball. Andy, crouching on the bottom of the boat, held on like grim death. Then, in a breath the storm was gone. With a sucking sound it had swept beyond them, its black skirts hurtling behind it as it ran, kicking a wake of foam.

Andrew from beneath the bench lifted his sopped head, like a turtle, breathless. Uncle William, bent far to the right, gazed to the east. Slowly his face lightened. He drew his big hand down its length, mopping off the wet. “There she is!” he said in a deep voice. “Let her out, Andy.”

With stiff fingers, Andrew reached to the sail, untying a second reef and loosing it to the wind.

The water still tossed in tumbling waves and the fitful rain blew past. But the force of the storm was gone. Away to the north it towered, monstrous and black.

With his eyes strained to the east, Uncle William held the tiller. “We ’ll make it, Andy,” he said quietly. “We ’ll make it yet if the Jennie holds out—” Suddenly he stood upright, his hand on the tiller, his eyes glued fast.

“Luff her,” he cried. “She ’s gone—Luff her, I tell you!” He sprang back, jamming the tiller from him. “Let her out, Andy, every inch!”

The canvas flew wide to the wind. The great boat responded to its touch. She rose like a bird and dipped, in sweeping sidewise flight, to the race.

Across the water something bobbed—black, uncertain.

“Look sharp, Andy,” said Uncle William.

Andrew peered with blinking eyes across the waste. The spirit of the chase was on him. His indifference had washed from him, like a husk, in that center of terror. His eyes leaped to the mass and glowed on it. “Yep,” he said solemnly, “he ’s held on—he ’s there!”

“Keep your eye on her, Andy. Don’t lose her.” Uncle William’s big arms strained to the wind, forcing the great bird in her course. Nearer she came and nearer, circling with white wings that opened and closed silently, softly. Close to the bobbing boat she grazed, hung poised a moment, and swept away with swift stroke.

The artist had swung through the air at the end of a huge arm. As he looked up from the bottom of the boat where he lay, the old man’s head, round and smooth, like a boulder, stood out against the black above him. It grew and expanded and filled the horizon—thick and nebulous and dizzy.

“Roll him over, Andy,” said Uncle William, “roll him over. He ’s shipped too much.”

title: Uncle William/Chapter 4


text: Flora's Lexicon/Bee Orchis

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 ways pretended to have something to say to the father, taking care never to come to his apartment but when he was abroad."

"However, all my anxious endeavours to make a tender impression on my charmer's heart proved abortive, Helen neither seemed to take the least notice of the attention I paid her, nor to be pleased with my eager zeal to engage her favor. The discourses I addressed to her consisted mostly in monologues, interrupted by frequent pauses; and her replies in a pantomime, composed of a silent shaking or nodding of the head, accompanied every now and then by a gentle sigh, which, of course made me, by degrees, tired of conversing with her, though my heart at first shrunk back at the thought of giving up such a lovely object."

"I had now been many weeks in the house without either hearing or seeing the least thing of the phantom, the tranquillity of the mansion not having been interrupted for a single


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 moment. The domestics of my landlord were highly surprised, ascribing the peace which they enjoyed to me; even my landlord thought that I had chased away the dread phantom, and oftentimes thanked me warmly for having restored the tranquillity of his house."

"Dear friend," said he one evening to me, shaking me by the hand with evident marks of satisfaction, "to you I owe the peace and tranquillity I now enjoy; if the nightly phantom shall continue to stay away, my house will not longer remain unoccupied, and you shall live in it without paying rent as long as it shall be in my possession."

"These words he spoke in the presence of his daughter, who fetched a deep melancholic sigh."

"A few days after that trifling accident, as it appeared to me, I came home late in the night, and was going to lay myself down


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Rh near to where she had left him, on the edge of the meadow. Then what did she see in the snow but footprints--human footprints! Chippy's little tracks had started back in the direction of the burrow, but the strange footprints came towards his and overtook them--and at that point his suddenly left off. Then she discovered the others going down the hill again. It was only too clear--Chippy had been captured!

Eepersip sat down in the snow and wept. But suddenly she straightened up and became herself again. Why not follow those footprints down the hill and get her Chippy back? With a hopeful heart she dashed down, following the tracks. But she came into a small village, where she was afraid of being caught. She could not go on; so she went back.

Another idea! Why not follow the footprints some night, when there were not so many people around, and when, even if there were, she would not be seen so easily? But there the question of being able to see the footprints in the dark. No, that would be impossible: the only thing to do would be to wait. For what, Eepersip had not the slightest idea.

The name of the people who had captures the chipmunk was Brunio. Mr. Brunio and his little

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A 1961 printing of the 1928 books. Re-upload with proper capitalization in title.


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36 twin daughters, Flitterveen and Caireen, had come up to the meadow with sleds and skis to slide. They had seen the chipmunk frolicking about, and had watched him impatiently.

"How I would like that little animal for my own!" said Flitterveen.

"He looks cold and hungry, Father," said Caireen. "Here, I have some crackers in my pocket. Let us throw them to him and see if he will eat them."

This they had done, and the chipmunk had been tempted. He had come up cautiously and nibbled at them. He loved Eepersip dearly. He had never received harm from one of those queer two-legged creatures. He trusted them. But, while he had been nibbling, Mr. Brunio had sneaked up quietly and taken him. Thus he had been captured.

Eepersip was not able to free her little friend until the next spring. She had lived a rather lonely life without him through the winter, ans one morning very early she decided to make a desperate attempt to rescue him. She went down the slope of the hill to the river, through grass wet with pearly dew-drops. She stole along the bank of the river.

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File:The House at Pooh Corner (1961) (page 160-3 crop).jpg

Summary
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Summary
A 1961 printing of the 1928 books. Re-upload with proper capitalization in title.


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Summary
A 1961 printing of the 1928 books. Re-upload with proper capitalization in title.


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Summary
A 1961 printing of the 1928 books. Re-upload with proper capitalization in title.


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MediaWiki talk:Noarticletext-nopermission

Can you make it something like this:

Wikisource does not have with this exact name
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 Heilmann had for some years been diligently studying the contrivance of a machine for combing long-stapled cotton, the ordinary carding-machine being found ineffective in preparing the raw material for spinning, especially the finer sort of yarn, besides causing considerable waste. To avoid these imperfections, the cotton-spinners of Alsace offered a prize of francs for an improved combing-machine, and Heilmann immediately proceeded to compete for the reward. He was not stimulated by the desire of gain, for he was comparatively rich, having acquired a considerable fortune by his wife. It was a saying of his that "one will never accomplish great things who is constantly asking himself, how much gain will this bring me?" What mainly impelled him was the irrepressible instinct of the inventor, who no sooner has a mechanical problem set before him than he feels impelled to undertake its solution. The problem in this case was, however, much more difficult than he had anticipated. The close study of the subject occupied him for several years, and the expenses in which he became involved in connexion with it were so great, that his wife's fortune was shortly swallowed up, and he was reduced to poverty, without being able to bring his machine to perfection. From that time he was under the necessity of relying mainly on the help of his friends to enable him to prosecute the invention.

While still struggling with poverty and difficulties, Heilmann's wife died, believing her husband ruined; and shortly after he proceeded to England and settled for a time at Manchester, still labouring at his machine. He had a model made for him by


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24 "O name of liberty, sweet to our ears! O rights of citizenship, in which we glory! O laws of Porcius and Sempronius! O privilege of the tribune, long and sorely regretted, and at last restored to the people of Rome! Has it all come to this, that a Roman citizen in a province of the Roman people—in a federal town—is to be bound and beaten with rods in the forum by a man who only holds those rods and axes—those awful emblems—by grace of that same people of Rome? What shall I say of the fact that fire, and red-hot plates, and other tortures were applied? Even if his agonised entreaties and pitiable cries did not check you, were you not moved by the tears and groans which burst from the Roman citizens who were present at the scene? Did you dare to drag to the cross any man who claimed to be a citizen of Rome?—I did not intend, gentlemen, in my former pleading, to press this case so strongly—I did not indeed; for you saw yourselves how the public feeling was already embittered against the defendant by indignation, and hate, and dread of a common peril."

He then proceeds to prove by witnesses the facts of the case and the falsehood of the charge against Gavius of having been a spy. "However," he goes on to say, addressing himself now to Verres, "we will grant, if you please, that your suspicions on this point, if false, were honestly entertained."

"You did not know who the man was; you suspected him of being a spy. I do not ask the grounds of your suspicion. I impeach you on your own evidence. He said he was a Roman citizen.

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Rh Had you yourself, Verres, been seized and led out to execution, in Persia, say, or in the farthest Indies, what other cry or protest could you raise but that you were a Roman citizen? And if you, a stranger there among strangers, in the hands of barbarians, amongst men who dwell in the farthest and remotest regions of the earth, would have found protection in the name of your city, known and renowned in every nation under heaven, could the victim whom you were dragging to the cross, be he who he might—and you did not know who he was—when he declared he was a citizen of Rome, could he obtain from you, a Roman magistrate, by the mere mention and claim of citizenship, not only no reprieve, but not even a brief respite from death?

"Men of neither rank nor wealth, of humble birth and station, sail the seas; they touch at some spot they never saw before, where they are neither personally known to those whom they visit, nor can always find any to vouch for their nationality. But in this single fact of their citizenship they feel they shall be safe, not only with our own governors, who are held in check by the terror of the laws and of public opinion—not only among those who share that citizenship of Rome, and who are united with them by community of language, of laws, and of many things besides—but go where they may, this, they think, will be their safeguard. Take away this confidence, destroy this safeguard for our Roman citizens—once establish the principle that there is no protection in the words, 'I am a citizen of Rome'—that prætor or other magistrate may

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 the eminent machine-makers, Sharpe, Roberts & Company; but still he could not make it work satisfactorily, and he was at length brought almost to the verge of despair. He returned to France to visit his family, still pursuing his idea, which had obtained complete possession of his mind. While sitting by his hearth one evening, meditating upon the hard fate of inventors and the misfortunes in which their families so often become involved, he found himself almost unconsciously watching his daughters combing their long hair and drawing it out at full length between their fingers. The thought suddenly struck him that if he could successfully imitate in a machine the process of combing out the longest hair and forcing back the short by reversing the action of the comb, it might serve to extricate him from his difficulty. It may be remembered that this incident in the life of Heilmann has been made the subject of a beautiful picture by Mr. Elmore, R.A., which was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of.

Upon this idea he proceeded, introduced the apparently simple but really most intricate process of machine-combing, and after great labour he succeeded in perfecting the invention. The singular beauty of the process can only be appreciated by those who have witnessed the machine at work, when the similarity of its movements to that of combing the hair, which suggested the invention, is at once apparent. The machine has been described as "acting with almost the delicacy of touch of the human fingers." It combs the lock of cotton at both ends, places the fibres exactly parallel with each other, separates the long from the short, and unites the long fibres in one sliver and the short


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26 with impunity sentence to what punishment he will a man who says he is a Roman citizen, merely because somebody does not know it for a fact; and at once, by admitting such a defence, you are shutting up against our Roman citizens all our provinces, all foreign states, despotic or independent—all the whole world, in short, which has ever lain open to our national enterprise beyond all."

He turns again to Verres.

"But why talk of Gavius? as though it were Gavius on whom you were wreaking a private vengeance, instead of rather waging war against the very name and rights of Roman citizenship. You showed yourself an enemy, I say, not to the individual man, but to the common cause of liberty. For what meant it that, when the authorities of Messana, according to their usual custom, would have erected the cross behind their city on the Pompeian road, you ordered it to be set up on the side that looked toward the Strait? Nay, and added this—which you cannot deny, which you said openly in the hearing of all—that you chose that spot for this reason, that as he had called himself a Roman citizen, he might be able, from his cross of punishment, to see in the distance his country and his home! And so, gentlemen, that cross was the only one, since Messana was a city, that was ever erected on that spot. A point which commanded a view of Italy was chosen by the defendant for the express reason that the dying sufferer, in his last agony and torment, might see how the rights of the slave and the freeman were separated by that

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Rh narrow streak of sea; that Italy might look upon a son of hers suffering the capital penalty reserved for slaves alone.

"It is a crime to put a citizen of Rome in bonds; it is an atrocity to scourge him; to put him to death is well-nigh parricide; what shall I say it is to crucify him?—Language has no word by which I may designate such an enormity. Yet with all this yon man was not content. 'Let him look,' said he, 'towards his country; let him die in full sight of freedom and the laws.' It was not Gavius; it was not a single victim, unknown to fame, a mere individual Roman citizen; it was the common cause of liberty, the common rights of citizenship, which you there outraged and put to a shameful death."

But in order to judge of the thrilling effect of such passages upon a Roman jury, they must be read in the grand periods of the oration itself, to which no translation into a language so different in idiom and rhythm as English is from Latin can possibly do justice. The fruitless appeal made by the unhappy citizen to the outraged majesty of Rome, and the indignant demand for vengeance which the great orator founds upon it—proclaiming the recognised principle that, in every quarter of the world, the humblest wanderer who could say he was a Roman citizen should find protection in the name—will be always remembered as having supplied Lord Palmerston with one of his most telling illustrations. But this great speech of Cicero's—perhaps the most magnificent piece of declamation in any language—though written and preserved to us,

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28 was never spoken. The whole of the pleadings in the case, which extend to some length, were composed for the occasion, no doubt, in substance, and we have to thank Cicero for publishing them afterwards in full. But Verres only waited to hear the brief opening speech of his prosecutor; he did not dare to challenge a verdict, but allowing judgment to go by default, withdrew to Marseilles soon after the trial opened. He lived there, undisturbed in the enjoyment of his plunder, long enough to see the fall and assassination of his great accuser, but only (as it is said) to share his fate soon afterwards as one of the victims of Antony's proscription. Of his guilt there can be no question; his fear to face a court in which he had many friends is sufficient presumptive evidence of it; but we must hesitate in assuming the deepness of its dye from the terrible invectives of Cicero. No sensible person will form an opinion upon the real merits of a case, even in an English court of justice now, entirely from the speech of the counsel for the prosecution. And if we were to go back a century or two, to the state trials of those days, we know that to form our estimate of a prisoner's guilt from such data only would be doing him a gross injustice. We have only to remember the exclamation of Warren Hastings himself, whose trial, as has been said, has so many points of resemblance with that of Verres, when Burke sat down after the torrent of eloquence which he had hurled against the accused in his opening speech for the prosecution;—"I thought myself for the moment," said Hastings, "the guiltiest man in England."

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Rh The result of this trial was to raise Cicero at once to the leadership—if so modern an expression may be used—of the Roman bar. Up to this time the position had been held by Hortensius, the counsel for Verres, whom Cicero himself calls "the king of the courts." He was eight years the senior of Cicero in age, and many more professionally, for he is said to have made his first public speech at nineteen. He had the advantage of the most extraordinary memory, a musical voice, and a rich flow of language: but Cicero more than implies that he was not above bribing a jury. It was not more disgraceful in those days than bribing a voter in our own. The two men were very unlike in one respect; Hortensius was a fop and an exquisite (he is said to have brought an action against a colleague for disarranging the folds of his gown), while Cicero's vanity was quite of another kind. After Verres's trial, the two advocates were frequently engaged together in the same cause and on the same side: but Hortensius seems quietly to have abdicated his forensic sovereignty before the rising fame of his younger rival. They became, ostensibly at least, personal friends. What jealousy there was between them, strange to say, seems always to have been on the side of Cicero, who could not be convinced of the friendly feeling which, on Hortensius's part, there seems no reason to doubt. After his rival's death, however, Cicero did full justice to his merits and his eloquence, and even inscribed to his memory a treatise on 'Glory,' which has been lost.

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tribe, or rather half-tribe, of Delawares, which has been so often mentioned, and whose present place of encampment was so nigh the temporary village of the Hurons, could assemble about an equal number of warriors with the latter people. Like their neighbours, they had followed Montcalm into the territories of the English crown, and were making heavy and serious inroads on the hunting grounds of the Mohawks, though they had seen fit, with the mysterious reserve so common among the natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most required. The French had accounted for this unex-


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Rh behind bushes as much as possible, so as not to be seen. Finally she came to a little wooden bridge, and across this she went. But from there she had no idea how to proceed. She looked all about her, bewildered, afraid among so many houses.

It was a heavenly morning. The sun rose and cast a sweet golden light over the earth. The grass sparkled as if with diamonds. A fresh spring breeze was blowing gently. Flowers grew here in the deep grass, and myriads of butterflies came flocking. But Eepersip stood forlorn and discouraged.

Suddenly a faint squeaking came to her. She darted toward the sound. O Eepersip, beware--not too fast! The squeaking came from one side of a dark brown house. Eepersip saw a small wire cage, and in it her little brown Chippy. Mr. Brunio had opened the squeaky door of the house and was coming out with Chippy's food. Eepersip saw him, and swerved aside into the shelter of a gigantic rose-bush before he saw her--just in the nick of time. It seemed like a long wait, but after a while Mr. Brunio went into the house again.

Looking cautiously about her, Eepersip tiptoed out, opened the door of the cage, seized Chippy, id sped off. Thus he was rescued; and Eepersip was happy indeed!

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 pected defection on the part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion, however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Iroquois for military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their former masters. As for the tribe itself, it had been content to announce to Montcalm, through his emissaries, with Indian brevity, that their hatchets were dull, and time was necessary to sharpen them. The politic captain of the Canadas had deemed it wiser to submit to entertain a passive friend, than, by any acts of ill-judged severity, to convert him into an open enemy.

On that morning when Magua led his silent party from the settlement of the beavers into the forest, in the manner described, the sun rose upon the Delaware encampment, as though it had suddenly burst upon a busy people, actively employed in all the customary avocations of high noon. The women ran from lodge to lodge, some engaged in preparing their morning's meal,


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 a few earnestly bent on seeking the comforts necessary to their habits, but more pausing to exchange hasty and whispered sentences with their friends. The warriors were lounging in groupes, musing more than they conversed; and when a few words were uttered, speaking like men who deeply weighed their opinions. The instruments of the chase were to be seen in abundance among the lodges; but none departed. Here and there, a warrior might be seen examining his arms, with an attention that is rarely bestowed on the implements, when no other enemy than the beasts of the forest are expected to be encountered. And, occasionally, the eyes of a whole groupe were turned simultaneously towards a large and silent lodge in the centre of the village, as if it contained the subject of their common thoughts.

During the existence of this scene, a man suddenly appeared at the farthest extremity of that platform of rock which formed the level of the village. He was without arms, and his paint tended rather to soften than increase the natural sternness of his austere


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 and marked countenance. When in full view of the Delawares, he stopped, and made a gesture of amity, by throwing his arm upwards to ward heaven, and then letting it fall impressively on his breast. The inhabitants of the village answered his salute by a low murmur of welcome, and encouraged him to advance by similar indications of friendship. Fortified by these assurances, the dark figure left the brow of the natural rocky terrace, where it had stood a moment drawn in a strong outline against the blushing morning sky, and moved, with dignity, into the very centre of the huts. As he approached nothing was audible but the rattling of the light silver ornaments that loaded his arms and neck, and the tinkling of the little bells that fringed his deer-skin moccasins. He made, as he advanced, many courteous signs of greeting to the men he passed, neglecting to notice the women, however, as though he deemed their favour, in the present enterprise, of no importance. When he had reached the groupe, in which it was evident, by the haughtiness of their common mien, that the


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 principal chiefs were collected, the stranger paused, and then the Delawares saw that the active and erect form that stood before them, was that of the well known Huron chief, le Renard Subtil.

His reception was grave, silent, and wary. The warriors in front stepped aside, opening the way to their most approved orator by the action; one who spoke all those languages, that were cultivated among the northern aborigines.

"The wise Huron is welcome," said the Delaware, in the language of the Maquas; "he is come to eat his 'suc-ca-tush' with his brothers of the lakes!"

"He is come;" repeated Magua, bending his head with the dignity of an eastern prince.

The chief extended his arm, and taking the other by the wrist, they once more exchanged their friendly salutations. Then the Delaware invited his guest to enter his own lodge, and share his morning meal. The invitation was accepted, and the two warriors, attended by three or four of the old men, walked calmly away, leaving the rest of the tribe devoured by a desire to


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 understand the reasons of so unusual a visit, and yet not betraying the least impatience, by any sign or syllable.

During the short and frugal repast that followed, the conversation was extremely circumspect, and related entirely to the events of the hunt, in which Magua had so lately been engaged. It would have been impossible for the most finished breeding to wear more of the appearance of considering the visit as a thing of course, than did his hosts, notwithstanding every individual present was perfectly aware that it must be connected with some secret object, and that, probably, of the last importance to themselves. When the appetites of the whole were appeased, the squaws removed the trenchers and gourds, and the two parties began to prepare themselves for a keen and subtle trial of their wits.

"Is the face of my great Canada father turned again towards his Huron children?" demanded the orator of the Delawares.

"When was it ever otherwise!" returned Magua. "He calls my people his 'most beloved.' "


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 The Delaware gravely bowed his acquiescence to what he knew to be false, and continued—

"The tomahawks of your young men have been very red!"

"It is so; but they are now bright and dull—for the Yengeese are dead, and the Delawares are our neighbours!"

The other acknowledged the pacific compliment by a graceful gesture of the hand, and remained silent. Then Magua, as if recalled to such a recollection, by the allusion to the massacre, demanded—

"Does my prisoner give trouble to my brothers?"

"She is welcome."

"The path between the Hurons and the Delawares is short, and it is open; let her be sent to my squaws if she gives trouble to my brother."

"She is welcome," returned the chief of the latter nation, still more emphatically.

The baffled Magua continued silent several minutes, apparently indifferent, however, to the repulse he had received in


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 this, his opening, effort to regain possession of Cora.

"Do my young men leave the Delawares room on the mountains for their hunts?" he, at length, continued.

"The Lenape are rulers of their own hills," returned the other, a little haughtily.

"It is well. Justice is the master of a red-skin! Why should they brighten their tomahawks, and sharpen their knives against each other! Are there not pale-faces for enemies!"

"Good!" exclaimed two or three of his auditors at the same time.

Magua waited a little, to permit his words to soften the feelings of the Delawares, before he added—

"Have there not been strange moccasins in the woods? Have not my brothers scented the feet of white men?"

"Let my Canada father come!" returned the other, evasively; "his children are ready to see him."

"When the Great Chief comes, it is to smoke with the Indians, in their wigwams. The Hurons say, too, he is welcome. But


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Column 2, "On Murder", paragraph 2, lines 12–13: should "two-/fold" be "twofold" or "two-fold"? -- Yodin T 20:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)


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 the Yengeese have long arms, and legs that never tire! My young men dreamed they had seen the trail of the Yengeese nigh the village of the Delawares?"

"They will not find the Lenape asleep."

"It is well. The warrior whose eye is open, can see his enemy," said Magua, once more shifting his ground, when he found himself unable to penetrate the caution of his companion. "I have brought gifts to my brother. His nation would not go on the war path, because they did not think it well; but their friends have remembered where they lived."

When he had thus announced his liberal intention the crafty chief arose, and gravely spread his presents before the dazzled eyes of his hosts. They consisted principally of trinkets of little value, plundered from the slaughtered and captured females of William Henry. In the division of the baubles, the cunning Huron discovered no less art than in their selection. While he bestowed those of greater value on the two most distinguished warriors, one of whom was his host, he seasoned his offerings to


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 their inferiors with such well-timed and apposite compliments, as left them no grounds of complaint. In short, the whole ceremony contained such a happy blending of the profitable with the flattering, that it was not difficult for the donor immediately to read the effect of a generosity so aptly mingled with praise, in the eyes of those he addressed.

This well judged and politic stroke on the part of Magua, was not without its instantaneous results. The Delawares lost their stern gravity, in a much more cordial expression of features; and the host, in particular, after contemplating his own liberal share of the spoil, for some moments, with peculiar gratification, repeated, with strong emphasis, the words—

"My brother is a wise chief. He is welcome!"

"The Hurons love their friends the Delawares," returned Magua. "Why should they not! they are coloured by the same sun, and their just men will hunt in the same grounds after death. The red skins should be friends, and look with open


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 eyes on the white men. Has not my brother scented spies in the woods?"

The Delaware, whose name, in English signified "Hard-heart," an appellation that the French had translated into "Le-cœurdur," forgot that obduracy of purpose, which had probably obtained him so significant a title. His countenance grew very sensibly less stern, and he now deigned to answer more directly.

"There have been strange moccasins about my camp. They have been tracked into my lodges."

"Did my brother beat out the dogs?" asked Magua, without adverting in any manner to the former equivocation of the chief.

"It would not do. The stranger is always welcome to the children of the Lenape."

"The stranger, but not the spy!"

"Would the Yengeese send their women as spies? Did not the Huron chief say he took women in the battle?"

"He told no lie. The Yengeese have sent out their scouts. They have been in


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 my wigwams, but they found there no one to say welcome. Then they fled to the Delawares—for, say they, the Delawares are our friends; their minds are turned from their Canada father!"

This insinuation was a home thrust, and one that, in a more advanced state of society, would have entitled Magua to the reputation of a skilful diplomatist. The recent defection of their tribe had, as they well knew themselves, subjected the Delawares to much reproach among their French allies, and they were now made to feel that their future actions were to be regarded with jealousy and distrust. There was no deep insight, into causes and effects, necessary to foresee that such a situation of things was likely to prove highly prejudicial to all their future movements. Their distant villages, their hunting grounds, and hundreds of their women and children, together with a material part of their physical force, were all actually within the limits of the French territory. Accordingly, this alarming annunciation was received, as Magua intended,


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 with manifest disapprobation, if not with alarm.

"Let my father look in my face," said Le-cœurdur; "he will see no change. It is true, my young men did not go out on the war-path; they had dreams for not doing so. But they love and venerate the great white chief."

"Will he think so, when he hears that his greatest enemy is fed in the camp of his children! When he is told, a bloody Yengee smokes at your fire! That the pale-face, who has slain so many of his friends, goes in and out among the Delawares! Go—my great Canada Father is not a fool!"

"Where is the Yengee that the Delawares fear!" returned the other; "who has slain my young men! who is the mortal enemy of my Great Father!"

"La Longue Carabine."

The Delaware warriors started at the well known name, betraying, by their amazement, they now learnt, for the first time, that one so famous among the Indian allies of France, was within their power.

"What does my brother mean?" demanded Le-cœurdur, in a tone that, by its


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 wonder, far exceeded the usual apathy of his race.

"A Huron never lies," returned Magua, coldly, leaning his head against the side of the lodge, and drawing his slight robe across his tawny breast. "Let the Delawares count their prisoners; they will find one whose skin is neither red nor pale."

A long and musing pause succeeded. Then the chief consulted, apart, with his companions, and messengers were despatched to collect certain others of the most distinguished men of the tribe.

As warrior after warrior dropped in, they were each made acquainted, in turn, with the important intelligence that Magua had just communicated. The air of surprise, and the usual, low, deep, guttural exclamation, were common to them all. The news spread from mouth to mouth, until the whole encampment became powerfully agitated. The women suspended their labours, to catch such syllables as unguardedly fell from the lips of the consulting warriors. The boys deserted their sports, and walked fearlessly among their