North of Fifty-Three Part 28

"You're about as sociable as a clam," she broke into his absorption at last.

He looked up in surprise, then chucked the volume carelessly aside, and twisted himself around till his head rested in her lap.

"Vot iss?" he asked cheerfully. "Lonesome? Bored with yourself?

Ain't I here?"

"Your body is," she retorted. "But your spirit is communing with those musty old philosophers."

"Oh, be good--go thou and do likewise," he returned impenitently. "I'm tickled to death to be home. And I'm fairly book-starved. It's fierce to be deprived of even a newspaper for twelve months. I'll be a year getting caught up. Surely you don't feel yourself neglected because I happen to have my nose stuck in a book?"

"Of course not!" she denied vigorously. The childish absurdity of her att.i.tude struck her with sudden force. "Still, I'd like you to talk to me once in a while."

"'Of shoes and s.h.i.+ps and sealing wax; of cabbages and kings,'" he flung at her mischievously. "I'll make music; that's better than mere words."

He picked up his mandolin and tuned the strings. Like most things which he set out to do, Bill had mastered his instrument, and could coax out of it all the harmony of which it was capable. He seemed to know music better than many who pa.s.s for musicians. But he broke off in the midst of a bar.

"Say, we could get a piano in here next spring," he said. "I just recollected it. We'll do it."

Now, this was something that she had many a time audibly wished for.

Yet the prospect aroused no enthusiasm.

"That'll be nice," she said--but not as she would have said it a year earlier. Bill's eyes narrowed a trifle, but he still smiled. And suddenly he stepped around behind her chair, put both hands under her chin, and tilted her head backward.

"Ah, you're plumb sick and tired to death of everything, aren't you?"

he said soberly. "You've been up here too long. You sure need a change. I'll have to take you out and give you the freedom of the cities, let you dissipate and pink-tea, and rub elbows with the mob for a while. Then you'll be glad to drift back to this woodsy hiding-place of ours. When do you want to start?"

"Why, Bill!" she protested.

But she realized in a flash that Bill could read her better than she could read herself. Few of her emotions could remain long hidden from that keenly observing and mercilessly logical mind. She knew that he guessed where she stood, and by what paths she had gotten there. Trust him to know. And it made her very tender toward him that he was so quick to understand. Most men would have resented.

"I want to stack a few tons of hay," he went on, disregarding her exclamation. "I'll need it in the spring, if not this winter. Soon as that's done we'll hit the high spots. We'll take three or four thousand dollars, and while it lasts we'll be a couple of--of high-cla.s.s tramps. Huh? Does it sound good?"

She nodded vigorously.

"High-cla.s.s tramps," she repeated musingly.

"That sounds fine."

"Perk up, then," he wheedled.

"Bill-boy," she murmured, "you mustn't take me too seriously."

"I took you for better or for worse," he answered, with a kiss. "I don't want it to turn out worse. I want you to be contented and happy here, where I've planned to make our home. I know you love me quite a lot, little person. Nature fitted us in a good many ways to be mates.

But you've gone through a pretty drastic siege of isolation in this rather grim country, and I guess it doesn't seem such an alluring place as it did at first. I don't want you to nurse that feeling until it becomes chronic. Then we would be out of tune, and it would be good-by happiness. But I think I know the cure for your malady."

That was his final word. He deliberately switched the conversation into other channels.

In the morning he began his hay cutting. About eleven o'clock he threw down his scythe and stalked to the house.

"Put on your hat, and let's go investigate a mystery," said he. "I heard a cow bawl in the woods a minute ago. A regular barnyard bellow."

"A cow bawling?" she echoed. "Sure? What would cattle be doing away up here?"

"That's what I want to know?" Bill laughed. "I've never seen a cow north of the Frazer--not this side of the Rockies, anyway."

They saddled their horses, and rode out in the direction from whence had arisen the bovine complaint. The sound was not repeated, and Hazel had begun to chaff Bill about a too-vivid imagination when within a half mile of the clearing he pulled his horse up short in the middle of a little meadow.

"Look!"

The track of a broad-tired wagon had freshly crushed the thick gra.s.s.

Bill squinted at the trail, then his gaze swept the timber beyond.

"Well!"

"What is it, Bill?" Hazel asked.

"Somebody has been cutting timber over there," he enlightened. "I can see the fresh ax work. Looks like they'd been hauling poles. Let's follow this track a ways."

The tiny meadow was fringed on the north by a grove of poplars. Beyond that lay another clear s.p.a.ce of level land, perhaps forty acres in extent. They broke through the belt of poplars--and pulled up again.

On one side of the meadow stood a cabin, the fresh-peeled log walls glaring yellow in the sun, and lifting an earth-covered roof to the autumn sky. Bill whistled softly.

"I'll be hanged," he uttered, "if there isn't the cow!"

Along the west side of the meadow ran a brown streak of sod, and down one side of this a man guided the handles of a plow drawn by the strangest yokemates Hazel's eyes had seen for many a day.

"For goodness' sake!" she exclaimed.

"That's the true pioneer spirit for you," Bill spoke absently. "He has bucked his way into the heart of a virgin country, and he's breaking sod with a mule and a cow. That's adaptation to environment with a vengeance--and grit."

"There's a woman, too, Bill. And see--she's carrying a baby!" Hazel pointed excitedly. "Oh, Bill!"

"Let's go over." He stirred up his horse. "What did I tell you about folk that hanker for lots of elbow-room? They're coming."

The man halted his strangely a.s.sorted team to watch them come. The woman stood a step outside the door, a baby in her arms, another toddler holding fast to her skirt. A thick-bodied, short, square-shouldered man was this newcomer, with a round, pleasant face.

"h.e.l.lo, neighbor!" Bill greeted.

The plowman lifted his old felt hat courteously. His face lit up.

"_Ach_!" said he. "Neighbor. Dot iss a goot vord in diss country vere dere iss no neighbor. But I am glat to meet you. Vill you come do der house und rest a v'ile?"

"Sure!" Bill responded. "But we're neighbors, all right. Did you notice a cabin about half a mile west of here? That's our place--when we're at home."

"So?" The word escaped with the peculiar rising inflection of the Teuton. "I haf saw dot cabin veil ve come here. But I d.i.n.k it va.s.s abandon. Und I pick dis place mitout hope off a neighbor. Id iss goot lant. Veil, let us to der house go. Id vill rest der mule--und Gretchen, der cow. Hah!"

He rolled a blue eye on his incongruous team, and grinned widely.

"Come," he invited; "mine vife vill be glat."