The Lady of Big Shanty Part 12

"Come back here--don't be a fool. She is asleep after the Trevis dance. The child did not get home till after three."

"And you let her get ill?" he cried.

"Sit down, will you--and listen. Dr. Sperry came here the day you left, and he told me he had not liked the child's appearance for a long time, and that she ought to have the air of the mountains at once."

"And you called that charlatan in to see my daughter!" he cried indignantly. All his anger was aroused now. When any wall was raised in his path, this man Sperry was always behind it.

"I did not," she retorted savagely, "and Dr. Sperry is not a charlatan, and you know it. It was owing to his good heart that he came of his own accord and told me."

Thayor gripped the arm of his chair.

"Why didn't you call Leveridge?" he cried.

"There was no necessity. Dr. Sperry merely told me that Margaret was not over strong, and that she needed a change of air, and where she could be kept out of doors. He said there was no immediate danger,"

she went on steadily, "because the child's lungs are still untouched."

"Does Margaret know?" he asked between his teeth. Sperry and Margaret were the two poles of a battery to Thayor.

"Does she know? Of course not! Do you consider Dr. Sperry a fool?"

"Do I think him a fool? Yes, and sometimes I think he's worse," and he looked at her meaningly. "I'll see Leveridge at once--now--before I change my clothes. He's seen Margaret almost every day since she was born and this silk-stocking exquisite of yours hasn't seen her ten times in his life!" And he strode from the room.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thayor's interview with Alice only made him more determined than ever to carry out his plans at Big Shanty. If he had hesitated at the danger to Margaret, he got over it when Leveridge said, with marked professional courtesy:

"I should not have diagnosed her case as seriously; I should not worry in the least," adding confidentially--"I should be very much surprised if Dr. Sperry were right. However, I'll keep an eye on Margaret, and if I see things going the wrong way I might advise Lakewood in the spring. To send that child to as severe a climate as the woods in winter, would, in my opinion, be the worst thing in the world for her, Sam."

Thayor had repeated Leveridge's words to Alice, and she had replied:

"Well, if you are fool enough to believe in Leveridge I wash my hands of the whole affair."

Margaret, as Thayor had expected, was radiantly happy over the idea of the camp. She and her father talked of nothing else, Margaret taking an absorbed interest in every detail concerning the new home. Every letter from Holcomb was eagerly scanned by her. She even treasured in her bureau drawer a duplicate set of the plans, as well as memoranda of the progress of the work, and so knew everything that the young woodsman was doing. Furthermore, the frank simplicity of his letters to her father appealed to her--showing, as they did, a manliness sadly lacking in the fas.h.i.+onable young men about her. Thus it was not strange that she began to take a personal interest in Holcomb himself, whom she dimly remembered at Long Lake. With this there developed in her mind a certain feeling of respect and admiration for the young superintendent, due more to her democratic spirit than to anything personal about the man. Then, again, those who were natural appealed to her. As to men of Dr. Sperry's stamp and the idle youths who chattered to her in the world which her mother had forced her into, these she detested.

During the long winter months Big Shanty lay buried under tons of snow and ice. The broad bed of the stream became unrecognizable; its roar m.u.f.fled. Along its wild course the boulders showed above the heavy drifts, capped with a sea of white domes, like some straggling city of sunken mosques. Along the bed of the brook open wounds gaped here and there, while at the bottom of these creva.s.ses the treacherous black water chuckled and grumbled through a maze of pa.s.sages, breaking out at rare intervals into angry pools, their jagged edges piled with floe ice. For days at a time the big trees moaned ceaselessly; often the snow fell silently all through the day, all through the bitter cold of the night, until the knotted arms of the hemlock were cruelly laden to the cracking point, and the moose hopple and scrub pines lay smothered up to their tops. Always the crying wind and the driving snow.

As the winter wore itself out the sun began to a.s.sert its warmth.

All things now steamed at midday, dripping and oozing in sheer gratefulness; the snow became so soft that even the tail of a wood mouse slushed a gash in it, the dripping hemlocks perforating the snow beneath them with myriads of holes. Soon the woods were oozing in earnest, the warm sun swelling the young buds. Day by day the roar of Big Shanty Brook grew mightier, its waters sweeping over the boulders with the speed of a mill race, tearing away its crumbling banks.

With the opening of spring Holcomb started work in earnest. The woods reverberated with the shouts of teamsters. Soon the deserted clearing became the main centre of activity, echoing with the whacking strokes of axes and the crash of falling trees. Horses strained and slipped in their trace chains, snaking the big logs out to the now widened clearing--slewing around stumps--tearing and ripping right and left.

By early March the clearing had widened to four times its original size, reaching for rods back of the shanty; the air had become fragrant, spiced with the odour of fresh stumps and the great piles of logs stacked on the skidways.

At last the work of chopping ceased. Then began the ripping whine of saws and the wrenching clutch of cant hooks; loads of clean planks now came clattering up the rough road from the sawmill in the valley below--men cursed over wheels sunk over their hubs in mud--over broken axles and s.h.i.+fted loads.

The clearing had now become Holcomb's home--if a square box provided with a door and a factory-made window can be called a home. In it he placed a cot bed and a stove, the remainder of its weather-proof interior being littered with blue prints, bills, and receipts. Before long these had resulted in the development of the skeleton of a pretentious main structure; its frame work suggesting quaint eaves and a broad piazza. At the same time a dozen other skeletons were erected about it, flanking a single thoroughfare leading to the road. This, too, had undergone a radical change. Before many weeks had pa.s.sed the newly cut road lay smooth as a floor in macadam.

Strange men now appeared at Big Shanty on flying trips from Albany and New York--soulless looking men, thoroughly conversant with gas engines and lighting plants; hustling agents in black derby hats with samples, many of whom made their head quarters at Morrison's, awaiting Holcomb's word of approval. Most of these the trapper and the Clown treated with polite suspicion.

Wagon loads of luxuries then began to arrive--antique furniture, matchless refrigerators, a grand piano and a billiard table--cases of pictures and bundles of rare rugs. So great was the acc.u.mulation of luxuries at Big Shanty that little else was talked of.

"How much money do ye cal'late Sam Thayor's got?" one of the prophets at Morrison's would ask. The "Mr." had been long since dropped from lack of usage.

"Goll--I hain't no idee," another would reply, "but I presume if the hull of it was dumped inter Otter Pond you'd find the water had riz consider'ble 'round the edge."

During all this time Thayor had not once put in an appearance. He had left Holcomb, as he had promised, entirely in charge. Billy worried over the ever-increasing expenditure which had grown to a proportion he never dreamed of at the beginning, and was in constant dread of being asked for explanations--yet the vouchers he sent to New York invariably came back "O.K.'d" without a murmur or a criticism from the man who had told him to buy Big Shanty "as far as he could see."

CHAPTER EIGHT

The only thing that caused the young superintendent any real anxiety, and one he had tried in vain to stop--was the sale of liquor to his men at Morrison's. When pay-day came half of his gang were invariably absent for several days, including even his trustworthy and ever-to-be-relied-upon Freme Skinner, the Clown.

Holcomb had reasoned with Freme and had threatened him with discharge a dozen times, his example being a bad one for the French Canadians under his immediate care. As a last resort he had taken Belle Pollard, Freme's sweetheart, a waitress at Morrison's, into his confidence. If Belle could keep Freme sober over Sunday--it was impossible to keep him away from her--Holcomb would speak a good word to Thayor for Freme and Belle and then they could both get a place as caretakers of the house during the coming winter, be married in the fall and so live happy ever after.

The girl promised, and the next Sat.u.r.day the test came.

"If Freme will let liquor alone," he had written to Thayor the day these final arrangements were completed, "you couldn't have a better man or a better girl, but I'm afraid we'll have to move Bill Morrison's bar-room into Canada to accomplish it."

The result of this bargain Holcomb learned from the girl herself as she sat in his cabin, the glow of a swinging lamp lighting up her face.

On Sat.u.r.day night, as usual, so Belle said, the Clown, his wages in his pocket, had sat in one corner of Morrison's bar-room, the heels of his red-socked feet clutched in the rung of his chair. A moment before there had been a good-natured, rough-and-tumble wrestle as he and another lumber jack grappled. The Clown had thrown his antagonist fairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with a whack that made things jingle. The next moment the two had treated one another at the bar, and with a mutual, though maudlin appreciation of each other had gone back to their respective chairs among the line tilted against the wall.

At that moment she had opened the bar-room door and announced supper.

Instantaneously the front legs of the line of tilted chairs came to the floor with a bang. The Clown reached the girl and the half-open door first.

"Blast you, Freme Skinner," she said, "be you a-goin' in or out?"

"Wall, I swow, Belle," remarked the Clown, steadying himself and turning his bleary eyes on the closed door, "you be techier 'n a sp'ilt colt, ain't ye?"

Soon the long table was filled by the hungry crowd. They sat heavily in their chairs, their coats off, their hair slicked down for the occasion. The Clown was seated at one end of the table, nearest the swing door leading to the kitchen. He wore a red unders.h.i.+rt, cut low about his bull neck. It was Belle's ring that dangled from one ear.

Loosing the strap about his waist he began to sing:

"My gal has a bright blue eye, And she steps like a fox in the snow; And a thousand miles I'd tra-vel To find her other beau."

Then in crescendo:

"She used to live in Stove-pipe City--"

Here the girl kicked the swing door and appeared with the first a.s.sortment of bird dishes.