The Girl From Tim's Place. Charles Clark Munn
to return to the woods in a few days–and what was to be done with this child of misfortune?
Most assuredly they must protect her for the present. But was there any one to whom she could be turned over and cared for? It seemed possible this brutal buyer of her would follow her out of the woods, to abduct her if found, and then the moral side of this episode with all its abominable possibilities occurred to Angie, who was, above all, unselfish and noble-hearted. Vice, crime, and immorality were horrible to her.
Here was a self-evident duty thrusting itself upon her, and how to meet it with justice to herself, her husband, and her own conscience, was a problem. Thus dwelling upon this complex situation, she fell asleep.
The first faint light of morning was stealing into the tent when Angie felt her companion stir. She had, exhausted as she doubtless was, fallen asleep almost the moment she lay down; but now she was evidently awake.
Curious to note what she would do, Angie remained with closed eyes and motionless. From the corner of the tent where she had curled up the night before, the girl now cautiously crept toward the elder woman. Inch by inch, upon the bed of boughs, she moved nearer, until Angie, watching with half-open eyes, saw her head lowered, and felt two soft warm lips touch her hand.
It was a trifle. It was no more than the act of a cat who rubs herself against her mistress or a dog who licks his master’s hand, and yet it settled once for all that waif’s fate and Angie’s indecision.
CHAPTER III
“Women are like grasshoppers–ye kin never tell which way they’re goin’ to jump.”–Old Cy Walker.
Levi was starting a fire, Ray washing potatoes, and Martin, in his shirt-sleeves, using a towel vigorously near the canoes, when Angie and Chip emerged that morning; and now while breakfast is under way, a moment may be seized to explain who these people were and their mission in this wilderness.
Many years before, in a distant village called Greenvale, two brothers, David and Amzi Curtis, had quarrelled over an unfortunate division of inherited land. The outcome was that Amzi, somewhat misanthropic over the death of his wife, and of peculiar make-up, deserted his home and little daughter Angeline, and vanished. For many years no one knew of his whereabouts, and he was given up as dead.
In the meantime his child, cared for by a kindly woman known as Aunt Comfort, had grown to womanhood. About this time a boyhood sweetheart of Angeline’s, named Martin Frisbie, who had been gathering wealth in a distant city, invited a former schoolmate, now the village doctor in Greenvale, to join him on an outing trip into the wilderness.
Here something of the history of a notorious outlaw named McGuire became known to Martin, and more important than that, a queer old hermit was discovered, dwelling in solitude on the shore of a small lake. Who he was, and why this strange manner of life, Martin could not learn, and not until later, when he returned to Greenvale to woo his former sweetheart once more, did he even guess. Here, however, from a description furnished by a village nondescript,–a sort of Natty Bumpo and philosopher combined, known as Old Cy Walker, who had been Martin’s youthful companion,–he was led to believe that the queer hermit and the long-missing Amzi were one and the same.
Another trip into this wilderness with Old Cy, taken to identify the hermit, resulted in proving the correctness of the surmise. Then Martin set about making this misanthropic recluse more comfortable in all ways possible; and then, leaving Old Cy to keep him company, he returned to Greenvale and Angie.
A marriage was the outcome of his return to his native village, and then, with his nephew, Ray, and long-tried guide, Levi, as helpers on this unique wedding trip, the hermit was visited.
It was hoped that meeting his child once more would result in inducing him to abandon his wildwood existence and to return to civilization; and it did–partially. He seemed happy to meet his daughter again, consented to return with them when ready, and after a couple of weeks’ sojourn here, the canoes were packed and all set out for civilization and Greenvale once more.
But “home, sweet home,” albeit it was, as in this case, a lonely log cabin in a vast wilderness, proved stronger than parental love or aught else; and sometime during first night’s camp on the way out, this strange recluse stole away in his canoe and returned.
“It’s natur,” Old Cy observed when morning came, “an’ home is the hardest spot in the world to fergit. Amzi’s lived in that old shack all ’lone for twenty years. He’s got wonted to it like a dog to his kennel, an’ all the powers o’ the univarse can’t break up the feelin’.”
It seemed an indisputable, if disappointing, fact, and Martin led his party back to the hermit’s home once more.
Another plan was now considered by Martin–to buy the township, or at least a large tract enclosing this lake, build a more commodious log cabin for the use of himself and his wife, and spend a portion of each summer there. There were several reasons other than those of affection for this decision.
This lake, perhaps half a mile in diameter, teemed with trout. The low mountains enclosing it were thickly covered with fine spruce and fir, groves of pine with some beech and birch grew in the valleys; deer, moose, and feathered game abounded here, and best of all, no vandal lumbermen ever encroached upon this region.
It was, all considered, a veritable sportsman’s paradise. Most likely a few thousand dollars would purchase it, and so, for these collective reasons, Martin decided to buy it.
Old Cy was left to keep the hermit company; Martin, his wife, and Ray, with Levi, started for civilization to obtain needed supplies, and had been four days upon the way when this much-abused waif appeared on the scene. The party were journeying in two canoes, one manned by Ray, who had already learned to wield a paddle, which carried the tents and luggage; while the other was occupied by Martin, his wife, and Levi. The only available seat for the new arrival was in Ray’s canoe, and when breakfast was disposed of and the voyagers ready to start, she was given a place therein.
The river at this point was broad and of slow current, only two days’ journey was needful to reach the settlement, and no cause for worry appeared–but Levi felt otherwise.
“You’d best hug the futher shore,” he observed to Ray quietly when the boy pushed off, “an’ don’t git out o’ sight o’ us.” “I ain’t sartin ’bout the outcome o’ this matter,” he said to Martin later. “I know that half-breed, Bolduc, and he’s a bad ’un. From the gal’s story he paid big money fer her. He don’t know the meanin’ o’ law, and if he follers down the tote road, as I callate he will, ’n’ ketches sight o’ her, the first we’ll know on’t ’ll be the crack o’ a rifle. The wonder to me is he didn’t ketch her ’fore she got to us. He could track her faster’n she could run. I don’t want to ’larm you folks, but I shan’t feel easy till we’re out o’ the woods.”
It wasn’t reassuring.
But no thought of this came to Ray, at least, and these two young people, yielding to the magic of the morning, the rippled river that bore them onward, the birds singing along the fir-clad banks, and all the exhilaration of the wilderness, soon reached the care-free converse of youthful friends.
“I never had nothin’ but work ’n’ cussin’,” Chip responded, when Ray asked if she never had any time she could call her own. “Tim thinked I couldn’t get tired, I guess. He’d roust me up fust of all ’n’ larrup me if he caught me shirkin’. Once I had a little posey bed back o’ the pig-pen. I fixed it after dark an’ mornin’s when I ketched the chance. He ketched me thar one mornin’ a-weedin’ it ’n’ knocked me sprawlin’ an’ then stomped all over the posies. That night I went out into the woods ’n’ begged the spites to git him killed somehow. ’Nother time I forgot to put up the bars, an’ the cows got into the taters. That night he tied me to a stump clus to the bars, an’ left me