Silver Rags by Willis Boyd Allen - HTML preview

CHAPTER XV.
 GOOD-BYE!

THE morning of the last day at The Pines was full of sunshine. Ruel’s voice was heard, as early as five o’clock, out by the barn. The young folks, by a preconcerted plan, all rose at sunrise, in order to make as long a day as possible, and joined the men, who were milking.

“Well, well,” said Ruel, looking up from his foaming pail, into which the white streams were drumming merrily, “you hev got up with the birds this time, sartin!”

“We didn’t want to lose a minute,” answered Kittie rather sadly. “O Ruel, I wish we could stay till winter!”

“’Twouldn’t do,” replied the other, shaking his head. “Thar’s plenty to do in the city, an’ everybody has his place. Sometimes I’ve wished—” but Ruel did not say what he had wished.

“Ruel,” said Bess, after a moment’s silence, “why couldn’t you come to Boston in the winter and work. Surely you could earn more money there?”

Ruel shook his head again, more soberly than before.

“My place is here with your uncle,” he replied. “I was born and brought up in these parts. I’m at home in the woods, an’ I couldn’t bear to walk raound on bricks an’ stones. No, here I be, an’ here I must stay.”

“But wouldn’t you like to spend a month in the city? You said the other day you had never been there.”

The old trapper seemed at a loss for words, but presently answered: “I can’t jest tell ye haow I feel abaout it, Bess, but somehaow I sh’d feel shet in, and kept away from the blue sky. What with lookin’ aout fer teams an’ horses an’ folks, an’ seem’ all sorts o’ strange sights, an’ p’raps thinkin’ o’ makin’ money—why, I’m afeerd I shouldn’t feel so much of a man. In the woods it’s all so still that I can almost hear the trees a-growin’. Then a bird flies through the baoughs overhead, an’ I look up an’ see all the firs with their leetle crosses, and the pines pointin’ up, an’ so I keep lookin’ higher, an’ thar’s the blue, an’ the clouds, an’ I remember who’s up thar, an’ who made woods an’ birds an’ all!”

The little company of daintily dressed boys and girls felt awed into silence as they listened to this outburst from the rough preacher, sitting on a milking-stool, and never forgetting his work, as he talked. It was a sermon they would remember long after the old barn and The Pines and Ruel himself were hundreds of miles away.

“What hev ye planned fer to-day?” said Ruel in his ordinary, quiet tones, breaking the silence that had followed his earnest words.

“O, there’s a lot of packing. The ‘silver rags’ are to be tied up, to take home. And we’re going to every spot on the farm where we’ve had good times this lovely summer!”

“I was thinkin’ that p’raps you might like to wind up with a little fishin’ trip this afternoon.”

“O good! Where shall we go?”

“Right daown by where we were cuttin’ wood last winter—remember?—thar’s a little brook that always has plenty of trout in it.”

“That’s first-rate!” exclaimed Randolph. “The girls can take a lunch—just a small one, without much fuss—and Tom and I will furnish a string of trout.”

“They’re awful little,” added Ruel, “but they’re sweet’s nuts. You can ketch a dozen in fifteen minutes.”

The boys had been fishing several times during their vacation, but had never taken the girls along.

The forenoon was full of both duty and play. Trunks were filled to the brim and sat upon; great bundles of birch bark were tied up and labeled. All the cattle received toothsome bits of their favorite varieties of food, and were bidden goodbye, with strokings and pattings, all of which they received with abundance of patience and long sighs.

Meanwhile aunt Puss busied herself in preparing an appetizing little lunch for the last picnic, and for the morrow’s journey. All the men were hard at work in the potato patch and the orchard. At about three o’clock Ruel threw down his hoe and informed the boys, with one of his quiet laughs, that Mr. Percival had given him a half-day vacation.

“Get your party together,” said he, “and meet me in fifteen minutes out here by the pasture bars. I’ll have the bait ready. You can bring the poles you used last Monday.”

With baskets for lunch and for final collections of fresh ferns, the girls joined the rest, and all started down the long pasture lane through which they had watched the cattle wandering slowly homeward so many times during the past weeks. By special invitation the little Irish girl was included in the party, much to her delight.

In a few minutes they were in the shade of the forest. The pines whispered softly to them, and the birches, in the little clearings here and there, fluttered their dainty leaves in the sunlight overhead. No one felt much like talking and almost the only sound was the occasional call of a thrush or the piping of a locust in the tree-tops. At length the brook was reached. The boys rigged their fishing tackle and were soon busily creeping down the banks of the little stream, uttering an exclamation now and then, as they captured or lost a lively trout.

The girls threw themselves down on a mossy bank, close beside a tiny spring which Ruel pointed out. There were fir-trees intermingled with the pines and hemlocks around it; and on its brink a fringe of ferns bent over the clear water. Randolph had known of the place before, but his cousins had never found it.

When the fishermen came back, they found lunch spread upon napkins, and awaiting only the trout. These Ruel took in hand, dressing and broiling them with the deftness of an old camper. Sheets of birch bark served for plates, and the boys whittled out knives and forks from the twigs of the same tree. Bridget, whose first camping experience it was, sat motionless, in a state of stupefied wonder and delight.

“Now, sir,” said Pet, addressing Randolph, “we need one thing more. As it’s a farewell meeting, we ought to have a poem, an original poem.”

“O, his brother—” exclaimed Kittie.

“No,” said Pet decisively, “that won’t do. We’ll give you just twenty minutes to write one, Randolph. If your brother can do it, of course you can. One, two, three, begin!”

Fortunately for the boy, who was extremely confused by the sudden request and the six bright eyes bent upon him, he had been in the habit of scribbling in a note book such bits of verse as occurred to him when he was by himself; and this very spring had suggested itself as a pretty subject for a poem. When the time was up, accordingly, he came forward with the following, handing it with a low bow to Miss Pet, who read it aloud:

DOLLIE’S SPRING.

Deep within a mountain forest

Breezes soft are whispering

Through the dark-robed firs and hemlocks,

Over Dollie’s Spring.

Swiftly glides the tiny streamlet,

While its laughing waters sing

Sweetest song in all the woodland—

“I—am—Dollie’s Spring!”

Round about, fleet-footed sunbeams,

In a golden, fairy ring

Dancing, scatter brightness o’er it,

Pretty Dollie’s Spring!

In the dim wood’s noontide shadow

Nod the ferns and glistening

With a thousand diamond dew-drops

Bend o’er Dollie’s Spring.

Shyly, on its mossy border,

Blue-eyed Dollie, lingering,

Views the sweet face in the crystal

Depths of Dollie’s Spring.

Years shall come and go, and surely

To the little maiden bring

Trials sore and joys uncounted,

While, by Dollie’s Spring,

Still the firs shall lift their crosses

Heavenward, softly murmuring

Prayers for her, where’er she wanders—

Far from Dollie’s Spring.

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Kittie and Bess together, as Pet concluded, “who is Dollie? which one of us is Dollie?” But Randolph only laughed and wouldn’t tell.

With their gay spirits fully restored—for it is as hard for boys and girls to keep solemn as for squirrels to keep from climbing—they told stories, laughed, talked, and raced, all the way home. Supper over, the evening passed swiftly, and bidding uncle Will and aunt Puss good-night, they trooped off to their rooms for the last time. Tom and Randolph were soon asleep, but the girls, I suspect, stayed awake for a good while, talking over the long, sweet summer days that were ended. At last brown eyes and blue were closed. High above, out of all reach of night, but shining down lovingly into it, the stars kept watch over the old farm-house; and He who neither slumbers nor sleeps, held the weary child-world in His arms.

Did our young friends return home safely? Did they see much of each other that winter in Boston? Was Randolph successful in school; and how did they all pass Christmas? There is no room here for answering so many questions; but you can find out all about them in the next number of this series,

“THE NORTHERN CROSS.”