Wilderness Honey by Frank Lillie Pollock - HTML preview

CHAPTER XI
 A GOOD SUMMER’S WORK

It had continued to rain, and it was coming down hard by this time, a cold, driving rain from the north, that would check the forest fire if it lasted long enough. Larue’s camp was a miserable place, and far from water-tight.

“We must ask them to come home with us,” Alice whispered to Bob. “We can’t let the poor wretches stay here in the rain.”

Bob looked startled and a little reluctant, but Alice gave the invitation without waiting for him to object.

“Mademoiselle is as good as ze angels,” said Mrs. Larue. “Certainely we be glad to go, is it not, Baptiste?”

“Maybe it rain for two—tree days,” said the squatter, regarding the sky. “Put ze fire out—good! But zis is terrible poor camp. Oui, we go, and many t’anks!”

He put some of his most perishable possessions in his boat, covered the rest well with bark and boughs, and took his family on board. It was raining in torrents when they passed the clearing again on their way back, and everything was a mist of smoke, steam, and rain. But both the house and barn were still standing, and did not appear to be now on fire.

It was a pretty tight fit for seven of them in the Harmans’ cabin, and rather a severe strain on the larder. But Bob went down to the river and caught a dozen trout. Larue sallied into the woods and came back in an hour, soaked like a sponge, but bringing with him five partridges. Mrs. Larue lent a hand at the cookery, and they produced a meal that was at any rate abundant.

All that afternoon it rained, and, as Bob said, every drop was worth a dollar to that imperiled forest country.

“We’ll be able to put our bees back off the island as soon as it lets up,” said Carl. “The ground’ll be cooled off pretty well again. You know, Larue,” he added, “we had a fire of our own yesterday. Nearly burned up our bees at the lake.”

“Yes, and we fancied we saw you through the smoke. But most likely it wasn’t,” said Bob.

Larue had been talking volubly and gaily, but his face suddenly fell.

“Yes, I guess you see me,” he said, looking sheepish. “By gar, I am a beast, an assassin. But I have some bad viskey in me yesterday, and I know no better.”

“I thought so,” said Bob, quietly. “Larue, what did you want to burn us out for?”

“Surely you didn’t start the fire!” cried Carl, staring.

“Voila!” said the half-breed, contritely. “It was one rotten treek. But, you see, you catch me in bear trap. Your bees sting my cow, kill my hen, sting my dog, sting me mos’ to death. So I see ze bee-boxes up there all alone, and I say, ‘He sting me no more, by gar!’ So I light fires—here, dere, many places at once.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Larue!” cried Carl indignantly.

“Sure, I sorry I do it now. But, you know, I have ze viskey in me yesterday. I get turned round in ze smoke, nearly get caught by ze fire myself. I see you rafting off ze bee-boxes, and I guess you see me too. And then—ze fire spread and spread, and ze wind he rise, and go clear to ze slough and burn my house.”

“I guess you’re punished for it,” said Bob. “But we never meant to quarrel with you or do you any harm. You took our honey, you know, and you got stung when the bees went to bring it back. And we didn’t set the trap to catch you. We thought it was some wild animal, from the tracks you made.”

The half-breed grinned, shamefacedly, yet with just a touch of pride as well.

“Good treek, eh?” he said. “I learn him from a man in ze lumber woods. He steal hogs zat way—make track like bear.”

“Fine trick, yes,” agreed Bob. “Only you got the worst of it. In fact, you’ve come out worst in all your tricks, I believe.”

“Serve me right, eh!” Larue admitted. “For ze honey, I steal him when I need ze money bad. But nevaire mind. Zat is all over, and we forget. I ask your pardon for all ze trouble I make you. You save ma petite, and I never forget zat. After now, I am yours. You say to me, ‘Larue, come!’ and I come. You say, ‘Larue, do zis—do zat!’ and I do zis, do zat. No money, no pay. I can never pay you for what you do for me.”

“All right, Larue, we’re friends henceforth, and we’ll shake hands on it,” said Bob; and they shook hands gravely all around to seal the peace.

“You know, when we saw your big tracks we thought it was a wendigo,” said Alice, laughing.

“Wendigo?” cried the half-breed, his face clouding. “When you see a wendigo?”

“Why, there’s no such thing,” said Carl.

“Do not say zat. Ze wendigo—he is terrible! I have never see him, no—but I know a man, a trapper at Lac Temagimi—”

And he plunged into a terrifying tale of Indian superstition. He was an excellent story-teller, and as he sat with gesticulating hands, and dark, flashing eyes, he held them all fascinated. From this he went on to blood-curdling tales of the loup-garou, or werewolf, ghostly huntsmen, and other horrors of French-Canadian tradition, till Alice begged him to cease. She said she would be afraid to sleep that night.

“Don’t you like them?” said Alice privately to Carl that evening. “I think Larue isn’t half a bad fellow, and the children are darlings. I like his wife too, and she says she’ll teach me to speak French.”

“I’m afraid it’s a queer dialect she’d teach you,” Carl answered. “But really they’re a pretty decent lot, now we get to know them. Anyway, I’m tremendously glad we’ve made peace.”

It rained hard nearly all night, but in the morning only a drizzle was falling, which presently ceased. It was cold and dismal, but the squatter rowed down the river to look at his property. He came back overjoyed. The clearing, he said, was choking with smoke and steam, but the fires were all out, and the house and barn were both standing. The roofs were gone, indeed, but a few days’ work would replace them.

“I get some of my friends to help me,” he said. “We make a bee, and soon put him right.”

“We might let him have that lumber for the winter cases that we put into the raft,” Carl whispered to his brother. “It’s scorched and soaked with water now so that it would hardly do for hives, but it would be all right to mend a roof.”

“Good idea!” Bob answered, “and we’ll help him mend it. We’re pretty crowded here, and the sooner he can get into his own house again the better for us.”

That afternoon Larue accompanied them to the lake apiary. Where the yard had been was nothing but a waste of wet ashes and rocks, but the fire was out, and at any rate the ground was thoroughly cleared at last. From the shore they could see the hives scattered over the little islet, with the raft aground beside them.

It was quite a problem how to get out to them. But finally, by Larue’s advice, they constructed a small raft which carried the three of them over, with a great deal of ricketing and splashing. The bees were all safe, with the exception of three colonies that had been melted down by the heat of the fire, and they set to work at once to load them on the raft again.

Larue was useful at the rafting. It turned out that he was an expert lumberman and river-driver. He seemed as strong and wiry as a panther, worked gaily and heroically, unmindful of an occasional sting. In fact, the boys could not help liking him, now that they met him on terms of peace. He might have been lawless enough, but he insisted on handling the heaviest end of everything, sang, chatted, laughed, and seemed so determined to win their good feeling, that they were both ready to forgive him all the trouble he had caused them.

The lumber in the raft was now really unfit for use in the bee-hives, and Larue was intensely grateful when they offered it to him. Immediately he went off and hunted up a friend of his, also a half-breed, who had been living unsuspected all this time not five miles away. This man owned a horse and wagon, and next morning he hauled the lumber from the lake to the river, and they rafted it down to Larue’s farm. He must also have sent word to Morton in some way, for a couple of days later half a dozen dark-faced fellows came up the river in canoes, carrying saws, hammers, and axes, to assist at the “bee.”

Bob and Carl also took part. Two of the visitors were skilful carpenters, and they made the house-roof tighter than it had been before. There was not lumber enough for the barn, but the half-breeds contrived a wonderfully ingenious thatch of logs, mud, and cedar boughs which would turn water as well as shingles.

Bob took the opportunity of sending word back to the Morton sawmill for more lumber. It arrived a few days later, and the boys were amazed to find Larue and the same gang of half-breed helpers come with it. They all went out to the lake, and unloaded the cargo. The half-breeds had been under the impression that a house was to be built, but they were all men who, with an axe and a knife, could make anything from a gunstock to a boat. It was only necessary to show them how the winter cases were to be made, and the speed with which the boards were cut up and nailed together was marvelous. There was a constant fire of song and chaff in French patois kept up, but the work was all finished so early that the men went into the woods, cut timbers, and ran up the framing of an extracting-house, which could be finished the next season.

They would not hear of taking any pay for this work. However, they all came back to the cabin, where Alice had a great supper prepared of everything eatable that she could find within reach. It was the honey that found greatest favor, however, with the guests; they all seemed to have a child’s appetite for sweets, and it vanished in immense quantities. Luckily there was plenty of it, and each of the men was provided with some to take away.

Later in the evening they built a great fire in the clearing, and there by the red light the half-breeds sang voyageur songs, habitant chansons, old songs that had been sung in Quebec for two hundred years, and some of them in Normandy before that. The half-breeds had excellent voices, and the songs were all new to the Harmans—“Entre Paris et St. Denis,” “La Claire Fontaine,” and the canoe song with the rattling chorus of “En Roulant ma Boule.” This last was a particular favorite.

It was midnight when they broke off, and too late to go back to Morton. Fortunately it was a fine night, and they camped by the fire on heaps of spruce twigs. In the morning, after drinking an enormous kettle of black coffee, and eating honey and bread, they started homewards, all piled together in the single wagon, laughing and waving farewells. The creaking of the wagon mingled with the diminishing chorus of:

“Rouli, roulant ma boule roulante,

En roulant ma boule roulante,

En roulant ma boule.”

It was the gayest time the old cabin had ever known, and it seemed almost lonely when they had gone.

“Jolly lot!” said Carl. “I fancy Mr. Farr wasn’t far wrong when he said that Larue wasn’t a bad fellow when you get on the right side of him. Anyhow, it’ll be a great relief to know that we can leave the bee-yard without being afraid that it’ll be robbed or burned out during the winter. I believe that forest fire was worth all the trouble it made.”

When they had put the hives back into their winter cases and stored the supplies carefully away in the cabin, the work for the season was finished. Bob was anxious to get back to town for the fall term, and neither Carl nor Alice were unwilling to leave. The bees would need no more attention for six or eight months, and there was nothing to keep them longer in the woods.

They left nearly all their house-keeping outfit in the shanty, boarded up the windows, and nailed up the door. The wagon came from Morton for their baggage, but they themselves preferred to go down to the railway by the river.

It was a cloudy, chilly fall day when they got into the boat for the last time, not without regret.

“Good-by, old shanty!” called Alice, as they pushed off. “I’ll be glad to see you again in the spring.”

They stopped a moment at Indian Slough to leave a few pails of honey for the Larues. The squatter promised to look after their cabin and see that no harm came to anything about the place while they were gone, and they left the whole family on the shore, waving good-by. It was hard to believe that these people had been such bitter enemies a few weeks earlier.

“Well, we haven’t done so badly,” said Bob, as they dropped down the stream. “We had about $500 when we came in here. Now we’ve got nearly $1000, besides about two hundred and ten good colonies of bees, that will surely make $2000 for us next season.”

“And we’ve had a lot of fun over it, too,” Carl added. “And some pretty tough times, along with fires, bears, wolves, and bee-stings. But it’s been better than keeping a country store.”

“I should think so!” Bob exclaimed. “It was the luckiest thing that ever happened when I heard of these bees for sale. I almost wish that we could start at work with them again next month.”

“I almost wish that, too,” said Alice, “but not quite. I believe I’ve had enough wild life for a few months. Now I’d like something quiet and civilized for a little while—something just like Harman’s Corners.”

THE END