A Little Norsk | Page 4

now, eh?
Throw in a couple o' twists more o' hay----"
Bert stirred up the fire.
"Well, now the little one is off, what's up over to the Norsk's? Wha'
d'ye bring the child for?" he asked at last.
"Because she was the only livin' soul in the shanty."
"What?" His face was set in horror.
"Fact."
"Where's the Norsk?"

"I don't know. On the prairie somewhere."
"An' the mother?"
"She's----" Here the little one stirred slightly as he leaned forward, and
Ans said; with a wink, "She's asleep." He winked significantly, and
Bert understood what the sleep was. "Be a little careful what y' say--jes'
now; the little rat is listenin'. Jest say relative when y' mean her--the
woman, y' know."
"Yes; sir," he resumed after a moment; "I was scart when I saw that
house--when I knocked, an' no one stirred 'r come to the door. They
wasn't a track around, an' the barn an' house was all drifted up. I pushed
the door open; it was cold as a barn, an' dark. I couldn't see anythin' f'r
a minute, but I heard a sound o' cryin' from the bed that made my hair
stand up. I rushed over there, an' there lay the mother on the bed, with
nothin' on but some kind of a night-dress, an' everythin'--dress, shawl,
an' all--piled on an' around that blessed child."
"She was sleepin'?"
"Like a stone. I couldn't believe it at first. I raved around there, split up
a chair an' the shelves, an' made a fire. Then I started to rub the
woman's hands an' feet, but she was cold an' hard as iron." Bert
shuddered in sympathy. "Then I took the child up an' rubbed her; tried
to find somethin' f'r her to eat--not a blessed thing in that house! Finally
I thought I better bolt f'r home----"
"Lucky you did. Hear that wind! Great heavens! We are in for another
two-days' blow of it. That woman, of course, stripped herself to save
the child."
"Yes: she did."
"Jes' like a woman! Why didn't she rip down the shelf an' split up the
chairs for fuel, or keep walkin' up an' down the room?"
"Now, there it is! She had burnt up a lot o' stuff, then took to bed with

the child. She rolled her up in all the quilts an' shawls an' dresses they
was in the house; then laid down by the side of her, an' put her arm
over her--an' froze--jes' like a mother--no judgment!"
"Well, lay her down now, an' eat some thin' y'rself, while I go out an'
look after the chores. Lord! it makes me crawl to think of that woman
layin' there in the shanty all alone!" he turned and said in a peculiar
hesitating voice. He shivered a little as he spoke. "Say, did y' shut the
door?"
"Yes: an' it shuts hard. The wind n'r wolves can't open it."
"That's good. I couldn't sleep nights if I thought the coyotes could get
in." Bert's imagination seized upon that lonely cabin and the figure
lying cold as iron upon the bed. It appealed to him more than to Anson.
By four o'clock it was dark, and the lamp was lighted when Bert came
in, bringing an immense load of hay-twists. The ferocious wind, as if
exulting in its undisputed sway over the plain, raved in ceaseless fury
around the cabin, and lashed the roof with a thousand stinging streams
of snow. The tiny shanty did not rock; it shuddered as if with fright.
The drifts rose higher on the windows, and here and there through some
unseen crevice the snow, fine as bolted flour, found its way like oil,
seeming to penetrate the solid boards; and to the stove-pipe the storm
still laid hoarse lip, piping incessantly, now dolorously, now savagely,
now high, now low.
While the two men sat above the fire that night, discussing the sad case
of the woman, the child slept heavily, muttering and sobbing in her
sleep.
"The probabilities are," said Anson, in a matter-of-fact way, "the Norsk
took his oxen an' started f'r Summit f'r provisions, an' got caught in this
blizzard an' froze to death somewhere--got lost in some gully,
probably."
"But why didn't he come an' tell us to look after his fam'ly?"

"Well, I s'pose he was afraid to trust us. I don't wonder, as I remember
the treatment their women git from the Yankees. We look a good 'eal
worse than we are, besides; an' then the poor cuss couldn't talk to us,
anyhow, an' he's be'n shy ever since he came, in October."
After a long silence, in which Gearheart went over and studied the face
of the sleeper, Anson said: "Well, if he's dead, an' the woman's dead too,
we've