Joyce of the North Woods | Page 2

to any chance
wrongdoer on the St. Angé side. Many a culprit had thus been aided in
his plans of escape before Justice, striding over the western hill, bore
down upon the town.
Beautiful, unappreciated St. Angé! The trees grew, and the scar was
healed. The soft, pine-laden breezes touched with heavenly fragrance
the dull-faced women, the pathetic children, and the unambitious men.
Everything was run down and apparently doomed, until one day the
endless chain which encompasses the world, in its turning dropped the
Golden Bead of Love into St. Angé! Down deep it sank to the bottom

of the crucible. Jude Lauzoon was blinded by it and stung to life; Joyce
Birkdale through its power came into the heritage of her soul. Jock
Filmer by its magic force was shorn of his poor shield and left naked
and unprotected for Fate's crudest darts. John Gaston, working out his
salvation in his shack hidden among the pines, was burnt by the
divining rays that penetrated to his secret place and spared him not.
And then, when things were at their tensest, Ralph Drew came and
tuned the discordant notes into sweet harmony. St. Angé became in
time a home for many whom despair had marked for its own; a
Sanctuary for devoted service.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
"You've got the winning cards, my girl ... It's all in the playing now"
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"Once I went so far as to go up there with my gun" 76
That pictured Mother and Child were moulding Joyce's character 114
Presently he opened his eyes ... and there sat the girl of his dreams near
him 188
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS
CHAPTER I
The man lying flat on the rock which crusted Beacon Hill raised his
head with a snake-like motion, and then let it fall back again upon his
folded arms. His body had not moved; it seemed part of the stone and
moss.

The midsummer afternoon was sunny and hot, and the fussy little river
rambling through the Long Meadow was talking in its sleep.
Lazily it wound around young maples, and ferny groups--it would
crush them by and by, poor trusting things--then it would stumble
against a rock or pile of loose stones, wake up and repeat the strain it
had learned at its mother's breast, far up in the North Woods.
"I'm here! here! here! I'll be ready by and by, by, by, by." Then on
again, a little faster perhaps, but still dreamily. Children's laughter
sounded far below; a slouching man or woman making for the Black
Cat bent on business or pleasure, passed now and then; all else was still
and seemingly asleep.
Again Jude raised his head and gave that quick glance around.
Jude was awake at last. Little Billy Falstar had roused him two days
before and set the world in a jangle. The child's impish words had
struck the scales from Jude's eyes, and the blinding light made him
shrink and suffer.
"Him and her," the boy had whispered, hugging his bruised and dirty
knees as he squatted by Jude's door; "him and her is sparking some."
Then he laughed the freakish laugh of mischief.
Jude was polishing the gun which John Gaston had given him a year
before, and had trained him to use until he was second only to Gaston
himself for marksmanship. "Him and her--who?" he asked, raising his
dull eyes to Billy's tormenting face.
"Joyce and Mr. Gaston. Him and her is beaux, I reckon. She goes to his
shack; I listened outside the winder once--he reads to her and tells her
things. They walks in the Long Medder, too, and once I saw him kiss
her."
Again the teasing laugh that set every nerve tingling.
Then it was that Jude awoke, and his hot French blood, mingled with

his canny Scotch inheritance, rose in his veins and struck madly against
brain and heart.
He stared at Billy as if the boy had given him a physical blow--then he
looked beyond him at the woods, the sky, the highway and the dejected
houses--nothing was familiar! They all seemed alive and alert. Unseen
happenings were going on--he must understand.
"You saw--him--kiss--her?" The gun fell limply across the man's knees.
"Yep," Billy whipped his dramatic sense into action. He arose and
strode before Jude with Gaston's own manner. "This way. His arms out,
and him a-laughing like, and Joyce she kinder run inter his arms and he
held her, like this--." The close embrace of the childish gesture seemed
to strangle Jude, and he gave a muffled cry. This acted like a round of
applause upon Billy.
"Yep, and he kept on hugging and kissing her like this--" Billy went
into an ecstasy of portrayal. Suddenly, however, he reeled into sanity,
for