The King of Beaver, and Beaver Lights | Page 3

since the settlement was made.
But they are afraid of him. They cannot do anything with him. As long
as he lives he is better than an army to keep our lands and homes for
us."
"You are in a hard case betwixt Gentiles and Prophet," laughed
Emeline.
Yet the aspects of life on Beaver Island keenly interested her. This
small world, fifteen miles in length by six in breadth, was shut off by
itself in Lake Michigan, remote from the civilization of towns. She
liked at first to feel cut loose from her past life, and would have had the
steamers touch less often at St. James, diminishing their chances of
bringing her hateful news.
There were only two roads on the island--one extending from the
harbor town in the north end to a village called Galilee at the extreme
southeast end, the other to the southwest shore. Along these roads
farms were laid out, each about eighty rods in width and a mile or two
in length, so that neighbors dwelt within call of one another, and the
colony presented a strong front. The King of Beaver could scarcely
have counselled a better division of land for the linking of families. On

one side of the Cheesemans had dwelt an excellent widow with a bag
chin, and she became Elder Cheeseman's second wife. On the other
side were the Went-worths, and Billy Wentworth courted Roxy across
the fence until it appeared that wives might continue passing over
successive boundary lines.
The billowy land was green in the morning as paradise, and Emeline
thought every day its lights and shadows were more beautiful than the
day before. Life had paused in her, and she was glad to rest her eyes on
the horizon line and take no thought about any morrow. She helped her
cousin and her legal and Mormon aunts with the children and the cabin
labor, trying to adapt herself to their habits. But her heart-sickness and
sense of fitting in her place like a princess cast among peasants put her
at a disadvantage when, the third evening, the King of Beaver came
into the garden.
He chose that primrose time of day when the world and the human
spirit should be mellowest, and walked with the farmer between garden
beds to where Emeline and Roxy were tending flowers. The entire
loamy place sent up incense. Emeline had felt at least sheltered and
negatively happy until his voice modulations strangely pierced her, and
she looked up and saw him.
He called her uncle Brother Cheeseman and her uncle called him
Brother Strang, but on one side was the mien of a sovereign and on the
other the deference of a subject. Again Emeline's blood rose against
him, and she took as little notice as she dared of the introduction.
The King of Beaver talked to Roxy. Billy Wentworth came to the line
fence and made a face at seeing him helping to tie up sweet-peas. Then
Billy climbed over and joined Emeline. They exchanged looks, and
each knew the mind of the other on the subject of the Prophet.
Billy was a good safe human creature, with the tang of the soil about
him, and no wizard power of making his presence felt when one's back
was turned. Emeline kept her gray eyes directed towards him, and
talked about his day's work and the trouble of ploughing with oxen. She
was delicately and sensitively made, with a beauty which came and

went like flame. Her lips were formed in scarlet on a naturally pale face.
Billy Wentworth considered her weakly. He preferred the robust arm
outlined by Roxy's homespun sleeve. And yet she had a sympathetic
knowledge of men which he felt, without being able to describe, as the
most delicate flattery.
The King of Beaver approached Emeline. She knew she could not
escape the interview, and continued tying vines to the cedar palisades
while the two young islanders drew joyfully away to another part of the
garden. The stable and barn-yard were between garden and cabin. Long
variegated fields stretched off in bands. A gate let through the cedar
pickets to a pasture where the cows came up to be milked. Bees
gathering to their straw domes for the night made a purring hum at the
other end of the garden.
"I trust you are here to stay," said Emeline's visitor.
"I am never going back to Detroit," she answered. He understood at
once that she had met grief in Detroit, and that it might be other grief
than the sort expressed by her black garment.
"We will be kind to you here."
Emeline, finishing her task, glanced over her shoulder at him. She did
not know how tantalizingly her face, close and clear in skin texture as