The Young Trailers | Page 9

ate for dinner and the
antlers were fastened over the fireplace, as the first important hunting
trophy won by the eldest son of the house.
Henry did not boast much of his triumph, although he noticed with

secret pride the awe of the children. His best friend, Paul Cotter, openly
expressed his admiration, but Braxton Wyatt, a boy of his own age,
whom he did not like, sneered and counted it as nothing. He even cast
doubt upon the reality of the deed, intimating that perhaps Ross or Sol
had fired the shot, and had allowed Henry to claim the credit.
Henry now felt incessantly the longing for the wilderness, but, for the
present, he helped his father furnish their house. It was too late to plant
crops that year, nor were the qualities of the soil yet altogether known.
It was rich beyond a doubt, but they could learn only by trial what sort
of seed suited it best. So they let that wait a while, and continued the
work of making themselves tight and warm for the winter.
The skins of deer and buffalo and beaver, slain by the hunters, were
dried in the sun, and they hung some of the finer ones on the walls of
the rooms to make them look more cozy and picturesque. Mrs. Ware
also put two or three on the floors, though the border women generally
scorned them for such uses, thinking them in the way. Henry also
helped his father make stools and chairs, the former a very simple task,
consisting of a flat piece of wood, chopped or sawed out, in which three
holes were bored to receive the legs, the latter made of a section of
sapling, an inch or so in diameter. But the baskets required longer and
more tedious work. They cut green withes, split them into strips and
then plaiting them together formed the basket. In this Mrs. Ware and
even the little girl helped. They also made tables and a small stone
furnace or bake-oven for the kitchen.
Their chief room now looked very cozy. In one corner stood a bedstead
with low, square posts, the bed covered with a pure white counterpane.
At the foot of the bedstead was a large heavy chest, which served as
bureau, sofa and dressing case. In the center of the room stood a big
walnut table, on the top of which rested a nest of wooden trays, flanked,
on one side, by a nicely folded tablecloth, and on the other by a butcher
knife and a Bible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a set of
shelves set into the logs, and on these shelves were the blue-edged
plates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs. Ware had
received long ago from her mother. The furniture in the remainder of

the house followed this pattern.
The heaviest labor of all was to extend the "clearing"; that is, to cut
down trees and get the ground ready for planting the crops next spring,
and in this Henry helped, for he was able to wield an ax blow for blow
with a grown man. When he did not have to work he went often to the
river, which was within sight of Wareville, and caught fish. Nobody
except the men, who were always armed, and who knew how to take
care of themselves, was allowed to go more than a mile from the
palisade, but Henry was trusted as far as the river; then the watchman
in the lookout on top of the highest blockhouse could see him or any
who might come, and there, too, he often lingered.
He did not hate his work, yet he could not say that he liked it, and,
although he did not know it, the love of the wild man's ways was
creeping into his blood. The influence of the great forests, of the vast
unknown spaces, was upon him. He could lie peacefully in the shade of
a tree for an hour at a time, dreaming of rivers and mountains farther on
in the depths of the wilderness. He felt a kinship with the wild things,
and once as he lay perfectly still with his eyes almost closed, a stag,
perhaps the brother to the one that he had killed, came and looked at
him out of great soft eyes. It did not seem odd at the time to Henry that
the stag should do so; he took it then as a friendly act, and lest he
should alarm this new comrade of the woods he did not stir or even
raise his eyelids. The stag gazed at him a few moments, and then,
tossing his great antlers, turned and walked off in a graceful and
dignified way through the woods.