Two Little Savages | Page 4

He knew that if he were to ask
permission he would be refused, but if he and Rad together were to go
it might receive favourable consideration on account of Rad's
self-asserted reputation for common sense. For a wonder, Rad was
impressed with the scheme, but was quite sure that they had "better not
go together to ask Father." He "could manage that part better alone,"
and he did.
Then they set to work. The first thing was to deepen the hole from three
feet to six feet everywhere, and get rid of the earth by working it back
under the floor of the house. There were many days of labour in this,
and Yan stuck to it each day after returning from school. There were
always numerous reasons why Rad could not share in the labour. When
the ten by fourteen-foot hole was made, boards to line and floor it were
needed. Lumber was very cheap--inferior, second-hand stuff was to be
had for the asking--and Yan found and carried boards enough to make
the workroom. Rad was an able carpenter and now took charge of the
construction. They worked together evening after evening, Yan
discussing all manner of plans with warmth and enthusiasm--what they
would do in their workshop when finished--how they might get a
jig-saw in time and saw picture frames, so as to make some money.
Rad assented with grunts or an occasional Scripture text--that was his
way. Each day he told Yan what to go on with while he was absent.
The walls were finished at length; a window placed in one side; a door
made and fitted with lock and key. What joy! Yan glowed with
pleasure and pride at the triumphant completion of his scheme. He
swept up the floor for the finishing ceremony and sat down on the
bench for a grand gloat, when Rad said abruptly:
"Going to lock up now." That sounded gratifyingly important. Yan

stepped outside. Rad locked the door, put the key in his pocket, then
turning, he said with cold, brutal emphasis:
"Now you keep out of my workshop from this on. You have nothing to
do with it. It's mine. I got the permission to make it." All of which he
could prove, and did.
* * * * *
Alner, the youngest, was eighteen months younger than Yan, and about
the same size, but the resemblance stopped there. His chief aim in life
was to be stylish. He once startled his mother by inserting into his
childish prayers the perfectly sincere request: "Please, God, make me
an awful swell, for Jesus sake." Vanity was his foible, and laziness his
sin.
He could be flattered into anything that did not involve effort. He fairly
ached to be famous. He was consuming with desire to be pointed out
for admiration as the great this, that or the other thing--it did not matter
to him what, as long as he could be pointed out. But he never had the
least idea of working for it. At school he was a sad dunce. He was three
grades below Yan and at the bottom of his grade. They set out for
school each day together, because that was a paternal ruling; but they
rarely reached there together. They had nothing in common. Yan was
full of warmth, enthusiasm, earnestness and energy, but had a most
passionate and ungovernable temper. Little put him in a rage, but it was
soon over, and then an equally violent reaction set in, and he was
always anxious to beg forgiveness and make friends again. Alner was
of lazy good temper and had a large sense of humour. His interests
were wholly in the playground. He had no sympathy with Yan's Indian
tastes--"Indians in nasty, shabby clothes. Bah! Horrid!" he would
scornfully say.
These, then, were his adjoining brothers.
What wonder that Yan was daily further from them.

IV
The Book
But the greatest event of Yan's then early life now took place. His
school readers told him about Wilson and Audubon, the first and last
American naturalists. Yan wondered why no other great prophet had
arisen. But one day the papers announced that at length he had
appeared. A work on the Birds of Canada, by ..., had come at last, price
one dollar.
Money never before seemed so precious, necessary and noble a thing.
"Oh! if I only had a dollar." He set to work to save and scrape. He won
marbles in game, swopped marbles for tops, tops for jack-knives as the
various games came around with strange and rigid periodicity. The
jack-knives in turn were converted into rabbits, the rabbits into cash of
small denominations. He carried wood for strange householders; he
scraped and scraped and saved the scrapings; and got, after some
months,