When Wilderness Was King | Page 4

backwoods; and after my father's accident I became the one upon whom the heavier part of the work fell. I had truly thrived upon it. In my hunting-trips, during the dull seasons, I learned many a trick of the forest, and had already borne rifle twice when the widely scattered settlements were called to arms by Indian forays. There were no schools in that country; indeed, our nearest neighbor was ten miles distant as the crow flies. But my mother had taught me, with much love and patience, from her old treasured school-books; and this, with other lore from the few choice volumes my father clung to through his wanderings, gave me much to ponder over. I still remember the evenings when he read to us gravely out of his old Shakespeare, dwelling tenderly upon passages he loved. And he instructed me in other things,--in honor and manliness, in woodcraft, and many a pretty thing at arms, until no lad in the settlements around could outdo me in rough border sport. I loved to hear him, of a boisterous winter night,--he spoke of such matters but seldom,--tell about his army life, the men he had fought beside and loved, the daring deeds born of his younger blood. In that way he had sometimes mentioned this Roger Matherson; and it was like a blow to me now to hear of his death. I wondered what the little girl would be like; and my heart went out to her in her loneliness. Scarcely realizing it, I was lonely also.
"Has he spoken yet?" I questioned anxiously of my mother, as I came up to the open kitchen door when the evening chores were done.
"No, John," she answered, "he has been sitting there silently looking out at the woods ever since the man left. He is thinking, dear, and we must not worry him."
The supper-table had been cleared away, and Seth, the hired man, had crept up the creaking ladder to his bed under the eaves, before my father spoke. We were all three together in the room, and I had drawn his chair forward, as was my custom, where the candle-light flickered upon his face. I knew by the look of calm resolve in his gray eyes that a decision had been reached.
"Mary," he began gravely, "and you, John, we must talk together of this new duty which has just come to us. I hardly know what to decide, for we are so poor and I am now so helpless; yet I have prayed earnestly for guidance, and can but think it must be God's will that we care for this poor orphan child of my old friend."
My mother crossed the room to him, and bent down until her soft cheek touched his lips.
"I knew you would, David," she whispered, in the tender way she had, her hand pressing back his short gray hair. "She shall ever be unto us as our own little girl,--the one we lost come back to us again."
My father bent his head wearily upon one hand, his eyes upon the candle flame, his other hand patting her fingers.
"It must be all of ten years," he said slowly, "since last I had word of Roger Matherson. He was in Canada then, yet has never since been long out of my mind. He saved my life, not once alone, as he would seem to remember, but three separate times in battle. We were children together in the blue Berkshire hills, and during all our younger manhood were more than brothers. His little one shall henceforth be as my own child. God hath given her unto us, Mary, as truly as if she had been born of our love. I knew that Roger had married, yet heard nothing of the birth of the child or the loss of his wife. However, from this hour the orphan is to be our own; and we must now decide upon some safe means of bringing her here without delay."
He paused. No one of us spoke. His glance slowly wandered from the candle flame, until it settled gravely upon my face as I sat resting on a rude bench fitted into the chimney corner. He looked so intently at me that my mother seemed instantly to interpret his thought.
"Oh, surely not that, David?" she exclaimed, pleadingly. "Not John?"
"I know of no other fit messenger, little woman," he answered soberly. "It has indeed troubled me far more than all the rest, to decide on this; yet there is no one else whom I think equal to the task. John is a good boy, mother, and has sufficient experience in woodcraft to make the journey."
"But the savages!" she insisted. "'T is said we are upon the verge of a fresh outbreak, stirred up by this new war