Chapter II

It was Sunday in Canaan--Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few friends since his return.

A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life. The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.

For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again. A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.

It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions of her. We can find conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her, there was preëminently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more, from the ivory [v]ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and slender foot-print she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.

He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see the harmony of the things she wore. Her dress and hat and gloves and parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen overspreading the western slope. Under the summer hat her very dark hair swept back over the temples with something near trimness in the extent to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach to trimness, after all, was the true key to the mystery of the lady who appeared to Joe.

She was to pass him--so he thought--and as she drew nearer, his breath came faster. And then he realized that something wonderful was happening to him.

She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to her; a great and unaccountable shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat, trying not to clear his throat--his everyday sense urging upon him that she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way.

"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blushing, meaning to finish with "direct you," or "show you the way."

Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest sight of life. The lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and overfilled.

"I'll sit here on the log with you," she said. "You don't need to dust it!" she went on, tremulously. And even then he did not know who she was.

There was a silence, for if the dazzled young man could have spoken at all, he could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would not trust her own voice just then. His eyes had fallen again; he was too dazed, and, in truth, too panic-stricken now, to look at her. She was seated beside him and had handed him her parasol in a little way which seemed to imply that, of course, he had reached for it, so that it was to be seen how used she was to have all such things done for her. He saw that he was expected to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the catch and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to break or tear it; and, as it closed, held near his face, he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy [v]emanation from it like wild roses and cinnamon.

"Do you know me?" asked the lady at last.

For answer he could only stare at her, dumfounded; he lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly. Her manner underwent an April change. She drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious low laugh he had ever heard.

"I'm glad you're the same, Joe!" she said. "I'm glad you're the same, and I'm glad I've changed, though that isn't why you have forgotten me."

He arose uncertainly and took three or four backward steps from her. She sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had ever seen; but between him and this charming vision there swept, through the warm, scented June air, the dim picture of a veranda all in darkness and the faint music of violins.

_"Ariel Tabor!"_

"Isn't it about time you were recognizing me?" she said.

* * * * *

Sensations were rare in staid, dull, commonplace Canaan, but this fine Sunday morning the town was treated to one of the most memorable sensations in its history. The town, all except Joe Louden, had known for weeks that Ariel Tabor was coming home from abroad, but it had not seen her. And when she walked along the street with Joe, past the Sunday church-returning crowds, it is not quite truth to say that all except the children came to a dead halt, but it is not very far from it. The air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings.

Joe had not known her. The women recognized her, [v]infallibly, at first sight; even those who had quite forgotten her. And the women told their men. Hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the procession, for few towns held it more unseemly to stand and stare at passers-by, especially on the Sabbath. But Ariel Tabor had returned.

A low but increasing murmur followed the two as they proceeded. It ran up the street ahead of them; people turned to look back and paused, so that Ariel and Joe had to walk round one or two groups. They had, also, to walk round Norbert Flitcroft, which was very like walking round a group. Mr. Flitcroft was one of the few (he was waddling home alone) who did not identify Miss Tabor, and her effect upon him was extraordinary. His mouth opened and he gazed [v]stodgily, his widening eyes like sun-dogs coming out of a fog. Mr. Flitcroft experienced a few moments of trance; came out of it stricken through and through; felt nervously of his tie; resolutely fell in behind, and followed, at a distance of some forty paces, determined to learn what household this heavenly visitor honored, and thrilling with the intention to please that same household with his own presence as soon and as often as possible.

Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the extent of their conspicuousness; but it was not the blush that Joe remembered had reddened the tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone long ago, though it had not left her merely pink and white. There was a delicate rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples, as the earliest dawn rises.

Joe kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world. Although he had only a dim perception of the staring and whispering which greeted and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon disappeared.

Ariel paused before the impressive front of Judge Pike's large mansion. Joe's face expressed surprise.

"Don't you know?" she said. "I'm staying here. Judge Pike has charge of all my property. Come to see me this afternoon."

With a last charming smile, Ariel turned and left the dazed young man on the sidewalk.

That walk was but the beginning of her triumph. Judge Pike's of a summer afternoon was the swirling social center of Canaan, but on that particular Sunday afternoon every unattached male in the town who possessed the privilege of calling at the big house appeared. They filled the chairs in the wide old-fashioned hall where Ariel received them, and overpoured on the broad steps of the old-fashioned spiral staircase, where Mr. Flitcroft, on account of his size, occupied two steps and a portion of a third. And Ariel was the center of it all! BOOTH TARKINGTON.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

I. Describe Ariel's pitiful attempts at beautifying herself when
dressing for the dance. When did she realize her failure? How were
her anticipations of the dance realized? What kind of girl was
Mamie Pike? Give reasons for your answer. At what point were you
most sorry for Ariel? With what startling news did the evening end?

II. Give an account of the meeting between the old playmates.
Describe the scenes as they walked along the street. What do you
think was the greatest part of Ariel's "triumph?" Was she spoiled
by her wealth? How do you know?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Little Women--Louisa M. Alcott.
Pride and Prejudice--Jane Austen.

FOOTNOTE:

[141-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.

THE CLOUD

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain;
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;
It struggles and howls at fits.
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the [v]genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
The spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

I am the daughter of the earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when, with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,--
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
I rise and unbuild it again.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Make a list of the things the cloud does. Read aloud the lines in
which the poet tells of each of these. Why is lightning spoken of
as the pilot of the cloud? Where does it sit? Where is the thunder?
How is the cloud "the daughter of the earth and water"? How "a
nursling of the sky"? Explain "I change, but I cannot die." A
cenotaph is a memorial built to one who is buried elsewhere. Why
should the clear sky be the cloud's cenotaph? How does the
reappearing of the cloud unbuild it?

NEW ENGLAND WEATHER

There is a [v]sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours. It was I who made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens from all climes. I said, "Don't do it; just come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. As to variety, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare, weather to hire out, weather to sell, weather to deposit, weather to invest, and weather to give to the poor.

Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy and thoroughly deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region. See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then see his tail drop. _He_ doesn't know what the weather is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something like this: "Probable northeast to southwest winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between; high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning." Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime." Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is certain to be plenty of weather, but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first.

But, after all, there are at least two or three things about that weather (or, if you please, the effects produced by it) which we residents would not like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries--the ice storm. Every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white like the [v]Shah of Persia's diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and flash with all manner of colored fires; which change and change again, with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold. The tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels, and it stands there the [v]acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong. Month after month I lay up hate and grudge against the New England weather; but when the ice storm comes at last I say: "There, I forgive you now; you are the most enchanting weather in the world."

MARK TWAIN.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Mark Twain's humor was noted for exaggeration. Find examples of
exaggeration in this selection. Old Probabilities was the name
signed by a weather prophet of the period. How was he affected by
New England weather? At what point did Twain drop his fun and begin
a beautiful tribute to a New England landscape? How does the
tribute close?

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Three Men in a Boat--Jerome K. Jerome.
The House Boat on the Styx--John Kendrick Bangs.

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping fields and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new roofed with Carrara
Came chanticleer's muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
That noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good All-Father
Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snowfall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar on our deep-plunged woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall."

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

When did the snow begin? How do you know? What time is it now? Is
snow still falling? Read the lines that show this. Of what sorrow
does the snow remind the poet? Read the lines which show that peace
had come to the parents. Make a list of the comparisons (or
similes) used by the poet. Read the lines which show that the storm
was a quiet one. Which lines do you like best?

OLD EPHRAIM

For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods, and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young bulls; but after several days' hunting, we were still without any game worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I had ever seen a bear alive.

Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. One day we had separated; I reached camp early in the afternoon, and waited a couple of hours before Merrifield put in an appearance.

At last I heard a shout, and he came in sight galloping at speed down an open glade, and waving his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he announced that he had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick; and not of black bear either, but of grizzly. The black bear (the only one we got on the mountains) he had run across by accident.

Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp at once, and go over to the spot where the bear-tracks were plentiful. Next morning we were off, and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a valley with steep, wooded sides.

That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a fine bull elk. I came home alone toward nightfall, walking through a reach of burnt forest, where there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black mold. When nearly through it I came across the huge, half-human footprints of a great grizzly, which must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave me rather an eery feeling in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the first time the unmistakable proofs that I was in the home of the mighty lord of the wilderness.

That evening we almost had a visit from one of the animals we were after. Several times we had heard at night the musical calling of the bull elk--a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. This particular night, when we were in bed and the fire was smoldering, we were roused by a ruder noise--a kind of grunting or roaring whine, answered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It was a bear which had evidently not seen the fire, as it came from behind the bank, and had probably been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it made out what we were, it stayed round a short while, again uttered its peculiar roaring grunt, and went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out into the woods, but in the darkness could see nothing; indeed it was rather lucky we did not stumble across the bear, as he could have made short work of us when we were at such a disadvantage.

Next day we went off on a long tramp through the woods and along the sides of the canyons. There were plenty of berry bushes growing in clusters; and all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. But the grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great liking for [v]carrion. On visiting the place where Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found that the grizzlies had been there before us, and had utterly devoured the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a scrap was left, and we turned our steps toward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was quite late in the afternoon when we reached the place.

A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night, for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and leaves--the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that he does not at the moment need.

The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines, which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound. The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and then by the strange noises always to be heard in the great pine forests.

We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.

Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the spot where we knew the carcass lay. "Old Ephraim" had come back to the carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him; but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.

Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected, found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these mountains had evidently been little disturbed; indeed, the Indians and most of the white hunters are rather chary of meddling with "Old Ephraim," as the mountain men style the grizzly. The bears thus seemed to have very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the bed of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far away.

My companion was a skillful tracker, and we took up the trail at once. For some distance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine needles, and the footprints were quite easily made out, although we could follow them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp look-out ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on in the somber half-light always prevailing under the great pine trees.

After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten path made by the elk; the woods were in many places cut up by these game trails, which had often become as distinct as ordinary footpaths. The beast's footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had lumbered along up the path until near the middle of the hillside, where the ground broke away and there were hollows and boulders. Here there had been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across one another in all directions; while between and around them sprouted up a thick growth of young spruces and other evergreens. The trail turned off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain we should find our quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs; and we advanced with noiseless caution.

When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there, not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us.

Then he saw us and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the huge beast fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the distance had been measured.

The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight of the game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the grizzly did not have time to show fight. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any I have seen since. As near as we could estimate, he must have weighed above twelve hundred pounds.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States from 1901 to
1909, was one of the greatest hunters of the present generation. As
he was in weak health as a young man, he went West and lived for
some time the life of a ranchman and hunter, killing much wild
game. In later years he went on a great hunting trip to Africa, and
finally explored the wilds of the Amazon river, in South America,
in search of game and adventure. "Old Ephraim" narrates one of his
earlier hunting experiences, and is taken from the book, _The
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_.

Give an account of the capture of the grizzly bear. Why did not
Merrifield fire? Compare the weight of the bear with that of the
average cow or horse. Tell of any bear hunt of which you know.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Watchers of the Trail--Charles C. D. Roberts.
Monarch, the Bear--Ernest Thompson Seton.
Wild Animals I Have Known--Ernest Thompson Seton.
African Game Trails--Theodore Roosevelt.

MIDWINTER

The speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow;
Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.

But cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree;
The snow sails round him as he sings,
White as the down of angels' wings.

I watch the slow flakes as they fall
On bank and briar and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

On turf and curb and bower-roof
The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden-walk;
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily-leaves.

All day it snows: the sheeted post
Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
All day the blasted oak has stood
A muffled wizard of the wood;
Garland and airy cap adorn
The sumach and the wayside thorn,
And clustering spangles lodge and shine
In the dark tresses of the pine.

The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
In [v]surplice white the cedar stands,
And blesses him with priestly hands.

Still cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree:
But in my inmost ear is heard
The music of a holier bird;
And heavenly thoughts as soft and white
As snow-flakes on my soul alight,
Clothing with love my lonely heart,
Healing with peace each bruised part,
Till all my being seems to be
Transfigured by their purity.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

When did this storm begin? Read lines which show this. Give reasons
for your answer. What comparisons are used by the poet in
describing the snowfall? Which comparison do you like best? What
healing thought does the storm bring to the poet? Compare it with
the same thought in _The First Snowfall_.

A GEORGIA FOX HUNT[177-*]