Chapter XIII

A STRANGE VISITOR.—THE MAN IN THE CHIMNEY CORNER.

THE cabin which the Willards had appropriated was built of massive logs, through which was an occasional loophole. For when the first pioneers took possession of the soil, the log houses were constructed so as to be fortresses upon occasion. Later comers, being less suspicious of their copper-colored neighbors, did not provide against hostilities which they expected not.

But the walls of the cabin, beaten upon by sun and storm, had shrunken till wide seams let the prairie winds—accustomed to their own way, unchecked by obstacles—through and through the dilapidated structure, whistling as they went, to express their contempt for the architectural excrescence. The zephyr, just from touching with a respectful kiss the beautiful prairie flowers, would pucker up its lips and dart through the unsightly building with a "w-h-e-w!" as if ashamed of being seen in so poor an abode. And it must be confessed that a log house does not compare well with the blossoming verdure amid which it squats. Still, human beings, unlike wild flowers, must have a house over their heads, and the homely loggery has been the home of many a soul worth more than worlds.

"I really believe," observed Mrs. Willard, next morning after their arrival at the cabin, "that I suffered more from the cold last night than I did sleeping in the wagon," and she shivered as she spoke. "I guess, boys, you will have to stop up the cracks in the walls, if you do not wish mother to get sick."

"We'll set about it to-day," manfully answered Ferdinand, entering.

"That's right," replied she, turning towards him with a pleased smile. "Why, what have you there, my son?"

"Partridges," responded he, proudly swinging them into view. "Last night, after all were asleep, and everything was still, I heard a rumbling sound in the grove. So, going noiselessly out of doors, I listened. Soon it was repeated, and I knew that it was a partridge drumming on a log to call its mate. At daybreak I was out hunting. Guess we will have a nice dinner to-day," he added, triumphantly.

"And we shall be indebted to your smartness for it," said aunt Esther.

"And now, Ferdinand, if you and Georgie will get me some wood, and make a fire, we will have breakfast."

"And I," remarked aunt Esther, "will pick and dress the partridges."

"Those fowl are worth much more than their value to us as food," observed Mrs. Willard, with emotion, as the boys left. "Notice Ferdinand; how cheerfully he steps off with shouldered axe! His dear father bore the burden in the care of the family, and it is a new thing for the boys to do much for themselves or us.

"But even the shooting of those birds has given Ferdinand a taste of the happiness of self-reliance. Perhaps this pioneering is destined to develop him into a useful man. Hear their axes! How enlivening the sound! I must run out and see how they manage."

The grove in which was the cabin was principally of oak. Among the leafy trees stood here and there one killed by prairie fires. Two of these—they were not large—the boys were falling. The wood of the dead trees was sound, dry, and exceedingly hard, and the task of cutting them down, and chopping them into suitable lengths, was none too easy.

"How bravely you get along!" exclaimed Mrs. Willard, quietly loading her arms with some or the smaller sticks.

And, notwithstanding Ferdinand cried out, "Don't do that, mother!" she carried them into the cabin.

But the boys quickly followed with lusty loads. Then they lugged in a huge backlog, and deposited it in the clay-stick-and-stone fireplace. More wood was added, and if the smoke did puff out into the room, ere long a merry fire was crackling, and tea-kettle and pot steaming.

"Chinking," or stopping up the cracks in the sides of the loggery, was a slower and more laborious job than the lads anticipated. The manner of accomplishing this, is to hew pieces of wood sufficiently narrow on one edge to enter the crevices; then, striking on the broad or outer part, they are driven closely in and nailed.

Oak being too hard to work, or even to secure, the nails often bending and breaking, the wood was so impervious, the boys chose poplar instead. This was soft and light, and proved just the thing. Several days elapsed, however, before the chinking had far advanced.

Next came "mortaring" the chinking. This, in a new country, is usually done with clay. The moist, tenacious earth is thrown violently, by the hand, between the logs.

"Jolly! I can do that," cried Georgie. "It will be like snowballing."

But he was glad to cease from the attempt. Nor did Ferdinand succeed much better. For strange as it may appear to the uninitiated, this style of mortaring requires a powerful arm and no little physical endurance.

One afternoon, as the brothers with lamed arms were ineffectually laboring at clay-balls, they heard behind them the snort of a horse. Turning, there sat a rider coolly watching, with an amused air, their endeavors.

"You are not exactly used to that business," he remarked, dismounting. "Here, I'll show you how."

And stripping off his coat, and rolling up his shirt-sleeves, displaying a massive arm, he scooped up the clay, and threw it with great precision and force.

"Now, boys," he went on in a complimentary manner, "you are bright enough for 'most anything, but you haven't the muscle for this. Besides, it wants practice."

And while they looked on, he continued mortaring and chatting, till quite a space was finished.

Meanwhile, the sun was declining. Suddenly it slipped off the edge of the prairie, and dropped from view.

For some time, the boys had been feeling uneasy. They saw the afternoon waning, and tea approaching, and then night. And the stranger—who was he? How he lingered—so keen and self-confident! Was he a fit person to invite into the cabin?

The mother and aunt were not unaware of this presence, and the former delayed supper, hoping he would leave. The boys, too, though thankful, at the outset, for his efficient assistance, grew more and more uneasy at his tarrying. On their part, therefore, conversation was confined to monosyllables.

But the volunteer worker in clay paid no heed to their reserve. Nor did he take any hints, however plain, about the lateness of the hour, or resent it when the dwarf, making his appearance, told him bluntly, and in a suspicious, domineering manner, that if he had far to travel, he had better start, as "they" couldn't keep him over night.

"Ah, 'tis a trifle late, youngster, as you remark," he mildly responded. "What a bright star that is low down there in the sky! I don't much wonder 'ef' you cud give the real name on't."

"I don't care about the star," retorted the Hunchback, wrathfully.

"When did you state you immigrated from the east?" asked the strange caller, seating himself on an oak stick.

"Mother," whispered the Hunchback, reentering the house, "that man is determined to stay here. I tried to send him away, but he will not budge an inch. It's the very fellow who came to us on the prairie, when you called Georgie."

"So I suspected," she replied, anxiously.

"We shall bar the door against him," said aunt Esther, firmly. "Frankie, you manage to sly the boys in, and we'll fasten the chap out."

"But he'll steal the horses," suggested the dwarf.

"I didn't think of that," she replied. "Mercy! He's heard every word!" she instantly exclaimed; for near the entrance was the subject of remark listening to their conversation.

The demonstration he had thus received that "listeners never hear any good of themselves," did not, however, disturb his equanimity.

Passing, uninvited, the forbidden threshold, he said, with unruffled audacity, holding up his begrimed hands,—

"'Ef' you will have the kindness, madam, to obleege me with a dish of water to rense off this sile! I jist thought I'd give yer boys a lift mor-tarin.' Heavy work that fer youngsters like them!"

The spinster, with stately dignity, poured water in a basin, and giving it to Georgie, he set it on a bench without the cabin.

"A cloth, ma'am, 'ef' yer please, ter dry me on," he said, putting his face within the door.

With freezing coldness, a towel was held towards him.

"Thank ye, ma'am," said he, rubbing his head dry. Then producing a pocket comb, he removed his hat, and turning his back on the women, proceeded to comb his hair, remarking,—

"Don't mind me, ma'am; I see yer tea is waitin'. An' the youngsters, no doubt, are hungry as pigs."

The Willards were, at this stage of affairs, convinced that they had met their match. On two trunks, arranged side by side, and covered with a cloth, waited the meal. What could they do?

"Perhaps you will eat with us," said Mrs. Willard, faintly, in an accent intended to elicit a refusal.

"Don't care ef I take a bite," brightly replied the repulsed guest. "I ain't a mite bashful among friends. Haven't tasted sich corn-dodgers for a month of Sundays. And that butter is a little the sweetest. May I ask, ma'am, ef it's yer own churnin'?" addressing the indignant spinster.

"No!" she emphatically replied.

"'Of' course not! Excuse me, ma'am. I might hev known from yer hands—so white an' delicate, that they'd never seen much 'tile.'"

Aunt Esther haughtily folded her hands in her apron, and lifted her eyebrows scornfully.

"Hands, ma'am," he calmly continued, "have a marster sight of meanin' to 'em. Here's one, for instance," laying his own on the table, "that was constructed for 'most anything—shootin', choppin', diggin', and, in circumstances of danger, say, fightin'. You see," said he, closing his fingers, "it's considerable of a fist, 'ef' I do say it."

And a latent threat seemed to his excited auditors to pervade his tone.

"A man that's got to 'knock' about the world has ter own a paw that can thread a needle or floor an elephant. But a lady,—" and here his voice was low and soft,—"who stays ter home, or goes to dances, or keeps school, don't need a power of bone an' sinew, no more'n she needs a man's thunderin' lungs. Show me a person's paw, male or female, an' ten ter one I ken tell jist what natur intended him fer.

"An' now, ladies," he observed, rising, "'ef' it will be no offence, I'll jist take a whif, ter keep off the 'dis'pepsy."

Then seating himself in a corner of the wide-mouthed fireplace, he drew some tobacco and a huge knife with a poniard-shaped blade from one pocket, then an oddly-carved pipe from another, and carefully cut up the weed, and filling the bowl, inserted the slender stem between his lips, and puffed in quiet.

What a still group was that, that evening! By the flickering firelight, the Willards could see that the dark eye of their unknown, self-invited visitor followed all their movements, while the uncertain glow that fell on his features reflected no satisfactory insight into his true character. Contradictory elements predominated in the strongly-marked countenance, the expression of which was remarkably under the control of its proprietor.

At one moment, Mrs. Willard would judge him to be a rough but honest specimen of the uncultured frontiersman; at the next, a shrewd villain who had assumed the pioneer manner and dialect for a bad purpose.

Whatever the surmises of the cabinites, the mysterious stranger smoked silently on, pouring in irregular alternation the smoke out first in a dense volume direct, then from the right corner of his mouth; next, from the left, and lastly in two simultaneous jets from his nostrils. And all this in the easiest, at home style conceivable, as if he of the pipe was owner of the premises, and smoking in that particular place and method a household institution.

Nine o'clock. Ten o'clock. He was still there. The boys stole out of doors, and engaged in earnest consultation, Georgie standing sentinel where he could report if the man left his seat.

"I shall order him off," said Frankie.

And with knit brow and threatening eye, approaching the intruder, he laid his puny hand upon the man's muscular knee, and said,—

"Come, mister, be starting; we can't accommodate you here!"

"Can't?" inquired the smoker, deliberately knocking the ashes from his pipe. "Let's see. Two rooms. One at the foot of the ladder, and one above. I'll jist peep inter the loft."

And calmly crossing the apartment, and supporting himself upon the strips of wood nailed, in lieu of a real ladder, against the logs, he peered into the attic.

"Good enough for a king," said he. "There are just six of us, countin' myself. I've known forty ter occupy one floor in a smaller cabin than this. No, youngster, you're not agwine ter set me afloat on the naked prairie at this 'on'reasonable hour. These ladies wouldn't permit sich barbarous proceedin', pervided 'I' was willin', which I am not. 'Twon't answer at the west to turn the cold shoulder on the benighted traveller that way. 'Ef' you're willin', ma'am," addressing Mrs. Willard, "I'll jist bring in my blanket, and roll myself up in it under the ruff!"

"We are not prepared—" began she.

"Never mind apologies, ma'am. I kin sleep 'beautiful' so. All I wants is a board—ef it isn't the softest that ever was!"

And fetching in a roll of blanketing, he tossed it upon the boards overhead, saying,—

"I'll jist take a peep inter the shed, an' see if there's a corner for my beast."

And loosening his splendid steed from the sapling to which it had been haltered, the stranger led him to the little stable, followed by Ferdinand and Georgie.

"Why, youngsters," said he, glancing in, "you don't turn yer critters in 'permiscuous'—do ye? It's a born mericle that they hadn't got ter kickin', and spilte one t'other afore now. We must fix some stalls ter keep them separate. Got an axe?"

Georgie brought one.

With singular handiness and celerity, he hewed some thick poles flatted at both ends, and with the strong nails from the wagon pouch, also carried to him by Georgie, he constructed three rude stalls for the horses, and tying his in the one farthest from the door, the brothers secured theirs in the remaining places.

It had been aunt Esther's custom, before retiring, to read aloud a portion of Scripture, and then the family repeated in unison the Lord's Prayer. When the trio returned, after stating their habit, she opened her gilt-edged pocket Bible, and read the fourth Psalm. As she concluded the last verse,—

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only
makest me dwell in safety—"

"There's no book like that," remarked their guest; and falling to his knees, he listened devoutly as the divinely-given petitions ascended.

"I shall sleep beautiful after that prayer," said he, as they arose; "it sounds natral."

Whether he was sincere or not in what he said, it is certain that the afflicted and lonely household was soothed and uplifted by their simple, unaffected service. On the solitary prairie, far from human succor, their hearts instinctively turned for protection to the ever-present Being who neither slumbers nor sleeps. And the two women retired, serenely committing themselves to the loving care of the infinite Helper and Preserver.

How much, however, their returning composure was due to the reverential deportment at prayers of their strange guest, I cannot decide. But Mrs. Willard whispered to her sister,—

"I am afraid we have been too suspicious of that man. Did you notice that he knelt with us?"

But aunt Esther doubtingly shook her head.

As for the boys, they did not ascend to their mattresses in the cabin garret, but camped beside their mother's bed, Ferdinand with an axe, and Georgie with the hatchet, while the dwarf sat in a dim corner, screened by trunks, with Ferdinand's gun ready loaded and capped. The three had resolved to watch till day. But soon the 'boarder' fell a snoring in so masterly and systematic a style, that Georgie drowsily whispered to Ferdie,—

"Guess you won't hear the partridges drum to-night!"

"Yes, I hear one now," replied Ferdie; "he's on that man's nose!"

And after a convulsive giggle, they both dropped asleep.

But the Hunchback kept guard.