Rolf in the Woods Part 44

"Oh, G.o.d of my fathers," Quonab used to pray, "when I reach the Happy Hunting, let it be ever the Leaf-falling Moon, for that is the only perfect time." And in that unmarred month of sunny sky and woodlands purged of every plague, there is but one menace in the vales. For who can bring the glowing coal to the dry-leafed woods without these two begetting the dread red fury that devastates the hills?

Who can bring the fire in touch with tow and wonder at the blaze? Who, indeed? And would any but a dreamer expect young manhood in its growing strength, and girlhood just across the blush-line, to meet in daily meals and talk and still keep up the brother and sister play? It needs only a Virginia on the sea-girt island to turn the comrade into Paul.

"Marta, I tink dot Rolf an Annette don't quarrel bad, ain't it?"

"Hendrik, you vas von blind old bat-mole," said Marta, "I fink dat farm next ours purty good, but Rolf he say 'No Lake George no good.' Better he like all his folk move over on dat Hudson."

Chapter 86. The New Era of Prosperity

As November neared and his leave of absence ended, Rolf was himself again; had been, indeed, for two weeks, and, swinging fork or axe, he had helped with many an urgent job on the farm.

A fine log stable they had rolled up together, with corners dovetailed like cabinet work, and roof of birch bark breadths above the hay.

But there was another building, too, that Rolf had worked at night and day. It was no frontier shack, but a tall and towering castle, splendid and roomy, filled with loved ones and love. Not by the lake near by, not by the river of his choice, but higher up than the tops of the high mountains it loomed, and he built and built until the month was nearly gone. Then only did he venture to ask for aid, and Annette it was who promised to help him finish the building.

Yes, the Lake George sh.o.r.e was a land of hungry farms. It was off the line of travel, too. It was neither Champlain nor Hudson; and Hendrik, after ten years' toil with barely a living to show, was easily convinced. Next summer they must make a new choice of home. But now it was back to Plattsburg.

On November 1st Rolf and Quonab reported to General Macomb. There was little doing but preparations for the winter. There were no prospects of further trouble from their neighbours in the north. Most of the militia were already disbanded, and the two returned to Plattsburg, only to receive their honourable discharge, to be presented each with the medal of war, with an extra clasp on Rolf's for that dauntless dash that spiked the British guns.

Wicked war with its wickedness was done at last. "The greatest evil that can befall a country," some call it, and yet out of this end came three great goods: The interstate distrust had died away, for now they were soldiers who had camped together, who had "drunk from the same canteen"; little Canada, until then a thing of shreds and sc.r.a.ps, had been fused in the furnace, welded into a young nation, already capable of defending her own. England, arrogant with long success at sea, was taught a lesson of courtesy and justice, for now the foe whom she had despised and insulted had shown himself her equal, a king of the sea-king stock. The unnecessary battle of New Orleans, fought two weeks after the war was officially closed, showed that the raw riflemen of Tennessee were more than a match for the seasoned veterans who had overcome the great Napoleon, and thus on land redeemed the Stars and Stripes.

The war brought unmeasured material loss on all concerned, but some weighty lasting gains to two at least. On December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed and the long rides were hung up on the cabin walls.

Nothing was said in the treaty about the cause of war--the right of search. Why should they speak of it? If a big boy bullies a smaller one and gets an unexpected knockdown blow, it is not necessary to have it all set forth in terms before they shake hands that "I, John, of the first part, to wit, the bully, do hereby agree, promise, and contract to refrain in future forevermore from bullying you, Jonathan, of the second part, to wit, the bullied." That point had already been settled by the logic of events. The right of search was dead before the peace was born, and the very place of its bones is forgotten to-day.

Rolf with Quonab returned to the trapping that winter; and as soon as the springtime came and seeding was over, he and Van Trumper made their choice of farms. Every dollar they could raise was invested in the beautiful sloping lands of the upper Hudson. Rolf urged the largest possible purchase now. Hendrick looked somewhat aghast at such a bridge-burning move. But a purchaser for his farm was found with unexpected promptness, one who was not on farming bent and the way kept opening up.

The wedding did not take place till another year, when Annette was nineteen and Rolf twenty-one. And the home they moved to was not exactly a castle, but much more complete and human.

This was the beginning of a new settlement. Given good land in plenty, and all the rest is easy; neighbours came in increasing numbers; every claim was taken up; Rolf and Hendrik saw themselves growing rich, and at length the latter was thankful for the policy that he once thought so rash, of securing all the land he could. Now it was his making, for in later years his grown-up sons were thus provided for, and kept at home.

The falls of the river offered, as Rolf had foreseen, a n.o.ble chance for power. Very early he had started a store and traded for fur. Now, with the careful savings, he was able to build his sawmill; and about it grew a village with a post-office that had Rolf's name on the signboard.

Quonab had come, of course, with Rolf, but he shunned the house, and the more so as it grew in size. In a remote and sheltered place he built a wigwam of his own.

Skook.u.m was divided in his allegiance, but he solved the puzzle by dividing his time between them. He did not change much, but he did rise in a measure to the fundamental zoological fact that hens are not partridges; and so acquired a haughty toleration of the cackle-party throng that a.s.sembled in the morning at Annette's call. Yes, he made even another step of progress, for on one occasion he valiantly routed the unenlightened dog of a neighbour, a "cur of low degree," whose ideas of ornithology were as crude as his own had been in the beginning.

All of which was greatly to his credit, for he found it hard to learn now; he was no longer young, and before he had seen eight springs dissolve the snow, he was called to the Land of Happy Hunting, where the porcupine is not, but where hens abound on every side, and there is no man near to meddle with his joy.

Yet, when he died, he lived. His memory was kept ever green, for Skook.u.m Number 2 was there to fill his room, and he gave place to Skook.u.m 3, and so they keep their line on to this very day.

Quonab Goes Home

The public has a kind of crawlin' common-sense, that is always right and fair in the end, only it's slow--Sayings of Si Sylvanne.

Twenty years went by. Rolf grew and prospered. He was a man of substance and of family now; for store and mill were making money fast, and the little tow-tops came at regular intervals.

And when the years had added ripeness to his thought, and the kind G.o.ds of gold had filled his scrip, it was that his ampler life began to bloom. His was a mind of the best begetting, born and bred of ancient, clean-blooded stock; inflexibly principled, trained by a G.o.d-fearing mother, nurtured in a cradle of adversity, schooled in a school of hards.h.i.+p, developed in the big outdoors, wise in the ways of the woods, burnt in the fire of affliction, forced into self-reliance, inspired with the lofty inspiration of sacrificial patriotism--the good stuff of his make-up shone, as s.h.i.+nes the gold in the fervent heat; the hard blows that prove or crush, had proved; the metal had rung true; and in the great valley, Rolf Kittering was a man of mark.

The country's need of such is ever present and ever seeking. Those in power who know and measure men soon sought him out, and their messenger was the grisly old Si Sylvanne.

Because he was a busy man, Rolf feared to add to his activities. Because he was a very busy man, the party new they needed him. So at length it was settled, and in a little while, Rolf stood in the Halls of Albany and grasped the hand of the ancient mill-man as a colleague, filling an honoured place in the councils of the state.

Each change brought him new activities. Each year he was more of a public man, and his life grew larger. From Albany he went to New York, in the world of business and men's affairs; and at last in Was.h.i.+ngton, his tall, manly figure was well known, and his good common-sense and clean business ways were respected. Yet each year during hunting time he managed to spend a few weeks with Quonab in the woods. Tramping on their ancient trapping grounds, living over the days of their early hunts; and double zest was added when Rolf the second joined them and lived and loved it all.

But this was no longer Kittering's life, rather the rare precarious interval, and more and more old Quonab realized that they were meeting only in the past. When the big house went up on the river-bank, he indeed had felt that they were at the parting of the ways. His respect for Nibowaka had grown to be almost a wors.h.i.+p, and yet he knew that their trails had yearly less in common. Rolf had outgrown him; he was alone again, as on the day of their meeting. His years had brought a certain insight; and this he grasped--that the times were changed, and his was the way of a bygone day.

"Mine is the wisdom of the woods," he said, "but the woods are going fast; in a few years there will be no more trees, and my wisdom will be foolishness. There is in this land now a big, strong thing called 'trade,' that will eat up all things and the people themselves. You are wise enough, Nibowaka, to paddle with the stream, you have turned so the big giant is on your side, and his power is making you great. But this is not for me; so only I have enough to eat, and comfort to sleep, I am content to watch for the light."

Across the valley from the big store he dwelt, in a lodge from which he could easily see the sunrise. Twenty-five years added to the fifty he spent in the land of Mayn Mayano had dimmed his eye, had robbed his foot of its spring, and sprinkled his brow with the winter rime; but they had not changed his spirit, nor taught him less to love the pine woods and the sunrise. Yes, even more than in former days did he take his song-drum to the rock of wors.h.i.+p, to his idaho--as the western red man would have called it. And there, because it was high and the wind blew cold, he made a little eastward-facing lodge.

He was old and hunting was too hard for him, but there was a strong arm about him now; he dimly thought of it at times--the arm of the fifteen-year-old boy that one time he had s.h.i.+elded. There was no lack of food or blankets in the wigwam, or of freedom in the woods under the sun-up rock. But there was a hunger that not fa.r.s.eeing Nibowaka could appease, not even talk about. And Quonab built another medicine lodge to watch the sun go down over the hill. Sitting by a little fire to tune his song-drum, he often crooned to the blazing skies. "I am of the sunset now, I and my people," he sang, "the night is closing over us."

One day a stranger came to the hills; his clothes were those of a white man, but his head, his feet, and his eyes--his blood, his walk, and his soul were those of a red Indian of the West. He came from the unknown with a message to those who knew him not: "The Messiah was coming; the deliverer that Hiawatha bade them look for. He was coming in power to deliver the red race, and his people must sing the song of the ghost-dance till the spirit came, and in a vision taught them wisdom and his will!"

Not to the white man, but to the lonely Indian in the hill cleft he came, and the song that he brought and taught him was of a sorrowing people seeking their father.

"Father have pity on us! Our souls are hungry for Thee. There is nothing here to satisfy us Father we bow to Thy will."

By the fire that night they sang, and prayed as the Indian prays--"Father have pity and guide us." So Quonab sang the new song, and knew its message was for him.

The stranger went on, for he was a messenger, but Quonab sang again and again, and then the vision came, as it must, and the knowledge that he sought.

None saw him go, but ten miles southward on the river he met a hunter and said: "Tell the wise one that I have heard the new song. Tell him I have seen the vision. We are of the sunset, but the new day comes. I must see the land of Mayn Mayano, the dawn-land, where the sun rises out of the sea."

They saw no more of him. But a day later, Rolf heard of it, and set out in haste next morning for Albany. Skook.u.m the fourth leaped into the canoe as he pushed off. Rolf was minded to send him back, but the dog begged hard with his eyes and tail. It seemed he ought to go, when it was the old man they sought. At Albany they got news. "Yes, the Indian went on the steamboat a few days ago." At New York, Rolf made no attempt to track his friend, but took the Stamford boat and hurried to the old familiar woods, where he had lived and suffered and wakened as a boy.

There was a house now near the rock that is yet called "Quonab's." From the tenants he learned that in the stillest hours of the night before, they had heard the beating of an Indian drum, and the cadence of a chant that came not from throat of white man's blood.

In the morning when it was light Rolf hastened to the place, expecting to find at least an Indian camp, where once had stood the lodge. There was no camp; and as he climbed for a higher view, the Skook.u.m of to-day gave bristling proof of fear at some strange object there--a man that moved not. His long straight hair was nearly white, and by his side, forever still, lay the song-drum of his people.

And those who heard the mournful strains the night before knew now from Rolf that it was Ouonab come back to his rest, and the song that he sang was the song of the ghost dance.

"Pity me, Wahkonda. My soul is ever hungry. There is nothing here to satisfy me, I walk in darkness; Pity me, Wahkondal."