Evelyn Raymond - A Daughter of the Forest

It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and his brief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad of spirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestion of cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed aside his rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the pine.

“Why, it’s easy! It’s grand!” he called back and went up swiftly enough.

Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance. Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected by great spikes driven into the trunk and he had but to clasp these in turn to make a safe ascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shaded his eyes and peered northward.

“He’s coming! Somebody’s coming!” he shouted. “There’s a little boat pushing off from that other shore.”

Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself and called a bit of praise from Margot.

“I’m so glad you can climb. One can see so much more from the tree-tops; and, oh! there is so much, so much to find out all the time! Isn’t there?”

“Yes. Decidedly. One of the things I’d like to find out first is who you are and how you came here. If you’re willing.”

Then he added, rather hastily: “Of course, I don’t want to be impertinently curious. It only seems so strange to find such educated people buried here in the north woods. I don’t see how you live here. I – I – ”

But the more he tried to explain the more confused he grew, and Margot merrily simplified matters by declaring:

“You are curious, all the same, and so am I. Let’s tell each other all about everything and then we’ll start straight without the bother of stopping as we go along. Do sit down and I’ll begin.”

“Ready.”

“There’s so little, I shan’t be long. My dear mother was Cecily Dutton, my Uncle Hugh’s twin. My father was Philip Romeyn, uncle’s closest friend. They were almost more than brothers to each other, always; though uncle was a student and, young as he was, a professor at Columbia. Papa was a business man, a banker, or a cashier in a bank. He wasn’t rich, but mamma and uncle had money. From the time they were boys uncle and papa were fond of the woods. They were great hunters, then, and spent all the time they could get up here in northern Maine. After the marriage mamma begged to come with them, and it was her money bought this island, and the land along the shore of this lake as far as we can see from here. Much farther, too, of course, because the trees hide things. They built this log cabin and it cost a great, great deal to do it. They had to bring the workmen so far, but it was finished at last, and everything was brought up here to make it – just as you see.”

“What an ideal existence!”

“Was it? I don’t know much about ideals, though uncle talks of them sometimes. It was real, that’s all. They were very, very happy. They loved each other so dearly. Angelique came from Canada to keep the house and she says my mother was the sweetest woman she ever saw. Oh! I wish – I wish I could have seen her! Or that I might remember her. I’ll show you her portrait. It hangs in my own room.”

“Did she die?”

“Yes. When I was a year old. My father had passed away before that, and my mother was broken-hearted. Even for uncle and me she could not bear to live. It was my father’s wish that we should come up here to stay, and Uncle Hugh left everything and came. I was to be reared ‘in the wilderness, where nothing evil comes,’ was what both my parents said. So I have been, and – that’s all.”

Adrian was silent for some moments. The girl’s face had grown dreamy and full of a pathetic tenderness as it always did when she discussed her unknown father and mother, even with Angelique. Though, in reality, she had not been allowed to miss what she had never known. Then she looked up with a smile and observed:

“Your turn.”

“Yes – I – suppose so. May as well give the end of my story first – I’m a runaway.”

“Why?”

“No matter why.”

“That isn’t fair.”

He parried the indignation of her look by some further questions of his own. “Have you always lived here?”

“Always.”

“You go to the towns sometimes, I suppose.”

“I’ve never seen a town, except in pictures.”

“Whew! Don’t you have any friends? Any girls come to see you?”

“I never saw a girl, only myself in that poor broken glass of Angelique’s; and, of course, the pictured ones – as of the towns – in the books.”

“You poor child!”

Margot’s brown face flushed. She wanted nobody’s pity and she had not felt that her life was a singular or narrow one, till this outsider came. A wish very like Angelique’s, that he had stayed where he belonged, arose in her heart, but she dismissed it as inhospitable.

“I’m not poor. Not in the least. I have everything any girl could want and I have – uncle! He is the best, the wisest, the noblest man in all the world. I know it, and so Angelique says. She’s been in your towns, if you please. Lived in them and says she never knew what comfort meant until she came to Peace Island and us. You don’t understand.”

Margot was more angry than she had ever been, and anger made her decidedly uncomfortable. She sprang up hastily, saying:

“If you’ve nothing to tell, I must go. I want to get into the forest and look after my friends there. The storm may have hurt them.”

She was off down the mountain, as swift and sure-footed as if it were not a rough pathway that made him blunder along very slowly. For he followed, at once, feeling that he had not been “fair,” as she had accused, in his report of himself; and that only a complete confidence was due these people who had treated him so kindly.

“Margot! Margot! Wait a minute! You’re too swift for me! I want to – ”

Just there he caught his foot in a running vine, stumbled over a hidden rock, and measured his length, head downward, on the slope. He was not hurt, however, though vexed and mortified. But when he had picked himself up and looked around the girl had vanished.

“Hoo-ah! Yo-ho! H-e-r-e! This – way!”

Adrian followed the voice. It led him aside into the woods on the eastern slope, and it was accompanied by an indescribable babel of noises. Running water, screaming of wild fowl, cooing of pigeons, barking of dogs or some other beasts, cackling, chattering, laughter.

All the sounds of wild life had ceased suddenly in the tree-tops, as Adrian approached, recognizing and fearing his alien presence. But they were reassured by Margot’s familiar summons, and soon the “menagerie” he had suspected was gathered about her.

“Whew! It just rains squirrels – and chipmunks – and birds! Hello! That’s a fawn. That’s a fox! As sure as I’m alive, a magnificent red fox! Why isn’t he eating the whole outfit? And – Hurra!”

To the amazement of the watcher there came from the depths of the woods a sound that always thrills the pulses of any hunter – the cry of a moose-calf, accompanied by a soft crashing of branches, growing gradually louder.

“So they tame even the moose – these wonderful people! What next!” and as Adrian leaned forward the better to watch the advance of this uncommon “pet,” the “next” concerning which he had speculated also approached. Slowly up the river bank, stalked a pair of blue herons, and for them Margot had her warmest welcome.

“Heigho, Xanthippé, Socrates! What laggards! But here’s your breakfast, or one of them. I suppose you’ve eaten the other long ago. Indeed, you’re always eating, gourmands!”