Schaick Van - The Peace of Roaring River

“Ay tank you’re de gal is going ofer to Hugo Ennis,” he said, in a deep, pleasant voice.

She opened her mouth to answer but the words refused to come. Her mouth felt unaccountably dry–she could not swallow. But she nodded her head in assent.

“I took de telegraft ofer to his shack,” the Swede further informed her, “but Hugo he ain’t here yet. I tank he come soon. Come inside de vaiting-room or you freeze qvick. Ain’t you got skins to put on?”

She shook her head and he grasped her bag with one hand and one of her elbows with the other and hurried her into the little station. Joe Follansbee had a redhot fire going in the stove, whose top was glowing. The man pointed at a bench upon which she could sit and stood at her side, shaving tobacco from a big black plug. She decided that his was a reassuring figure and that his face was a good and friendly one.

“Do you think that–that Mr. Ennis will come soon?” she finally found voice to ask.

“Of course, ma’am. You yoost sit qviet. If Hugo he expect a leddy he turn up all right, sure. It’s tvelve mile ofer to his place, ma’am, and he ain’t got but one dog.”

She could not quite understand what the latter fact signified. What mattered it how many dogs he had? She was going to ask for further explanation when the door opened and the young woman who had peeped at her came in. She was heavily garbed in wool and fur. As she cast a glance at Madge she bit her lips. For the briefest instant she hesitated. No, she would not speak, for fear of betraying herself, and she went to the window of the little ticket-office.

“Anything for us, Joe?” she asked.

“No. There’s no express stuff been left,” he answered. “Your stuff’ll be along by freight, I reckon. Wait a moment and I’ll give you the mail-bag.”

“You can bring it over. It–it doesn’t matter about the goods.”

She turned about, hastily, and nodded to big Stefan. Then she peered at Madge again, with a sidelong look, and left the waiting-room.

As so often happens she had imagined this woman who was coming as something entirely different from the reality. She had evolved vague ideas of some sort of adventuress, such as she had read of in a few cheap novels that had found their way to Carcajou. In spite of the mild and timid tone of the letters she had prepared to see some sort of termagant, or at least a woman enterprising, perhaps bold, one who would make it terribly hot for the man she would believe had deceived her and brought her on a fool’s errand. This little thin-faced girl who looked with big, frightened eyes was something utterly unexpected, she knew not why.

“And–and she ain’t at all bad-looking,” she acknowledged to herself, uneasily. “She don’t look like she’d say ‘Boo’ to a goose, either. But then maybe she’s deceiving in her looks. A woman who’d come like that to marry a man she don’t know can’t amount to much. Like enough she’s a little hypocrite, with her appearance that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. And my! The clothes she’s got on! I wonder if she didn’t look at me kinder suspicious. Seemed as if she was taking me in, from head to foot.”

In this Miss Sophy was probably mistaken. Madge had looked at her because the garb of brightly-edged blanketing, the fur cap and mitts, the heavy long moccasins, all made a picture that was unfamiliar. There was perhaps some envy in the look, or at least the desire that she also might be as well fended against the bitter cold. She had the miserable feeling that comes over both man and woman when feeling that one’s garments are out of place and ill-suited to the occasion. Once Madge had seen a moving-picture representing some lurid drama of the North, and some of the women in it had worn that sort of clothing.

Big Stefan had lighted his pipe and sought a seat that creaked under his ponderous weight. He opened the door of the stove and threw two or three large pieces of yellow birch in it.

“Guess it ain’t nefer cold vhere you comes from,” he ventured. “You’ll haf to put on varm tings if you goin’ all de vay to Roaring Rifer Falls.”

“I’m afraid I have nothing warmer than this,” the girl faltered. “I–I didn’t know it was so very cold here. And–and I’m nicely warmed up now, and perhaps I won’t feel it so very much.”

“You stay right here an’ vait for me,” he told her, and went out of the waiting-room, hurriedly. But he opened the door again.

“If Hugo he come vhile I am avay, you tell him I pring youst two three tings from my voman for you. I’m back right avay. So long, ma’am!”

She was left alone for at least a quarter of an hour, and it reminded her of a long wait she had undergone in the reception-room of the hospital. Then, as now, she had feared the unknown, had shivered at the thought that presently she would be in the hands of strange people who might or not be friendly, and be lost among a mass of suffering humanity. Twice she heard the runners of sleighs creaking on the ground, and her heart began to beat, but the sounds faded away. Joe, the station agent, came in and asked her civilly whether she was warm enough, telling her that outside it was forty below. Wood was cheap, he told her, and he put more sticks in the devouring stove. After she had thanked him and given him the check for her little trunk he vanished again, and she listened to the telegraph sounder.

Stefan, returning, was hailed at the door of the store by Sophy McGurn.

“Who’s the strange lady, Stefan?” she asked, most innocently.

“It’s a leddy vhat is expectin’ Hugo Ennis,” he answered.

“How queer!” said the girl, airily.

“Ay dunno,” answered the Swede. “Vhen Hugo he do a thing it ain’t nefer qveer, Ay tank.”

She turned away and Stefan stepped over to the depot and opened the door. Madge looked up, startled and again afraid. It was a relief to her to see Stefan’s friendly face. She had feared… She didn’t know what she dreaded so much–perhaps a face repellent–a man who would look at her and in whose eyes she might discern insult or contempt.

The big Swede held an armful of heavy clothing.

“Ye can’t stay here, leddy,” he said. “You come ofer to my house since Ennis he no coming. Dese clothes is from my ole vomans. Mebbe ye look like–like de dooce in dem, but dat’s better as to freeze to death. An you vants a big breakfass so you goes vid me along. Hey dere! Joe! If Ennis he come you tell him come ofer to me, ye hear?”

A few minutes later Madge was trudging over the beaten snow by the side of her huge companion. Her head was ensconced within the folds of a knitted shawl and over her thin cloak she wore an immense mackinaw of flaming hues whose skirts fell ’way below her knees. Over her boots, protestingly, she had drawn on an amazing pair of things made of heavy felt and ending in thick rubber feet, that were huge and unwieldy. Her hands were lost in great scarlet mitts. It is possible that at this time there was little feminine vanity left in her, yet she looked furtively to one side or the other, expecting scoffing glances. She felt sure that she looked like one of the fantastically-clad ragamuffins she had seen in the streets of New York, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But the pair met but one or two Indian women who wore a garb that was none too æsthetic and who paid not the slightest attention to them, and a few men who may possibly have wondered but, with the instinctive civility of the North, never revealed their feelings.

As a matter of fact she had hardly believed in this cold, at first. The station agent’s announcement had possessed little meaning for her. There was no wind; the sun was shining brightly now; during the minute she had remained on the station platform she had felt nothing unusual. As a matter of fact she had enjoyed the keen brisk air after the tepid stuffiness of the cars. But presently she began to realize a certain tingling and sharp quality of the air. The little of her face that was exposed began to feel stiff and queer. Even through the heavy clothing she now wore she seemed to have been plunged in a strange atmosphere. For an instant, after she finally reached Stefan’s house, the contrast between the cold outside and the warm living-room, that was also the kitchen, appeared to suffocate her.