Far in the forest

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Introduction

Very many years before the great war, the forest counties of Northern Pennsylvania which border on New York and are watered by the Alleghany, Sinnemahoning, and Clarion were vast forest-lands, little disturbed as yet by the axe or the plough. Roads were few and bad. Railways were unknown. Here and there a primitive mill, driven by water-power, sawed out the planks needed for a scant and widely-scattered population. In the winter lumbering-parties were busy near the greater streams, and in the spring a few rafts found their way down to the Ohio or on the other side of the “ divide” to the Susquehanna.

Along the rivers, at rare intervals, a log cabin, and, still farther apart, a group of houses known as a town, made up, with the lumber-camps, all that there was of human habitation. The lands had been taken up years before the date of my tale, by a few settlers, chiefly from New England or Eastern Pennsylvania, in the hope that the wealth of coal beneath the soil would one day enrich them, when the iron roads should give access to the lake. Among these pioneers were some

INTRODUCTION.

vigorous, enterprising men, but for the most part they were waifs and strays whom civilization had disappointed. A few who came into the woods together were Swedenborgians. These mysterious woodlands suited them. Regarded by their neighbors as strange beings, they lived on, patiently waiting for the better earthly good which did not come. The majority had no religion, or what they had had faded away in the absence of churches, and their schoolless children grew up strong as young pines in that untainted air. In these deep woods, untroubled by courts of justice, a more dangerous and smaller class found a sanctuary into which no avenging law pursued their steps. 'With lessened temptations and sufficient work, fish in the streams, and game in the woods, life was adventurous enough to suit their tastes, and not too difficult. Hence, serious crime was rare, and these rough exiles from the cities were less troublesome than in more conventional communities. For grave offences the law of the woods was swift enough, and sometimes even too thoughtlessly swift, in its vengeance. On the whole, the tone of this widely-scattered and sparse population was right-minded and just. A certain manliness was the common gift. Caste was unknown. Physical strength and skill with axe or rifle were valued as they must needs be in such a life. Newspapers were rarely seen, and politics troubled no man.

Three years before the date of my story, Elizabeth Preston had found her way with her husband into the wilderness. A great stress was upon

INTRODUCTION.

her. In body and mind she was for the time worn out. When but seventeen she had married, and, as was thought, married well. Her husband was rich. They had all that men desire. A few years in our growing land would bring their acres near Hew York and about Albany to such values as would make them feel at ease concerning the remote future.

Paul Preston was a man who was joyous and companionable because fate had never given him cause to be otherwise, and had the restless vivacity of slightly-constructed character. Men of this type resemble in a measure certain immature feminine natures, and have a like attractiveness. But the easily pleased possess the seeds of danger in their facile temperaments. Pain in all its forms is as near as pleasure, and far more potent to influence. The terrible intimacy of marriage soon taught his young wife some sharp lessons. She saw as others had seen that he was always too near unhappiness, and soon learned that he would go to any length to escape annoyance or avoid discomfort. This temperament simply dooms a man if by mischance pain becomes for any length of time a fact with which he has to deal. Ho man who has not fought this demon knows how many other devils he brings with him into the house of torment. From them Paul Preston shrunk morally disabled. A brief but painful malady taught him how easy it is to escape from pain by the aid of sedatives. For such men there is no to-morrow. Renewed attacks of disease served to fasten on him the habit which of all

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evil habits is most easily made and most hard to break, — the constant resort to opium. Once created, it found in Paul Preston’s nature that which made it impossible to escape even when the awful bribe of pain was gone.

Against this foe of heart and head, — for to both it is fatal, — Elizabeth Preston fought the losing fight which a resolute and high-minded young woman wages in the interest of a weak masculine nature. It were vain to dwell on a tale so common. His property disappeared almost mysteriously. Trusts in his keeping became embarrassed and were taken from him. At last she knew with amazement what it was to want. Next she learned how surely all morals wilt in the presence of the habit he had acquired. He became at last a passive, inert being, and she the controlling force. Resolute to make one last effort at reform, she induced him, with a certain ease which amazed her, to spend a summer on a great tract of land in Northern Pennsylvania, which was almost the last unembarrassed possession left to her. Once in the woods, the autumn found them with so little means that to stay was easier than to leave, and so the years had run along and by degrees she had settled down to make the best of a bad business. She thought, and rightly, that in the wilderness he would be unable to secure easily the needed drugs; but she failed to calculate on the other foe which is apt to become the craving of the disappointed opium-eater. Whiskey was only too plenty about the logging-camps. To this he took kindly and fatally, and, enfeebled

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by sedatives and repeated disease, fell an easy prey.

She found their first summer in the woods not altogether unpleasant. There were at least no social pretences to sustain, no heedless questions to answer, and life was altogether gratefully unconventional. But, as time went on, new and unlookedfor difficulties arose and troubled the overweighted woman. In his native city, Paul Preston had had more or less amusement and occupation ; but in the woods he had none, and this was a matter the thoughtful young wife had failed to anticipate. He cared nothing for the manly sports the land offered, and spent his time lounging about in the lumber-camps with a low class of men, leaving to his wife the burden of looking after their ruined affairs and of making such provision for their comfort as was possible. By degrees she became accustomed to take the place of both, and to direct the men employed to build their cabin and clear their fields. As to her husband, she learned each week a new lesson of despair, as things went from bad to worse. At last, by degrees, he took to his bed, a feeble, selfish invalid. Doctors there were none, and, had there been any, they would have been useless to Paul.

When laid up in bed and wanting his accustomed stimulus, a very mild bribe procured it, and Mrs. Preston found it vain to remonstrate with the silent woman whom lack of enterprise alone induced to remain with them. She had come for a week, and had never had the energy to do more than merely

INTRODUCTION.

talk of leaving, when reproached by her mistress for her willingness to supply the vicious wants of the husband. At last he ceased abruptly to care for his habitual stimulus, a fatal signal of decline. Elizabeth Preston saw but too clearly how near was the end.

FAR IN THE FOREST.

Chapter I

The snows of a grim February evening were falling in the fine flakes which predict a long storm. On the broad acres of a clearing above the Alleghany River they lay thick already upon the deep accumulations of a severe winter. Here and there the furious wind had blown away the drifting masses and set, black against the whiteness, sharp outlines of burned or mouldered stumps. Beyond the snake fence on either side, but thinner towards the river, stood dense forests of pine, cherry, beech, and birch, weighted with cumbering masses of snow which fell at times as the wind roared through the shaken trees.

A well-built and unusually ample log cabin stood in the centre of the clearing. On one side the drifts sloped up to the eaves and lay piled in loose, evershifting heaps under the shed which crossed the front of the house above the door-way. Save for a little smoke blown straight away from two chimneys of stone, and a dim light from one window, the scene was comfortless and devoid of signs of life. Presently the door opened, and a tall woman came out and, trampling down the snow, stood and looked across the lonely clearing. She drew long

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breaths of the sharp, dry, exhilarating air. Then she walked to the end of the porch where the drifts were least heavy, and, leaning against a pillar, stood motionless, as if too deep in thought to feel the intense cold. In a few minutes a small rotund person partly opened the door and put out her head.

“ He’s waked up now,” she said. “ Best come in. It’s powerful chilly.”

“ I will be there in a minute,” returned the woman. “ This outside air is such a help, and I am so tired, Becky.”

“ It won’t rest you none to git yer ears frost-bit, and I’m that wore out with keepin’ awake, I’ve just got to lie down if I’m to keep on spellin’ you.”

“ I will come,” said Mrs. Preston. “ Is he any easier ?”

“ Ho, ma’am ; he’s a-rollin’ over and groanin’. How he’s a-callin’. ”

Mrs. Preston went in.

The storm outside had gone from bad to worse. The snow sifted through the chinks under door and window, and without, the wind howled, scurrying around the lonely cabin.

Sadly watching her husband’s uneasy sleep, she sat late into the night, at times thinking of the remorseless past, at times rising to warm herself at the fire, where Becky was snoring, her chin on her breast. Of a sudden Mrs. Preston turned. Was it a sound of human life she heard? It seemed unlikely.

The rare ox-roads were lost to view, and travel was next to impossible except on snow-shoes, while within the cabin death was drawing near with swift and certain steps. Suddenly she roused herself.

“ What’s that, Becky ? Becky !” The woman looked up. “ I heard some one knock. Listen,” added the tired wife.

“ Oh, it ain’t nobody.”

Both sat down again, but in a few minutes Bessy Preston, as she had been called in her happier days, arose and took a candle, saying, “ Keep awake till I come back. It must be some one. I heard it again. There ! There ! Some one called.”

“ Well, you won’t be easy till you see,” said the abrupt Becky.

Mrs. Preston left the room, hearing as she went the loud breathing of the failing man. Crossing the larger apartment, she glanced at her boy, asleep on a mattress in the corner. The wind found entry at a dozen half-closed chinks and under the door, flaring her candle as she guarded it with her hand. She set it down on the table, and opened the door with difficulty. The wild wind rushing in sent the snow over her in clouds, and put out the light, as a heavy form seated propped against the door fell inward across the threshold. Seeing dimly by the blown light of the huge logs flaring on the hearth that it was a man, she bent over and tried to drag him into the room. Unable to succeed, she called Becky, and together they drew him before the fire. As the great logs cast their blaze on his face, the women saw glazed eyes, a long yellow moustache, purple lips, a face unlike any they knew, haggard with the set look of swiftly-coming death.

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“ Quick, Becky ! Bring a bucket of snow.” Bessy loosened bis necktie, and cast off a fur cloak from his shoulders, then pulled off his gloves, and, with help from Becky, his long gaiter moccasins, observing that around one of them were the deer thongs of the snow-shoes which he had apparently lost in the drifts. Then they rubbed his hands and feet with snow, and at last got down his throat an ample dose of whiskey. At intervals he drew a long breath, and, half an hour later, suddenly opened, shut, and reopened his eyes, and began to breathe steadily. At last he spoke.

“Wo bin ich?”

“ What’s that ?” said Becky.

“ He is a German. There,” leaning over him, “ you are safe.”

“Ach ! Ich bin im Himmel.”

“ Can you speak English ?”

“ Ach, why not ? Where am I ? I cannot see yet.”

“ You are safe. I am Mrs. Preston. You are in my house.”

“ Thank you. Ah, how comfortable it is !”

“ It might be that Ryverus. I heerd tell of him,” said Becky.

“ Hush ! I suppose so,” said the mistress. They continued to aid him, and at last he was able to rise, take off his coat, and sit up in a chair. His face was still haggard, his limbs tremulous.

“ You are Mrs. Preston,” he said, after a little. “I am John Riverius. I started to go over from one logging-camp to another, and lost first my way and then my snow-shoes, and now but for you my

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life had gone too. IIow can 1 thank you, madam ?” Unmistakably he was a gentleman, and the words of one of her own class, to which she had long been unused, affected her strangely.

“Keep thanks for to-morrow, Mr. Riverius.” ( “ What a curious name !” she thought.) “ Becky will get you some supper. A shake-down in front of the fire is the best I can offer. And now, good-night. I must go to my husband. He is very ill. Good-night.”

He stood up with some little difficulty, took her hand, and, bending over, touched it with his lips. “ My lands !” said Becky, with the undisguised critical freedom of the woods. The German turned on her a slight look which made her uncomfortable for a moment, she hardly knew why. Then he smiled, as if remembering his near peril and the womanly help both had given. The look of haughty impatience passed like a shadowing cloud.

“Ach, madam, if I am forbid to say my thanks, I shall at least be grateful in my dreams.”

“ Certainly it is out of my power to prevent that,” Mrs. Preston answered, smiling. Then she passed into the adjoining room, whence came through the chinky partition the sound of long hoarse respirations and at times the suppressed tones of the watcher.

Bessy had been very weary an hour before, but now the sudden fresh call upon her energies, the enlivenment of pity, fearful expectation, sense of power to rescue, had strangely tuned anew the relaxed energies to possibility of healthy responses.

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Had the aided man been of the rough woodsmen she knew so well, the task would have been as gladly and as perfectly done, but there would have been lacking the little flavpr of interested curiosity as to the person helped. His was a type quite new to her, but there are mysterious shibboleths by which well-bred women assign men to their true social place. A man of Bessy Preston’s class would have tardily reached her conclusion — in a day or two.

She sat down by Paul Preston’s bedside, saw him sleep again, and, musing, went over anew the scene in which she had taken part. Suppose she had not heard. A half-hour more, and rescue would have been impossible. She shuddered. It had been a really great effort to get up and go to the door. Months of sad exertion, days of tears, entreaties, nights of watching, had brought her to the danger-verge of serious physical exhaustion. Years of vain unrewarded struggle had subdued her. A half-hour’s sudden success had sent through her an arousing sense of competence and renewed her faith in effort. For the time it left her very happy. To give always made her joyful, and she had, too, the royal and more rare capacity to receive with dignity. She was herself aware that she was by nature proud, — too reserved, she had always said, — would have liked, she suspected, to be even haughty had her gentler part permitted the luxury of such indulgence. It may have been so, but an immense appetite for loving had ever perplexed her reserve. An eager helpfulness was part of her

FAR IN THE FOREST.

nature. Where she loved, and when she gave or aided, a certain pleasant simplicity made it appear graciously natural to those on whom her bounty of heart or her more material givings chanced to fall. She had the child’s unspeculative generosity. The man outlives the boy. The girl is apt to survive as an essential part of the best womanly life.

As Bessy Preston sat with a little innocent feeling of romance in her mind as to the incident which had just excited her, John Riverius was devouring his bacon and hard-tack with the voracity of a wolf. Meanwhile, Becky, having provided for his wants, deliberately seated herself and watched him with curiosity. She treated Mrs. Preston with a fair share of consideration, but for no one else had she the slightest regard, and she was simply a sturdy, domestic animal, who recognized but one mistress, and did her duty somewhat inefficiently.

“ Is the Herr Preston very ill ?” said Riverius.

“ Who ?” said Becky.

“ Oh ! Mr. Preston.”

“ Him !” returned Becky, pointing to the sick man’s room. “ Paul Preston. Yes, he’s took bad this time. He won’t be no loss, neither.” Becky saw no cause for reticence.

Despite his knowledge of the utter frankness of the woods, Riverius had a slight sense of amused amazement. Then he reflected a moment, and said, softly, —

“ Is he going to die ?”

“ He won’t if he can help it; but he is. There ain’t much of him left to die with.”

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The oddity of the phrase struck the German. “ What does the doctor say ?”

“ Doctor ! lie ain’t got none. He’s just a-dyin’.”

“Do you mean that you two women are alone here with a dying man and with no other help ?”

“ There’s little Paul, and he ain’t no good yet. He’s too small. Phil Richmond was here three days back, and Myry she’d come too, if the snow’d git harder. I’m goin’ myself then. It’s too much work, and they say help’s wanted bad down river, Pittsburg way.”

“Acli,” said the German, rising to warm his stiff back at the fire. “ I haven’t thanked you yet, Becky.”

“ Oh, it weren’t no trouble. I’d ’most as lief rub your legs as split wood.”

He laughed quietly. “ Look here, Becky,” and he cast a bright gold eagle in her lap, “ you must not go away. Once a week I shall give you a thing like that, for a month, we will say, and after that we can talk again.”

Becky looked at the coin, turned it over, tied it up in the corner of an unwholesome-looking yellow silk handkerchief, and put it in the sanctuary of her bosom. “ I’ll bide a bit,” she said, and made no further comment on the matter. “ Got all you was wantin’ ? I’m to spell her till mornin’,” she added, pointing to the bedroom, and, so saying, disappeared by the door which opened into the sick man’s chamber.

A moment later she came back, and, putting only her round head through the door, said succinctly,--

FAR IN THE FOREST.

“ She says you ken smoke here if you’ve a mind to, or in the kitchen ; ’tain’t no difference.”

He rose at the words, as if to the personal presence of the woman whose message he received.

“ Mrs. Preston is very good, — very thoughtful. How thinks she of others thus much in her own trouble ! I will, with her good permission, smoke in the kitchen.”

“ Don’t you upset the clothes-horse. Ther’s things a-dryin’.”

“ I shall be careful.”

The head disappeared, and the door was closed with needless noise. Looking about him with a queer sense of puzzle, he took in the interior, — the birch-barked wall, warm in ruddy brown colors, the two silver candlesticks on the mantel. He picked up one, and, caught by a mark below the crest, brought out a loupe from his pocket and examined it with the interest of a connoisseur. “ The Dutch Lion and the arms of Leyden. About 1700, one would say.” And he set it down with a certain tenderness. Then he noticed a print by Raphael Morghen, and, candle in hand, glanced at it a moment, muttering, “ Waste of a good engraver on a poor picture at best.” Next he looked over the small row of books, and, choosing one, took it with him into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Undoubtedly there did appear to be clothes-horses and innumerable garments on chair-backs and pegs, so that a peculiar dampness pervaded the air, which was at a tropic temperature owing to a big fire recently renewed. Seeing no chair unoccupied by

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some fashion of clothing, he sat down on the floor, with his back against a pile of logs, and carefully filled an ample meerschaum which he handled with lover-like care. He was immensely, deliciously comfortable.

“ Himmel !” he said to himself, “just as one gets used to doing without luxury and life gets simple and wants grow less, one is set face to face with an unanswerable problem. And what can one do? Much obliged to you, madam, and go away. Becky is such a simple creditor. She can be paid. Why does a man hate an obligation? And I, of all men? I, Johann Riverius, I go. I am lost to her life, and there, eternally, is this debt carrying the interest of every agreeable thing I shall ever do or see or hear in the next fifty years, if I live as long as my fathers.” He disliked obligations, — why, he would have found it hard to say. Long training in selfreliance had bred a sturdy trust in his own competence to deal with whatever might turn up. He would have hated to think that he undervalued human help because its need implied in him some lack of prudence, forethought, or force.

Yet this was vaguely in his mind just now. “ I might have known the risk,” he thought. Then he figured to himself death, and two weak women struggling for victory, the field of contest his weak inert body. There was for Riverius a sense of humiliation in the matter. He faintly recalled his desire to resist as he had realized the idea that they were rubbing his feet and hands. At last he emptied the ashes from his pipe and stood up, a

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tall, soldierly-looking man of some thirty-two years. “ What can an honest man give for a life ?” he reflected. “ What would it fetch, and in what coin be paid for ? Good constitution, slightly damaged by cold. Ach !” and he laughed outright, “ I would hid it in pretty high.” Then he opened the door, saw the shake-down on the floor, and, without undressing, put his head on his folded fur coat, now dry, and was soon happily out of reach of the problem which his pipe had failed to help him solve.

Chapter II

Riverius rose early next day, went out and drew water from the well, and found in the drift at the door his knapsack, and, so aided, made his brief toilet. The storm was over, the sun out, the air sharp and cold. Everywhere the drifts were deep, and travel, even with snow-shoes, was difficult, and without them out of the question.

Mrs. Preston met him as he came in. She looked worn and pallid from her night-watch. “ Good-morning. I hope you feel no ill effects from your freeze. One has to be careful in these woods.”

“ I am very well,” he answered, “ and so used to the country that I ought to be ashamed of the trouble I caused.”

“ It was no great trouble. I really was the better for it. The necessity for sudden physical exertion sometimes helps one. You must make yourself as comfortable as you can until the crust gets hard or we can find you snow-shoes.”

“ I am afraid that you are right. Ah ! is this your boy ?” he added, as a lad of nine entered from the back door.

“Come here, Paul,” she said. “This is Mr. Riverius, a gentleman who will be with us a day or two. You must take care of him. I cannot leave your father long alone.” Riverius liked it that she gave no explanation of how he had come.

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The boy came forward frankly and welcomed the stranger with a queer, boyish sense of being the host. In a few minutes they were talking of the drifts, and the German was describing to Paul a glacier, and chamois-hunting. Mrs. Preston stood for a little while and listened, but presently was summoned by Becky and went back to her husband. Then the German said, “Has your father been long ill ?”

“ Yes, sir, a good while. Mother says he is very sick, and Becky says he is going to die. Do you think he will die ?”

Riverius glanced at him with fresh interest. He was tall and neatly built, with promise of strength, and had the cloud-blue eyes of the mother.

“ I do not know, my lad. What is it that he has ? What sickness ?”

Paul knew but too well. He colored. “ Mother knows. I don’t rightly understand, sir.”

“ Ah !” exclaimed Riverius, quickly. “ I can ask her. Perhaps I may be of some use.”

“ Shall I call her?”

“ Ho, — oh, no. Presently I will talk to her.”

“ Here is breakfast.”

The German stopped his hostess as she passed through the room an hour later. “Pardon me,” he said, “ but I have travelled much, and know a little medicine. Let me see your husband.”

“ Ah, if you would !” she said, eagerly. “ Come in ; come in. He won’t know. He is worse.” He followed her and stood by the bed, took the cold hand, felt the colder feet, and looked up, drawing

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back a pace from the bed. She glanced at him inquiringly. He shook his head slowly. She understood.

“ Is he dying?”

“ It will not be long. lie suffers not now.”

At intervals Paul Preston ceased to breathe, then drew a deep draught of air, and then a less and a lesser, with regardless eyes staring up at the log rafters. By and by he moved uneasily, revived a little, and put forth a hand, which fell on that of Riverius resting on the bedside. The dying man shut his damp fingers on it, muttering words which Riverius could not understand. Both of the lookerson saw the mistake, but neither stirred. “Ah,” said Bessy, catching the meaning of the broken phrases. The words called back to the woman her young life, its gradual extinction of joy, of energy, and at last of hope. Then she turned to the bed and stood with one palm on the moist brow, and, as if forgetful of any other presence, said aloud, “ Thank God, I never failed! Oh, Paul, Paul, did you ever know ”

The German drew away quietly and walked to the fireplace. In a few moments she crossed the room to him.

“ I think he must be dead. ’Will you see ?” He had been dead to her long before. There are such living corpses in many homes. She sat down and stared dully into the fire, while the chance-comer stood by the bed and was about to close the set eyes. Suddenly she was beside him.

“ Oh, no, no ! I ! I ! Ho one else !” And tremulously but resolutely she did for the dead the little needful office.

Riverius went out. In the kitchen he met Becky. “ He is gone,” he said.

The next day the drifts were firmer, and a man from a cabin across the river was sent oft* for help, and two or three woodsmen came in from a lumbercamp. Later in the morning, as Riverius stood at the door in the sun with Paul, he saw crossing the clearing a tall man and a large, fair woman, both on snow-shoes.

“ Who is that ?” said the German.

“ Oh, that’s Philetus Richmond ; he’s blind. Sometimes he works here. Miriam’s with him. She’s his wife. They live down the river a bit, a good bit back. — Where’s Phely?” he said to the woman, as they came nearer.