CHAPTER VIII

Peter awoke with the dawn, and with that dawn he saw Five Fingers rousing itself into life. All the sweetness of spring was in the air. The delicious morning song of the robins was the first cheering sound that came to him. It was like a beautiful chorus.

"A man cannot be so wicked that the song of a robin will not stir some good in his heart," Donald McRae had taught Peter. "God made that song to begin the day with, and only those buried in the darkness of cities cannot hear or understand the message. Always think kindly of people in the cities, Peter. They are unfortunate."

And Peter thought of that as he looked out of the window on the few log cabins at Five Fingers. He had never seen a real city, but here, with the rose-flush of the rising sun painting the eastern sky beyond the forests, was everything of beauty and glory his mind could conceive. "Here," he seemed to hear his father saying, "is God."

Silvery wreaths of smoke were rising from the stone and clay chimneys of Five Fingers. He heard the gulls and caught the flash of their white wings over[101] the Middle Inlet. Down there, too, was the squat, black tug owned by Aleck Curry's father—the tug which came up from Fort William three or four times a year to carry the lumber away. It was the one ugly thing he could see, and he was glad it did not belong at Five Fingers, and that Aleck Curry did not belong there. Already he was taking a possessive interest in the place, and his heart felt a gloating pride in the fact that he was a part of it, and Aleck Curry wasn't.

He saw men coming up from the bottoms, leading horses. A cheery whistle came to him clearly. The mill, nearly buried in its big yellow piles of sawdust, was only a little distance away, and a man was stoking the boiler with wood. The cloud of smoke that rose out of the tall stack was white and clean, and Peter knew how sweetly it smelled. He sniffed, trying to catch it. And then a wriggling creature came under his window and began making contortions as it looked up at Peter. It was Buddy, the pup. He was just the kind of dog Peter loved, all knots and knobs, with big feet and joints and a head twice too heavy for his body.

"He's growing," thought Peter, as he called down to him. "He's going to be a fine dog."

A few minutes later Poleon Dufresne passed Simon's cabin with a pail of milk and heard the Scotchman whistling. This was unusual, and he paused to thrust in a curious face at the door, smiling good morning. Simon was getting breakfast with an almost boyish[102] enthusiasm, and when Poleon saw Peter scrubbing his face his jaws fell apart in amazement.

"Morning, Poleon," greeted Simon. "This is Peter—Peter McRae, and I've adopted him. He's the son of an old friend of mine, and he came last night as a sort of surprise. He's going to bide with me."

This was a lot of information for Simon to give on any one subject at any one time, and Poleon came in with his pail, grinning his appreciation. He laid a hand affectionately on Peter's shoulder and told him how glad the people in Five Fingers would be to have him among them. Peter liked Poleon's round, rosy face with its cheery blue eyes, and when about to go Poleon turned a third of the contents of his pail into an earthenware crock and said to Peter:

"That's for you, boy. Simon here doesn't care for milk, but he must get plenty of it now for you. There's nothing like milk to make you fat and healthy."

It was Saturday. Peter learned that fact half an hour later while he was helping Simon wash the breakfast dishes. It came from a voice behind them, and Peter turned to find Mona standing in the door.

"It's Saturday and there is no school," she announced. "So I have come to get you acquainted with Five Fingers, Peter."

An enormous thrill ran through Peter. She was even lovelier than yesterday as she stood with her slim little figure framed in the doorway. Her beautiful dark eyes were shining, and looking at him, and her wonderful[103] black hair was plaited in a braid that looked like a rope of velvet. Even Simon's undemonstrative face broke into an appreciative smile.

Once he had told Pierre Gourdon it was not good for a child to be as beautiful as Mona. But a new thought came into his mind this morning, a strange and weird thought for a Scotchman of his nature, and he chuckled softly as he told Peter to wipe his hands and go with Mona. Then he went to her, and tilted up her pretty chin, and ran his hand over her smooth hair that was like silk to his work-hardened palm. He had never done that before, and Mona was surprised. She was surprised, too, at the changed look in his face and eyes. He seemed to be a different Simon McQuarrie from the one she had always known.

"So you helped Peter whip that young rascal Aleck Curry, did you?" he asked with a wicked note of exultation in his voice.

She flushed a little and cast a swift glance at Peter.

"Peter had him whipped when I went in," she replied loyally.

"No, I didn't," corrected Peter. "He was just going to mess me up in proper shape when you hit him with the stick. But I can lick him today."

Mona smiled proudly at him. Then she looked sternly at Simon.

"You killed one of my porcupines."

"I had to," explained Simon. "He was eating my axe. Peter will take him over to the cemetery for you."

[104]

He returned to his work and Peter and Mona went to the dead porcupine. Buddy was sniffing suspiciously at the corpse, and at sight of the red stains on the earth Mona shivered.

"He didn't need to kill it," she said. "I heard you call to him to let the white one go. He could have let this one go, too."

"You heard me?"

She nodded. "I saw the candle in your room until it went out. Then I sat at the window in the moonlight. I didn't feel like sleeping."

"Neither did I," said Peter, his heart beating strangely. "I—I was wondering if you were awake. Did you hear the lake?"

"I always hear it."

He picked up the dead porcupine, feeling that he had said something wrong. Mona took the other foot and together they carried their burden beyond the farthest cabin to a high little meadow at the foot of a green knoll. Here, Peter observed, were many scores of green little mounds, and many others over which the grass had not grown, and still others very fresh. And everywhere among them flowers were growing. Mona pointed out a spade, and he dug a hole. When the porcupine was buried, Mona said:

"That is the twenty-seventh this spring. I wonder why porcupines like cabin doors and windowsills and axes and table legs when there are so many nice things to eat in the woods?"

[105]

"It's the salt," explained Peter. "They like to eat anything somebody has handled. Once, when we were away, they ate our windows until all the glass fell out."

"I put salt in the woods, lots of it," said Mona. "The deer like it too, and the rabbits, and the mice, and almost everything alive except the birds. Uncle Pierre has the tug bring me a barrel of salt every time it comes. Last time that beast of an Aleck Curry stole pepper from the tug's kitchen and put it in my salt."

"I'm going to lick him today," he assured her.

In her possessive little way she took his hand as they walked back. "I don't want you to fight him, not unless you have to, Peter. He isn't worth it. You have nice eyes, and they don't look good swollen half shut. I wish mine were blue."

"I don't," declared Peter with a suddenness that startled him. "They're—they're——"

"What?" she insisted.

"They're—awfully pretty," finished Peter bravely. "I never seen—I mean I never saw such pretty eyes."

He felt like wriggling down into his collar, and looked away from her. Mona blushed, and if Peter had observed he would have seen her eyes sparkling.

"And I wish I had light hair, too—like yours," she added.

"I don't," he fought manfully. "Your hair is—prettier than your eyes. When I first saw you, there in the sun, I thought——"

[106]

"What did you think?" she asked with interest.

"I dunno. I dunno what I thought."

He was tremendously uncomfortable, and was glad the musical droning of the sawmill began just then. That was another thrill, the clean, high-pitched cutting of steel through wood. There is something chummy and companionable about the sound of a sawmill at work in the heart of a forest country. It is friendly even to a stranger and makes one feel at home, and when Mona and Peter came to the mill the half-dozen men there were going about their duties as if they were a pleasure instead of work. They were a happy lot. Peter could see that with his boyish eyes, and his heart responded quickly to the gladdening pulse of it.

Then Mona ran up quickly behind a man who was twisting a log with a long cant hook and tried to cover his eyes with her hands. In a moment the man had turned and had her up off the ground, tight in his arms. Mona kissed him, and Peter thought he had never seen the face of any man filled with a happiness like that which he saw in Pierre Gourdon's. And Mona, holding out her hand to Peter, said:

"This is my Uncle Pierre. Come and kiss him, Peter."

And there, with both the young folk in his arms, and the big, steel saw laughing and wailing in their ears, Pierre Gourdon, into whose heart God had put a passionate love for all children, kissed Peter. In thus welcoming the boy he drew him so close that for an[107] instant Peter's face touched Mona's soft cheek, and so warm and sweet was it that through all the years that followed Peter never forgot that wonderful moment.

Then Pierre Gourdon said, holding Peter off at arm's length, and looking at his eye which was still dark, and his lip which was swollen: "So you are the young man who whipped Aleck Curry for annoying Mona? Why, Aleck is half again as big as you——"

"And I didn't whip him," interrupted Peter. "Not alone. I was tired and empty as a drum. He was licking me when Mona jumped in. She helped a lot."

Laughter filled Pierre's eyes, and then a shadow followed it. The gentleness in his face gave way to a stern resolution.

"Aleck is not a good boy," he said. "I will not have him troubling you, Mona. If he does it again you must tell me."

"She needn't do that," protested Peter quickly. "I'll take care of her. I'm going to lick Aleck Curry today."

Pierre Gourdon looked at the boy, and the sternness left his face. "Peter, you're a man. I love boys like you." He ran his hand over Mona's silken hair, just as Simon McQuarrie had done. "I guess I won't worry over you and Aleck any more, Ange. I think Peter is going to do what he says."

"I won't have him fight Aleck," declared Mona. "If he does, I'll fight, too!"

When they had left Pierre and were going toward[108] the Gourdon cabin, Peter asked, "What did he mean when he called you Ange?"

"It's a name he gave me the day he brought me out of the water when my mother and father were drowned," explained Mona softly. "It means something much nicer than I am."

"I don't believe it," said Peter. "What does it mean?"

"Angel."

"Oh!" Peter was silent for several moments. Then he said: "I like it. I guess that was what I must have been thinking when I saw you first yesterday, there in the sun, with your hair all down and the flowers around you. First off you sort of scared me."

"I must have looked ugly enough to scare anyone," agreed Mona depreciatively. "But I like my hair down when I'm alone in the woods."

"So do I," said Peter. "And you wasn't ugly. What's that building down there, with the box-like thing on top of it? Looks like a church."

"It is—and our school. Uncle Joe's wife, Marie Antoinette, teaches us. She's beautiful, Peter. Uncle Pierre says she is as lovely as Aunt Josette was when she was young. Aunt Josette is beautiful, too. You've been to school a lot, haven't you?"

"Not so much."

"But you talk well."

"My father taught me. Every day I studied, and he heard my lessons, even when we were on the trail.[109] My dad was——" He stopped, the odd thickening coming in his throat again.

"I love your father," said Mona gently. "Last night I prayed he'd come back, and he will. Uncle Pierre says it was prayer that brought me to him. He says prayer is always answered, if you believe hard enough."

"My dad says that, too."

"And I'm going to pray every night, Peter. I'm going to pray for your father to come back. And he will."

The little doubt which had planted itself like a seed in Peter's mind was growing in spite of Mona and the beauty at Five Fingers. "If he comes back they may catch him," he said. "And if they do that——" She saw a queer, twisted look like a shadow in his face, and her fingers tightened. "They'll kill him," he finished. "That's what Simon McQuarrie says."

After a moment Mona said: "I wish we could tell Uncle Pierre. He always brings things out right. And this is coming out right, too, Peter. I know it."

Without logic, she was sweetly comforting. Her gentle assurance was a buoy to which Peter's courage and hope clung tenaciously, and he stole a hungry look at her when her eyes were turned away, and his heart beat fast. In a vague and unanalytical way the thought was in his mind that God could not help answering Mona's prayers. If He did not, there could be no God. And he was sure there was one—just as sure as he was of the trees and flowers and birds and blue[110] sky all about them. Donald McRae had planted that faith deeply in his boy.

"Did you ever have many prayers answered?" he asked her.

"Yes, when I prayed hard," she replied. "I'm praying for something to happen to Aleck Curry, too. And it's going to happen, Peter. I know it's going to happen."

"What?"

"Anything—almost. I wish the crows would pull his hair out!"

Suddenly she stopped herself with a jerk. "There he is now—down there on the Finger. He is throwing stones at my gulls!"

"I'll stop him," said Peter, starting off.

She caught him by the arm. "I won't like you if you fight. Aunt Josette and Marie Antoinette are waiting for us, and they won't like you either."

She took possession of him again, and Peter gave himself up, though he could hear a challenging shout coming faintly from Aleck. And then out of the door of one of the cabins came a tall, slim woman with a face so sweet in its smile of welcome that Peter smiled back shyly, even before Mona had said, "This is my Aunt Josette."

For an hour after that he was meeting people at Five Fingers. First there was Marie Antoinette, who was younger than Aunt Josette, but only a little prettier, Peter thought, and who said she would have a place for[111] him in school next Monday morning. From one cabin to another Mona made him go with her, until he had met the Poulins and Dufresnes and Croissets and Clamarts and children and babies until he began to have trouble in remembering their names.

Then they came to the last cabin of all, and this cabin looked like a doll's house to Peter. And the person they found in it was like a doll, too. At first Peter thought she was a playmate of Mona's, for she was only a little taller, with blue eyes and red lips and gold-brown curls tied back with a ribbon. Mona introduced her proudly.

"This is Adette Clamart, Peter—Jame Clamart's wife, and she graduated from the school of Ste. Anne de la Perade before Jame brought her to Five Fingers! And the baby——" She dragged him to the side of a crib and Peter looked down upon the round, cheerful face of young Telesphore Clamart, eight months old. Telesphore eyed Peter speculatively for a moment and then his countenance broke into a smile and he held up a pair of chubby arms. Mona uttered a gasp of delight. "He likes you, Peter! Put your head down. He wants to hug you."

Peter felt himself growing red and hot as he bowed his head to young Telesphore. The baby dug his fingers in his hair and squealed in triumph. It was the first baby he had ever touched, and suddenly he forgot the two girls and his embarrassment as he felt a soft little mouth touching his cheek. He laughed back at[112] Telesphore, and when the baby freed his hair and he stood up straight again he thought Adette's eyes, bright with the glory of motherhood, were almost as beautiful as Mona's. He fumbled in his pockets to find something for Telesphore and produced his jack-knife.

"You can have that," he said, speaking directly at Telesphore.

When they were about to go Adette put her hand affectionately on his shoulder. "Mona told us what happened yesterday in the woods, Peter, and Jame and I love you for giving Aleck Curry that beating. It was splendid of you to fight for Mona like that!"

In the clearing Peter said to Mona: "It isn't true. I didn't lick Aleck Curry. Why do you tell them that?"

"It is true," retorted Mona with an obstinate little toss of her head.

"I was getting the worst of it when you came in with the stick."

"No, you weren't. He was almost choking for breath. I couldn't help hitting him with the stick—that's all." And then she added: "Why is it you don't want me to think you whipped him? I've told everybody you did!"

Her question and a quick flash in her eyes sent a little thrill through Peter. Was it possible Mona really believed he was getting the best of the fight when she began pommeling Aleck Curry with the stick? He flushed as he thought of his position at that moment,[113] flat on his back with his legs in the air and his arms helpless under Aleck's weight, and Aleck himself just on the point of annihilating him! Surely Mona could not have been blind in those moments. She must have seen his peril, even if Aleck was panting for breath. Peter looked at her, trying to measure the truth of the matter. But Mona's eyes were innocent. If she was lying to him, she was doing it beautifully.

In a vague sort of way the problem weighed itself in Peter's mind, and he saw even more clearly that it was necessary for him to whip Aleck Curry that day. The responsibility had now become a grim and insistent one, for if Mona really thought he had whipped Aleck, he must do it in fact to save his own self-respect; and if she was shielding him from embarrassment and shame, as he partly believed, by spreading a false report of the combat, then it was doubly necessary for him to retrieve himself and prove his prowess by whipping the tug master's bullying son.

From the corners of his eyes he began questing for Aleck, who had disappeared from the strip of sand below them, though he did this in such a way that Mona did not guess his intention. She showed him her pets, and it was then Peter saw something which he had never seen before, though he loved all wild things. At Mona's soft little calls the big-eyed moose birds which Peter called whisky jacks fluttered about her and ate crumbs out of her hands. Down on the white sand of the Middle Finger the gulls gathered[114] close about them, like a flock of chickens, begging in soft, throaty notes for the tidbits which she had brought from the cabin. She sat down in the sand and they climbed over her lap. One huge white fellow pecked at her shining braid.

"That's Bobo," she explained. "He always wants to eat my hair!" A one-legged gull hopped on her lap and began eating greedily the handful of bread-crumbs which she offered him. "And this is Dominique. I call him that to tease Dominique Beauvais, who is so fat and round. I don't know how he lost his leg, but I believe Aleck Curry must have shot it off a year ago. I wish Aleck's father would never bring him here again!"