CHAPTER XX

Joe went home, and, as he approached, saw the woman, his wife, at the wood-pile. One foot was on a log, and, as she struck, she swung the ax with the ease of habit and of strength. Joe stood a moment thinking what a fine, big creature it was. He admired the physical power and the dexterity of this gaunt being, to whom unkindly time had left none of the fair curves of her sex.

Once he had humbly wondered why the tall and still handsome Susan had given herself to him; but for years he had too well known her motives, and slowly, by degrees, there had been revealed to his simplicity the true nature of the wife he had taken. It did not destroy, it scarcely lessened, his attachment. The poor fellow had by birthright a great fortune in capacity to love. No one had cared for him, and when he found this single love of a sad life, it was not in his construction to be capable of change.

“Halloa, Susie! Why, I’ll do that!” he cried cheerfully.

She stopped short, and, turning, faced him. “You ain’t man enough even to cut wood for a woman.” And again she struck to right and left with masculine 258vigor. “Get out, or I’ll let you have it,” she said, whirling the ax around her head as he fell back. And still the vigor and force of the woman pleased him, despite the sense that he was being ill used.

“But I’ve been doin’ somethin’ for you that’ll please you a heap.”

She ceased to chop as he spoke, and, standing, faced him.

“You can’t fool me. You’ve been after drink. I know you. Get in and make the bed, it ain’t been made all day; and there’s a pair of socks needs darning.” She laughed. “Pretty dear, he is!”

The sarcasm was thrown away. He stared at her a moment in dull wonder, and went in, and tossed up the pillows, and turned the corn-husk mattress, and propped a broken chair against the wall, and did his best to make it all look like the neat order in Dorothy’s cabin. Next he took a half-loaf of stale bread, and went out the back door and into the woods.

It was now dusk. Avoiding the road, he strode with a woodman’s skill through the deeper forest, over a hill-top, and thus down to the river, and so at last found himself above the clearings. Here he came upon the dugout he had hidden in the alders two days before. He got in and poled up-stream in the darkness, passing the burnt lands, and coming at length to a deserted flat. It had once been a good pasture, but some change had taken place in the channel, and now in the spring the waters always went over it. Where coarse undergrowth had sprung up, the ice of the April floods had torn long lanes 259of ravage. The dead or half-dead bushes were bent southward, and weighted with a ragged tangle of leaves and twigs caught in the angular branchings of the stems: a desolate place, and wild enough in the uncertain evening light.

Beyond the ruined cabin, which the changes of the river curves had made untenable, he crossed the inland road. He might easily have come by it, but had wisely avoided even this small chance of being seen. On the farther side was an oblong, white frame-building, the Methodist chapel. Once in a month it was used in its turn for service by the lean minister. It was likely that no one would be near it for two weeks, and, in fact, here the road ended.

Joe got over into the graveyard and looked about him. There were three or four heavy slabs of gray stone, and a dozen or two of unmarked graves, over which he stumbled with a curse. He looked around and listened. Only the hoarse roar of the rapids reached his ear, and he saw the moon just over the tree-tops. The light aiding him, he came at last on the simple, white, upright slab set over the child’s grave. He seized it, with no hesitation, and began to rock it sideways, to and fro. At last it was loosened, and, with no more thought than he would have given the felling of a pine, he tore it out, and with difficulty hoisted it on his back, and set out toward the river. It was easily lifted over the low stone wall of the graveyard, but as he set it on the top of the fence beyond the road, and began to climb over, the rail broke and he fell, the heavy marble tumbling on his foot so as to cut the instep. He sat down, 260with an oath, and took off his boot. He was in great pain. The boot was torn, as he found, and half full of blood. It was an hour before he could get it on again and walk at all.

At length he got over the broken fence, thinking only in his suffering of the woman and how she would like what he meant to do for her. Twice he failed to lift the slab onto his back, and twice lay down beside it, overcome by a strong feeling that after all he might fail. At last, in such extremity of pain as would have conquered most men, he got up, and set his teeth, and resolutely took up his burden. It must have been the most intense hour of a life without power to call up the past by means of pictures, for, as he staggered through the gloom, sweating with effort and from increasing torture, he was given a brief moment when he saw Susan as he first knew her, a slim, strong, young woman, with the emphatic beauty of anger upon her. It made him stronger, and he went on. At last he reached the dugout, and saying, from mere habit, “Thank the Lord! I done it,” he sat a while with his foot in the cool river water.

It was true that at no moment had he felt the terrors which few had escaped in the lonely home of the dead he had robbed. Now he was at ease and assured of success. He laid the stone in the boat. As he stood an instant in the gloom of a profound stillness, a cold gust of wind came down from the hills, and, with wail and roar in the pines beyond, swooped onto the level, and for a moment shook life of movement into the dead gray streamers of moss and the 261hanging wreckage of torn underbrush. The next moment all was still again. It is not a very rare phenomenon, but he might not before have given it attention. Somehow its unusualness impressed him, so that he shivered as he felt the momentary coolness, and with this came the familiar notion of his childhood that a dog was crawling over his grave. He jumped into the pirogue, shoved it off, and was at once away in the current. As he sat down, with his paddle in hand, he reflected that the white stone was full in view and that some one might by chance be out with a drag-net poaching. He put into shore, and carefully covered the stone with ferns. There was, of course, the risk of a river-warden’s inquisition, but he knew when the rounds were made, and so ran on fearlessly, keeping a sharp eye ahead.

No one troubled him. He got ashore near his cabin, and still in the utmost pain, resting often on the way, carried the stone to the wood, where, in secure remoteness from his house, he could go on with the needed work. On his way homeward he picked up two steel traps as an excuse for his absence.

When he entered the house it was early morning, and, to his surprise, he found Susan afoot. Her habit was to lie abed until Joe had been up some time, kindled the fire, and perhaps even had set the frying-pan to heat, and made tea, which she was accustomed to drink in excessive amounts. On other days, of late, she was apt to lie abed still longer, to refuse food, and decline to take the least notice of Joe. For him these moods represented the mother’s grief. If he did not fully comprehend it, he at least tried his 262best to disregard the inconvenience thus added to his wretched life. His canine simpleness craved mere affectionate regard, and in its lack, and the undefined misery this caused him, the woman possessed a deadly weapon. And now, on this occasion, to his surprise she was up, and his sorry breakfast of stale bread and bacon ready.

Of trees to fell, or quality of rafted lumber, he knew enough to be a good hand in the woods or on the spring drives, but naturally enough was unobservant of people. Nevertheless he noticed that his wife had on a not uncleanly gown, and a bit of worn ribbon, and had set her unkempt locks in order.

“Law, Susie, you look right slick,” he said.

“Been after the traps, Joe?” she said, glancing at the rusty irons in his hand. “Get anything?”

“Guess so. A mus’rat and a wood-chuck.”

“Let’s see.” He went out and brought them in.

“Chuck’s good and fat, Susie, and I know where another one lives!”

“Just ain’t he fat! And the rat-skin?”

“That ain’t much.”

“But it’d make a nice purse if there was any money to put in it.”

“That’s so, Susie.”

“But we’ll get something to put in it,” she said, setting her large red eyes on the man, and speaking with cold cheerfulness.

“Yes,” he returned hastily. “I’ll get a job up river soon. Them Boston men’s set on buildin’ a house. Thought I’d see ‘bout gettin’ on to that.”

“Is Carington comin’ to hunt caribou?”

263“Don’t know rightly. He ain’t said nothin’, ’cept last week. I ain’t seen him since.”

“He’ll come, I guess, Joe, and then, if you’re a man, there’ll be a chance.”

“Yes, yes,” he said anxiously. “Time ’nough.”

He was dreadfully scared. He felt that he might be made to do anything.

A smile crawled sluggishly over her face. “That’s so. But the thing is to get your mind set to it. Might happen a good chance any day.”

He was too simple not to show his fear, and she was quick enough to see.

“You trust me, old man, to fix it, and there won’t be nobody’ll ever guess who done it.”

“You ain’t called me your old man, Susie, this two year,” he said. “Now don’t you go for to want me to do somethin’ like that.”

“There ain’t no harm in considerin’ things, Joe. Everything’s just gone against you and me, and if a good chance was to turn up—a right safe one—I guess you’d not be the man I took you for if you don’t just grab it.”

“Well, we’ll see,” he said, eager to get off the subject. He had become set in his mind as to this matter, and meant somehow to escape the toils she was casting about him. “What’s for breakfast, Susie?”

“Oh, that old hen’s took to layin’ again. There’s eggs and bacon, and I done you some slapjacks.”

“That’s good. I’m hungry.” As he passed her to sit at the table he kissed her. “Why, you look right pert to-day.”

264“Thought you might be a-spyin’ round Dory. Got to keep an eye on you fellows,” and she laughed. Manufactured laughter is a dreary product; but it answered for poor Joe as well as the most honest coinage of a merry heart. It set him at ease for a time, and they ate, while the woman tried to revive for her victim the coarse coquetry of her younger days, when she attracted or revolted men as their natures chanced to be.