The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  She was crying softly, but in the woods sounds travel. I found her on her face on the pine needles about twenty yards away, wailing her heart out into a pink automobile veil, and she was so absorbed in her misery that I had to stoop and touch her before she looked up.

  "Don't cry," I said. "If you are lost, I can direct you to a settlement."

  She looked up at me, and from being very red and suffused she went quite pale. It seems that with my bare legs and sandals and my hair down, which was Tish's idea for making it come in thick and not gray, and what with my being sunburned and stained with berries, she thought I was a wild woman. I realized what was wrong.

  "Don't be alarmed," I said somewhat grimly. "I'm rational enough; if I hop about instead of walking, it's because I'm the tomb of more rabbits than I care to remember, but aside from that I'm all right. Are you lost?"

  She sat up, still staring, and wiped her eyes.

  "No. I have a machine over there among the trees. Are there--are there plenty of rabbits in the woods?"

  "Thousands." She was a pretty little thing, very young, and dressed in a white motor coat with white shoes and hat.

  "And--and berries?"

  "There aren't many berries," I admitted. "The birds eat 'em. We get the ones they don't fancy."

  Now I didn't think for a moment that she was worried about my diet, but she was worried about the food supply in the woods, that was sure. So I sat down on a stump and told her about puffballs, and what Tish had read about ants being edible but acid, and that wood mice, roasted and not cooked too dry, were good food, but that Aggie had made us liberate the only ones we had caught, because a man she was once engaged to used to carry a pet mouse in his pocket.

  Nothing had really appealed to her until I mentioned Mr. Wiggins. Then unexpectedly she began to cry again. And after that I got the whole story.

  It seems she was in love with a young man who was everything a young man ought to be and had money as well. But the money was the barrier really, for the girl's father wouldn't believe that a youth who played polo, and did not have to work for a living, and led cotillons, and paid calls in the afternoon could have really good red blood in him. He had a man in view for her, she said, one who had made his money himself, and had to have his valet lay out his clothes for fear he'd make a mistake. Once the valet had to go to have a tooth pulled and the man had to decline a dinner.

  "Father said," finished the little girl tearfully, "that if Percy--that's his name, and it counted against him too--that if Percy was a real man he'd do something. And then he hap-happened on a book of my small brother's, telling how people used to live in the woods, and kill their own food and make their own fire--"

  "The 'Young Woodsman,' of course," I put in.

  "And how the strong survived, but the weak succumbed, and he said if Percy was a man, and not a t-tailor's dummy, he'd go out in the woods, j-just primitive man, without anything but a pair of bathing trunks, and keep himself alive for a month. If he s-stood the test father was willing to forget the 'Percy.' He said that he knew Mr. Willoughby could do it--that's the other man--and that he'd come in at the end of the time with a deed for the forest and mortgages on all the surrounding camps."

  "And Percy agreed?"

  "He didn't want to. He said it took mentality and physical endurance as well as some courage to play polo. Father said it did--on the part of the pony. Then s-some of the men heard of it, and there were bets on it--ten to one he wouldn't do it and twenty to one he couldn't do it. So Percy decided to try. Father was so afraid that some of the campers and guides would help him that he had notices sent out at Mr. Willoughby's suggestion offering a reward if Percy could be shown to have asked any assistance. Oh, I know he's sick in there somewhere, or starving or--dead!"

  I had had a great light break over me, and now I stooped and patted the girl on the shoulder.

  "Dead! Certainly not," I said. "I saw him last night."

  "Saw him!"

  "Well, not exactly saw him--there wasn't much light. But he's alive and well, and--do you really want him to win?"

  "Do I?" She sat up with shining eyes. "I don't care whether he owns anything in the world but the trunks. If I didn't think I'd add to his troubles I'd go into the woods this minute and find him and suffer with him."

  "You'd have to be married to him first," I objected, rather startled.

  But she looked at me with her cheeks as red strawberries. "Why?" she demanded. "Father's crazy about primitive man--did primitive man take his woman to church to be married, with eight brides maids and a reception after the ceremony? Of course not. He grabbed her and carried her off."

  "Good Heavens! You're not in earnest?" "I think I am," she said slowly. "I'd rather live in the woods with Percy and no ceremony than live without him anywhere in the world. And I'll bet primitive man would have been wiped off the earth if he hadn't had primitive woman to add her wits to his strength. If Percy only had a woman to help him!"

  "My dear," I said solemnly, "he has! He has, not one, but three!"

  It took me some time to explain that Percy was not supporting a harem in the Maine woods; but when at last she got my idea and that the other two classed with me in beauty and attractiveness, she was overjoyed.

  "But Percy promised not to ask for help," she said suddenly.

  "He needn't. My dear, go away and stop worrying about Percy--he's all right. When is the time up?"

  "In three weeks."

  "I suppose father and the Willoughby person will come to meet him?"

  "Yes, and all the fellows from the club who have put money up on him. We're going to motor over and father's bringing the physical director of the athletic club. He's not only got to survive, but he's got to be in good condition."

  "He'll be in good condition," I said grimly. "Does he drink and smoke?"

  "A little, not too much. Oh, yes, I had forgotten!" She opened up a little gold cigarette case, which she took from her pocket, and extracted a handful of cigarettes.

  "If you are going to see him," she said, "you might put them where he'll find them?"

  "Certainly not."

  "But that's not giving them to him."

  "My dear child," I said sternly, "Percy is going to come out of these woods so well and strong that he may not have to work, but he'll want to. And he'll not smoke anything stronger than corn-silk, if we're to take charge of this thing."

  She understood quickly enough and I must say she was grateful. She was almost radiant with joy when I told her how capable Tish was, and that she was sure to be interested, and about Aggie's hay fever and Mr. Wiggins and the rabbit snares. She leaned over and kissed me impulsively.

  "You dear old thing!" she cried. "I know you'll look after him and make him comfortable and--how old is Miss Letitia?"

  "Something over fifty and Aggie Pilkington's about the same, although she won't admit it."

  She kissed me again at that, and after looking at her wrist watch she jumped to her feet.

  "Heavens!" she said. "It's four o'clock and my engine has been running all this time!"

  She got a smart little car from somewhere up the road, and the last I saw of her she was smiling back over her shoulder and the car running on the edge of a ditch.

  "You are three darlings!" she called back. "And tell Percy I love him--love him--love him!"

  I thought I'd never get back to the lake. I was tired to begin with, and after I'd gone about four miles and was limping with a splinter in my heel and no needle to get it out with, I found I still had the fungus message to the spring-wagon person under my arm.

  It was dark when I got back and my nerves were rather unstrung, what with wandering from the path here and there, with nothing to eat since morning, and running into a tree and taking the skin off my nose. When I limped into camp at last, I didn't care whether Percy lived or died, and the thought, of rabbit stew made my mouth water.

  It was not rabbit, however. Aggie was sitting alone by the fire, waving a brand round he
r head to keep off mosquitoes, and in front of her, dangling from the spit, were a dozen pairs of frogs' legs in a row.

  I ate six pairs without a question and then I asked for Tish.

  "Catching frogs," said Aggie laconically, and flourished the brand.

  "Where?"

  "Pulling them off the trees. Where do you think she gets them?" she demanded.

  A large mosquito broke through her guard at that moment and she flung the torch angrily at the fire.

  "I'm eaten alive!" she snapped. "I wish to Heaven I had smallpox or something they could all take and go away and die."

  The frogs' legs were heavenly, although in a restaurant I loathe the things. I left Aggie wondering if her hay fever wasn't contagious through the blood and hoping the mosquitoes would get it and sneeze themselves to death, and went to find Tish.

  She was standing in the margin of the lake up to her knees in water, with a blazing torch in one hand and one of our tent poles in the other. Tied to the end the pole was a grapevine line, and a fishing-hook made of a hairpin was attached to it.

  Her method, which it seems she'd heard from Charlie Sands and which was not in the "Young Woodsman," was simple and effectual.

  "Don't move," she said tensely when she heard me on the bank. "There's one here as big as a chicken!"

  She struck the flare forward, and I could see the frog looking at it and not blinking. He sat in a sort of heavenly ecstasy, like a dog about to bay at the moon, while the hook dangled just at his throat.

  "I'm half-ashamed to do it, Lizzie, it's so easy," she said calmly, still tickling the thing's throat with the hook. "Grab him as I throw him at you. They slip off sometimes."

  The next instant she jerked the hook up and caught the creature by the lower jaw. It was the neatest thing I have ever seen. Tish came wading over to where I stood and examined the frog.

  "If we only had some Tartare sauce!" she said regretfully. "I wish you'd look at my ankle, Lizzie. There's something stuck to it."

  The something was a leech. It refused to come off, and so she carried both frog and leech back to the camp. Aggie said on no account to pull a leech off, it left its teeth in and the teeth went on burrowing, or laid eggs or something. One must leave it on until it was full and round and couldn't hold any more, and then it dropped off.

  So all night Tish kept getting up and going to the fire to see if it was swelling. But toward morning she fell asleep and it dropped off, and we had a terrible feeling that it was somewhere in our blankets.

  But the leech caused less excitement that evening than my story of Percy and the little girl in the white coat. Aggie was entranced, and Tish had made Percy a suit of rabbit skin with a cap to match and outlined a set of exercises to increase his chest measure before I was half through with my story.

  But Percy did not appear, although we had an idea that he was not far off in the woods. We could hear a crackling in the undergrowth, but when we called there was no reply. Tish was eating a frog's leg when the idea came to her.

  "He'll never come out under ordinary circumstances in that--er--costume," she said. "Suppose we call for help. He'll probably come bounding. Help!" she yelled, between bites, as one may say.

  "Help! Fire! Police!"

  "Help!" cried Aggie. "Percy, help!" It sounded like "Mercy, help!"

  It worked like a charm. The faint cracking became louder, nearer, turned from a suspicion to a certainty and from a certainty to a fact. The bushes parted and Percy stood before us. All he saw was three elderly women eating frogs' legs round a fire under a cloud of mosquitoes. He stopped, dumbfounded, and in that instant we saw that he didn't need the physical exercises, but that, of course, he did need the rabbit-skin suit.

  "Great Scott!" he panted. "I thought I heard you calling for help."

  "So we did," said Tish, "but we didn't need it. Won't you sit down?"

  He looked dazed and backed toward the bushes.

  "I--I think," he said, "if there's nothing wrong I'd better not--"

  "Fiddlesticks!" Tish snapped. "Are you ashamed of the body the Lord gave you? Don't you suppose we've all got skins? And didn't I thrash my nephew, Charlie Sands, when he was almost as big as you and had less on, for bathing in the river? Sit down, man, and don't be a fool."

  He edged toward the fire, looking rather silly, and Aggie passed him a frog's leg on a piece of bark.

  "Try this, Percy," she said, smiling.

  At the name he looked ready to run. "I guess you've seen the notices," he said, "so you'll understand I cannot accept any food or assistance. I'm very grateful to you, anyhow."

  "You may take what food you find, surely," said Aggie. "If you find a roasted frog's leg on the ground--so--there's nothing to prevent you eating it, is there?"

  "Nothing at all," said Percy, and picked it up. "Unless, of course--"

  "It's not a trap, young man," said Tish. "Eat it and enjoy it. There are lots more where it came from."

  He relaxed at that, and on Tish's bringing out a blanket from the tent to throw over his shoulders he became almost easy. He was much surprised to learn that we knew his story, and when I repeated the "love him" message, he seemed to grow a foot taller and his eyes glowed.

  "I'm holding out all right," he said. "I'm fit physically. But the thing that gets my goat is that I'm to come out clothed. Dorothea's father says that primitive man, with nothing but his hands and perhaps a stone club, fed himself, made himself a shelter, and clothed himself in skins. Skins! I'm so big that two or three bears would hardly be enough. I did find a hole that I thought a bear or two might fall into, and got almost stung to death robbing a bee tree to bait the thing with honey. But there aren't any bears, and if there were how'd I kill 'em? Wait until they starve to death?"

  "Rabbits!" said Tish.

  He looked down at himself and he seemed very large in the firelight. "Dear lady," he said, "there aren't enough rabbits in the county to cover me, and how'd I put 'em together? I was a fool to undertake the thing, that's all."

  "But aren't you in love with her?" asked Aggie.

  "Well, I guess I am. It isn't that, you know. I'm a good bit worse than crazy about her. A man might be crazy about a mint julep or a power boat, but--he'd hardly go into the woods in his skin and live on fish until he's scaly for either of them. If I don't get her, I don't want to live. That's all."

  He looked so gloomy and savage that we saw he meant it, and Aggie was perceptibly thrilled. Trish, however, was thinking hard, her eyes on the leech. "Was there anything in the agreement to prevent your accepting any suggestions?"

  He pondered. "No, I was to be given no food, drink, shelter, or any weapon. The old man forgot fire--that's how I came to beg some."

  "Fire and brains," reflected Tish. "We've given you the first and we've plenty of the second to offer. Now, young man, this is my plan. We'll give you nothing but suggestions. If now and then you find a cooked meal under that tree, that's accident, not design, and you'd better eat it. Can you sew?"

  "I'm like the Irishman and the fiddle--I never tried, but I guess I can." He was much more cheerful.

  "Do you have to be alone?"

  "I believe he took that for granted, in this costume."

  "Will it take you long to move over here?"

  "I think I can move without a van," he said, grinning. "My sole worldly possessions are a stone hatchet and a hairpin fishhook."

  "Get them and come over," commanded Tish. "When you leave this forest at the end of the time you are going to be fed and clothed and carry a tent; you will have with you smoked meat and fish; you will carry under your arm an Indian clock or sundial; you will have a lamp--if we can find a clamshell or a broken bottle--and you will have a fire-making outfit with your monogram on it."

  "But, my dear friend," he said, "I am not supposed to have any assistance and--"

  "Assistance!" Tish snapped. "Who said assistance? I'm providing the brains, but you'll do it all yourself."

  He moved over an hour or so la
ter and Tish and I went into the tent to bed. Somewhat later, when she limped to the fire to see how the leech was filling up, he and Aggie were sitting together talking, he of Dorothea and Aggie of Mr. Wiggins. Tish said they were both talking at the same time, neither one listening to the other, and that it sounded like this:--"She's so sweet and trusting and honest--well, I'd believe what she said if she--"

  "--fell off a roof on a rainy day and was picked up by a man with a horse and buggy quite unconscious."

  V

  The next three weeks were busy times for Percy. He wore Tish's blanket for two days, and then, finding it in the way, he discarded it altogether. Seen in daylight it was easy to understand why little Dorothea was in love with him. He was a handsome young giant, although much bitten by mosquitoes and scratched with briers.

  The arrangement was a good one all round. He knew of things in the wood we'd never heard of--wild onions and artichokes, and he had found a clump of wild cherry trees. He made snares of the fibers of tree bark, and he brought in turtles and made plates out of the shells. And all the time he was working on his outfit, curing rabbit skins and sewing them together with fibers under my direction.

  When he'd made one sleeve of his coat we had a sort of celebration. He'd found an empty bottle somewhere in the woods, and he had made a wild-cherry decoction that he declared was cherry brandy, keeping it in the sun to ferment. Well, he insisted on opening the brandy that day and passing it round. We had cups made of leaves and we drank to his sleeve, although the stuff was villainous. He had put the sleeve on, and it looked rather inadequate. "Here's fun," he said joyously. "If my English tailor could see this sleeve he'd die of envy. A sleeve's not all of a coat, but what's a coat without a sleeve? Look at it--grace, ease of line, and beauty of material."

  Aggie lifted her leaf.

  "To Dorothea!" she said. "And may the sleeve soon be about her."

  Tish thought this toast was not delicate, but Percy was enchanted with it.