The sun was shining when they drove away. The bare brown branches stood out against the sky like brown lace. The little streams they passed glistened in the sunlight. The brightness flooded everything and made the meanest home they passed seem cheerful. There was a briskness in the air that brought a smile to the faces of people on the street.
The sun was still shining fitfully as they skirted New York to avoid the heaviest of the traffic, though deep-blue clouds the color of ink stains were looming on the horizon.
Chester eyed them anxiously as he speeded on every clear stretch of road and pressed on long after the others had confessed they were hungry.
“We’re going to have some bad weather, I’m afraid,” he said once when they came to a long detour that was bound to delay them.
They had a late afternoon luncheon at a small, smug town hotel, not half so well cooked as their breakfast had been, nor nearly so intriguing in its menu. Underdone chicken and heavy biscuits, elaborate salad on wilted lettuce, elaborate desserts, ice cream and pie and pastry, but it did not satisfy as the morning meal had done.
Chester hurried them out to the car again, paused to give a few careful directions and point out something on the map to Michael, then, with another anxious look at the sky, he put Chris at the wheel and they started on again.
The sun was making no pretense of shining now. It seemed to have erased itself from the heavens. The sky was overcast with thousands of clustery blue-black fragments of cloud, hurrying busily here and there at cross purposes, some lazing and blocking the way for others. It gave the sky an uneasy, restless appearance. The whole family felt it. Doris and John fidgeted, and wanted to get out and walk, wanted to stretch out full length and rest, wanted to ask innumerable questions. The whole little company began to have a breathless feeling as if they were running a race, and even Eleanor began to look out at the clouds anxiously and finally suggested timidly that perhaps they ought to find a place to stop for the night if there was going to be a storm.
Then suddenly they came upon a forest, standing up before them in serried ranks, like beautiful soldiers in battle array, lifting dark, lovely arms of fir and balsam and pine. Spires of white birch were etched delicately against the plumy branches of the evergreens. The road was covered with pine needles, hushing their going till the way seemed almost enchanted.
Down into a narrow dirt road they dashed, amid the winter grandeur, a moss-banked brook at the side, with a sudden bridge across it made of great logs put corduroy fashion, rumbling like thunder as they flew over; a road so narrow that two cars could not pass. They wondered what would happen if another car came in sight. But none came.
A chance railroad leaped across in front of them in an occasional break in the woods, no sign of its being, no voice of engine or warning word, no hint of station or possible train to travel it, just a shining track left there alone in a great crack in the vast forest. It seemed like some forgotten toy of a forgotten generation.
Now and then they came out of the forest for a mile or two to skirt some gleaming lake, its waters like the polished sheen of gunmetal in the gloom of the cloudy winter afternoon; then into the forest again, and on, through the narrow, quiet road that seemed to wear an eerie light of mystery. The tinkling brook was much farther below them now, and at the next turn, close below them, they saw a great stone covered with vivid moss and lichens in the midst of a tiny torrent.
“Oh,” the children exclaimed. “Oh, Daddy! Let us get out and climb over on that stone!”
“Yes, Daddy! Stop! I never saw a stone like that!” cried Jane.
“There will be other stones,” said Chester. He was looking up at the clouds.
They began to climb upward, and still the serried ranks of trees seemed to be climbing with them. But when they came out into the open again, across another chance railroad that ambled through the wilderness, there were slow, lazy flakes drifting down through the leaden air, and the sky overhead seemed menacing.
It was not half an hour before the few lazy flakes had become millions, great fat, wide flakes, like small blankets, hastening, blurring and blotting the landscape from sight. They clung to the windshield, and when the windshield wiper slushed them off they froze again in a fine blur over the glass and made it almost impossible to see the way ahead.
Eleanor was almost glad when the road wound into the woods again because here the snow was not so thick, being held off by the branches overhead; and yet, there was a kind of feeling of insecurity about it all that made her apprehensive. She began to wonder if it had been wise to come away like this in the dead of winter into a strange, wild place where they knew nothing about anything, or anybody. She eyed her husband anxiously, but though his face was grave, he did not look worried, more as if he were eager.
They were passing few villages now, although there were lakes with summer cottages circling about them. But in the gathering dusk they were hardly cheerful with their boarded-up windows. There were no stars, and the moon seemed to have been blotted off the heavens.
Chester had taken the wheel again himself during the last hour and was driving ahead as if he saw a definite goal not far away. He seemed to be well satisfied at each small landmark, never hesitating which way to turn at a crossing.
“Are you sure you know the way, Chester?” Eleanor ventured at last. “It looks so all alike,” she added fearfully.
“Positive!” said Chester cheerfully. “I knew every twig and stone for miles around this region when I was a boy.”
“It would be some stunt for you to get lost in a dump like this!” sneered Betty.
The children looked at their father wonderingly and stared out into the dark night again. Somehow he seemed unfamiliar. It had never been a reality before to them that he had been a boy. Chris stared out at the murky shadows and grew thoughtful. He wondered what it would have been like to have been a boy with Dad. He was a pretty good sport sometimes. He would have been a peach of a kid.
“Didya go a fishing?” suddenly called out John, who was supposed to be asleep.
“I sure did,” said Chester. “Remember that great boulder we saw down in the creek below the log bridge this afternoon? I used to sit on a boulder like that hour after hour and fish for trout. I’m not sure, but that boulder may be there yet. We’ll take a look someday.”
“Gee!” said John sleepily and dozed off again.
It began to seem as if the last forest they had entered was interminable, but suddenly they came out upon a fairy scene—the dull sheen of dark water, set in white velvet, and lit by the clustering constellations of a little town on its farther bank.
“There she is!” exclaimed Chester excitedly, almost as John might have said it. “Right across there. That’s the town where I used to go Saturdays to buy things for my mother: shoes, and sugar, and corn to feed the chickens!”
Betty sat up and stared coldly at the few bright lights.
“Is that all there is of it?” she asked contemptuously and relapsed into her corner again as if she had no further interest.
They drove through the little country town that lay snugly under its new white blanket of snow. The roofs were blanketed and hung with festoons already, and the streets looked deserted. Only a few houses showed lights in the lower floors, for the hour was growing late for country folks. The stores were closed and shuttered. To all intents and purposes it was midnight in the main street of Wentworth.
Chester slowed down the car and looked eagerly about him, driving as if he loved it all. Even under the snow it looked clean and good and homely to his weary eyes. If only he could find his mother waiting at the journey’s end as he used to in the boyhood days! If only he might take Eleanor to her, and his children. She would have known what was the matter with his children. She would have told him what to do with them! Had he drifted away from her teaching that he did not know himself what to do for them?
At the end of the short street Chester made a sharp turn to the right, up a hill, and was plunge
d once more into midnight darkness, with the tall forest on either side.
Eleanor’s heart sank.
“Don’t you think, dear,” she said leaning forward and speaking hesitantly, “wouldn’t it be a good idea to just go back to that little town and stay at the hotel all night? You are so tired—we all are tired.”
“Hotel’s closed this time of year.”
“Well, then, somebody must take strangers. Couldn’t we inquire?”
“No, Eleanor, it wouldn’t do. You know I telegraphed to Jim Hawley to expect us. He has the key, and I told him to have the fires lighted and the lights going. He might wait up all night for us. It’s only a couple of miles farther now.”
The children began to stir restlessly, breathing on the windows and trying to peer into the impenetrable darkness. Eleanor’s heart grew strangely heavy. What was coming next? She was so weary it seemed as if she could bear no more strain.
A few minutes later they stopped at a little shanty of logs, where a lantern was slung out over a crude porch.
Chapter 11
A woman opened the door as the car stopped and came out shading her eyes with a worn hand.
“Is this Mrs. Hawley?” asked Chester, lowering the window and speaking into the snowy atmosphere. His voice sounded strange and shut in as voices sound when children play under a tent of quilts.
“Yes. I’m Jim’s mother. And this’ll be Mr. Thornton. I remember you when you was a little kid.”
“Jim got my telegram, then?” asked Chester, impatient to be gone. “Is he over at the farm?”
“Yes, he got the telegram, leastways I did. Murdock brought it over this morning on his way back from his milk route. But Jim, he’s broke his leg, Mr. Thornton. A tree fell on him and busted him all up. He’s flat on his back fer a spell, I guess. Don’t ‘spose he’ll be much use till spring now. Yes, he’s awful sorry he couldn’t do nothin’ fer ya, Mr. Thornton. Yer Ma was allus so awful good to him when he was a little kid and sickly like. But you’ll find plenty o’ wood. Jimmy, he stowed it up in the woodshed thinkin’ it might be needed. An’ I managed to git up there myself today an’ dust around and lay a few fires. You ain’t got nothin’ to do but touch a match to ‘em. Sorry I can’t take you all in, but we ain’t got a fire only in one room, and the rest o’ the house is cold as charity. You’ll be more comfortable in yer own place. But I kin make ya a pot of hot coffee ef you’ll wait—”
“No, Mrs. Hawley,” protested Chester. “We won’t wait for that. We’ve plenty of coffee in our thermos bottle, and we’d better be getting on. Thank you just the same. Have the key?”
“Yes, I’ll get it—”
She hobbled back into the house, and they noticed that she was lame.
“To think she should have taken all that trouble,” said Eleanor with compassion. “Chester, that was dreadful!”
“Yes, she is a good woman,” said Chester and then reached out for the key that the old woman had brought.
“Mrs. Hawley,” he said, “we feel it keenly that you should have felt it necessary to leave your own work and go to the farm. I wish I had known. I’m very sorry to have put this on you when you had enough trouble of your own.”
“Oh, that’s all right. It was good for a change to run over, and Jim, he was that fidgety; till I did I couldn’t get nothin’ else done.”
“Well, we’re deeply grateful, and we’ll come over to see Jim and shall hope to be able to return your kindness, as soon as we get ourselves settled.”
They started on again, leaving the old woman holding the lantern high over her head, peering after them through the snow.
“Oh, Chester! What are we going to do? Won’t the house be fearfully cold?”
“We’ll soon have it warm if the fires are laid. She’s a faithful soul. Fancy her toiling around laying fires for us! I’m sorry it turned out this way, Eleanor, for your sake. I wanted you to see the house first under pleasant circumstances. But it can’t be helped now, and we are lucky to get here before the snow gets any deeper, I guess. I’ve been rather worried the last hour or so.”
With that he turned the car with a lurch suddenly straight to the right and plunged into the deepest, darkest road that Eleanor had ever experienced. There seemed no opening in the thick growth of trees. She wondered how her husband knew where the trail was.
The headlights of the car picked out the white pathway foot by foot and lit up a little brown rabbit standing startled right in the way. The children came to life at this, and even Betty, thrilled with the thought of being out there in that dense woods in the snow, stretched her neck to see the little creature of the wild. It was like being in the scene of an educational movie.
“For Pete’s sake, where are we going?” asked Betty at last, roused to a shivering idea of discomfort. “What’s the little old idea, anyway, Chester? Do you want us to freeze to death? It looks to me as if you were trying to see how far you could go before you finished us all. And you call this a lark!”
Chester’s lips shut in a thin, firm line, but he did not reply. He was driving carefully over ruts a foot deep, and the car lurched from side to side and wavered on like a foundering ship at sea.
It seemed hours that they were plowing along in that narrow, dark trail, though in reality it could not have been more than five minutes, before they suddenly emerged to a wide, clear space, deep with snow, the air thick with great flying flakes. It was like coming to the top of the world and looking out on winter. Gradually as they hitched along more slowly yet, there emerged from out of the thick whiteness an outline of a low, rambling building, dark and snow crowned, like an old woman hunched into a shawl with a heavy wool hood over her eyebrows.
Chester drew up at the side of this building and shouted to Michael to pull in also. They all looked out in dismay. It seemed terrible to think of getting out into that whirl of driving, blinding snow.
Chester, with his flashlight in his hand, got out and unlocked the door. He went inside, and they could see the bobbing of the flashlight through the doorway and the windows as he went into another room. Then there flickered up another light, yellower, steadier.
They sat and waited, and in a moment more another flare lighted up the room, wide and yellow and cheering, and the long, low, old farmhouse came alive. Chester had lit a fire in the great old fireplace, and welcome leaped out to meet them.
Chester appeared at the doorway again, an eager smile on his tired, dirty face.
“Come!” he shouted through the blizzard. “It will soon be warm in here! Chris, help your mother and the girls out while I light the other fires. We’ll have a warm house in no time!”
Chris clambered out stiffly and helped out his mother and Betty. Then he went back and carried Doris in, dumping her on a couch, and going back for wraps and bags.
Michael and his brother had already backed up the truck and were unloading boxes and bags, great packing cases of canned goods, and the trunks and bales of blankets.
“They all came through in great shape,” smiled Michael to Eleanor, as he threw down the last bale of blankets.
Betty was walking about disdainfully studying the rooms. She felt that prison walls were about to close in upon her.
Eleanor was busying herself pouring out hot coffee from the thermos bottle for the two men, Michael and his brother.
“It seems dreadful, Chester,” Eleanor was saying, “to let them go out in this storm again tonight after driving all day.”
“I’m bound to get down that mountain, ma’am,” said Michael, smiling, “afore this snow gets any deeper. There’s goin’ to be drifting before morning, an’ I’ll feel easier if I get beyond the pass before I sleep. Jim an’ I’ll be all right, ma’am, don’t you worry, an’ I wantta get back where I can telegraph my wife, fer she’ll be that worried if she don’t hear.”
“Of course,” said Eleanor sympathetically. “But are you sure it’s safe to go back now in the dark?”
“Perfectly safe, ma’am, while the s
now lies still, but if a wind should come up, an’ she might any minute now, it wouldn’t take long to put that pass twelve or fifteen feet deep. O’ course there’s other roads, but not so quick, and Jim and I figure we’ll get down the mountain and beyond the pass now while the goin’ is passable, and then we’ll take our rest. Good-bye, ma’am, an’ I hope you find everything all right, and get along fine—”
Betty and Chris listened as though they heard the keys to their cell turning in the lock. So, Michael and Jim were going back! Then who was going to do things for them? Were there servants in this strange, desolate place to which they had been brought?
Chester stayed out in the snow with Michael and Jim for a few last words, but Eleanor shut the door and came over near the fire.
“Isn’t this wonderful!” she said cheerily, though they could see she was terribly worn and tired. “I’ve dreamed of a fireplace like that! I was beginning to be chilled clear through.”
“I’d much rather have a hot water radiator!” said Betty contemptuously.
“We’d better undo these blankets at once and spread them out to take the chill off them before we start to make up the beds. Come Betty, get to work.”
Betty reluctantly drew off her gloves, and Chris without being asked untied the big ropes that bound them together.
“I can’t see what was the idea of prancing off here to do all this hard labor,” said Betty. “Why not stay at home and work if it had to be? Is it just a gesture, or what?”
But nobody answered her. Eleanor was spreading out the blankets in front of the fire.
“Isn’t it funny having no electric lights!” giggled Doris, waking up to look around.
The Prodigal Girl Page 11