Cordelia Underwood, or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “His name was Burl, and I invited him in for a bit of breakfast and a cup of coffee. He nearly took up the entire kitchen, sitting at the table with his legs stretched out, but he talked about seeing moose and trapping fur and where the best trout could be fished. I thought at first he was some mad hermit, living by himself in the forest, till he mentioned his brothers. I said to him that they must live a distance away, but a wave of a hand in the direction of the woods was the closest to an address I could get from him.

  “ ‘I’m not very clever about keeping track of the days,’ he said. ‘What’s the date today?’

  “Well, I had an almanac hanging from the windowsill, in which I carefully marked each day before I blew out the light and climbed into bed every evening, just so I’d know where I was in the year. ‘It’s the twelfth of December,’ I said, checking the almanac.

  “ ‘Yuletide comes,’ he announced, and he slapped a knee and nearly bumped his head standing up.

  “ ‘If you’re nearby come Christmas Eve,’ I said, following him out, ‘drop in and I’ll fire up some rum and butter.’

  “Well, he thanked me politely enough and trudged off. I stood at the door, watching him disappear among the trees, but he turned around two or three times and stopped, as if he didn’t want me to see the direction he was going, so I went back inside.”

  Mr. Tolly was warming to his story now, his eyes darting from face to face in order to engage each listener. The rhythm of the rails beneath them, the warmth of the summer day and the bright sun had been enveloped in the snows and forests of his tale.

  “Now, I hadn’t exactly taken to the fellow,” he continued, “So my only excuse for offering such an invitation is all that time I had spent alone. In fact, I had felt more than a little uncomfortable with him. It was almost as if I had been conversing with one of the trees that had decided to see what I was up to, or a piece of rock face broke away from the hills looking for a fireside to warm his granite bones. I went outside half a dozen times that day, just to study his footprints in the snow and prove to myself that I hadn’t dreamt the entire visit.

  “More weather drifted over the farm and forests, the livestock were dopey with winter, and I nearly forgot Burl with all the work to be done. Christmas Eve came and I made myself a stew on the hearth and lit an extra candle when night came. There was a small item about Christmas in my almanac that I had been saving, so I sat down with a bowl of stew and the only bit of writing in the house that I hadn’t read four times over.

  “Suddenly there came such a bang at the door that I thought it would break in half. I flew out of my seat with a shout, and in the very same moment remembered my invitation. No other creature could have leveled such a thunderous blow. And when I said come in, the door swept open and in strode Burl.

  “But he wasn’t alone.”

  Mr. Tolly paused, turned to look for his cup, and found it empty. It wasn’t three seconds before someone flagged down a waiter bearing a pot and got it filled for him. And as he recommenced, there was such a straining to hear his every word, and such a lot of earnest eyes watching his face, that if not for his voice and the rumble of the train itself the car would have been quite silent.

  “But he wasn’t alone,” he repeated. “In came a brother, right behind him—Rulf was his name, and he was taller and shabbier, and his nose was larger and longer than Burl’s. Then came a third brother—Gart, and he was wilder still. And a fourth and fifth, and they strode in with a horrible noise, whooping and hooting and shouting and howling like wolves, and flapping their arms. Thirteen of them squeezed into my humble little rooms, their heads bent and their elbows knocking things from the walls. Cairn and Stie and Nutt packed in, and each was more vast and vastly more unattractive than the one before him.

  “ ‘Some coney stew, Wald!’ shouted the seventh to the eighth. ‘Well, Houth, let me fetch you a bowl!’

  “In shouldered Chuff and Spank and Veer, and they decided there wasn’t enough room, so they kicked out the table and chairs. Then came Terth and Runt, who was the biggest of them. Thirteen! And you have never seen such a fantastic assemblage, scraping the ceiling and stumbling into the fire and flattening anything underfoot. And the noise, the absolute din! I was buffeted about like a leaf in a storm, and they laughed and sang in voices like great rocks falling down a hillside.

  “ ‘Where’s the hot buttered rum?’ shouted one of these giants, and soon they found the barrel and the butter, the nutmeg and the sugar, and things got wilder still. It was not long before I crawled out on my hands and knees, dragging along any bit of clothing or blanket I could lay hold of, and spent the rest of the night in the shed with the cow, who was restless with the clamor from the house.

  “The next morning, I woke from a fitful sleep. The cow had settled down and my back was against her side. She’d eaten the sleeve off my coat, but I thought it small enough favor to ask in return for providing a soft pillow and a warm mattress. I clambered to my feet and threw open the shed door. All was quiet. Even the wind had silenced. It was Christmas Day and the forest itself seemed hushed and respectful.

  “Except for the walls, very little in my house remained standing. What furniture had not been tossed into the snow was splintered, and what food had not been eaten was strewn about the place as if a pack of wolves had torn it apart. I was stunned, only too aware of the long cold winter ahead of me. I could spend no time grieving over my situation.

  “There was an Indian family nearby, the Weathertongues—nearby meaning within ten or twelve miles. They were masters of living off the land, and more than generous with the surplus of their larder. I would have had to abandon my poor cow, or slaughter her, if not for the Weathertongues. Able Weathertongue and the rest of his family listened to my fantastic tale and spoke seriously amongst themselves concerning it.

  “ ‘There have always been rough characters living in the forest,’ said Able, before I tied on my snowshoes to tramp home. ‘Even before your people came. But when your people came, they brought their own rough characters, and I think your rough characters and our rough characters have gotten together and made themselves some sons. A little wild behavior is one thing, but this is . . . ’ and he shook his head, unable to conjure up the proper word.

  “I was fortunate that spring came early in 1834. One of the Weathertongue boys saw after my livestock while I went into town for supplies. Through the winter I had thought of nothing but leaving farm, field, and beast behind and becoming a sailor, or hiring onto a mill, but with the warmer months I found myself appreciating the work I had put into my holdings, and by summer’s end I had improved both house and tillage.

  “Harvest came and went, and I gathered in for winter. Snow fell, and I marked off the days in my almanac. The Yuletide approached and an odd jumpiness came over me; my nerves tightened and the muscles of my back felt shrunken and too small for my bones.

  “Christmas Eve came and I sat watching the door, listening, waiting. I had built a new shed that summer and spent the day putting my breakables and perishables into it. Night came, and the wind blew up and howled at the eaves. I sat in the dark, with no candle and only the smallest fire glowing in the hearth. Starting at every strange noise, I wished that I had accepted my neighbors’ invitation to join them for the evening.

  “Then came the blow at the door and I jumped to my feet. I waited, keening my ears for every sound. Another blow came, louder still. I said nothing. Awful rumbling voices conversed among themselves, muffled through the door. Another blow shook the hinges and rattled the sill; then a voice called my name.

  “ ‘He is not home,’ came one theory.

  “ ‘But I smell a fire. He must have banked the hearth for us,’ came another.

  “That was all they needed. The door was thrown open and in they came, huge and ungainly, filling up my tiny home and declaring: Why hadn’t I spoken when they called? Was I asleep? They laughed and roared and knocked the breath from me pounding my back.

  “The nois
e they made was worse than I had remembered, and when they saw my cupboards almost empty and nothing cooking in the hearth, they roared louder still. Three of them ran out into the woods and came back a little later with a great black-staved barrel of rum and the carcass of a twelve-point buck. The hearth wasn’t big enough for their purposes, so they made a great bonfire just outside the door that singed the sides of the house, and they clambered in and out, bumping their heads in the doorway and holding wrestling matches on the kitchen floor.

  “I considered driving them out, but even with a shotgun in my hand I would have seemed puny to them. Upon my word, they would have laughed at me. I simply crawled into the cow shed with a blanket, and when I woke up the next morning the fire outside the house was still smoldering. The shed, where I had put in my winter’s store, was emptied and flattened. The next year I planned to be away for Christmas Eve.”

  Mr. Tolly looked to his cup again, and someone asked a waiter to leave a pot of coffee at the old fellow’s table. “Tea will do,” said Mr. Tolly, and the waiter, who had been as intent on the story as any of the passengers, hurried off to fulfill his office.

  “Who were these louts?” asked one young man pettishly, thinking perhaps that he would have done something about the situation.

  “Beyond their names, I never knew,” said Mr. Tolly. “And I never met another soul that had ever laid eyes on them.”

  “What was this about a bear, Mr. Tolly?” asked Cordelia.

  “Ah, yes,” he replied. “I was going to tell you about the bear.” The waiter arrived with the tea then, and half the car joined Mr. Tolly in a cup. Their spoons jangled against china as they waited for his story to continue. With great method he sipped from his cup before obliging their curiosity.

  “I managed, with help, to get through that winter as well, but I knew that the farm could not survive another visit from Burl and his kin. Then came December of 1835, and three days before Christmas a great blizzard bundled in from the coast, piling up snow past my knees, and blowing drifts over my head. I never left the house, except to tend to the livestock, and by the morning of Christmas Eve I was getting mighty anxious that I wouldn’t be able to get away before my annual guests arrived.

  “But the sky cleared in mid-morning and I packed my kit and strapped on my snowshoes. I banked the embers in the hearth and saw to the cows—there were two of them by now. Then I turned my face in the direction of the Weathertongues’ property and stopped in my tracks.

  “A man—a normal sort of man, that is—stood at the brink of the forest, a pack on his back and a musket across his arm. He looked almost black against the trees, they were so laden with snow. ‘Ho, there,’ he called. ‘Where am I, pray tell, and what day is it?’

  “ ‘Shirley Mills, in the State of Maine,’ I called back. ‘It’s Christmas Eve.’

  “I advanced toward him a few steps and he said: ‘Careful, careful. Old Benjamin here isn’t used to any human creature but myself.’

  “I halted, squinting my eyes against the glare of the snow. Then something white moved and let out a low throaty growl. It was a bear, a white bear, a polar bear! It was the biggest bear I had ever seen in my life, and it stood up on its hind legs and licked the snow from a branch that stood fourteen feet high if it stood an inch.

  “ ‘He won’t bother you,’ said the man. ‘Just as long as you don’t come too close.’

  “ ‘Great gee whillikers, man!’ I shouted. ‘What are you doing with that beast?’

  “ ‘I’m bringing him to Washington,’ he declared. ‘As a gift to Andrew Jackson.’

  “Well, I sincerely hoped that the President would know what to do with a polar bear, and said so; but I explained to the man that I was off to spend Christmas Eve with my neighbors, and regretted that I wouldn’t be able to show him any hospitality. That was all right with him, he was too done in to appreciate anything but a bit to eat and a bed to sleep in, and he asked would I mind him staying the night if he left everything the way he found it.

  “I did my best, then, to explain about Burl and his twelve brothers. I even admitted that I was spending the night away just to be clear of their roughneck celebration, and that I was seriously considering leaving the farm, lock, stock, and livestock, to anyone who wanted it. He wasn’t to be daunted, however. Not at all. He’d been trudging for weeks with this bear at the end of a rope, and if I didn’t object, he would take his chances. The day was getting on by then, so I wished him well, told him what he’d find in the larder, and headed out.”

  Mr. Tolly shifted in his seat, sipped from his cup, and said in a grave tone: “What I tell you next I only know from the bear catcher’s own account.

  “The bear catcher, whose name I never did learn, poked up the embers in the hearth and threw some logs on. Then he helped himself to some of the food which I had not bothered to hide, and settled himself down with my almanac. By his own reckoning, he had not slept under a roof, nor read a bit of printed word for a year and half. Greatly obliged by his present circumstances, he quickly fell asleep at the kitchen table.

  “It was the bear, tied to a tree outside, that woke him. He heard the sound of hungry growls and realized that he hadn’t fed the creature, so he got his pack and went out to feed the polar bear the last of his pemmican, and while he was doing this, Burl and his brothers came galumphing out of the forest. Now it will say something about this tribe of wild men that a man who had subdued a polar bear found them singularly daunting. He watched in astonishment as they strode across the clearing in the moonlight and banged on the front door.

  “He told me that the house shook with the blows, and deciding that he could spend another night without a roof over his head, he climbed the very tree to which he had tied the bear, quite happy to have escaped the notice of my uninvited guests.

  “ ‘He is playing hidey-seek with us again,’ shouted one of the brothers, and they threw open the door and tumbled in. Soon they had a great bonfire stacked outside the door. Irritated with the light, the polar bear dug himself into the snow, so that only his black nose was visible. The man in the tree climbed higher still, and watched as the brothers howled and sang and danced and fought and took turns throwing each other into the fire. Sparks and logs flew, and the smell of singed hair filled the woods.

  “As they were digging into the larder, one of the brothers came out with a large sausage and proceeded to cook it over the bonfire on a stick. Two of the clan tried to wrest the meat away from him, but he staved them off with several powerful blows and wandered away from the fire to enjoy his repast.

  “His path, as it happened, took him to the tree where the frightened onlooker was hiding, and to which the bear was tied. The great long-nosed roughneck chewed at the still sizzling sausage with a satisfied growl, then stopped to stare down at the polar bear’s nose. The bear, smelling the sausage, had begun to sniff and snuff from under the snow.

  “The ugly fellow called to his brothers and, already half-drunk with rum, they tramped over and watched the polar bear’s nose wriggle and sniff, fascinated and puzzled till one of them declared that it was the farm’s dog, hiding from them. ‘He wants a bit of sausage there, Spank! Let him have it!’ And with an evil laugh, Spank took the sausage, still hot from the fire, and laid it on the sniffing nose.

  “If the earth itself had opened up at their feet and thrust forth a great spewing, spitting, frothing, enraged monster from its most terrible depths, they could not have been more shocked. The bear stood to its hind feet in one massive movement—fur bristling, muscles rippling, claws like daggers, teeth like jagged ice. A great mantle of snow covered the creature’s shoulders and the crown of its head, making it more frightening and shapeless still. It let out such a roar that the brothers were knocked from their feet, and the bear leaned back into the tree with such force that the man sitting in it feared he would be shaken out.

  “Several other trees in the vicinity suffered that night; in fact some were actually torn out by the roots or broken o
ff at the ground by the force of the brothers’ exodus. The man in the tree thought another blizzard had hit, the snow was flying so, and for some minutes he could hear the sound of thumps and crashings and curses in the forest.

  “The bear, more angry than hurt, let out a growl and curled up in the snow again. He was still sleeping there when I returned the next day, after a night mixed with the pleasantries of the Weathertongues’ hospitality and the understandable anxiety I felt over the fate of my farm.

  “As it turned out, Burl and his brothers had not had the chance to do any great amount of damage, and I can tell you I cooked up a stew solely for that bear, I was so thankful. Before the afternoon was very old, the man gave his thanks and his goodbyes and took the bear south, toward Washington and President Jackson. I never saw or heard from them again, and I never knew if Old Hickory ever got his polar bear.

  “But the next year, about a week before Christmas, I was bringing wood in from the shed when a familiar voice came out of the forest. ‘Hey, there, farmer! How’s that dog of yours?’

  “I looked into the woods but could see no one. ‘Dog?’ I said, sounding puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean the puppy I had last winter. She’s full-grown now, and had a litter of her own. They are somewhere in the woods hunting, I think.’ I listened, but there was no reply. ‘Are you and your brothers coming for Christmas Eve?’ I inquired, but the woods were silent.

  “And a breath of wind just touched my ear, like someone whispering: ‘Gone!’ ”

  Cordelia shivered, though the day was warm and sunlight streamed through the windows of the dining car. She was aware, once more, of the rhythm of the rails and the people around her. James had found his pipe and was smoking contentedly, leaning back in his seat. Others drifted back to their own tables or left the car.

  “More tea, Mr. Tolly?” asked Mercia.

  “No, thank you. I’m about washed out with all the tea and coffee I’ve had. The throat does get dry, though, ma’am.”