by Van Reid
Alternatives were growing fewer; the older regiment was sighted stalking through the pinewood. The snow among the trees was not so easily compacted, since the shadows there had kept at bay the direct light of the sun, but the younger boys used their breaths and the warmth of their hands to form a few snowballs before the hounds were upon them.
A general sort of chuckling rose out of the woods as the pursuers closed in, moving from tree to tree and informing their quarry with an ever deepening dread.
The younger boys arranged themselves about Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump; Custer himself might have wished to have such brave company, and they did in fact look something like the popular image of that general and his beleaguered regiment. The larger boys fanned out on either side and paused only when they formed a line of about thirty yards. Three of the tallest of these boys-and tall indeed they were!-half hid themselves, with scarves about their faces, beneath the largest of the pines in sight.
Eagleton, ever the weather watcher, had an eye on the robin’s-egg blue that was visible in patches between the pointed heads of the lofty pines, and above the tallest of these trees (behind which crouched the three tall boys) he caught sight of a peculiar disturbance in the air. Eagleton forgot the immediate danger and peered with his much-praised sight at what seemed to be a vapor or a waft of smoke rising from the topmost branches of the noble pine.
“Good heavens!” he said. “I do believe it is the Smoking Pine!” Quite unconsciously, he fingered the little cross beneath his shirt.
“Really?” said Brink from behind his scarf. He and his fellows peered up the trunk of the tree.
There was a peculiar stillness in the air.
And there was a great roar as the Smoking Pine and its immediate brethren chose that exact moment to let loose the great wet burden they had been carrying since the blizzard of the day before, and the entire line of older boys-and most completely the three tall “boys” beneath the Smoking Pine itself-disappeared beneath an avalanche of wet snow.
37. Curier and Therefore
“Haloo!” came a voice from the front of the house, a male voice, which seemed to Daniel out of place, where he had only heard the voices of women. “Haloo!”
“That’s Curier,” said Larinda.
“In the kitchen, Curier!” called Lavona.
The door swung open, and two men were revealed. The first was a man as elderly as their hostesses; a large, raw-boned fellow with huge hands and feet, he had a nose and ears to match and great, sad eyes. He arrived with unmistakable familiarity, with both the surroundings and the Pettengills. He wore overalls and a long coat that looked warm enough for brisk fall rather than the morning after a winter’s blizzard, and Daniel wondered how warm the day had grown.
The second man was of middle age, a little taller than Daniel, with whisk-broom mustaches and matching eyebrows that furrowed down over his nose to complete a serious mien. He was coated and furred more in keeping with the season, and when he lumbered his broad shoulders into the kitchen his bulk seemed to soak up as much room as all five sisters. He looked less certain as he followed the first man. Both of them tracked melting snow behind them.
“Morning, morning,” said the elderly man, who was Curier. He bobbed his head at everyone, betraying obvious interest in Daniel and more than obvious interest in Charlotte. “Morning, morning.”
“How are you this morning, folks?” said the second man, his stentorian tones shivering the woodwork. He cast his eye about the room and stopped at Daniel. “Morning, sir.”
“Looks to be less weather than yesterday,” said Daniel.
“It is,” said the man. “I’m Ergo Define.” Daniel’s eyes widened slightly, but the man was ready for this. He nodded, adding, “Folks call me Therefore.”
“Do they?” said Daniel, whose expression, for a brief moment, was perhaps more amazed than polite. He recovered himself quickly, however, and offered his hand, saying, “Daniel Plain way, Mr. Define.”
“Please, Therefore.”
“Therefore,” said Daniel, dipping his head.
Curier hooked a thumb at Mr. Define. “Met him coming in,” he said to one of the sisters, who were watching everything with great interest. “I trust you are the people who were left in the sleigh last night,” said Define.
“We are,” replied Daniel, his expression unreadable.
“I am certainly happy to find you and also that you found shelter. I am profoundly shamed and angry that a man in my employ would leave you in such a predicament.” Mr. Define turned to Charlotte and made a curt bow. “I am profoundly sorry, Mrs. Plain way.”
“This is Charlotte Burn brake,” said Daniel.
“Oh? I beg your pardon.”
“We are traveling companions by accident,” explained Daniel. “Well,” he amended, “by several accidents, actually.”
“I only found out about the sleigh turning over this morning,” said Mr. Define. “Didn’t even realize a sleigh was gone, and when I finally found the scoundrel, he admitted to leaving a man and his wife out in the snow.”
“Did you spend the night?” said Curier to Daniel.
“Of course he spent the night!” said Lavona. “Do you think we left them on the porch?”
“Didn’t think that, really,” said Curier.
“The driver is well, I take it,” said Charlotte.
“He is without employ at the moment, ma’am,” declared Therefore Define.
“He didn’t break his neck at least,” said Daniel.
“It is a wonder, drunk as he was,” said the livery manager. “Beg your pardon, ladies,” he added, sorry to have raised such an unrefined subject.
“Whether with our pardon or not, Mr. Define,” said Charlotte, “he was quite drunk, as it happened.”
“Therefore, Miss Burn brake.”
“Yes?”
“Therefore.”
“Oh, of course. Thank you, Therefore.”
The man squared his large shoulders and said, “I have come to put myself and my best team and sleigh at your disposal,” said the man.
“That’s very good of you,” said Daniel. “We were hoping to get a start this morning. Perhaps you could take us as far as the next station toward Hallowell.”
“I will take you to Hallowell, sir.”
“It’s not necessary, I assure you.”
“For myself I beg to differ.”
Daniel thought about the offer. It would be colder in a sleigh than on the train, though he was pretty sure that Mr. Define (he could hardly get used to calling the man Therefore) would have geared the vehicle with more than enough blankets and throws; on the other hand, the prospect of an extended ride with Charlotte was not unpleasant. He exchanged glances with her.
“It looks like a lovely day,” she said quietly.
“It is settled then,” said the liveryman.
“I suppose it is. Thank you… Therefore,” said Daniel.
“St. Nicholas’s Day,” said Curier in his same prosaic manner.
“We know that, Curier,” said Louella.
The man made a small sound to indicate he heard.
“If you’d left a pair of boots in the hall yesterday,” Larinda scolded Curier, “you would have gotten sweets this morning.”
“Would have been cold walking home without my boots,” he said. “You ladies are sweet enough for me.” He was smiling now, and he winked at Daniel as he turned away from the sisters. There was a great deal of clucked tongues and exasperated gasps from the elderly women. “Probably would have married one of them,” said Curier, in a tone only Daniel could have caught, “but couldn’t decide which one.”
“What was that?” said a suspicious Larinda.
“What did he say?” said Louella.
“My land, Curier!” declared Alvaid, though it was not clear what she was expressing.
“I have the things you left in the sleigh,”said Therefore Define.
“Thank you!” said Charlotte. “Could I beg you to bring m
y bags in?”
“Ma’am,”said Therefore. He followed Curier out into the hall with Daniel close behind.
Curier seemed to be explaining to Therefore how close he came to marrying one of the Pettengills. “It would have caused a row, I can tell you. They were all pretty fond of me, you know.”
“Curier?” said Daniel, and the old man stopped in the hall while Therefore went on to retrieve Charlotte’s things. “It is Curier?” said Daniel, his hand out. He hadn’t understood yet whether Curier was the man’s first name or last.
“It is,”said the man, which clarified nothing.
“You help to take care of things here, do you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Curier. He nodded his heavy features, standing over Daniel like some big, awkward bird. “The ladies wouldn’t get on without me.”
“I can believe it.” Daniel stood with his hands behind him, unconsciously slipping into his lawyerlike deportment. “Took a liking to Lavona for a bit, but she shouted even then,” said Curier. “I think she was the prettiest of them, though, was Lavona. Nice girls. And that Alvaid, you know.” Curier gave a low whistle.
“They get on pretty well then?” asked Daniel.
“They do fine, most of the time,” said the man.
Charlotte came out of the kitchen with two or three of the sisters in close tow. “I’ll shovel the porch,”said Curier matter-of-factly.
“Thank you, Curier,” said Lavilda.
Therefore came through the front door with Charlotte’s things, but she stopped suddenly and wondered aloud if the elderly fellow should be shoveling.
“Curier?” said Larinda. “He’s been shoveling all his life.”
“That may be as good a reason as any to stop,” thought Charlotte, though her voice hardly carried beyond Daniel.
“I’ll go out and see if I can give him a hand,” said Daniel.
The sisters tried to put a stop to this plan of action, declaring that Curier fended for himself very well and it wasn’t like their household to allow a guest to apply himself to chores; but Daniel was good at countering these claims with his own, and the upshot of it was that he and Therefore followed Curier onto the porch, where Daniel found the opportunity to question the man further about the Pettengills, their late father, and Mr Edward, whose instructions regarding the locked room had been so assiduously obeyed.
“Do you know the Pettengills very well?” asked Daniel of Therefore Define before they were very long on the road to Hallowell.
“I don’t know them at all,” said the driver without looking back. “In fact I’ve only seen them rarely, though I certainly know about them, or what common wisdom knows.”
“And that is?” asked Charlotte.
“Common wisdom? They’re a curious lot, but well-liked for all that. Mr. Pettengill was a curious man, they say, but tended business and was generous when the hat was passed around at Christmas. Their mother was a sociable lady and less peculiar than the rest of them.”
“And were there no sons?” wondered Daniel.
“All girls.”
“Do you know a Mr. Edward?”
The driver thought on this. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“He’s a lawyer, I guess,” said Daniel, “in Gardiner.”
“Edward,” said Therefore. He seemed stumped. Then he brightened up, saying, “Not Edward Grimb?”
“They called him Mr Edward. Curier did too.”
“Well, they might.” Mr. Define chuckled. “Who knows? I don’t know a Mr Edward.”
“HI weren’t afraid of losing the Moosepath League again,” said Daniel to Charlotte, “I’d take the time to look for Mr. Edward and inquire after this locked-room business.”
“A their lawyer he wouldn’t have to tell you a thing, would he?” wondered Charlotte.
“He wouldn’t, of course. But I’d see the cut of the fellow’s coat. I’ve never heard of such a stipulation in a will and can’t imagine it would hold up under any sort of scrutiny.”
“Do you think the lawyer is keeping something from them?”
“He has the key, we’re told.”
“It is a little strange.”
“It is.”
Charlotte’s eyes were bright with the day, and her cheeks red with the wind of their movement. “You are a bit of a knight, Mr. Plainway,” she said.
Daniel waved this away, but her insistent expression, which was equal parts earnestness and humor, would not brook complete disagreement. “Don Quixote perhaps,” he said finally. It let him out of everything but a blush.
She looked away then, for his sake.
“They are a curious lot,” said the liveryman again, as if he had not heard any of their talk.
They passed over the road to Gardiner and soon found themselves within the outer limits of that town. Church spires rose up from behind the advancing hills, and the scattered farmhouses grew smaller in their yardage, the homes of businessmen or store owners more frequent as the center of town drew close.
“Will your uncle be in Hallowell long?” wondered Daniel. It was the first mention of her plans between them, and as common and even polite as the question sounded, there was also about it a hint of intimacy.
“A few days perhaps,” she answered, precipitating a nod from Daniel. “It has been an odd affair,” she offered. “A man communicated with us just last week about some land Uncle Ezra has owned for years. The man-Mr. Tempest, his name is-said he was in the process of buying the equipment from a lumber mill that was closing up north and that he hoped to relocate it nearer Augusta, where there is much building expected. He was in a prodigious hurry to settle on a piece of land, and Uncle Ezra’s acreage fitted his needs perfectly.”
“He said.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But that was not the case?”
“We received a letter the day before yesterday-the Moosepath League delivered it, in fact-a strange sort of communication, calling off the deal and warning us of others who would try to make the same deal in his place.”
“This is singular.”
“We thought so.”
“But your uncle went to Hallowell anyway?”
“To see his lawyer. He wanted to discuss the whole business and learn if Mr. Toll back knew any more than we did.”
“Mr. Tollback being your lawyer.”
Charlotte nodded.
“I guess I’m not the only one with peculiar events motivating me,” said Daniel, “though it seems your story has ended before it began. I have yet to lay eyes on the principal players in my tale, or recent eyes in the case of the boy.”
“Will you go to meet him then?” wondered Charlotte. Since hearing of his search, she had wondered a great deal about the orphaned child.
“I do hope to meet him,” he said.
There was enough of the romantic in Charlotte to wonder what the boy’s mother had meant to Daniel Plainway. “What was she like, his mother?”
“Nell? She was a sweet girl. I never knew a gentler soul, I think, than Eleanor Linnett.”
Charlotte thought that this was meaningful praise from such a gentle soul as Daniel Plainway. Though he watched a small settlement outside the main village of Gardiner go past, she guessed he was seeing something else entirely.
“The Linnetts were an important pillar in Hiram, and it was their great fault to be a little proud of it, and their great tragedy that one of their number would mix with the least of Hiram’s folk.”
“The prince and the milkmaid,” said Charlotte.
“More like the princess and the poacher,”said Daniel, then thought better of it. “No, because Robin Hood was a poacher, I suppose. The Willums were-are, I should say-the lowest and the meanest, though they have been able to produce the figure of an upstanding man, if not the soul of one.” Daniel considered this then and corrected himself again. “That’s not altogether so either, for they did produce one good soulbesides the boy, of course-though none of us took much notice of Jeram at the time.”
“None of this sounds very happy,” said Charlotte.
“Ah,” he said, as if tossing the memory away.
“So,”said Charlotte, “it was not the good soul with whom the boy’s mother mixed?”
“Yes,” Daniel said, “and no.” He smiled at her confounded expression.
She looked away then, afraid that she had been too inquisitive; she hadn’t known this man any longer than the day before, after all.
For Daniel’s part, this was one day-perhaps the first day in recent memory-that he might have left the tale behind, the day before him was so bright and the woman beside him so pleasant and beautiful. But after a moment, in which he feared she was going to apologize for her curiosity, he said, “I should like to tell it to you, but I may have only the one rendition left in me.” He was a little startled when she reached her hand over and touched his briefly.
“Perhaps when you tell Mister Walton,” she said.
38. -Athians and -Ashians in Flux
“Good heavens!” said Ephram.
“I concur, my friend,” asserted Eagleton. “Thump?”
“They are my thoughts as well,” said that worthy.
“Good heavens!” said Ephram again; it was remarkable how often they were in concert.
Their young company had flown beyond the forest of pines and across the field of battle like the shadows of crows and felt themselves victorious simply by dint of escaping the vengeance of the older boys. Campaigns have turned on smaller events.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump lingered to be sure that no one had been injured by the startling avalanche, and the older boys rose from the unexpected heaps of snow, laughing and calling out to one another; never were ambushed soldiers so happy in their circumstances. The boughs of the pines above them waved in the breeze, as if glad to be rid of their burden. Eagleton gazed up to the top of the tallest tree, hoping to see again that odd disturbance in the air.
The portion of an hour struck from a steeple in the village, and Ephram consulted one of his three or four watches. “Half past twelve,” he an nounced. He was beginning to feel hungry.