Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “No — that is, several boxes got wet, and I’ve been obliged to sit around this confounded fire for fear it might go out — didn’t dare fish very far from it.”

  He looked gloomily around, rubbed his forehead as though trying to recollect something, and finally sat down on a log.

  “Fact is,” he said, “I don’t know very much about the woods. Do you? Everything’s gone wrong; I tore my canoe in the Ledge Rapids yesterday. I’m in a fix.”

  Ellis laughed; and his laugh was so pleasant, so entirely without offence, that young Jones laughed, too, for a while, then checked himself to adjust his eyeglasses, which his mirth had displaced.

  “Can you cook?” he asked, so seriously that Ellis only nodded, still laughing.

  “Then, for Heaven’s love, would you, when you cook your own breakfast over that fire, cook enough for two?”

  “Why, man, I believe you’re hungry,” said Ellis, sharply.

  “Hungry? Well, I don’t know whether you would call it exactly hunger, because I have eaten several things which I cooked. I ought not to be hungry; I tried to toss a flapjack, but it got stuck to the pan. Fact is, I’m a rotten cook, and I guess it’s simply that I’m half starved for a decent meal.”

  “Why, see here,” said Ellis, rising to his feet, “I can fix up something pretty quick if you like.”

  “I do like. Yonder is my cornmeal, coffee, some damp sugar, flour, and what’s left of the pork. You see I left it in a corner of the lean-to, and while I was asleep a porcupine got busy with it; then I hung it on a tree, and some more porcupines invited their relatives, and they all climbed up and nearly finished it. Did you suppose that a porcupine could climb a tree?”

  “I’ve heard so,” said Ellis, gravely, busy with the stores which he was unrolling from his own blanket. The guilelessness of this stray brother appalled him. Here was a babe in the woods. A new sort of babe, too, for, in the experience of Ellis, the incompetent woodsman is ever the loudest-mouthed, the tyro, the most conceited. But this forest-squatting innocent not only knew nothing of the elements of woodcraft, but had called a stranger’s attention to his ignorance with a simplicity that silenced mirth, forestalled contempt, and aroused a curious respect for the unfortunate.

  “He is no liar, anyway,” thought Ellis, placing a back-log, mending the fire, emptying the coffee pot, and settling the kettle to boil. And while he went about culinary matters with a method born of habit, Jones watched him, aided when he saw a chance; and they chatted on most animatedly together as the preparations for breakfast advanced.

  “The very first day I arrived in the woods,” said Jones, “I fell into the stream and got most of my matches wet. I’ve had a devil of a time since.”

  “It’s a good idea to keep reserve matches in a water-tight glass bottle,” observed Ellis, carelessly, and without appearing to instruct anybody about anything.

  “I’ll remember that. What is a good way to keep pork from porcupines?”

  Ellis mentioned several popular methods, stirred the batter, shoved a hot plate nearer the ashes, and presently began the manufacture of flapjacks.

  “Don’t you toss ‘em?” inquired Jones, watching the process intently.

  “Oh, they can be tossed — like this! But it is easier for me to turn them with a knife — like this. I have an idea that they toss flapjacks less often in the woods than they do in fiction.”

  “I gathered my idea from a book,” said Jones, bitterly; “it told how to build a fire without matches. Some day I shall destroy the author.”

  Presently Jones remarked in a low, intense voice: “Oh, the fragrance of that coffee and bacon!” which was all he said, but its significance was pathetically unmistakable.

  “Pitch in, man,” urged Ellis, looking back over his shoulder. “I’ll be with you in a second.” But when his tower of browned and smoking flapjacks was ready, and he came over to the log, he found that his host, being his host, had waited. That settled his convictions concerning Jones; and that was doubtless why, inside of half an hour, he found himself calling him Jones and not Mr. Jones, and Jones calling him Ellis. They were a pair of well knit, clean-limbed young men, throat and face burnt deeply by wind and sun. Jones did not have much hair; Ellis’s was thick and short, and wavy at the temples. They were agreeable to look at.

  “Have another batch of flapjacks?” inquired Ellis, persuasively.

  Jones groaned with satisfaction at the prospect, and applied himself to a crisp trout garnished with bacon.

  “I’ve tried and tried,” he said, “but I cannot catch any trout. When I found that I could not I was horrified, Ellis, because, you see, I had supposed that the forest and stream were going to furnish me with subsistence. Nature hasn’t done a thing to me since I’ve tried to shake hands with her.”

  “I wonder,” said Ellis, “why you came into the woods alone?”

  Jones coyly pounced upon another flapjack, folded it neatly and inserted one end of it into his mouth. This he chewed reflectively; and when it had vanished according to Fletcher, he said:

  “If I tell you why I came here I’ll begin to get angry. This breakfast is too heavenly to spoil. Pass the bacon and help yourself.”

  Ellis, however, had already satisfied his hunger. He set the kettle on the coals again, dumped into it cup and plate and fork, wiped his sheath-knife carefully, and, curling up at the foot of a hemlock, lighted his pipe, returning the flaming branch to the back-log.

  Jones munched on; smile after smile spread placidly over his youthful face, dislodging his eyeglasses every time. He resumed them, and ate flapjacks.

  “The first time my canoe upset,” he said, “I lost my book of artificial flies. I brought a box of angle-worms with me, too, but they fell into the stream the second time I upset. So I have been trying to snare one of those big trout under the ledge below — —”

  Ellis’s horrified glance cut him short; he shrugged his shoulders.

  “My friend, I know it’s dead low-down, but it was a matter of pure hunger with me. At all events, it’s just as well that I caught nothing; I couldn’t have cooked it if I had.”

  He sighed at the last flapjack, decided he did not require it, and settling down with his back against the log blissfully lighted his pipe.

  For ten minutes they smoked without speaking, dreamily gazing at the blue sky through the trees. Friendly little forest birds came around, dropping from twig to branch; two chipmunks crept into the case of eggs to fill their pouched chops with the oats that the eggs were packed in. The young men watched them lazily.

  “The simpler life is the true existence,” commented Ellis, drawing a long, deep breath.

  “What the devil is the simpler life?” demanded Jones, with so much energy that the chipmunks raced away in mad abandon, and the flock of black-capped birds scattered to neigbouring branches, remarking in unison, “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.”

  “Why, you’re leading the simpler life now,” said Ellis, laughing, “are you not?”

  “Am I? No, I’m not. I’m not leading a simple life; I’m leading a pace-killing, nerve-racking, complex one. I tell you, Ellis, that it has taken just one week in the woods to reveal to me the complexity of simplicity!”

  “Oh, you don’t like the life?”

  “I like it all right, but it’s too complex. Listen to me. You asked me why anybody ever let me escape into the woods. I’ll tell you.... You’re a New Yorker, are you not?”

  Ellis nodded.

  “All right. First look on this picture: I live in the Sixties, near enough to the Park to see it. It’s green, and I like it. Besides, there are geraniums and other posies in my back yard, and I can see them when the laundress isn’t too busy with the clothes-line. So much for the mise en scène; me in a twenty-by-one-hundred house, perfectly contented; Park a stone’s toss west, back yard a few feet north. My habits? Simple enough to draw tears from a lambkin! I breakfast at nine — an egg, fruit, coffee and — I hate to admit it — the Sun. At eleven I go down-tow
n to see if there’s anything doing. There never is, so I smoke one cigar with my partner and then we lunch together. I then walk uptown — walk, mind you. At the club I look at the ticker, or out of the window. Later I play cowboy or billiards for an hour. I take one cocktail — one, if you please. I converse.” He waved his pipe; Ellis nodded solemnly.

  “Then,” continued Jones, “what do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Ellis.

  “I’ll tell you. I call a cab — one taxi, or one hansom, as the state of the weather may suggest — I drive through the Park, pleasantly aware of the verdure, the squirrels, and the babies; I arrive at my home; I mount to the library and there I select from my limited collection some accursed book I’ve always heard of but have never read — not fiction, but something stupefying and worth while. This I read for exactly one hour. I then need a drink. I then dress; and if I’m dining out, out I go — if not, I dine at home. Twice a week I attend the theatre, but I neutralise that by doing penance at the opera every Monday during the season.... There, Ellis, is the story of a simple life! Look on that picture. Now look on this: Me in the backwoods, fly-bitten, smoke-choked, a half-charred flapjack in my fist, a porcupine-gnawed rind of pork on a stick, attempting to broil the same at a fire, the smoke of which blinds me. Me, again, belly down, peering hungrily over the bank of a stream, attempting to snatch a trout with a bare hook, my glasses slipping off repeatedly, the spectre of starvation scourging on me. Me, once more, frantic with indigestion and mosquitoes, lurking under a blanket, the root of a tree bruising my backbone; me in the morning, done up, shaving in icy water and cutting my chin; me, half shaved, searching for a scrap of nourishment, gauntly prowling among cold and greasy fry-pans! Ellis! Which is the simpler life, in Heaven’s name?”

  Ellis’s laughter was the laughter of a woodsman, full, infectious, but almost noiseless. The birds came back and teetered on adjacent twigs, cheeping in friendly unison; a chipmunk, chops distended, popped up from the case of eggs like a striped jack-in-a-box, not at all afraid of a man who laughed that way.

  “How did you ever come into the woods?” he asked at length.

  “Lunatic friends and fool books persuaded me I was missing something. I read all about how to tell a woodcock from a peacock; how to dig holes in the ground and raise little pea vines, and how to make two blades of grass grow where the laundress had set a devastating shoe. Then I tired of it. But friends urged me on, and one idiot said that I looked like the victim of a rare disease and gave me a shotgun — whether to shoot myself or the dicky birds I’m not perfectly certain yet. Besides, as I have a perfect hatred of taking life, I had no temptation to shoot guides in Maine or niggers in South Carolina, where the quail come from. Still, I was awake to the new idea. I read more books on bats and woodchucks; I smelled every flower I saw; I tried to keep up,” he said, earnestly; “by Heaven, I did my best! And now, look at me! Nature hands me the frozen mitt!”

  Ellis could only laugh, cradling his knees in his clasped and sun-tanned hands.

  “I am fond of Nature; I admire the geraniums in my backyard,” continued Jones, excitedly. “I like a simple life, too; but I don’t wish to pursue a live thing and eat it for my dinner. The idea is perfectly obnoxious to me. I like flowers on a table or in the Park, but I don’t want to know their names, or the names of the creatures that buzz and crawl over them, or the names of the birds that feed on the buzzy things! I don’t; I know I don’t, and I won’t! Nature has strung me; I shall knock Nature hereafter. This is all for mine. I’ll lock up and leave the key of the fields to the next Come-on lured into the good green goods by that most accomplished steerer, Mrs. Nature. I’ve got my gilt brick, Ellis — I’m going home to buy a card to hang over my desk; and on it will be the wisest words ever written:

  “‘Who’s Loony Now?’”

  “But, my dear fellow — —”

  “No, you don’t. You’re an accomplice of this Nature dame; I can tell by the way you cook and catch trout and keep your matches in bottles. One large and brilliant brick is enough for one New York man. The asphalt for mine — and a Turkish bath.”

  After a grinning silence, Ellis arose, stretched, tapped his pipe against a tree trunk, and sauntered over to where his rod lay. “Come on; I’ll guarantee you a trout in the first reach,” he said, affably, slipping ferrule into socket, disentangling the cast and setting the line free.

  So they strolled off toward the long amber reach which lay a few yards below the camp, Jones explaining that he didn’t wish to take life from anything except a mosquito.

  “We’ve got to eat; we’d better stock up while we can, because it’s going to rain,” observed Ellis.

  “Going to rain? How do you know?”

  “I smell it. Besides, look there — yonder above the mountains. Do you see the sky behind the Golden Dome?”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A STATE OF MIND

  Up the narrow valley, over the unbroken sweep of treetops, arose tumbled peaks; and above the Golden Dome, pushing straight upward into the flawless blue of heaven, towered a cloud, its inky convolutions edged with silver.

  Jones inspected the thunderhead with disapproval; Ellis offered his rod, and, being refused, began some clever casting, the artistic beauty of which was lost upon Jones.

  One trout only investigated the red-and-white fly; and, that fish safely creeled, Ellis turned to his companion:

  “Three years ago, when I last came here, this reach was more prolific. But there’s a pool above that I’ll warrant. Shall we move?”

  As they passed on upstream Jones said: “There’s no pool above, only a rapid.”

  “You’re in error,” said Ellis, confidently. “I’ve known every pool on the Caranay for years.”

  “But there is no pool above — unless you mean to trespass.”

  “Trespass!” repeated Ellis, aghast. “Trespass in the free Caranay forests! You — you don’t mean to say that any preserve has been established on the Caranay! I haven’t been here for three years.... Do you?”

  “Look there,” said Jones, pointing to a high fence of netted wire which rose above the undergrowth and cut the banks of the stream in two with a barrier eight feet high; “that’s what stopped me. There’s their home-designed trespass notice hanging to the fence. Read it; it’s worth perusal.”

  Speechless, but still incredulous, Ellis strode to the barrier and looked up. And this is what he read printed in mincing “Art Nouveau” type upon a swinging zinc sign fashioned to imitate something or other which was no doubt very precious:

  Oyez!

  Ye simple livers of ye simpler life have raised thys barrier against ye World, ye Flesh and ye Devyl. Turn back in Peace and leave us to our Nunnery.

  Ye Maids and Dames of Vassar.

  “What the devil is that nonsense?” demanded Ellis hoarsely.

  “Explained on our next tree,” remarked Jones, wiping his eyeglasses indifferently.

  An ordinary trespass notice printed on white linen was nailed to the flank of a great pine; and, below this, a special warning, done in red on a white board:

  Notice!

  This property belongs to the Vassar College Summer School. Fishing, shooting, trapping, the felling of trees, the picking of wild flowers, and every form of trespass, being strictly forbidden, all violators of this ordinance under the law will be prosecuted. One hundred dollars reward is offered for evidence leading to the detection and conviction of any trespasser upon this property.

  The Directors of the Vassar Summer School.

  “Well?” inquired Jones, as Ellis stood motionless, staring at the sign. The latter slowly turned an enraged visage toward his companion.

  “What are you going to do?” repeated Jones, curiously.

  “Do? I’m going to fish the Caranay. Come on.”

  “Trespass on Vassar?” asked Jones.

  “I’m going to fish the Caranay, my old and favorite and beloved stream,” retorted Ellis, doggedly. “Do you suppose a d
inky zinc sign in this forest can stop me? Come on, Jones. I’ll show you a trout worth tossing this Caranay Belle to.” And he looped on a silver-and-salmon-tinted fly and waded out into the rapids.

  Jones lighted his pipe and followed him, giving his views of several matters in a voice pitched above the whispering rush of the ripples:

  “That’s all very well, Ellis, but suppose we are pinched and fined? A nice place, these forests, for a simple liver to lead a simple life in! Simple life! What? And some of these writers define the ‘simple life’ as merely a ‘state of mind.’ That’s right, too; I was in a state of mind until I met you, let me tell you! They’re perfectly correct; it is a state of mind.”

  He muttered to himself, casting an anxious eye on the thundercloud which stretched almost to the zenith over the Golden Dome and shadowed Lynx Peak like a pall.

  “Rain, too,” he commented, wading in Ellis’s wake. “There’s a most devilish look about that cloud. I wish I were a woodchuck — or a shiner, or an earnest young thing from Vassar. What are we to do if pinched with the goods on us, Ellis?”

  The other laughed a disagreeable laugh and splashed forward.

  “Because,” continued Jones, wiping the spray from his glasses, “the woods yonder may be teeming with these same young things from Vassar. Old ‘uns, too — there’s a faculty for that Summer School. You can never tell what a member of a ladies’ Summer School faculty would do to you. I dare say they might run after you and frisk you for a kiss — out here in the backwoods.”

  “Do you know anything about this absurd Summer School?” asked Ellis, halting to wait for his companion.

  “Only what the newspapers print.”

  “And what’s that? I’ve not noticed anything about it.”

  “Why, they all tell about the scope of the Vassar Summer School. It’s founded” — and he grinned maliciously— “on the simple life.”

  “How?” snapped Ellis, clambering up out of the water to the flat, sandy shore of an exquisite pool some forty rods in length.