第47章 FRAGMENTARY(2)

Then came the sugaring, the warm days and the freezing nights when the earth stirs in her sleep and the taps drip from red sunrise to red sunset.Old and young went to the camps, the women and children boiling and graining, the squads of men posted in guards round about.And after that the days flew so quickly that it seemed as if the woods had burst suddenly into white flower, and it was spring again.And then--a joy to be long remembered --I went on a hunting trip with Tom and Cowan and three others where the Kentucky tumbles between its darkly wooded cliffs.And other wonders of that strange land I saw then for the first time: great licks, trampled down for acres by the wild herds, where the salt water oozes out of the hoofprints.On the edge of one of these licks we paused and stared breathless at giant bones sticking here and there in the black mud, and great skulls of fearful beasts half-embedded.This was called the Big Bone Lick, and some travellers that went before us had made their tents with the thighs of these monsters of a past age.

A danger past is oft a danger forgotten.Men went out to build the homes of which they had dreamed through the long winter.Axes rang amidst the white dogwoods and the crabs and redbuds, and there were riotous log-raisings in the clearings.But I think the building of Tom's house was the most joyous occasion of all, and for none in the settlement would men work more willingly than for him and Polly Ann.The cabin went up as if by magic.It stood on a rise upon the bank of the river in a grove of oaks and hickories, with a big persimmon tree in front of the door.It was in the shade of this tree that Polly Ann sat watching Tom and me through the mild spring days as we barked the roof, and none ever felt greater joy and pride in a home than she.We had our first supper on a wide puncheon under the persimmon tree on the few pewter plates we had fetched across the mountain, the blue smoke from our own hearth rising in the valley until the cold night air spread it out in a line above us, while the horses grazed at the river's edge.

After that we went to ploughing, an occupation which Tom fancied but little, for he loved the life of a hunter best of all.But there was corn to be raised and fodder for the horses, and a truck-patch to be cleared near the house.

One day a great event happened,--and after the manner of many great events, it began in mystery.Leaping on the roan mare, I was riding like mad for Harrodstown to fetch Mrs.Cowan.And she, when she heard the summons, abandoned a turkey on the spit, pitched her brats out of the door, seized the mare, and dashing through the gates at a gallop left me to make my way back afoot.Scenting a sensation, I hurried along the wooded trace at a dog trot, and when I came in sight of the cabin there was Mrs.

Cowan sitting on the step, holding in her long but motherly arms something bundled up in nettle linen, while Tom stood sheepishly by, staring at it.

``Shucks,'' Mrs.Cowan was saying loudly, ``I reckon ye're as little use to-day as Swein Poulsson,--standin'

there on one foot.Ye anger me--just grinning at it like a fool--and yer own doin'.Have ye forgot how to talk?''

Tom grinned the more, but was saved the effort of a reply by a loud noise from the bundle.

``Here's another,'' cried Mrs.Cowan to me.``Ye needn't act as if it was an animal.Faith, yereself was like that once, all red an' crinkled.But I warrant ye didn't have the heft,'' and she lifted it, judicially.``A grand baby,'' attacking Tom again, ``and ye're no more worthy to be his father than Davy here.''

Then I heard a voice calling me, and pushing past Mrs.

Cowan, I ran into the cabin.Polly Ann lay on the log bedstead, and she turned to mine a face radiant with a happiness I had not imagined.