A Cry in the Wilderness Part 36

"A Yankee brother to old Andre," was Jamie's definition of him. He seldom spoke of matters personal to himself, so seldom that Jamie's great joke, perpetrated in his mother's presence and mine, was to the effect that "Ewart and Cale and Marcia are all enlisted in the reserves, mother; and only you, the Doctor, and I are able to fight in the open." The full significance of which good-natured raillery I understood, and answered him accordingly:

"All in good time, Jamie. There is so little to tell, it's worth while to keep you guessing."

I was serving Cale with his portion of porridge when he spoke, answering the question put by the Doctor to _me_. Cale had been gradually appropriating me since my coming, and I had no cause to resent his right of proprietorship.

"Guess 'twill take two ter hold her up the fust few times; but Marcia's nimble on her feet; she 'll outstrip us soon. She 's a mighty good one on snowshoes."

"Ewart taught you, did n't he?" said the Doctor, turning to me and holding out his bowl the second time. "Just a spoonful more, if you please. I take it this oatmeal came direct from Scotland, did n't it, Mrs. Macleod?" She nodded a pleased affirmative.

"Yes, and a fine teacher he is too," I responded heartily. I was determined the Doctor should not find me backward or awkward when his friend's name was mentioned. With the thought that to-morrow that friend would be with me--us--again, I found my spirits rising. It was hard to repress them. Perhaps the Doctor's keen eye noticed something in my manner, for he spoke with emphasis:

"Well, something has made you over; there 's no exercise like it in this northern climate."

"I guess 't ain't all snow-shoeing," said Cale sententiously.

"You 're right, Cale," I said.

"Account for it then, Cale; I 'd like to hear."

"We 'll give Doctor Rugvie the recipe for all the future farm-folks, won't we?" I nodded understandingly at Cale.

"So we will--so we will," he replied thoughtfully. "Out with it, Cale.

What is it has changed Marcia so?"

"Wal, if you want to know I can give it ter you--a reg'lar tonic to be taken daily in big doses. It's old-fashioned, mebbe, but genu_ine_,"

he said with so comical an emphasis and inflection that we laughed.

"It can't be beat, you 'll see. Take equal parts of dry clean air, so bracin' thet sometimes a man feels as if he was walkin' on it, good food and plenty of it, good comp'ny. Shake 'em well together to get out the lumps, and mix well in--a good home. I take it thet's about it, Doctor?"

"Cale, you old Hippocrates," said the Doctor, delighted at Cale's gift of speech, for he had heard him discourse only on "hosses" when he was with us the first time, "you 'd be worth three thousand dollars a year to me as consulting hygienist. Do you want the job?"

"No." He spoke decidedly. "This job 's good enough fer me. I hope 't will be for life now."

"Ewart's colors again, eh, Jamie?" He turned to Jamie with a lift of his eyebrows.

"Winning all along the course, Doctor."

"How do you know all that, Cale?" The Doctor dropped his chaffing and looked over earnestly at Cale beside the chimney-piece.

"Know what?"

"The fact that those special ingredients must be mixed in a good home to prove so effectual as in Marcia's case?" He turned to examine me.

"How do I know it?" He spoke slowly, almost with hesitation, and beneath his bushy eyebrows I thought I saw a suspicious glitter in his small keen gray eyes, but it may have been imagination. "I have n't always been a lonely man, you know--"

"That's just what I don't know, Cale." The Doctor spoke with the encouragement of good fellowship, not as one willing or wanting to ask his confidence, but as one hoping in friendship to receive it. I am sure we all felt with the Doctor at this moment, for Cale's reticence had been a matter of concern to Jamie and Mrs. Macleod. But Jamie had respected his silence.

Cale set his emptied bowl on the tray and sat down again, making himself comfortable by crossing his legs. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Mrs. Macleod, Jamie and I read that sign; Cale was ready to expand a little more in the cheerful atmosphere of friends and fireside. We three knew that what he had to retail would be well worth hearing. Jamie settled himself in the sofa corner as usual. The Doctor insisted on carrying the tray to the kitchen.

"Ah, this is good," he said, seating himself by me and spreading his hands to the blaze. "We shan't be interrupted, and the rest of the evening is ours. It's a bitter night, too, which, by contrast, makes this comfort delectable."

We waited, expectant, for Cale.

"You 've been wonderin' now fer 'bout six months, Mis' Macleod, you an'

Jamie, whether I was a married man or not, now, hain't you?" He smiled as he spoke, the creases about his eyes deepening slowly.

Mrs. Macleod, with an embarra.s.sment we all enjoyed seeing, moved to a seat beside him; saying gently, if deprecatingly:

"Yes, I could n't help it, Cale."

"How could you, bein' a woman?" he replied as gently. "An' you too, Marcia?"

"Of course; don't I belong to the weaker s.e.x? But here is Jamie, although a man--"

"Oh, I say, Marcia, that's not playing fair," Jamie growled at me as if indifferent; but I knew his curiosity was at the flood, and Cale knew it too. I feared he might tease without satisfying.

"Yes, I 'm married, Mis' Macleod, an' it seems as if I 'd always been married."

Jamie's recent remark about Cale's being a widower, gra.s.s-widower, divorce, Mormon, etc., came back to me, and I could hardly keep from laughing aloud at Mrs. Macleod's look of dismay and amazement.

"I say I'm married, fer you see that once married is always married with _me_," he repeated emphatically.

The Doctor nodded approvingly. "No uncertain note about that, Cale."

"No sir--_ee_," Cale nodded understandingly at him in turn, much to Jamie's delight. "A marriage when it _is_ a marriage--'fore G.o.d an'

men, an' 'fore the altar of two lovin' hearts, is fer good--fer this world anyway, an' fer the next if there is one. 'T ain't often you can come acrosst 'em now-a-days. I guess some men, put it to 'em on a sudden, could n't say under oath whether they was married or single, seein' this divorce business mixes things up worse 'n a progressive euchre party. I 'm only speakin' fer myself, mind you, an' I don't set up fer judgin' others."

"Good for you, Cale! Those are my sentiments," said the Doctor laughing heartily at Cale's idea of the "progressive euchre party".

"It's what keeps me young," Cale continued earnestly; "fer jest the thought of the one woman I loved, an' love now with all the love thet 's in me, warms me jest as this blaze would thaw freezin' sap; it keeps me, as you might say, kinder thawed out with folks, an' a durned cussed tough world."

He paused a moment and, leaning forward, clasped his hands around his crossed knees. I had seen him do this only when he was bracing himself to say something of deep significance. He faced me squarely, with the same keen look that I detected on the first night of my arrival.

"I 've been wonderin', Marcia, if you did n't hail from somewheres near my place, Spencerville, in northern New England, jest over the line--though come ter think of it, you said you was born in New York, did n't you?"

Brought to bay by this question, put to me suddenly without warning, I brought all my self control to bear on my voice and answered:

"Yes, I was born there, but my home for two thirds of my life was in the vicinity of Spencerville."

"I thought so," said Cale almost indifferently. "You had a way with you like the folks round there--not that I know any of your generation," he added hastily. "I left there over a quarter of a century ago. Only, now and then, your ways take me back into another generation where my wife belonged," he said, as if explaining why he had taken the liberty to approach me with the direct question. I forced myself to put on a bold front and ask:

"Who was your wife, Cale? I may know of the family."

"I have my doubts about _thet_," he said with considerable emphasis.

"Girls of your age ain't apt to know of folks thet lived, an' loved, an'--I was goin' to say 'lost', but she ain't never thet to me, 'fore they was born. My wife's name, Marcia, was Morey, Jemimy Morey--one of three--"

"Triplets? Yes _marm_," he said, in reply to Mrs. Macleod's look of surprise. "Job Morey, her father, was a poor man, poor, as we used ter say, as Job's turkey. He 'd had a hard time, no mistake. He 'd had five boys ter raise on a farm thet was half rocks. Then come the war an' the two oldest had ter go. The third an' fourth was drafted an'

Job hired the money to pay bounty; but the cuss turned bounty jumper an' they had ter go. Thet was the year when there was a bleedin' heart an' a rag of c.r.a.pe in most every house in the village. Two on 'em come home ter die, an' the t' other two was never heard from; it most killed Aunt Sally. They 'd had poor luck with four boys, an', by George, after the youngest of them five was fifteen if Aunt Sally did n't have triplets--gals all on em!