Hills of the Shatemuc Part 112

"I wonder what's become of your old little boat, Governor -- the Merry-go-round?"

"I suppose it is lying in the barn-loft yet," he replied rather gravely.

"I wonder if it is all gone to pieces."

"I should think not. Why?"

"I was looking at the river and thinking how pleasant it would be to go out on it, if we could."

"If we can get home, Winnie, I'll see how the matter stands."

"I don't want to go home," said Winnie.

"But I want to have you. And Karen will want the huckleberries."

"Well -- I'll go," said Winnie. "But we'll come again, Governor -- won't we?"

"As often as you please. Now shall I carry you?"

"O no!"

But Winthrop presently judged of that also for himself, and taking his little sister on one arm, made his way steadily and swiftly down to the level ground.

"_You're_ a good climber," was Winnie's remark when he set her on her feet again. "And I don't know but I was once. I've almost forgotten. But it's as good to have you carry me, and to see you do it."

The Merry-go-round was found in good condition, only with her seams a little, or not a little, opened. That trouble however was got over by the help of a little caulking and submersion and time; and she floated again as lightly as ever. Some days still pa.s.sed, owing to weather or other causes, before the first evening came when they went out to try her.

That evening, -- it was the seventeenth of August, and very fair, -- they went down to the rocks, just when the afternoon had grown cool in the edge of the evening. Winnie put herself in the stern of the little white boat, and Winthrop took his old place and the oars. Winnie's eyes were sparkling.

"It will be harder work to pull than it used to be," she remarked joyously, -- "you're so out of the habit of it."

Winthrop only replied by pushing the little skiff off.

"However," continued Winnie, "I guess it isn't much to pull me anywhere."

"Which way shall we go?" said Winthrop, one or two slow strokes of his oar sending the little boat forward in a way that made Winnie smile.

"I don't know -- I want to go everywhere -- Let's go up, Winthrop, and see how it looks -- Let's go over under Wut-a- qut-o. O how beautiful it is, Winthrop! --"

Winthrop said nothing, but a repet.i.tion of those leisurely strokes brought the boat swiftly past the cedars and rocks of Shahweetah's sh.o.r.e and then out to the middle of the river, gradually drawing nearer to the other side. But when the mid- river was gained, high enough up to be clear of the obstructing point of Shahweetah, Winnie's ecstatic cry of delight brought Winthrop's head round; and with that he lay upon his oars and looked too. He might. The mountains and the northern sky and clouds were all floating as it were in a warm flush of light -- it was upon the clouds, and through the air, and upon the mountains' sides, -- so fair, so clear, but beyond that, so rich in its glowing suffusion of beauty, that eyes and tongue were stayed, -- the one from leaving the subject, the other from touching it. Winthrop's oars lay still, the drops falling more and more slowly from the wet blades. The first word was a half awed whisper from Winnie --

"O Winthrop, -- did you ever see it look so?"

The oars dipped again, and again lay still.

"Winthrop, this isn't much like Mannahatta!" Winnie said next, under breath.

The oars dipped again, and this time to purpose. The boat began to move slowly onward.

"But Winthrop you don't say anything?" Winnie said uneasily.

"I don't know how."

"I wish I could keep a picture of that," she went on with regretful accent as her eyes turned again to the wonderful scene before them in the north, floating as it seemed in that living soft glow.

"I shall keep a picture of it," said Winthrop.

Winnie sighed her regrets again, and then resigned herself to looking with her present eyes, while the little boat moved steadily on and the view was constantly changing; till they were close under the shadow of Wut-a-qut-o, and from beneath its high green and grey precipice rising just above them, only the long sunny reach of the eastern sh.o.r.e remained in view.

They looked at it, till the sunset began to make a change.

"O Winthrop, there is Bright Spot," said Winnie, as her head came round to the less highly coloured western sh.o.r.e.

"Yes," -- said Winthrop, letting the boat drop a little down from under the mountain.

"How it has grown up! -- and what are all those bushes at the water's edge?"

"Alders. Look at those clouds in the south."

There lay, crossing the whole breadth of the river, a spread of close-folded ma.s.ses of cloud, the under edges of which the sun touched, making a long network of salmon or flame-coloured lines. And then above the near bright-leaved horizon of foliage that rose over Bright Spot, the western sky was brilliantly clear; flecked with little reaches of cloud stretching upwards and coloured with fairy sunlight colours, gold, purple, and rose, in a very witchery of mingling.

Winthrop pushed the boat gently out a little further from the sh.o.r.e, and they sat looking, hardly bearing to take their eyes from the cloud kaleidoscope above them, or to speak, the mind had so much to do at the eyes. Only a glance now and then for contrast of beauty, at the south, and to the north where two or three little ma.s.ses of grey hung in the clear sky. Gently Winthrop's oars dipped from time to time, bringing them a little further from the western sh.o.r.e and within fuller view of the opening in the mountains. As they went, a purplish shade came upon the grey ma.s.ses in the north; -- the sunlight colours over Bright Spot took richer and deeper hues of purple and red; the salmon network in the south changed for rose. And then, before they had got far, the moon's crescent, two or three days old, a glittering silver thread, hung itself out amid the bright rosy flecks of cloud in the west just hard by the mountain's brow. Winnie had to look sharp to find it.

"And there is Venus too," said Winthrop; -- "look at her."

"Where?"

"In the blue -- a little lower down than the moon; and further to the south -- do you see? --"

"That white bright star? -- O how beautiful! -- in that clear blue sky. O how bright! -- how much brighter than the moon, Winthrop?"

"Yes, -- she has a way of looking bright."

"How did you know it was Venus, or how _do_ you know?"

"Very much in the same way that I know it is Winnie. I have seen her before. I never saw those clouds before."

"Did you ever see _such_ clouds before! And how long they stay, Winthrop. O what a place!"

Slowly the little boat pulled over the river, getting further and further from Bright Spot and its bright bit of sky scenery, which faded and changed very slowly as they sailed away. They neared the high rocky point of Shahweetah, and then instead of turning down the river, kept an easterly course along the low woody sh.o.r.e which stretched back from the point.

As they went on, and as the clouds lost their glory, the sky in the west over Wut-a-qut-o's head tinged itself with violet and grew to an opal light, the white flushing up liquidly into rosy violet, which in the northeast quarter of the horizon melted away to a clear grave blue.

"It's more beautiful than the clouds," said Winnie.

"It is a wonderful evening," said Winthrop, as he set his oars more earnestly in the water and the little boat skimmed along.

"But dear Governor, where are you going?"

"Going to land, somewhere."