Lost Farm Camp Part 31

Avery clambered down, broke through the drift to his door, and entered.

Smoke jumped to his shoulder with a joyous whine and then darted past him toward the sleigh.

"Smoke! Smoke!"

As she handed the bundles to Cameron, the terrier sprang up to her, only to fall back in the smothering snow, in which he struggled st.u.r.dily, finally clambering into the sleigh with such vigor that he rolled over the side and on his back in the straw, where Swickey playfully held him, a kicking, struggling, open-mouthed grotesque of restrained affection.

Light glowed in the windows as Avery built the fire and lighted the lamps. It wavered through the frosted panes and settled on the horses, who stood, nostrils rimmed with frost and flanks steaming, like two Olympian stallions carved from mist.

"Why, Pop!" exclaimed Swickey, "you haven't been using the front of the house at all. It's just the same as I left it when I was here last."

"Nope," replied Avery. "Me and Smoke and Beelzebub's middlin' comf'table in the kitchen,-and it saves wood; but I'll start the front-room stove and things'll get het up in no time."

"How's the trapping?" asked his daughter, as she hung her cap and coat in the little bedroom.

"Middlin'. Ain't did what I calc'lated to this season," he replied, as he dumped an armful of wood on the floor.

"Fur scarce?"

"Not eggsackly scurse-but I've been findin' my traps sprung reg'lar with nothin' in 'em, and 'bout a week ago I noticed some snowshoe tracks nigh 'em what never was made by Hoss Avery. They is a new camp-Number Fifteen-Two, they calls it-where they commenced to cut this winter, right clus to Timberland. I ain't sayin' some of Fifteen-Two's men's been stealin' my fur, but I'm watchin' fur em. Fisty Harrigan's boss of Fifteen-Two. Been set down a peg by the comp'ny 'count of his drinkin'

and carryin'-on."

"Yes. I saw him in Tramworth, once," replied Swickey.

"If Fisty's up to pesterin' me," said the old man, "or thet brick-top Smeaton what's with him,"-he struck a match viciously,-"they'll be some pow'ful tall doin's when I ketch 'em."

"Now, Pop, you're getting too old to think of doing anything like that.

If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do."

"'Course not," replied her father, smiling broadly, as she came and squatted, Indian fashion, in front of the stove. "'Course not. Don't calc'late you be worryin' 'bout anything happenin' to Fisty or Red, be you?"

She laughed merrily. "Why should I? I don't belong to either of them."

"So you ain't forgot you belongs to your Pa, yit? Wal, I guess eddication ain't spoilin' you a'ter all. It do spile some folks what gits it too sudden-like; them as ain't growed up 'long with it nacheral."

Swickey gazed at the red c.h.i.n.k of the damper. Suddenly she sprang up.

"Why, Pop! I was forgetting about supper."

"Why, Swickey,-I forgot-'bout supper likewise," said her father, mimicking her. "I'll fetch in some meat. Got a nice ven'son tenderline in the shed, and you kin make some biscuits and fry them p'tatus; and I got some honey from Jim last fall,-he ought to be in purty quick now,-and they's some gingerbread and cookies in the crock. I reckon with some bilin' hot tea and the rest of it, our stummicks kin limp along somehow till mornin'."

"Whew! she's colder than a weasel's foot down a hole," exclaimed Curious Jim, a trifle ambiguously, as he came in with a gust of wind that shook the lamp-flame.

Beelzebub, solemn-eyed and portly, lay before the kitchen stove, purring his content. Smoke followed Swickey, getting in her way most of the time, but seemingly tireless in his attentions. Avery smoked and talked to Cameron in subdued tones as he watched his daughter arrange the table-things with a natural grace that reminded him poignantly of the other Nanette. "Jest like her-jest like her," he muttered.

"Yes, he does like her, don't he?" remarked Cameron, referring to Smoke's ceaseless padding from stove to table and back again.

"Wal, I reckon!" said Avery. "Had two chances fur a car-ride to Boston, but he come back here a-flyin' both times. You can't fool a dog 'bout whar he'd ruther be, same as you kin some folks."

"No, you can't," replied Cameron sagely, "'speshully on a winter night like this one."

Swickey left the men to their pipes when she had washed the supper dishes, and went to the front room, where she opened the box from "Boston," emitting a delighted little cry as she drew out the short rifle from its leather case. A card attached to it was closely written over with a friendly little expression of Christmas cheer from David.

She tucked the card in her dress and ran to the kitchen with the rifle.

"Wal, a shootin'-iron!" exclaimed Avery, turning toward her. "Thet's what I call purty nifty. From Dave? Wal, thet are nice!"

"Cartridges, too!" said Swickey. "Soft-point .44's."

"Wal, we'll git thet moose now, sure," said Avery, examining the rifle.

Curious Jim maintained a dignified silence. When the first joy of opening the box and displaying its contents had evaporated, he arose and shuffled toward the door, pausing mysteriously on the threshold. "You ain't seen all they is yit," he said, closing the door and disappearing in the night.

Avery looked at Swickey and she at him. Then they both laughed. "Thet's Jim's way," said Avery.

The teamster returned with two more bundles which he placed on the table. "There they be," he said, trying vainly to conceal his interest in their contents, "and it's night before Christmus."

In his excitement he had overlooked that one of the packages was addressed to him.

Swickey brought the bundles to her father. "You open them, Pop; I opened the other one."

The old man pulled out his jack-knife and deliberately cut the string on the larger package. A gay red and green lumberman's jacket lay folded in the paper.

Avery put it on and paraded up and down grandiloquently.

"Whee-oo! Now, who's puttin' on style?" said Cameron.

"From Dave likewise," said the old man. "And I be dum' giggered if here ain't"-he fumbled in the pockets-"a pair of buckskin mitts. Wal, I commence to feel like a walkin' Christmas tree a'ready."

"And they's anuther," said Jim, eager that the last parcel should not be overlooked.

Avery glanced at the address, held the bundle away from him, then laid it on his knee. "Wal, I ain't a-goin' to open _thet_ one to-night."

Cameron's face expressed a keen disappointment that was out of keeping with his unusual self-restraint.

"You might open it, Jim, seein' as it's addressed to you."

With studied indifference the teamster untied the string and calmly opened the package. "What's thet?" he asked, handing a card to Swickey.

"Why, it's l-i-n-g-e-r-i-e, lingerie," she replied, with a puzzled expression.

Curious Jim's countenance expressed modulated scorn for her apparent ignorance. "Now, you _spelled_ it right, but you ain't _said_ it right,"

he remarked sagely. "Thet's' loungeree,' meanin' shirts and things mostly for wimmen. I was some worried 'bout that word for a spell, and so I ast the school-mam to Tramworth, and she did some blushin' and tole me. And sure enough it's shirts," he exclaimed, taking two heavy flannel garments from the package; "fur me, I reckon by the size. And here's another leetle bundle fur Jessie and one for the missus. And a pipe."

This latter Cameron examined closely. "Silver trimmin's, amber stem, and real French brier-and I carried thet clean from Tramworth and never knowed it!"

He immediately whittled a palmful of tobacco and filled the pipe, lighted it with great deliberation and much action of the elbow, and sat back puffing clouds of smoke toward the ceiling.

"Now, who's putting on style?" said Swickey, and they all laughed.

So they sat the rest of the evening, each thinking of David, until Swickey, drowsy with the heat of the big stove, finally bade them good-night and went to her room.