The Harvester Part 36

"Why not give it to me. Wouldn't she like me to wear her things better than to have them lying in moth b.a.l.l.s?"

The Harvester looked at her and shook his head, marvelling.

"I can't tell how pleased she would be," he said.

"Where are her belongings?" asked the Girl. "I could use them to help furnish the house, and it wouldn't appear so strange to you."

The Harvester liked that.

"All the washed things are in those boxes upstairs; also some fine skins I've saved on the chance of wanting them. Her dishes are in the bottom of the china closet there; she was mighty proud of them. The furniture and carpets were so old and abused I burned them. I'll go bring a wrap."

He took the candle and climbed the stairs, soon returning with a little white wool shawl and a big pink coverlet.

"Got this for her Christmas one time," he said. "She'd never had a white one and she thought it was pretty."

He folded it around the Girl's shoulders and picked up the coverlet.

"You're never going to take that to the woods!" she cried.

"Why not?"

She took it in her hands to find a corner.

"Just as I thought! It's a genuine Peter Hartman! It's one of the things that money can't buy, or, rather, one that takes a mint of money to own.

They are heirlooms. They are not manufactured any more. At the art store where I worked they'd give you fifty dollars for that. It is not faded or worn a particle. It would be lovely in my room; you mustn't take a treasure like that out of doors."

"Ruth, are you in earnest?" demanded the Harvester. "I believe there are six of them upstairs."

"Plutocrat!" cried the Girl. "What colours?"

"More of this pinkish red, blue, and pale green."

"Famous! May I have them to help furnish with to-morrow?"

"Certainly! Anything you can find, any way on earth you want it, only in my room. That is taboo, as I told you. What am I going to take to-night?"

"Isn't the rug you had in the woods in the wagon yet? Use that!"

"Of course! The very thing! Bel, proceed!"

"Are you going to leave the house like this?"

"Why not?"

"Suppose some one breaks in!"

"Nothing worth carrying away, except what you have on. No one to get in.

There is a big swamp back of our woods, marsh in front, we're up here where we can see the drive and bridge. There is nothing possible from any direction. Never locked the cabin in my life, except your room, and that was because it was sacred, not that there was any danger. Clear the way, Bel!"

"Clear it of what?"

"Katydids, hoptoads, and other carnivorous animals."

"Now you are making fun of me! Clear it of what?"

"A c.o.o.n that might go shuffling across, an opossum, or a snake going to the lake. Now are you frightened so that you will not go?"

"No. The path is broad and white and surely you and Bel can take care of me."

"If you will trust us we can."

"Well, I am trusting you."

"You are indeed," said the Harvester. "Now see if you think this is pretty."

He indicated the hill sloping toward the lake. The path wound among ma.s.sive trees, between whose branches patches of moonlight filtered.

Around the lake sh.o.r.e and climbing the hill were thickets of bushes.

The water lay shining in the light, a gentle wind ruffled the surface in undulant waves, and on the opposite bank arose the line of big trees. Under a giant oak widely branching, on the top of the hill, the Harvester spread the rug and held one end of it against the tree trunk to protect the Girl's dress. Then he sat a little distance away and began to talk. He mingled some sense with a quant.i.ty of nonsense, and appreciated every hint of a laugh he heard. The day had been no amusing matter for a girl absolutely alone among strange people and scenes.

Anything more foreign to her previous environment or expectations he could not imagine. So he talked to prevent her from thinking, and worked for a laugh as he laboured for bread.

"Now we must go," he said at last. "If there is the malaria I strongly suspect in your system, this night air is none too good for you. I only wanted you to see the lake the first night in your new home, and if it won't shock you, I brought you here because this is my holy of holies.

Can you guess why I wanted you to come, Ruth?"

"If I wasn't so stupid with alternate burning and chills, and so deadened to every proper sensibility, I suppose I could," she answered, "but I'm not brilliant. I don't know, unless it is because you knew it would be the loveliest place I ever saw. Surely there is no other spot in the world quite so beautiful."

"Then would it seem strange to you," asked the Harvester going to the Girl and gently putting his arms around her, "would it seem strange to you, that a woman who once homed here and thought it the prettiest place on earth, chose to remain for her eternal sleep, rather than to rest in a distant city of stranger dead?"

He felt the Girl tremble against him.

"Where is she?"

"Very close," said the Harvester. "Under this oak. She used to say that she had a speaking acquaintance with every tree on our land, and of them all she loved this big one the best. She liked to come here in winter, and feel the sting of the wind sweeping across the lake, and in summer this was her place to read and to think. So when she slept the unwaking sleep, Ruth, I came here and made her bed with my own hands, and then carried her to it, covered her, and she sleeps well. I never have regretted her going. Life did not bring her joy. She was very tired.

She used to say that after her soul had fled, if I would lay her here, perhaps the big roots would reach down and find her, and from her frail frame gather slight nourishment and then her body would live again in talking leaves that would shelter me in summer and whisper her love in winter. Of all Medicine Woods this is the dearest spot to me. Can you love it too, Ruth?"

"Oh I can!" cried the Girl; "I do now! Just to see the place and hear that is enough. I wish, oh to my soul I wish----"

"You wish what?" whispered the Harvester gently.

"I dare not! I was wild to think of it. I would be ungrateful to ask it."

"You would be ungracious if you didn't ask anything that would give me the joy of pleasing you. How long is it going to require for you to learn, Ruth, that to make up for some of the difficulties life has brought you would give me more happiness than anything else could? Tell me now."

"No!"

He gathered her closer.

"Ruth, there is no reason why you should be actively unkind to me. What is it you wish?"