In the Van or The Builders Part 28

"That's about it," returned Latimer, nodding his head. "Though it's not their regular dooty, and it's Sunday, them sojers are workin' like all possessed--one lot sawin' an' choppin' an' splittin' an'

haulin'--t'other lot havin' a reg'lar raisin' bee. They'll have the walls o' both them housen up by night, or my name ain't Latimer."

"I don't think Sir George would have the men working that way to-day if it were not necessary," said Helen, seriously; but she remembered a note in her diary, written in the days of their long march.

"It's necessary, sure enough, or they wouldn't have a s.h.i.+ngle laid before the flood comes. But the funny part of it is that the boys should put on their best lick to-day. I reckon that speech of the Colonel's did the bizness. If I'd been one of them, I'd ha' done my best, too."

For some time Latimer stood beside the little stove without further comment, and Helen resumed her writing.

"Say, Mrs. Manning!" he exclaimed at last. "Do you think the Colonel has any idee how the war's going? In a week or two the snow'll be all gone, an' the ice broke up, an' to me it 'pears like he must be 'specting the Yankee s.h.i.+ps up to the bay here, or he wouldn't be buildin' a fort."

"You should ask the Colonel," replied Helen, diplomatically. "I can't tell you, perhaps he can. But about our buildings, the sooner they go up the better. This terrible winter seems to have lasted a year at least."

"Golly, no. It has just been the ordinaire. Still, I'll be glad to have it open up an' get my boat out agin. Do you know it's jess bootiful out yon' on the water when the spring comes. The hull east side of the bay is chuck full o' islands, and they're as purty as a pictur. There are thousands of 'em, little bits of fellows and great big ones, scattered up and down like lambs on a pasture field or hickory nuts in the woods.

An' then they're all covered wi' bushes and trees like. What I've seen of 'em allus looked like the place my old mother told of, where the fairies lived, and, by jove, n.o.body but fairies could live there, anyway, for they're nothin' but solid rock, the hull kit of 'em."

"Now you're talking sense for the fust time," said Mrs. Latimer, from the other side of the cribbed little room. "It's one o' the most dangerous lakes you could find anywheres. Nawthing but rocks, rocks, rocks, an' many a boat goes to smash on 'em every year, an' no tellin'

how many lives are lost, for they never come back to tell the story."

"I didn't say they warn't dangerous," returned Latimer, sagely holding his head to one side. "I jess said they was bootiful, and so they is. It ain't every one can tell a purty thing when they see it; and more than that," he added sententiously, "the bay is prolific."

"Of what?" his wife asked in supreme contempt.

"Why," he replied in disgust, "of fishes."

"Awh!" she interjected.

"I don't think there's a place on the lakes where the fis.h.i.+n's as good as Georgian Bay. There's whitefish an' salmon trout, an' ba.s.s, an'

pickerel, an' sturgeon, an' muskilonge, 'an goodness knows how many others. Oh, you can talk as you like, but when the sun is settin' in big gold flashes--green islands all around you--clear water, still as gla.s.s, beneath you--an' then the ba.s.s catchin' your hook as fast as you throw it in, life's jest about worth livin'!"

"Ned's on one of his tangents again," said Mrs. Latimer, with a shrug.

"If the _b.u.mble Bee_ ever gets stranded on the rocks it'll teach him sense, but nothin' else will."

"Don't be hard on a fellow, Meg," replied the man good-naturedly.

"Many's the time the _b.u.mble Bee's_ taken in fish by the bushel, an' she never got stranded on the rocks yet; please G.o.d, she never will. She can run agin the wind as fast as any smack I know of, an' I guess Ned Latimer understands her gearings."

"It was runnin' her gearings put us in this blessed hole, I reckon.'

"We might have been wuss off. Lots o' firewood, lots o' fish and venison, friendly Injuns for neighbors, an' not so terribly cold after all, even if we was friz up in the ice."

And the philosophical skipper went off to take another look at the progress of the "Raisin'."

"Latimer's allus easy goin' and onreasonable," said the wife, as she watched him through the little window, while he ascended the hill.

"It must have been hard for you to spend the winter locked in here,"

said Helen. She felt like reconciling the incongruities between the ill-mated pair, "but I shouldn't think Mr. Latimer an unreasonable man.

He may have made a mistake in letting his boat drift into the bay so late in the season. Still, he has made it comfortable for you, and I wonder what I could have done if your homelike schooner had not been here, with a kind hostess in it to welcome me."

"I suppose things is never so bad as they might be," said Mrs. Latimer, her face relaxing a little. "And I'm glad to do something for ye--even if it ain't much."

Again Helen was startled. It was when the hardness wore off the woman's face that the forgotten expression came back again. She had surely seen it before, and the softened tone seemed familiar. Could she trace it back through the years to the days of her childhood? It could not be black-eyed Susan, who pinched her when she cried, and threatened to pinch harder if she told? This woman's eyes were grey. Nor red-headed Molly, who in her afternoon walk invariably left her with her mother to be stuffed with black toffy, while she went off to gossip with the barber's son? Her hair was too black ever to have been red. Nor the maid who frightened her with ghost stories. Nor the namby-pamby one who cuddled her with kisses and called her beatific names, until in childish indignation she wrathfully rebelled.

All these in rapid movement of memory were set aside, but the more she thought, the more convinced she became that in the big medley of domestic servitors of the long past, this woman somewhere played her part. But the cobwebs were lifting. She would find her soon.

"You have not always lived on the lakes, Mrs. Latimer?" she asked at last.

"I never did till I married Latimer."

"And before that?" said Helen.

"I was from New York; but that's ten year ago, and Latimer was a British subject."

"And did you never cross the ocean? One would think that, living so much on the water, you would be sure to go over the sea."

"So I have, mum, so I have. I went over twenty year ago come June as servant to a New York lady and stayed there for a year, but I didn't like it, so I come home agin."

"Twenty years ago. And did you live for some time in South London, near the Thames?"

"Yes I did," answered the woman, with a start.

"And worked as nursemaid for Mrs. Brandon, of Russell Street, near Battersea Park?"

"Good gracious alive, yes! Did you know her? Be you--"

"Yes, I am little Helen Brandon, the child you put straddle-legged around your neck to run a race with another nurse-girl from Henley Street, at the other end of the row."

"Land sake! Be you that child? Who'd a'thought it! An' then to meet you here out in the wilds o' the wilderness!" The woman rose, and, with flushed and agitated face, came towards her.

Helen extended both hands, and Mrs. Latimer grasped them within her own.

"It was rough play, and weren't the square thing to do, I reckon; still, I don't think I hurt you, child."

"You didn't hurt me much, but I was terribly afraid you might fall. If I remember right, the other little girl screamed frantically at the last."

"And well she might," returned the woman with a grin, "for Ann did the very thing you were afraid of. She stumbled and rolled over, and I won the race."

"I must have been sadly frightened, for I remember crying over it in my little bed that night, and my mother insisted upon knowing the cause--so I told her--and I never saw you afterwards."

"Oh, she gave me my _conge_ next morning, but I didn't care, for I had decided to come back to the States as soon as that month's work was up."

"You did not take another place, then?"

"No; I sailed on the next s.h.i.+p, and then worked out in New York until I came across Latimer--and was fool enough to marry him."

"I hope you don't regret it."

"Humph! don't I? But I'm glad to know who you are. There won't be no more races, but I'll do all I can for you, an' help you to fix things, too, when they get your house built. I took an awful fancy to you when you was a kid, even if I was a leetle rough."

"I felt sure I knew you from the first," said Helen earnestly. "I must again thank you for your kindness, and I am sure we shall be very good friends."