But they were indolent, and stopped at chopping a few hemlock boughs,
which they laid across crotched aspens. In truth, our shelters
accomplished little against the cold and wet. Do what we could, we had
great discomfort, and morning found the rain still dripping and the sky
still unbroken gray.
And so it went for three days. The north country has such storms in
the spring, and they chill all beauty out of the woods. We could do
nothing. We kept what fire we could, regummed the seams of the canoes,
and for the rest ate, sulked, and tried to sleep. The men gambled
among themselves, and I grew weary of the click, click of their balls
and the sound of their stupid boasts and low jesting. Yet I had no
ground for stopping them, for the woman understood almost nothing of
their uncouth speech. Indeed, she was little in sight or hearing. She
stayed in her bark shelter, and I could hear her moving about, trying
to keep it neat and herself in order. In those three days I learned
one secret of her spirit. She had a natural merriment that did not
seem a matter of will power nor even of wish. It was an instinctive,
inborn content, that was perhaps partly physical, in that it enabled
her to sleep well, and so to wake with zest and courage.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133