"So great is the good I look for, that every hardship delights me."

--St. Francis.

The period of our country's history in which these characters were formed was one of tremendous moral earnestness. In that struggle in which man pitted himself against primeval forest and aboriginal inhabitant, the strongest types of manhood and womanhood were evolved, and those who conceived the idea of living a righteous life set themselves to its realization with the same energy with which they addressed themselves to the conquest of nature itself. To mult.i.tudes of them, this present world took a place that in the fullest sense of the word was secondary to that other world in which they lived by antic.i.p.ation.

David Corson was only one of many who, to a degree which in these less earnest or at least more materialistic times appears incredible, had determined to trample the world under their feet. He awoke next morning with an unabated purpose and at an early hour set resolutely about its execution. He bade a brave farewell to Pepeeta, exhorted her to seek with him that preparation of heart which alone could fit them for the future, and then with a bag of provisions over his shoulder and an axe in his hand started forth to carry out a plan which he had formed in the night.

At the head of the little valley where Pepeeta had built her gypsy fire, and experienced her great disillusionment, was a piece of timber land belonging to his mother's estate. He determined to make a clearing there and establish a home for himself and Pepeeta.

He wisely calculated that the accomplishment of this arduous task would occupy his mind and strength through the year of expiation which he had condemned himself to pa.s.s.

It is one of the most impressive spectacles of human life to see a man enter a primeval forest and set himself to subdue nature with no implement but an axe! Those of us who require so many luxuries and who know how to maintain existence only by the use of so many curious and powerful pieces of mechanism would think ourselves helpless indeed in the center of a wilderness with nothing but an axe or a rifle!

No such apprehensions troubled the heart of the young woodsman, for from his earliest childhood he had handled that primitive implement and knew its exhaustless possibilities. He was young and strong, for reckless as his recent life had been, the real sources of his physical vitality had not been depleted.

When David had pa.s.sed out of sight of the house and entered the precincts of the quiet forest, there surged up from his heart those mighty impulses and irresistible tides of energy which are the sublime inheritance of youth. He counted off the months and they seemed to him like days. Already he heard the monarchs of the forest fall beneath his blows, already he saw the walls of his log cabin rising in an opening of the vast wilderness, already he beheld Pepeeta standing in the open door. The vast panorama of this virgin world began to unroll itself to his delighted vision. The splendid spectacle of a morning as new and wonderful as if there had never been another, drew his thoughts away from himself and his cares. The dew was sparkling on the gra.s.s; the meadow larks were singing from every quarter of the fields through which he was pa.s.sing; the great limbs of the trees were tossed by the fresh breezes of June. Everywhere were color, music, fragrance, motion. The burden rolled from his heart; remorse and guilt faded like dreams; the sad past lost its hold; the present and the future were radiant! To even the worst of men, in such surroundings, there come moments of exemption from the ennui and shame of life, and to this deep soul which had issued, purified, from the fires through which it had pa.s.sed, they lengthened into glorious hours, hours such as kindled on the lips of the poet those exultant and exquisite words:

"The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled;

"The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; G.o.d's in his heaven-- All's right with the world!"

He climbed a steep hillside, descended into a secluded and beautiful valley, pressed his way through dense underbrush, and while the day was still young stood on the spot where he had determined to lay the foundation of his cabin.

Two ranges of hills came together and enclosed it as if in giant arms.

Two pure crystal springs issued from clefts in the bases of these hills, and after flowing towards each other for perhaps a quarter of a mile, mingled their waters in a brawling brook. It was at the point of their junction that David had determined to erect that primitive structure which has afforded a home to so many families in our American wildernesses. He threw his bundle down and gazed with admiration on the scene.

Here was the virgin and unprofaned loveliness of Nature. He felt her charm and prostrated himself before her shrine. But he rendered to that invisible spirit of which these forms were only an imperfect manifestation, a worship deeper still, and by an instinct of pure adoration lifted his face toward the sky.

Having refreshed his soul by this communion, he drank a deep draught of the sparkling water at the point where the rivulets met. Then he threw off his coat, took his axe in hand and selected a tree on which to begin his attack.

It was an enormous oak which, with roots struck deep into the soil and branches lifted high and spread wide in the air, had maintained itself successfully against innumerable foes for perhaps a thousand years. He reflected long before he struck, for to him as to all lovers of nature there is a certain inviolable sacredness about a tree.

"Should you see me at the point of death," said Rousseau, "carry me under the shade of an oak and I am persuaded I shall recover."

David was a lover of trees. From the summits of the hills he had often gazed down upon the forests and observed how "all the tree tops lay asleep like green waves on the sea." He had harvested the fruits of the apple and peach, clubbed the branches of the walnut, b.u.t.ternut and beach, and boiled the sap of the maple. He had seen the trees offer their hospitable shelter to the birds and the squirrels, had basked beneath their umbrageous shadows and had listened to their whispers in the summer, and to their wild music "when winter, that grand old harper, smote his thunder-harp of pines."

It cost him pain to lay violent hands on a thing so sacred; nevertheless he swung his axe in the air and a loud reverberating blow broke the immense solitude. There are many kinds of music; but there is none fuller of life and power and primal energy than the ring of the woodsman's axe as blow after blow, through hour after hour, falls rhythmically upon the wound which he cuts in the great hole of a forest monarch.

The gash deepened and widened, the chips flew in showers and the woodchopper's craft, long unpracticed, came back to him with every stroke. The satisfying consciousness of skill and power filled him with a sort of ecstasy. Just as the sun reached the zenith and looked down to see what devastation was being wrought in this solitude, the giant trembled; the blade had struck a vital place; he reeled, leaned forward, lurched, plunged headlong, and with a roar that resounded through the wide reaches of the forest, fell p.r.o.ne upon the ground.

The woodsman wiped the perspiration from his brow and smiled. The appet.i.te of the pioneer had been whetted with his work. He kindled a fire, boiled a pot of coffee, fried a half dozen slices of bacon, remembered his sickly appet.i.te in the luxurious restaurants of great cities, and laughed aloud for joy--wild, unbounded joy--the joy of primitive manhood, of health, of strength, of hope. And then he stretched himself on the ground and looked up into the blue sky through the opening he had made in the green canopy above him and through which the sun was gazing with bold, free glances on the face of the modest valley and whispering amorously of its love.

Those glances fell soft and warm on his own upturned countenance, and the rays of life-giving power penetrated the inmost core of his being, finding their way by some mysterious alchemy through the medium of matter into the very citadel of the spirit itself. They imparted a new life. He basked in them until he fell asleep, and when he awakened he felt anew the joy of mere physical existence; he rose, shook himself like a giant, and resumed his work.

He now began to prepare for himself a temporary booth which should shelter him until he had erected his cabin; and the rest of the day was consumed in this enterprise. At its close this simple task was done, so easy is it to provide a shelter for him who seeks protection and not luxury! Having once more satisfied his hunger, he built a fire in front of his rude booth, and lay down in its genial rays, his head upon a pillow of moss. The stillness of the cool, quiet evening was broken only by the crackling of the flames, the quiet murmurs of the two little rills which whispered to each other startled interrogations as to the meaning of this rude invasion, the hoot of owls in the tall tree tops, and the stealthy tread of some of the little creatures of the forest who prowled around, while seeking their prey, to discover, if possible, the meaning of this great light, and the strange noises with which their forest world had resounded.

There came to the rec.u.mbent woodsman a deep and quiet peace. He felt a new sense of having been in some way taken back into the fraternity of the unfallen creatures of the universe, and into the all-embracing arms of the great Father. He fell asleep with pure thoughts hovering over the surface of his mind, like a flock of swallows above a crystal lake. And Nature did take him back into that all-enfolding heart where there is room and a welcome for all who do not alienate themselves. Her latchstrings are always out, and forests, fields, mountains, oceans, deserts even, have a silent, genial welcome for all who enter their open doors with reverence, sympathy and yearning. A man asleep alone in a vast wilderness! How easy it would be for Nature to forget him and permit him to sleep on forever! What gives him his importance there amid those giant trees? Why should sun, moon, stars, gravity, heat, cold, care for him? How can the hand that guides the constellations--those vast navies of the infinite sea--pause to touch the eyelids of this atom when the time comes for him to rise?

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

A FOREST IDYL

"Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs No school of long experience, that the world Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen Enough of all its sorrows, crimes and cares To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm To thy sick heart." --Bryant.

When the sleeper woke, refreshed and rested, in the morning, it was to take up the routine of duties which were to be only slightly varied for many months to come.

One after another the great trees succ.u.mbed to the blows of his axe and from their prostrate forms he carefully selected those which were best adapted to the structure of his cabin, while over the others he piled the limbs and brush and left them to dry for the conflagration which at the end of the hot summer should remove them from the clearing.

When the rainy days came he spent his time in the shelter of his little arbor cutting the "shakes," or shingles, which were to furnish the roof of Pepeeta's home.

The days and weeks fled by and the opening in the forest grew apace. He measured it by night with a celestial arithmetic, using the stars for his triangulations, and as one after another of them became visible where before they had been obscured by the foliage of the trees, he smiled, and felt as if he were cutting his farm out of heaven instead of earth. It was really cut out of both!

His Sundays were spent at the old homestead with his loved ones, and once every week Pepeeta came with Steven to bring him luxuries which her own hands had prepared, and to pa.s.s the afternoon with him at his work in the "clearing."

Those were memorable hours, possessing that three-fold existence with which every hour can be endowed by the soul of man--antic.i.p.ation--realization--recollection. In this way a single moment sometimes becomes almost synchronous with eternity.

It would have been impossible to tell which of the three was happiest, but Pepeeta was always the center of interest, attention and devotion.

Her whole nature seemed to be aroused and called into play; all her countless charms were incessantly evoked; her inimitable laughter resounded through the woods and challenged the emulous birds to unsuccessful compet.i.tion. Seriousness alternated with gaiety, coquetry with gravity. Some of the time she spent in gathering flowers to adorn her lover's booth, and some in carrying to the rubbish pile such limbs and branches as her strength would permit her to handle.

Nothing could have been more charming than the immense efforts that she put forth with such grace, to lift with all her might some branch that her lover had tossed aside with a single hand! The att.i.tudes into which these efforts threw her body were as graceful as those into which the water threw the cresses by its ceaseless flow, or the wind bent the tree tops by its fitful gusts.

Steven was frantic with delight at the free, open life of the woods. He chased the squirrels and rabbits, he climbed the trees to gaze into the nests of the birds, and caught the b.u.t.terflies in his hat.

David entered into all their pleasures, but with a chastened and restrained delight, for he could never forget that he was an exile and a penitent.

There were two days in the season when the regular routine of the woodsman's work was interrupted by functions which possess a romantic charm. One was when the Friends and neighbors from a wide region a.s.sembled to help him "raise" the walls of his cabin.

From all sides they appeared, in their picturesque costumes of homespun or fur. Suddenly, through the ever-open gates of the forest, teams of horses crashed, drawing after them clanking log chains, and driven by men who carried saws and "cant hooks" on their broad shoulders. Loud halloos of greeting, cheerful words of encouragement, an eager and agreeable bustle of business, filled the clearing.

Log by log the walls rose, as the horses rolled them into place with the aid of the great chains which the pioneers wrapped around them. It was only a rude log cabin they built--with a great, wide opening through the middle, a room on either side, and a picturesque chimney at either end; but it was not to be despised even for grace, and when warmth and comfort and adaptability to needs and opportunities are considered, there have been few buildings erected by the genius of man more justly ent.i.tled to admiration.

When this single day's work was ended there remained nothing for David to do but c.h.i.n.k and daub the walls with mud, cover the rude rafters of the roof with his shakes, build the chimneys out of short sticks, cob-house fashion, and cement them on the inside with clay to protect them from the flames.

The other day was the one on which, at the close of the long and genial summer, when the ma.s.s of timber and brushwood had been thoroughly seasoned by the hot suns, he set his torches to the carefully constructed piles.

Steven and Pepeeta were to share with him in the excitement of this conflagration, and David had postponed it until dusk, in order that they might enjoy its entire sublimity. He had taken the precaution to plow many furrows around the cabin and also around the edge of the clearing, so the flames could neither destroy his house nor devastate the forest.

Such precautions were necessary, for nothing can exceed the ferocity of fire in the debris which the woodsmen scatter about them. When the dusk had settled down on this woodland world and long shadows had crept across the clearing, wrapping themselves round the trees at its edge and scattering themselves among the thick branches till they were almost hid from view, David lighted a pine torch and gave it into the hands of the eager boy, who seized it and like a young Prometheus started forth.

A single touch to the dry tinder was enough. With a dull explosion, the ma.s.s burst into flame. Shouting in his exultation, the little torch-bearer rushed on, igniting pile after pile, and leaving behind him almost at every step a mighty conflagration. At each new instant, as the night advanced, a new outburst of light illumined the darkness, until ten, twenty, fifty great heaps were roaring and seething with flames!

Great jets spouted up into the midnight heavens as if about to kiss the very stars, and suddenly expired in the illimitable s.p.a.ce above them.

Immense sparks, shot out from these bonfires as from the craters of volcanoes, went sailing into the void around them and fell hissing into the water of the brooks or silently into the new-plowed furrows.

The clouds above the heads of the subdued and almost terrified beholders, for no one is ever altogether prepared for the absolute awfulness of such a spectacle, were glowing with the fierce light which the fires threw upon them. Weird illuminations played fantastic tricks in the foliage from which the startled shadows had vanished. The roar of the ever-increasing fires became louder and louder, until in very terror Pepeeta crept into David's arms for protection, while the child who had fearlessly produced this scene of awful grandeur and destruction shouted with triumph at his play.