CHAPTER VI
A ONE-SIDED STORY
Adrian was not a gymnast though he had seen and admired many wonderfulfeats performed by his own classmates. But he had never beheld amiracle, and such he believed had been accomplished when, uponreaching the foot of that terrible tree, he found Margot sittingbeneath it, pale and shaken, but, apparently, unhurt.
She had heard his breathless crashing up the slope and greeted himwith a smile, and the tremulous question:
"How did you know where I was?"
"You aren't--dead?"
"Certainly not. I might have been, though, but God took care."
"Was it my cheers frightened you?"
"Was it you, then? I heard something, different from the wood sounds,and I looked quick to see. Then my foot slipped and I went down--away. I caught a branch just in time and, please, don't tell uncle. I'drather do that myself."
"You should never do such a thing. The idea of a girl climbing treesat all, least of any, such a tree as that!"
He threw his head back and looked upward, through the green spiral tothe brilliant sky. The enormous height revived the horror he had feltas he leaped through the window and rushed to the mountain.
"Who planned such a death-trap as that, anyway?"
"I did."
"You! A girl!"
"Yes. Why not. It's great fun, usually."
"You'd better have been learning to sew."
"I can sew, but I don't like it. Angelique does that. I do likeclimbing and canoeing and botanizing, and geologizing, andastronomizing, and----"
Adrian threw up his hands in protest.
"What sort of creature are you, anyway?"
"Just plain girl."
"Anything but that!"
"Well, girl, without the adjective. Suits me rather better;" and shelaughed in a way that proved she was not suffering from her mishap.
"This is the strangest place I ever saw. You are the strangest family.We are certainly in the backwoods of Maine, yet you might be a Holyokesenior, or a circus star, or--a fairy."
Margot stretched her long arms and looked at them quizzically.
"Fairies don't grow so big. Why don't you sit down? Or, if you will,climb up and look toward the narrows on the north. See if Pierre'sbirch is coming yet."
Again Adrian glanced upward, to the flag floating there, and shruggedhis shoulders.
"Excuse me, please. That is, I suppose I could do it, only seeing youslip--I prefer to wait awhile."
"Are you afraid?"
There was no sarcasm in the question. She asked it in all sincerity.Adrian was different from Pierre, the only other boy she knew, and shesimply wondered if tree-climbing were among his unknownaccomplishments.
It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and hisbrief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad ofspirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestionof cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed asidehis rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the pine.
"Why, it's easy! It's grand!" he called back and went up swiftlyenough.
Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance.Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected bygreat spikes driven into the trunk and he had but to clasp these inturn to make a safe ascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shadedhis eyes and peered northward.
"He's coming! Somebody's coming!" he shouted. "There's a little boatpushing off from that other shore."
Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself andcalled a bit of praise from Margot.
"I'm so glad you can climb. One can see so much more from thetree-tops; and, oh! there is so much, so much to find out all thetime! Isn't there?"
"Yes. Decidedly. One of the things I'd like to find out first is whoyou are and how you came here. If you're willing."
Then he added, rather hastily: "Of course, I don't want to beimpertinently curious. It only seems so strange to find such educatedpeople buried here in the north woods. I don't see how you live here.I--I----"
But the more he tried to explain the more confused he grew, and Margotmerrily simplified matters by declaring:
"You are curious, all the same, and so am I. Let's tell each other allabout everything and then we'll start straight without the bother ofstopping as we go along. Do sit down and I'll begin."
"Ready."
"There's so little, I shan't be long. My dear mother was CecilyDutton, my Uncle Hugh's twin. My father was Philip Romeyn, uncle'sclosest friend. They were almost more than brothers to each other,always; though uncle was a student and, young as he was, a professorat Columbia. Papa was a business man, a banker, or a cashier in abank. He wasn't rich, but mamma and uncle had money. From the timethey were boys uncle and papa were fond of the woods. They were greathunters, then, and spent all the time they could get up here innorthern Maine. After the marriage mamma begged to come with them, andit was her money bought this island, and the land along the shore ofthis lake as far as we can see from here. Much farther, too, ofcourse, because the trees hide things. They built this log cabin andit cost a great, great deal to do it. They had to bring the workmen sofar, but it was finished at last, and everything was brought up hereto make it--just as you see."
"What an ideal existence!"
"Was it? I don't know much about ideals, though uncle talks of themsometimes. It was real, that's all. They were very, very happy. Theyloved each other so dearly. Angelique came from Canada to keep thehouse and she says my mother was the sweetest woman she ever saw. Oh!I wish--I wish I could have seen her! Or that I might remember her.I'll show you her portrait. It hangs in my own room."
"Did she die?"
"Yes. When I was a year old. My father had passed away before that,and my mother was broken-hearted. Even for uncle and me she could notbear to live. It was my father's wish that we should come up here tostay, and Uncle Hugh left everything and came. I was to be reared 'inthe wilderness, where nothing evil comes,' was what both my parentssaid. So I have been, and--that's all."
Adrian was silent for some moments. The girl's face had grown dreamyand full of a pathetic tenderness as it always did when she discussedher unknown father and mother, even with Angelique. Though, inreality, she had not been allowed to miss what she had never known.Then she looked up with a smile and observed:
"Your turn."
"Yes--I--suppose so. May as well give the end of my story first----I'm a runaway."
"Why?"
"No matter why."
"That isn't fair."
He parried the indignation of her look by some further questions ofhis own. "Have you always lived here?"
"Always."
"You go to the towns sometimes, I suppose."
"I've never seen a town, except in pictures."
"Whew! Don't you have any friends? Any girls come to see you?"
"I never saw a girl, only myself in that poor broken glass ofAngelique's; and, of course, the pictured ones--as of the towns--inthe books."
"You poor child!"
Margot's brown face flushed. She wanted nobody's pity and she had notfelt that her life was a singular or narrow one, till this outsidercame. A wish very like Angelique's, that he had stayed where hebelonged, arose in her heart, but she dismissed it as inhospitable.
"I'm not poor. Not in the least. I have everything any girl could wantand I have--uncle! He is the best, the wisest, the noblest man in allthe world. I know it, and so Angelique says. She's been in yourtowns, if you please. Lived in them and says she never knew whatcomfort meant until she came to Peace Island and us. You don'tunderstand."
Margot was more angry than she had ever been, and anger made herdecidedly uncomfortable. She sprang up hastily, saying:
"If you've nothing to tell, I must go. I want to get into the forestand look after my friends there. The storm may have hurt them."
She was off down the mountain, as swift and sure-footed as if it werenot a rough pathway
that made him blunder along very slowly. For hefollowed, at once, feeling that he had not been "fair," as she hadaccused, in his report of himself; and that only a complete confidencewas due these people who had treated him so kindly.
"Margot! Margot! Wait a minute! You're too swift for me! I wantto----"
Just there he caught his foot in a running vine, stumbled over ahidden rock, and measured his length, head downward, on the slope. Hewas not hurt, however, though vexed and mortified. But when he hadpicked himself up and looked around the girl had vanished.