CHAPTER XVIII
REPRISALS
"Her tunic is of silver, Her veil of green tree-hair, The woodland Princess donning Her pomp of summer wear.
White arms to heaven reaching, Shy buds that, tiptoe, meet The kiss of June's awaking, The season's hast'ning feet!
Oh, sure, a laugh is lisping In each uncurling leaf; The joy of June is thrilling Some sense to transport brief!
Sister of mine, White Birch Tree! That sense my own sets free, For in thy dim soul-stirrings My Father speaks to me."
It was Tanpa, with the sunburst upon her right breast, general symbol ofthe Camp Fire, and the birch tree in grace of green and silverembroidered above it upon emerald khaki, who read the verses which shehad scribbled in the skiff's stern under cover of the general interestin water-snails, eggboats and "fresh-water sheep."
"Most beautiful of forest trees--the Lady of the Woods!" came theresponsive hail from eighteen green-clad maidens, tiptoeing around theSilver Lady, the emerald tassels of their Tam-o'-shanters skipping inthe June breeze that peeped under her fluttering veil, still tucked withbuds, to kiss those white limbs lifted to the skies, with surely, somebud of conscious joy.
It was June! Upon the cliff-brow, above the lake, wild roses werebudding, too; and the girls' cheeks painted themselves with theirreflection--even as did the blushing minnows in the lake.
But the lady of the woods had the best of it so far as decoration went.Never new-crowned head wore in its coronet Life as hers did,--fledglinglife.
For amid the heart-shaped leaves, so brightly green, was the cap-sheafof summer wear:
"A nest of robins in her hair."
The poet who penned that line would have gloried in the sight of her,that bungalow birch tree, a tall, straight specimen, radiant as a silvertaper from the black, frescoed ring about the foot to the topmost ivorytwig, and here and there amid the fluttering, pea-green tresses a littletuft of conscious life--a nestling with open beak and craving, corallinethroat.
He would have joyed in the sight of the tree-loving Group, too, as theearth was turned and the first silver sapling rooted deep to the musicof Tomoke's voice, softly proclaiming:
"He who plants a tree, He plants love. Tents of coolness spreading out above Wayfarers he may not live to see. Gifts that grow are best, Hands that bless are blest, Plant! Life does the rest."
And Life would do the rest--oh! surely--in the case of her father andherself, was the dewy thought of Pemrose Lorry as she planted her babytree in honor of that novel Wayfarer, that would first traverse spaceand conquer it--bridge the gulf which made Earth a hermit amid theheavenly bodies--of the great invention, whereof poets in future ageswould sing, that daringly took the first step towards linking planetwith planet.
And the tender sapling was rooted in the hope that long before it was amature tree that comet-like Wayfarer would start,--the Thunder Birdwould fly.
Well! star-dust never blinded the eyes. But it certainly dazzledthose of Pemrose, that young visionary, as she pressed earth aroundher sapling's root: would there ever come a time when the CampFires of Earth would hail the Camp Fires of some other planetacross that illimitable No Man's Land of Space, first--oh! thoughttranscendent--first bridged by her father's genius?
But with the high seasoning of that thought came the salty smack ofanother! All unseen in the planting excitement a tear dropped upon thespading trowel as she thought of that whimsical "Get thee behind me,Satan, but don't push!" plea of the inventor sorely tempted tocommercialize his genius, thwart its inspired range, because of thedifficulties about bringing his project to fruition--and of that moneyhung up, idle, for the next twelve years.
"Daddy-man thinks he'll be--well! not an old man, but that his bestenergies will be spent by that time, even if--"
But here the trowel dug vigorously, burying head over ears the thoughtof the possible return within that time of the "zany" who had been sucha mad fellow in youth that, according to her father and others, it waslike sitting on a barrel of gunpowder to have anything to do with him,so sure were you to come to grief through his explosive pranks. And yet,and yet--perhaps it was the dash of spice in her name--Pem could nothelp feeling an interest for his own sake in that "hot tamale", theThunder Bird's rival in the will!
So she spaded away, watering her sapling for the first time, herself,with that little tributary tear; and then, propitiating it, after themanner of the Indians, in the graceful Leaf Dance, capering around it,around the Queen Birch, too, with her companions, upon the lightestfantastic toe, their green arms outstretched and waving, to imitate theleaves above them, blown by the wind.
Went the phonograph upon the bungalow piazza, as it threw off the music,the quaint Indian accompaniment to those stamping, shuffling, skippingfeet, to the queer little half-savage syllables, borrowed from the CreekIndians, upon the lips of the chanting, dancing girls, to the coconuthand-rattle wielded by Aponi, the Butterfly, most fairy-like of thegreen dancers, as she led and led, in honor of the new _idlwissi_,or tree-hair, the listening leaves--ethereal partners overhead.
Containing little pebbles picked from the lake-side, with a stickrunning through the painted coconut-shell for a handle, its gleefulrattle fairly turned girls' heads with the joy of June.
"I think we'll have to ask you to repeat that dance to-night for thebenefit of the boys, your guests," said the Scoutmaster, who wasmanipulating the phonograph. "Fairyland wouldn't be 'in it' with thehuman leaves tripping in pink and gold and green and--no ordinary manknows what!"
Fairyland, indeed, seemed beaten hollow as "across the lake in goldenglory" the waning sunbeams of early June bathed the little floatingpier, wreathed in laurel and daisy chains, then climbed with flaggingfeet, like a tired angel, the sod-steps cut into the side of the steepcliff, and, gaining the top, joined their rose-colored brothers skippingamong girlish forms in every fair hue imaginable, claiming partners in adance as of Northern Lights before ever their human brothers, the scoutsin gilded khaki, got a chance at a reel.
"Oh! I feel it in my toes that this is going to be a won-der-ful party,"said Toandoah's little pal, kicking lightly, impatiently with thosesatin toes of her party slippers at the tufted grass, as she satenthroned upon the sod of the cliff's brow, with two knights beside her,Stud of the stout heart, and a bright-eyed luckless tenderfoot, whoseparents, in a fit of dementia surely, had named him Louis Philip Green,which, as he used only the initial letter of his second name, had ofcourse entailed a nickname.
"You promised you'd dance the Lancers with me, although I'm only atenderfoot," said Peagreen, nibbling a blade of grass as he lay proneupon the sod and shooting a glance, bright and eager as a robin's, inthe direction of the black-haired girl with those skybeams in her eyesunder inky lashes.
"Humph! The cheek of some kids who ought to be tucked up in theirBeehive when--when that dance comes off!" grumbled the fifteen-year-oldStud, with the arrogance of a Patrol Leader, directing his glance at abrown, conical bungalow flanking a large one, where the younger boysturned in at what seemed to them unseemly hours, while scout veteranssat up overhauling the day's doings for an occasion of a laugh againstsomebody, practical joke, of course, preferred, to be published in theHenkyl Hunter's typewritten Bulletin and hung up in the porch nextmorning.
"Well! I'm safe for the Grand March, anyhow--and the Virginia reel, too,eh!" Stud dug congratulatory fists into his brown sides, wrigglingaggressively upon the cliff-brow, like Peagreen figuratively hugging theground with an impatient nose.
Privately he was inclined to the opinion that the blue-eyed girl'sfriend who had that little nearsighted stand in one of her dark eyes,and two dimples to Pemrose's one, was the daintier "peach" of thetwo--and that his own sister, Jess, was as pretty as either; but thinkof the distinction of leading off with a girl whose father would leadoff amid the dance of planets, in sending a messenger to the moon, Mars,too, maybe!
"Whoopee!" He
kicked the sod as if spurning it as common or gardenearth--although there were moments when, like others--elders--in askeptical world, he told himself that the Thunder Bird would prove,after all, a Flying Dutchman,--just an extravagant dream.
"So--so you were out on the lake this morning, studying pond life withthe professor," he said, alluding to the Scoutmaster. "He's instructorin a college and each year he gets us started on something; last summerit was astronomy--he brought a small telescope along."
Pem's heels drummed more excitedly on the sod--the starry heavens were_her_ scope.
"But we have a good deal of fun with the big compound microscope,too--and more without it," acknowledged Studley. "Fancy last week wecaught a huge pike which had jumped clear out of the water, on to thebank, after a water-hen!"
"Where was that? How--how big was it?" The girlish questions mountedhelter-skelter.
"The pike? Oh! he weighed about fifteen pounds. It was right over there,on the other side of the lake," pointing to the spot where the partyinterested in egg-boats had landed that morning. "He--he gobbled thehen, too."
"_Did_ he?" But he might have been threatening to gobble her,judging by the start which the girl gave at the moment.
Her heart jumped down to the water's edge as abruptly as did the cliffbeneath her.
Her eyes were on a boat rowing out of the sunset's eye directly acrossthe lake from that very spot.
There was but one individual in it and he--he was rowing by instinct, asthe birds fly, for his gaze was glued to a newspaper sheet, the sun'sown evening edition, gorgeously printed by the painted rays in every hueof the spectrum.
He was heading straight--straight for the floating wharf with itsplank-bridge running out ashore.
Jack at a Pinch again!
"Do--do you know who he is?" Pem flashed the question upon the older ofher two boy-knights.
"Well-ll! I guess so." Stud's joy in the recognition floundered alittle. "He--he's the fellow--one of the fellows--who boomed theaeroplane, the other day, to get you girls quietly out of the cave, whenthere was a 'rattler--'"
"As if we'd have made a fuss, anyhow!" The girl's eyes blazed, again apatchwork, drawing their red center from the sun. "You said--you saidthat it was so hard to make friends with him, like whistling jigs to amilestone--ah!" Her own voice was suddenly stony. "Have you--oh! haveyou made any headway since?"
"Humph! Yes. I've found out something about him."
The patrol leader's preoccupied eyes were on the boat edging vaguelynearer to the wharf, with its one "nickum" figure, so nonchalantlyrowing, so absorbed in the rainbowed sheet upon its knees that at thismoment it awkwardly "caught a crab" and almost suggestively lost an oar.
Simultaneously, however, the phonograph on the piazza struck up, as aprelude to festivities, the Virginia reel, the notes tripping gaily outacross the painted lake; and the rower shot one glance upward, as if tosay: "I'll be there in time!" then bent his hungry nose to the paperagain.
"What--what did you find out about him?" Pem's interest was equallyhungry--positively famishing. "His name--eh?"
"Ha--that's the question! Over on Greylock the farmers' sons call himShooting Star', alias 'Starry'," with a boyish laugh, "because when theywere awf'ly hard up for a player in the last ball game of the seriesagainst Willard College, having lost their second baseman and substitutetoo, by gracious! he breezed along, an' the captain, hearing he hadplayed on a college team, roped him in ... an'--an', what do you know,but he won the game for that mountain team with a home run! A home runover the left field fence! Bully!"
"But, surely, _they_ know his--real--name!" Pem's aloof absorptionin that fell like fog-drip even upon the glow from that left fieldfence.
"Maybe they do--and maybe they don't! He refused it to the fans. Andwhen the Greylock coach cornered him he palmed it off as Selkirk. But mycousin who's pitcher on the team says in his opinion that was just'throwing a tub to a whale'--something fishy about it, see?" Studwinked. "For 'Starry' an' his father--who's a queer fish, if ever therewas one--had a camp then up on Greylock peak, and the postmaster incharge o' the Greylock mail owned that he received letters for themaddressed to another name--only he couldn't--wouldn't--give it away."
"_Wha-at!_"
Pem's hand suddenly smote her lips.
Her wide eyes were no patchwork now. Stud had not thought that a girl'seyes could be so blue. It almost gave him the "Willies", their remote,peculiar sky-glow, as if afar--afar--they were seeing things.
"What!" she gasped again, while that vivid glow faded, became bluish,blank, the tint of "Moonshine"--of a strange, wild, nondescript dream.
Moonshine that seemed flooding her whole being!
And yet--although she was a quick-witted girl--it was too vague for herto draw from it one clear thought--only an uneasy, unreal, absolutelybreathless feeling!
And then the queer, air-drawn sensation as suddenly passed--and with itthe blue moon which had momentarily turned her world tonothing--"shooed" off by a very real, very tangible, quite pressingapprehension:
"He--he's not coming to the da-nce?"
She sprang up hurriedly, pointing to the boat below; to its onepreoccupied figure, clad neither in rough sweater nor May-fly gaudiness,now, but, if the sunset didn't exaggerate, in a very becoming dark suit.
"Humph! I don't know! I guess he is! Didn't think he could pull it offfor some reason or other--" Stud's shoulders were shrugged. "But, maybe,he's found where there's a will there's a way."
"Why-y?" The girl's lips were parted breathlessly, her footinvoluntarily stamping.
"Oh! you know you told us to invite our friends to the party; not you,but the other girls did, when they signaled across that night from thegreen Pinnacle--gee! and it was some signaling, too." The scout's glancewas teasing now as it shot up from the grass. "So--so one of the olderboys he ran across that bunch o' fellows who were blooming round in thecave the other day--they're all from camps on the lake--and invited thewhole five. This one thought he couldn't accept, but I guess he's makinga dash at it--at coming just the same!"
"Oh!... Oh, _dear_! I wish he wasn't!"
"Why?" Now it was the scout's turn to hang, breathless, upon theinterrogation as he too jumped to his feet.
"Because--oh! because I'd be--be ever so much more comfortable withouthim--enjoy myself more." Pem caught her breath wildly.
"Then 'twill be A. W. O. L. for him! ... A. W. O. L. for him--if Iperish for it!"
"What--what does that mean?"
"Absent With-Out Leave, as they set it down in the Army!"
Mischief leaped to the Henkyl Hunter's eye.
He beckoned Peagreen from the grass to follow him. A whisper in thetender-foot's ear and down the winding sod-steps of the cliff theyscrambled!
Pem knew that she ought to call them back; knew it from the whiteparting at the side of her throbbing little head to the toe of her satinslipper tumultuously beating the ground, as she sank down, an orchidamid her chiffons, to watch.
But it was a moment when the spice of her chowchow name had all spilledover; when the Vain Elf which, according to her father, slept in theshadow of the Wise Woman, was broadly--mutinously--awake.
The boat had drawn in alongside the decked float now.
It was gently rocking there, on and off, the rower having shipped hisoars and laid them beside him, his strong fingers now and again hookingthe wharf when there was danger of his drifting away, while his obsessednose was bent closer still to the newspaper sheet, catching the lastrays of daylight on it.
He did not look up when the scouts, running out over the plank bridge,spoke to him.
Suddenly one of them--Stud it was--leaned down and snatched the oars,lifted them high in the air, the nickum's evil genius having promptedhim to lay them in the boat's side nearest the wharf; perhaps it was thedemon which he had dared by sitting in the Devil's Chair.
At the same time Peagreen gave the boat a strong shove outward to wherea current caught it and swept it further--mockingly fu
rther, towards thedarkening center of the Bowl.
"Oh! I say--I say, you fellows, that's no stunt to pull off!" roared thenickum wrathfully. "I'm due at the dance now!"
"You're not coming to the dance. There's a girl here who doesn't wantyou!" rang back the voice of callow chivalry in the barbarous pipe ofthe tenderfoot.
And Pem, slipping up from the grass, her hands to her burningcheeks--for she had not meant it to go as far as this--stole back to thepiazza, to dance away from the shamefaced ecstasy of reprisal in herheart.
Perhaps she would have felt that this was too sore a snub to inflict forany rudeness on Jack at a Pinch; perhaps she would have compelled herboy-knights to put out in the camp skiff and return those oars--underpain of not dancing with them, at all--had she seen the illuminatedcolumn over which the victim's nose had been so disastrously bent.
It was in every sense a highly colored description of her father'srecord-breaking invention, dwelling particularly, though vaguely, uponthe experiments so soon to take place with a lesser Thunder Bird, asmaller rocket, from the remote and misty top of old Mount Greylock.