Barbara Ladd

  CHAPTER VII.

  After her breakfast at old Debby's, Barbara urged forward her canoewith keen exhilaration. Now was she really free, really advanced inher great adventure. A load of anxiety was lifted from her mind. Shehad succeeded in arranging so that the letter would be delivered to heraunt--a matter which had been fretting at her conscience. Moreover,old Debby had shown no surprise or disapproval on hearing of her rashventure. It nettled Barbara, indeed, to have so heroic an enterprisetaken so lightly; but she augured therefrom that it was more feasiblethan she had dared to hope, and already she saw herself installed asmistress of Uncle Bob's home in Stratford.

  "He'll love us, my babies!" she cried to the kittens in the basket, andforthwith plied her paddle so feverishly that in a few minutes she hadto stop and take breath.

  The river at this point wound through low meadows, sparsely treed withthe towering, majestic water poplar, sycamore, and arching elm, withhere and there a graceful river birch leaning pensively to contemplateits reflection in the stream. The trees and flowers were personal toBarbara, her quick senses differentiating them unerringly. The lowmeadow, swampy in spots, was a mass of herbs, shrubs, and rank grasses,for the most part now in full flower; and the sun was busy distillingfrom them all their perfumes, which came to Barbara's nostrils in warm,fitful, varying puffs. She noted the tenderly flushing feathery massesof meadowsweet, which she could never quite forgive for its lack of theperfume promised by its name. From the dry knolls came the heavy scentof the tall, bold umbels of the wild parsnip, at which she sniffed withpassing resentment. Another breath of wind, and a turn of the streaminto a somewhat less open neighbourhood, brought her a sweet andwell-loved savour, and she half rose in her place to greet the presenceof a thicket of swamp honeysuckle. She noted, as she went, palecrimson colonies of the swamp rose, hummed over softly by the bees andflies. Purple Jacob's-ladder draped the bushes luxuriantly, with wildclematis in lavish banks, and aerial stretches of the roseatemonkey-flower on its almost invisible stems. Her heart went out to acluster of scented snakemouth under the rim of the bank. She was aboutto turn her prow shoreward and gather the modest pinkish blossoms fortheir enchanting fragrance, when she observed leaning above them hermortal enemy among the tree-folk, the virulent poison sumac. Sheswerved sharply to the other side of the stream to avoid its hostileexhalations.

  The little river now widened out and became still more sluggish. Anarrow meadow island in mid-stream intoxicated Barbara's eyes withcolour, being fringed with rank on rank of purple flag-flower, and itsgrassy heart flame-spotted with the blooms of the wild lily. The stillwater along the shores was crowded with floating-heart, andpale-blossomed arrowhead, and blue, rank pickerel-weed; and Barbara,who did not mind the heat, but revelled in the carnival of colour, drewa deep breath and declared to herself (giving the flat lie to tenthousand former assertions of the like intimacy) that the world was abeautiful place to live in. No sooner had she said it than her heartsank under a flood of bitter memories. She seemed once more to feelthe water singing in her ears, to see its golden blur filling her eyes,as on that morning when she lay drowning in the lake. The glory of thesummer day lost something of its brightness, and she paddled ondoggedly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.

  But this was a mood that could not long hold dominion over Barbara'sspirit on this day of days, when she was journeying to freedom. Ittook no more than the scarlet flash of a tanager across her bow, theflapping of a startled brood of ducks from their covert in the sedge,to lure her back to gladness and the seeing eye. At last the rivercarried her into quite different surroundings. Still slow, and smooth,and deep, it entered the neighbourhood of great trees growing close,the ancient and unviolated forest. The day grew cool and solemn, thediffused light floating hushed under the great arches of brown and grayand green. By contrast it seemed dark, but the air was of a wonderfultransparency, and Barbara's eyes, opening wide in delicious awe, saweverything more distinctly than in the open. She whispered to theyellow birch, the paper birch, the beech, the maple, and the chestnut,each by name lovingly, as she slipped past their soaring trunks,knowing them by the texture and the features of their bark though theirleaves hung far overhead. Her paddle dipped without noise, lest themysteries of the forest conclave should be disturbed by her intrusion.So keen and so initiated were her young eyes that she discerned thesleeping nighthawk on his branch, where his likeness to a knottedexcrescence of the bark made him feel secure from the mostdiscriminating vision. Passing a dead pine with a small, neatlyrounded hole about ten feet up the trunk, she heard, or thought sheheard, the safe conferring of the nest full of young woodpeckers in itshollow depth--which, indeed, was probably but the stirring of her ownblood-currents within her over-attentive little ears. Suddenly thevast stillness appeared to close down upon her, not with oppression,but with a calm that was half fearful, half delicious; and it seemed asif the fever of her veins was being slowly drawn away. The mysticshores slipped by with speed, though she hardly knew she was paddling.And when, suddenly, a great brown owl dropped from a beech limb andwent winnowing soundlessly down the stream ahead of her, she caught herbreath, feeling as if the soul of the silence had taken palpable shapebefore her eyes.

  Now, as it seemed to Barbara, life and movement began to appear, at thesummons of those shadowy wings. A little troop of pale-winged mothsdrifted, circling lightly, over the stream; and a fly-catcher, withthin, cheeping cries, dropped some twenty feet straight downward froman overhanging limb, fluttered and zigzagged for a moment in mid-air,capturing some small insect darters which Barbara could not see, thenshot back into the leafage. Then upon a massive, sloping maple-branchclose to the bank, she saw a stocky black-and-white shape slowlycrawling. The head was small and flattened, the bright little eyesglittered upon her in defiance, and a formidable ridge of pointedquills erected itself angrily along the back. The animal uttered alow, squeaking grunt, and Barbara, with prompt discretion, steered asclose as possible to the opposite bank, glancing apprehensively overher shoulder as she passed. She was strongly inclined to like theporcupine; but his ill-temper was manifest, and she had faith in thesuperstition that he could shoot his needle-like quills to a distanceand pierce the object of his dislike. Barbara could not contemplatethe possibility of appearing before her uncle like a pin-cushion, stuckfull of porcupine quills.

  Barely had she left the resentful porcupine behind, safely out ofquill-flinging distance, when she observed a small, ruddy head cleavingthe water in mid-channel. A pair of prominent eyes met hersapprehensively. Two smooth ripples curved away from the throat of thesmall swimmer. It was a red squirrel whom unwonted affairs hadsummoned to the other side of the river. Whatever the affairs, Barbarawas determined to expedite them as far as she could. Overtaking theswimmer with a couple of smart strokes, she politely held out to himthe blade of the paddle. The invitation was not to be resisted. Witha scramble and a leap he came aboard, skipped along the gunwale, andperched himself, jaunty and chipper for all his bedragglement of tail,on the extreme tip of the bow. There he twitched and chatteredeagerly, while Barbara headed toward the shore where he would be.While he was yet a wide space distant from it, he sprang into the air.Barbara held her breath--but the little traveller knew his powers. Helanded safely on a projecting root, flicked off behind a tree, and wasgone. In a few seconds there came echoing from a tree-top far back inthe shadows a loud, shrill chattering, which Barbara took for anexpression of either gratitude or impudence. Caring not which it was,she smiled indulgently and paddled on.

  And now to her sensitive nostrils there came suddenly an elusivewafture of wintergreen, and she looked around for the gray birch whosemessage she recognised. The homely, familiar smell reclaimed her fromher mood of exaltation, and she realised that she was hungry. Justahead was a grassy glade, whereinto the sun streamed broadly. She sawthat it was far past noon. With a leap of the heart she realised thatshe must be nearing the point where the stream would join the great
river which was to bear her, her kittens, and her fortunes, down to thesea and Uncle Bob. Yes, she recognised this same open glade, with thegiant willow projecting over the water at its farther end. She andUncle Bob had both remarked upon its fairy beauty as they passed itgoing and coming, when they had explored the stream. She had but twoor three miles farther to go, and her paddle would greet the waters ofthe great river. This was fitting place to halt and renew her strength.

  Pulling up the prow of the canoe upon a tuft of sedge, she took out thebasket and the bundle. From the heart of the bundle she drew a smallleather bag, containing barley cakes, gingerbread, a tiny parcel ofcold meat done up in oiled paper, a wooden saucer, and a little woodenbottle which she had filled with fresh milk at old Debby's. Havingpoured some of the milk into the saucer, and laid three or four shredsof the meat around its edges, she released the kittens from theirbasket. For two or three minutes, glad of freedom, the fat, furrythings frisked and stretched and tumbled hither and thither, whileBarbara kept watch upon them with solicitous eyes. But soon they grewafraid of the great spaces and the woods, being accustomed to anenvironment more straitened. They came back mewing to Barbara's feet,and she turned their attention to their dinner. While they lapped themilk, and daintily chewed the unaccustomed meat, she dined heartily butabstractedly on the barley cakes and gingerbread. Then, havingsatisfied her thirst by lying flat on the wet, grassy brink of thestream and lowering her lips to the water, she decided to rest a fewminutes before resuming her voyage. Close by was a beech-tree, aroundwhose trunk the moss looked tempting. Seating herself with her backagainst the tree, and the kittens curled up in her lap, she looked outdreamily over the hot grasses--and presently fell asleep.

  She had slept perhaps half an hour when a crow, alighting on a lowbranch some half score paces distant, peered into the shade of thebeech-tree and discovered the sweet picture. To him it was not sweetin the least, but indubitably interesting. "Cah--ah!" he exclaimedloudly, hopping up and down in his astonishment. The sharp voice awokeBarbara, and she rubbed her eyes.

  "Gracious!" she exclaimed to the kittens, "what sleepyheads we are!Come, come, we must hurry up, or we'll never get to Uncle Bob!"

  Before she was really well awake, the kittens were in the basket, thecanoe was loaded and shoved off, and the adventurers were once moreafloat upon their quest. Then only did Barbara give herself time tostretch and rub her eyes. After a few strokes she let the canoe driftwith the current, while she laid down the paddle, and cooled her wristsand refreshed her face with handfuls of water.

  As she straightened her brave little shoulders again to her labour, shewas arrested by a strange sound as of the ripping of bark. It was anominous kind of noise in the lonely stillness, and apprehensively shepeered in the direction whence it came. Then she grew afraid. On theother shore, about a couple of rods back from the water, she saw alarge black bear sitting upon its haunches beside a fallen and rottentree. As she stared, wide-eyed and trembling, he lifted his great pawand laid hold of the dead bark. Again came the ripping, tearing noise,and off peeled a huge brown slab. To the exposed surface he applied animble tongue--and Barbara's terror subsided. She saw that he wasquite too absorbed in the delights of an ant-log to pay any attentionto a mere girl; and she remembered, too, that the black bear was arather inoffensive soul so long as he was not treated contumeliously.For all this, however, she made as much haste from the spot as wasconsistent with a noiseless paddle--and kept furtive watch over hershoulder until she had put a good half-mile between the canoe and theant-log.

  By the time her concern about the bear had begun to flag she found thatthe current was quickening its pace. The trees slipped by moreswiftly, and the shores grew bolder. A mellow, roaring clamour came toher ears, and with delicious trepidation she remembered a little rapidthrough which she must pass. Around a turn of the stream it came intoview, its small waves sparkling where the forest gave back and admittedthe afternoon sun. Her experience in running rapids had been slight,but she remembered the course which Uncle Bob had taken, between twolarge rocks where the water ran deep and smooth; and she called tomind, the further to brace her confidence, that Uncle Bob hadstigmatised this particular rapid as mere child's play. Her heart beatrather wildly as she entered the broken water, and the currents grippedher, and the banks began to flee upward past her view. But her eyeheld true and her wrist firm. The clamour filled her ears, but shelaid her course with precision and fetched the very centre of thechannel between the big rocks. From that point all was clear. Thecanoe went racing through the last ripple, which splashed her lightlyas she passed; and in a reach of quiet water, foam-flecked and shining,she drew a deep breath of triumph. This, indeed, was to live. Neverhad she experienced a keener consciousness of power. She felt herenterprise already successful. The ancient woods, with their bears,their porcupines, their wide-winged brown owls, lay behind her. SecondWestings was incalculably far away. There in plain view, rising overits comfortable orchard trees, not half a mile distant, were the roofsand chimneys of Gault House, overlooking, as she had heard, the watersof the great river. And beyond the next turn, as she thought with athrill, she would see the great river itself.