The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

Paine Albert Bigelow

The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods

PROLOGUE

There is a sharp turn just above the hill. The North Elba stage sometimes hesitates there before taking the plunge into the valley below.

But this was late September. The morning was brisk, the mountains glorified, the tourists were going home. The four clattering, snorting horses swung into the turn and made straight for the brow – the stout, ruddy-faced driver holding hard on the lines, but making no further effort to check them. Then the boy in the front seat gave his usual "Hey! look there!" and, the other passengers obeying, as they always did, saw something not especially related to Algonquin, or Tahawus, or Whiteface – the great mountains whose slopes were ablaze with autumn, their peaks already tipped with snow – that was not, indeed, altogether Adirondack scenery. Where the bend came, at the brink, a little weather-beaten cottage cornered – a place with apple trees and some faded summer flowers. In the road in front was a broad flat stone, and upon it a single figure – a little girl of not more than eight – her arm extended toward the approaching stage, in her hand a saucer of berries.

The tourists had passed a number of children already, but this one was different. The others had been mostly in flocks – soiled, stringy-haired little mountaineers, who had gathered to see the stage go by. The smooth, oval face of this child, rich under the tan, was clean, the dark hair closely brushed – her dress a simple garment, though of a fashion unfavored by the people of the hills. All this could be comprehended in the brief glance allowed the passengers; also the deep wistful look which followed them as the stage whirled by without stopping.

A lady in the back seat (she had been in Italy) murmured something about a "child Madonna." Another said, "Poor little thing!"

But the boy in the front seat had caught the driver's arm and was demanding that he stop the stage.

"I want to get out!" he repeated, with determination. "I want to buy those berries! Stop!"

The driver could not stop just there, even had he wished to do so, which he did not. They were already a third of the way down, and the hill was a serious matter. So the boy leaned out, looking back, to make sure the moment's vision had not faded, and when the stage struck level ground, was out and running, long before the horses had been brought to a stand-still.

"You wait for me!" he commanded. "I'll be back in a second!" Then he pushed rapidly up the long hill, feeling in his pockets as he ran.

The child had not moved from her place, and stood curiously regarding the approaching boy. He was considerably older than she was, as much as six years. Her wistful look gave way to one of timidity as he came near. She drew the saucer of berries close to her and looked down. Then, puffing and panting, he stood there, still rummaging in his pockets, and regaining breath for words.

"Say," he began, "I want your berries, you know, only, you see, I – I thought I had some money, but I haven't – not a cent – only my lucky piece. My mother's in the stage and I could get it from her, but I don't want to go back." He made a final, wild, hopeless search through a number of pockets, looking down, meanwhile, at the little bowed figure standing mutely before him. "Look here," he went on, "I'm going to give you my lucky piece. Maybe it'll bring luck to you, too. It did to me – I caught an awful lot of fish up here this summer. But you mustn't spend it or give it away, 'cause some day when I come back up here I'll want it again. You keep it for me – that's what you do. Keep it safe. When I come back, I'll give you anything you like for it. Whatever you want – only you must keep it. Will you?"

He held out the worn Spanish silver piece which a school chum had given him "for luck" when they had parted in June. But the little brown hand clung to the berries and made no effort to take it.

"Oh, you must take it," he said. "I should lose it anyway. I always lose things. You can take care of it for me. Likely I'll be up again next year. Anyway, I'll come some time, and when I do I'll give you whatever you like in exchange for it."

She did not resist when he took the berries and poured them into his cap. Then the coin was pushed into one of her brown hands and he was pressing her fingers tightly upon it. When she dared to look up, he had called, "Good-bye!" and was halfway down the hill, the others looking out of the stage, waving him to hurry.

She watched him, saw him climb in with the driver and fling his hand toward her as the stage rounded into the wood and disappeared. Still she did not move, but watched the place where it had vanished, as if she thought it might reappear, as if presently that sturdy boy might come hurrying up the hill. Then slowly – very slowly, as if she held some living object that might escape – she unclosed her hand and looked at the treasure within, turning it over, wondering at the curious markings. The old look came into her face again, but with it an expression which had not been there before. It was some hint of responsibility, of awakening. Vaguely she felt that suddenly and by some marvelous happening she had been linked with a new and wonderful world. All at once she turned and fled through the gate, to the cottage.

"Mother!" she cried at the door, "Oh, Mother! Something has happened!" and, flinging herself into the arms of the faded woman who sat there, she burst into a passion of tears.

CHAPTER I

BUT PALADINS RIDE FAR BETWEEN

Frank rose and, plunging his hands into his pockets, lounged over to the wide window and gazed out on the wild March storm which was drenching and dismaying Fifth Avenue. A weaving throng of carriages, auto-cars and delivery wagons beat up and down against it, were driven by it from behind, or buffeted from many directions at the corners. Coachmen, footmen and drivers huddled down into their waterproofs; pedestrians tried to breast the rain with their umbrellas and frequently lost them. From where he stood the young man could count five torn and twisted derelicts soaking in gutters. They seemed so very wet – everything did. When a stage – that relic of another day – lumbered by, the driver on top, only half sheltered by his battered oil-skins, seemed wetter and more dismal than any other object. It all had an art value, certainly, but there were pleasanter things within. The young man turned to the luxurious room, with its wide blazing fire and the young girl who sat looking into the glowing depths.

"Do you know, Constance," he said, "I think you are a bit hard on me." Then he drifted into a very large and soft chair near her, and, stretching out his legs, stared comfortably into the fire as if the fact were no such serious matter, after all.

The girl smiled quietly. She had a rich oval face, with a deep look in her eyes, at once wistful and eager, and just a bit restless, as if there were problems there among the coals – questions she could not wholly solve.

"I did not think of it in that way," she said, "and you should not call me Constance, not now, and you are Mr. Weatherby. I do not know how we ever began – the other way. I was only a girl, of course, and did not know America so well, or realize – a good many things."

The young man stirred a little without looking up.

"I know," he assented; "I realize that six months seems a long period to a – to a young person, and makes a lot of difference, sometimes. I believe you have had a birthday lately."

"Yes, my eighteenth – my majority. That ought to make a difference."

"Mine didn't to me. I'm just about the same now as I was then, and – "

"As you always will be. That is just the trouble."

"I was going to say, as I always had been."

"Which would not be true. You were different, as a boy."

"And who gave you that impression, pray?"

The girl flushed a little.

"I mean, you must have been," she added, a trifle inconsequently. "Boys always are. You had ambitions, then."

"Well, yes, and I gratified them. I wanted to be captain of my college team, and I was. We held the championship as long as I held the place. I wanted to make a record in pole-vaulting, and I did. It hasn't been beaten since. Then I wanted the Half-mile Cup, and I won that, too. I think those were my chief aspirations when I entered college, and when I came out there were no more worlds to conquer. Incidentally I carried off the honors for putting into American some of Mr. Horace's justly popular odes, edited the college paper for a year, and was valedictorian of the class. But those were trivial things. It was my prowess that gave me standing and will remain one of the old school's traditions long after this flesh has become dust."

The girl's eyes had grown brighter as he recounted his achievements. She could not help stealing a glance of admiration at the handsome fellow stretched out before her, whose athletic deeds had made him honored among his kind. Then she smiled.

"Perhaps you were a pillar of modesty, too," she commented, "once."

He laughed – a gentle, lazy laugh in which she joined – and presently she added:

"Of course, I know you did those things. That is just it. You could do anything, and be anything, if you only would. Oh, but you don't seem to care! You seem satisfied, comfortable and good-naturedly indifferent; if you were poor, I should say idle – I suppose the trouble is there. You have never been poor and lonely and learned to want things. So, of course, you never learned to care for – for anything."

Her companion leaned toward her – his handsome face full of a light that was not all of the fire.

"I have, for you," he whispered.

The girl's face lighted, too. Her eyes seemed to look into some golden land which she was not quite willing to enter.

"No," she demurred gently. "I am not sure of that. Let us forget about that. As you say, a half-year has been a long time – to a child. I had just come from abroad then with my parents, and I had been most of the time in a school where girls are just children, no matter what their ages. When we came home, I suppose I did not know just what to do with my freedom. And then, you see, Father and Mother liked you, and let you come to the house, and when I first saw you and knew you – when I got to know you, I mean – I was glad to have you come, too. Then we rode and drove and golfed all those days about Lenox – all those days – your memory is poor, very poor, but you may recall those October days, last year, when I had just come home – those days, you know – "

Again the girl's eyes were looking far into a fair land which queens have willingly died to enter, while the young man had pulled his chair close, as one eager to lead her across the border.

"No," she went on – speaking more to herself than to him, "I am older, now – ages older, and trying to grow wise, and to see things as they are. Riding, driving and golfing are not all of life. Life is serious – a sort of battle, in which one must either lead or follow or merely look on. You were not made to follow, and I could not bear to have you look on. I always thought of you as a leader. During those days at Lenox you seemed to me a sort of king, or something like that, at play. You see I was just a schoolgirl with ideals, keeping the shield of Launcelot bright. I had idealized him so long – the one I should meet some day. It was all very foolish, but I had pictured him as a paladin in armor, who would have diversions, too, but who would lay them aside to go forth and redress wrong. You see what a silly child I was, and how necessary it was for me to change when I found that I had been dreaming, that the one I had met never expected to conquer or do battle for a cause – that the diversions were the end and sum of his desire, with maybe a little love-making as a part of it all."

"A little – " Her companion started to enter protest, but did not continue. The girl was staring into the fire as she spoke and seemed only to half remember his existence. For the most part he had known her as one full of the very joy of living, given to seeing life from its cheerful, often from its humorous, side. Yet he knew her to be volatile, a creature of moods. This one, which he had learned to know but lately, would pass. He watched her, a little troubled yet fascinated by it all, his whole being stirred by the charm of her presence.

"One so strong – so qualified – should lead," she continued slowly, "not merely look on. Oh, if I were a man I should lead – I should ride to victory! I should be a – a – I do not know what," she concluded helplessly, "but I should ride to victory."

He restrained any impulse he may have had to smile, and presently said, rather quietly:

"I suppose there are avenues of conquest to-day, as there were when the world was young. But I am afraid they are so crowded with the rank and file that paladins ride few and far between. You know," he added, more lightly, "knight-errantry has gone out of fashion, and armor would be a clumsy thing to wear – crossing Broadway, for instance."

She laughed happily – her sense of humor was never very deeply buried.

"I know," she nodded, "we do not meet many Galahads these days, and most of the armor is make-believe, yet I am sure there are knights whom we do not recognize, with armor which we do not see."

The young man sat up a bit straighter in his chair and assumed a more matter-of-fact tone.

"Suppose we put aside allegory," he said, "and discuss just how you think a man – myself, for instance – could set the world afire – make it wiser and better, I mean."

The embers were dying down, and she looked into them a little longer before replying. Then, presently:

"Oh, if I were only a man!" she repeated. "There is so much – so many things – for a man to do. Discovery, science, feats of engineering, the professions, the arts, philanthropy – oh, everything! And for us, so little!"

A look of amusement grew about the young man's mouth. He had seen much more of the world than she; was much older in a manner not reckoned by years.

"We do not monopolize it all, you know. Quite a few women are engaged in the professions and philanthropy; many in the arts."

"The arts, yes, but I am without talent. I play because I have been taught, and because I have practiced – oh, so hard! But God never intended that the world should hear me. I love painting and literature, and all those things. But I cannot create them. I can only look on. I have thought of the professions – I have thought a great deal about medicine and the law. But I am afraid those would not do, either. I cannot understand law papers, even the very simple ones Father has tried to explain to me. And I am not careful enough with medicines – I almost poisoned poor Mamma last week with something that looked like her headache drops and turned out to be a kind of preparation for bruises. Besides, somehow I never can quite see myself as a lawyer in court, or going about as a doctor. Lawyers always have to go to court, don't they? I am afraid I should be so confused, and maybe be arrested. They arrest lawyers don't they, sometimes?"

"They should," admitted the young man, "more often than they do. I don't believe you ought to take the risk, at any rate. I somehow can't think of you either as a lawyer or a doctor. Those things don't seem to fit you."

"That's just it. Nothing fits me. Oh, I am not even as much as I seem to be, yet can be nothing else!" she burst out rather incoherently, then somewhat hastily added: "There is philanthropy, of course. I could do good, I suppose, and Father would furnish the money. But I could never undertake things. I should just have to follow, and contribute. Some one would always have to lead. Some one who could go among people and comprehend their needs, and know how to go to work to supply them. I should do the wrong thing and make trouble – "

"And maybe get arrested – "

They laughed together. They were little more than children, after all.

"I know there are women who lead in such things," she went on. "They come here quite often, and Father gives them a good deal. But they always seem so self-possessed and capable. I stand in awe of them, and I always wonder how they came to be made so wise and brave, and why most of us are so different. I always wonder."

The young man regarded her very tenderly.

"I am glad you are different," he said earnestly. "My mother is a little like that, and of course I think the world of her. Still, I am glad you are different."

He leaned over and lifted an end of log with the tongs. A bright blaze sprang up, and for a while they watched it without speaking. It seemed to Frank Weatherby that nothing in the world was so worth while as to be there near her – to watch her there in the firelight that lingered a little to bring out the rich coloring of her rare young face, then flickered by to glint among the deep frames along the wall, to lose itself at last amid the heavy hangings. He was careful not to renew their discussion, and hoped she had forgotten it. There had been no talk of these matters during their earlier acquaintance, when she had but just returned with her parents from a long sojourn abroad. That had been at Lenox, where they had filled the autumn season with happy recreation, and a love-making which he had begun half in jest and then, all at once, found that for him it meant more than anything else in the world. Not that anything had hitherto meant a great deal. He had been an only boy, with a fond mother, and there was a great deal of money between them. It had somehow never been a part of his education that those who did not need to strive should do so. His mother was a woman of ideas, but this had not been one of them. Perhaps as a boy he had dreamed his dreams, but somehow there had never seemed a reason for making them reality. The idea of mental and spiritual progress, of being a benefactor of mankind was well enough, but it was somehow an abstract thing – something apart from him – at least, from the day of youth and love.

CHAPTER II

OUT IN THE BLOWY WET WEATHER

The room lightened a little and Constance rose and walked to the window.

"It isn't raining so hard, any more," she said. "I think I shall go for a walk in the Park."

The young man by the fire looked a little dismayed. The soft chair and the luxurious room were so much more comfortable than the Park on such a day as this.

"Don't you think we'd better put it off?" he asked, walking over beside her. "It's still raining a good deal, and it's quite windy."

"I said that I was going for a walk in the Park," the girl reiterated. "I shall run, too. When I was a child I always loved to run through a storm. It seemed like flying. You can stay here by the fire and keep nice and cozy. Mamma will be glad to come in and talk to you. She will not urge you to do and be things. She thinks you well enough as you are. She says you have repose, and that you rest her – she means, of course, after a session with me."

"I have the greatest regard for your mother – I might even say sympathy. Indeed, when I consider the serene yet sterling qualities of both your parents, I find myself speculating on the origin of your own – eh – rather unusual and, I hasten to add, wholly charming personality."

She smiled, but he thought a little sadly.

"I know," she said, "I am a trial, and, oh, I want to be such a comfort to them!" Then she added, somewhat irrelevantly, "But Father made his fight, too. It was in trade, of course, but it was a splendid battle, and he won. He was a poor boy, you know, and the struggle was bitter. You should stay and ask him to tell you about it. He will be home presently."

He adopted her serious tone.

"I think myself I should stay and have an important talk with your father," he said. "I have been getting up courage to speak for some time."

She affected not to hear, and presently they were out in the wild weather, protected by waterproofs and one huge umbrella, beating their way toward the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to Central Park. Not many people were there, and, once within, they made their way by side paths, running and battling with the wind, laughing and shouting like children, until at last they dropped down on a wet bench to recover breath.

"Oh," she panted, "that was fine! How I should like to be in the mountains such weather as this. I dream of being there almost every night. I can hardly wait till we go."

Her companion assented rather doubtfully.

"I have been in the mountains in March," he said. "It was pretty nasty. I suppose you have spent summers there. I believe you went to the Pyrenees."

"But I know the mountains in March, too – in every season, and I love them in all weathers. I love the storms, when the snow and sleet and wind come driving down, and the trees crack, and the roads are blocked, and the windows are covered with ice; when there's a big drift at the door that you must climb over, and that stays there almost till the flowers bloom. And when the winter is breaking, and the great rains come, and the wind, – oh, it's no such little wind as this, but wind that tears up big trees and throws them about for fun, and the limbs fly, and it's dangerous to go out unless you look everywhere, and in the night something strikes the roof, and you wake up and lie there and wonder if the house itself won't be carried away soon, perhaps to the ocean, and turn into a ship that will sail until it reaches a country where the sun shines and there are palm trees, and men who wear turbans, and where there are marble houses with gold on them. And in that country where the little house might land, a lot of people come down to the shore and they kneel down and say, 'The sea has brought a princess to rule over us.' Then they put a crown on her head and lead her to one of the marble and gold houses, so she could rule the country and live happy ever after."

As the girl ran on, her companion sat motionless, listening – meanwhile steadying their big umbrella to keep their retreat cozy. When she paused, he said:

"I did not know that you knew the hills in winter. You have seen and felt much more than I. And," he added reflectively, "I should not think, with such fancy as yours, that you need want for a vocation; you should write."

She shook her head rather gravely. "It is not fancy," she said, "at least not imagination. It is only reading. Every child with a fairy-book for companionship, and nature, rides on the wind or follows subterranean passages to a regal inheritance. Such things mean nothing afterward. I shall never write."

They made their way to the Art Museum to wander for a little through the galleries. In the Egyptian room they lingered by those glass cases where men and women who died four thousand years ago lie embalmed in countless wrappings and cryptographic cartonnage – exhibits, now, for the curious eye, waiting whatever further change the upheavals of nations or the progress of an alien race may bring to pass.

They spoke in subdued voice as they regarded one slender covering which enclosed "A Lady of the House of Artun" – trying to rebuild in fancy her life and surroundings of that long ago time. Then they passed to the array of fabrics – bits of old draperies and clothing, even dolls' garments – that had found the light after forty centuries, and they paused a little at the cases of curious lamps and ornaments and symbols of a vanished people.

"Oh, I should like to explore," she murmured, as she looked at them. "I should like to lead an expedition to uncover ancient cities, somewhere in Egypt, or India, or Yucatan. I should like to find things right where they were left by the people who last saw them – not here, all arranged and classified, with numbers pasted on them. If I were a man, I should be an explorer, or maybe a discoverer of new lands – places where no one had ever been before." She turned to him eagerly, "Why don't you become an explorer, and find old cities or – or the North Pole, or something?"

Mr. Weatherby, who was studying a fine scarab, nodded.

"I have thought of it, I believe. I think the idea appealed to me once. But, don't you see, it takes a kind of genius for those things. Discoverers are born, I imagine, as well as poets. Besides" – he lowered his voice to a pitch that was meant for tenderness – "at the North Pole I should be so far from you – unless," he added, reflectively, "we went there on our wedding journey."