On the day when Philip fell into the avalanche, although it was likely to break away from the face of the mountain at any moment and come thundering down on the rocks below, not a single person came to the office to watch with the postmaster, who went outside from time to time and gazed up into the mist, and then, with a sigh of relief, returned to his arm-chair before the fireplace. In better weather he would have had plenty of gossiping company, for avalanche day was quite the liveliest day in his calendar. Despite the rain which kept pattering on the low roof, he hoped that the snow and ice would hold fast to the rock until the sun came again; but nevertheless his old ears were constantly on the alert for the crash which he feared.
On many a January day, in the years that were past, he had occupied his favorite chair in the warm sun against the east wall of the office, surrounded by his neighbors, watching the glittering mass, and noting the small fragments of ice which broke away from time to time before the final crash. He had heard nothing yet, and as the gloomy afternoon wore on he began to be almost certain that he was not to lose his holiday, after all.
The postmaster, though living so much alone, had a way of talking to himself, and on this occasion he was more talkative than ever, because of the uneasiness he felt.
"Hit's a quare thing," he said, getting up and kicking the logs into a blaze, and then sitting down again in his sheepskin-cushioned chair. "Hit's plumb quare."
By way of making these solitary talks more sociable, the old man had developed a clever habit of talking in dialogue, imagining himself for the time in the company of some congenial spirit, for whom he spoke as well as for himself. On this particular occasion his imaginary companion was a mountain woman for whom he had felt a sentimental regard years before, but to whom he had never told his love.
"What's quare, 'Manuel? Why, look here, 'Liz'beth; I've sorted the mail here more 'n thirty year, watchin' the avalanches fall off yonder mounting, an' in all that time I've never set my foot onto the top of hit. Most of us on this side hain't, 'Manuel; an' since the bridge rotted away an' tumbled into the gorge, there ain't no way o' gittin' thar. 'Liz'beth, I'm nat'rally a venturesome man, though I never showed it to you, 'Liz'beth, when I ought to. That's what ye didn't. I'm a venturesome man; an' this here is what I've made up my mind to, 'Liz'beth Hough. I'm detarmined to see the top o' that mounting afore I'm a year older; an' I've set the time, 'Liz'beth—nothin' personal in that, but meanin' that when the dogwood blossoms in the spring I'm goin' to find some way to git up thar. How'll ye do hit, 'Manuel? Hit's likely I'll fall a tree across the gorge. Don't do hit, 'Manuel. Why not?"
The postmaster looked wise, and put out his hand as if he were playfully touching his imaginary companion under the chin. "Why not, 'Liz'beth? Because folks do say that the old man that lived up thar was murdered, an' that his spirit has took the form of a harnt, an' brings bad luck to such as goes up thar to disturb him."
The postmaster rose and kicked the fire impatiently. "Bah! I'm a bold man, 'Liz'beth, past occasions notwithstandin'. I'm sot an' detarmined to do hit when the dogwood-trees blossom out, an' I'm 'lowin' you'll come an' tend the office, 'Liz'beth, while I'm gone."
The postmaster stood with his back to the fire, looking down over his left shoulder to where the imaginary form of Elizabeth sat.
"You'll come an' spell me, will ye, 'Liz'beth? You allus was a 'commodatin' woman. No, there ain't nothin' for ye to-day—not so much as a paper. Don't be in a hurry. This here idee of explorin' that mounting has took a powerful hold on me, sure. Nothin' that you can say will prevent me from so doin'. Well, if you must go, 'Liz'beth, I s'pose hit's high time I was gittin' my supper. After I wash the dishes, I 'low to walk across to the big road an' see if there's any tracks. Good-by, 'Liz'beth. Good-by, 'Manuel."
The postmaster was silent while he raked out a bed of coals and set the three-legged iron skillet over the very hottest place. Then he mixed some Indian meal with milk and a pinch of salt, and having patted it down in the skillet, he put on the cover, and filled the rim with more coals and some burning embers. After he had buried a potato in the ashes, and set the coffee down to warm over, he broke out again:
"I couldn't 'a' been mistaken about there bein' nothin' for 'Liz'beth. I sort o' spoke at random, knowin' that the last letter she got was in '68, month o' May." Then he stepped back so as to look through the letter-boxes, which were before the south window. "There's nothin' in H except a linch-pin, an' I 'low that oughter be in L—no, that's for Riley Hooper. Hello! hit's clearin'. There'll be a moon to-night, an' nothin' 's goin' to drap afore to-morrow."
After he had eaten, and put away the supper-things, the postmaster took down his rifle from the rack over the door, and stepped out into the clearing.
The sky was not yet free from rolling clouds, which were drifting into the east across the face of the great full moon that hung directly over the mountain. Stretching away to the seamed rock where the avalanche hung was a wide old field, broken by rocks and bristling with girdled trees, whose dead limbs wriggled upward and outward like the hundred hands of Briareus. The postmaster kept to the foot-worn trail, shuffling over the wet leaves, and glancing up now and then at the granite front of old Whiteside with great satisfaction, not only because the avalanche was safe for the night, but because he loved to think that whatever secrets the mountain held would be his when the dogwood-blossoms came in the spring.
He went as far as the big road, and finding plenty of fresh tracks, he kept on in the direction of Cashiers until he came to a cabin where the bright warm light glowed through the chinks between the logs and through the cracks about the chimney as if the place were on fire. By the merry laughter he heard and the scraping of a violin he knew that a frolic was going on, and he chuckled to think that he had in his pocket a certain letter which would be a convenient excuse for dropping in on the revelers.
The postmaster must have been welcome in his own social person over and above the favor of the letter he brought, for it was hard upon twelve o'clock when he came out and took his way homeward, feeling jollier than he had felt for many a day, and carrying a cake in a paper parcel under his arm for the coming festivities at the office.
"Who'd 'a' thought," he said, turning to look back at the lighted cabin, where the revelry was at its height, "that I'd 'a' been dancin' a figger this night on the puncheons with 'Liz'beth Hough? Hit sort o' took all the boldness out o' me when she come over an' asted me. I don't 'low any other human could 'a' cowed me that-a-way. I'm a bold man under ordinary conditions prevailin' an' takin' place. I ain't easy to skeer," he continued as he resumed his walk, "leastways where men is concarned."
It was cold now, and still, and the wrinkled mud on the road was curdled with frost. The moon was well over to the west range. The last cloud had disappeared, and the stars were like jewels in the sky through the bare limbs of the trees. He was in such a rare state of exhilaration that he was more talkative than ever, and kept up a running conversation with first one neighbor and then another, until his cheerful dialogue, which had brought him to the border of his own field and in sight of the office, was rudely interrupted by the "too-hoot" of an owl somewhere among the girdled trees.
"Shet up," said the postmaster, carefully laying the cake down on the leaves, and cocking his rifle. "Good night, Riley. Linch-pin's come; twelve cents postage stamped on the tag. Good night, 'Manuel. I must tend to this sassy critter, interruptin' of his betters. Where be ye, anyway? Know enough to hold yer tongue, don't ye'? I'll let ye know I'm a bold man, leastways—" and with that he fired his gun at random. In the wi............