Spring

Early spring had arrived in the Adirondack forests. Little pools of water lay in patches amid the snow where the sun’s rays shone with especial warmth; down the sides of the mountains one could hear the sounds of brooks released from the winter fastness. Thin cakes of ice still were floating on the surface of Half Moon Lake, yet in the open spaces of clear water one could see the reflection of the spruce trees which all winter had stood sentinel.

Now and then a water fowl appeared and stopped to drink, and from deeper in the woods occasionally there was a bird call, poignant and sweet, and the barking of young foxes at night, the beavers, having come forth from their seclusion, were again at work on new dams to meet the spring freshets.
213

On the veranda in front of Tahawus cabin Sally Ashton in a golden brown sweater and tam-o-shanter was sweeping away light patches of snow. Standing in the open doorway Alice Ashton and Bettina Graham were talking to their Camp Fire guardian, who was walking rapidly up and down.

“I don’t see why such a display of energy, Tante, unless you are trying to keep warm. Isn’t it a heavenly day?”

Mrs. Burton nodded and laughed.

“I am trying to reduce my weight, Princess, after so indolent a winter. But it is wonderful to be alive on a day like this and to feel so extraordinarily well!”

The Camp Fire guardian walked to the centre of the veranda and paused for a moment, looking out at the landscape. The sun appeared to be shining with a strange brightness as if it also was feeling the year’s new birth. The sky was radiantly blue.

At this moment there was a faint noise of a pony’s hoofs striking against the stones in the road and the next the Camp Fire pony, hitched to a small wagon, appeared in a turn of the road about an eighth of a mile away.
214

“I’ll race you to see who gets the mail first,” Mrs. Burton called, and slipped off the porch, running swiftly and lightly over the damp earth, the three girls in pursuit.

“Here, David Murray, please give the letters to me, I’ve won,” she demanded, slightly out of breath and holding up her hands for the bag of mail, David having drawn rein to watch the contest.

“Yes, but of all the unfair races, this is the climax!” Alice protested, “seeing that you got away before the rest of us knew what you intended.”

“Perhaps, Alice, but considering my age and infirmities, I think I should have been allowed a slight advantage.”

“Your age and infirmities are not particularly apparent at this instant, Polly,” Miss Patricia announced drily from her seat in the wagon where she and Vera Lagerloff were enthroned surrounded by parcels, “but your lack of dignity undoubtedly is. Do go to your room and do something to your hair; this March wind has blown you to pieces.”
215

If Miss Patricia’s tone was severe, her satisfaction was none the less visible. Moreover, at this same instant her own strange, little gray felt hat, which she affected beyond all others, perhaps under the impression that it was suited to her present informal mode of life, had been tipped to one side, giving her the eccentric appearance to which her companions were accustomed.

“Very well, Aunt Patricia, I am ‘yours obediently,’ as the old-fashioned letter writers advise. Anyhow, I believe that is the form of signature you like best from me.”

Mrs. Burton, slipping her arms through Bettina Graham’s and Alice’s, started back toward the cabin, Sally climbing into the wagon beside David Murray, since she objected to all unnecessary exertion.

“I wonder had I been so autocratic as a Camp Fire guardian as Aunt Patricia has been with me if I should have met with equal success?” Mrs. Burton inquired laughingly.

Alice Ashton shook her head.

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps so. You see, I have an idea that you are fairly apt to do what you wish in important matters, Tante, even if you do concede the smaller ones.”
216

Mrs. Burton wrinkled her forehead.

“Do you mean my keeping Juliet Temple here with us this winter when neither you girls nor Aunt Patricia like her? There have been reasons I have not been able to explain; besides, Juliet has been very kind and useful to me.”

Alice Ashton shrugged her shoulders.

“No, I was not thinking of Juliet Temple or any particular case, but she will serve as an example if you like.” Alice appeared entirely undisturbed, although her Camp Fire guardian flushed and looked wounded. Alice was not sensitive and had a fashion of saying what seemed to her the truth without any especial regard for consequences.

“Besides, we should all have been glad to have done for you whatever Juliet Temple has done,” Bettina added.

“But, my dear girls, you were busy with your own work and studies and I did not feel I had the right to interrupt you nor to allow Aunt Patricia to exhaust herself utterly.”

The subject was not an altogether happy one, so there was no further reference to it. A little later Mrs. Burton in the hall of the cabin was distributing the morning mail.
217

Five minutes after she vanished to her own bed-room carrying half a dozen letters.

The one from her husband she read immediately, and then without glancing at the others began walking up and down her room, her buoyancy of a short time before departed.

By and by she came back to a table where she had thrown the other letters, and picking them up studied the outside of the envelopes with an abstracted air, as if her mind were not intent upon her occupation. Then she tore open a second letter, reading it carelessly at first and afterwards with closer attention.

She began walking a second time, with a change of manner and as if she were thinking deeply. Her straight brows became a fairly level line, her blue eyes perceptibly darkened, her lips closed more firmly than usual.

At noon there was a knock at her door and Juliet Temple entered.

“Please say that I am not coming in to lunch, Juliet, and bring me something to eat here. If possible, as I expect to be busy, I’d rather not be disturbed this afternoon.”
218

Mrs. Burton had but scant hope of Miss Patricia’s observing her wish and yet the entire afternoon passed and no one came near her.

Nevertheless, she did not appear to be seriously occupied during the earlier part of the afternoon. Instead she sat for an hour before her fire with her hands tightly clasped. Afterwards, drawing her writing table toward her, she wrote a short note which she placed in an envelope and addressed to her husband. The second note was longer and oddly enough addressed to Miss Patricia Lord, who at present moment was not many yards away. But this letter Mrs. Burton placed inside her bureau drawer, and then fell ............