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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 1936)
ERNS OF WOLFPEN Hcivltm HdcKei^ , ' M <gg ** t*t •••tr-Htmlt o. " WHO. Stnv/ct CHAPTER VII—Continued —10— “When do you mind to begin running off the tract?” Sparrel in quired. “We’ll begin right uway. What part are you selling off?” “The timber-land down the creek, I reckon. But 1 calculated I’d have the whole place run off first and then we’d cut across to get the part for Shellenberger.” “We might look at the deeds right away If you have them handy.” The men rose from the table. Cynthia placed a lamp on Sparrel’s desk, and the men went Into the big kitchen to sit and look at the deeds. “That was a mighty good sup per," Reuben was saying as he paused by her, passing from the dining room. “I guess I worked up an appetite over those hills.” He laughed pleasantly. Cynthia was not used to hearing remarks about the food, and she bad no confident words for reply. “It wasn’t very much. Mother Is over at Jenny’s today.” She ate by herself until Jesse came In and sat down. “How did you burn your hand?’’ “I dropped a hot lid on It And it was Just before he came and I was about to cry. 1 thought he was you and I went to the. door with a bowl In my hand.” Jesse smiled and looked at the burn. ‘‘It’s not very deep.” But he helped her clear away the dishes and then actually washed them, against her protest It was musical to hear Reuben’s voice reading the deeds. “ ‘The Commonwealth of Virginia to Saul Pattern . . . four thousand acres, more or less, situate between the Big Sandy River and Gannon Creek, and bounded and described as follows, to wit: . . . this twenti eth day of March, 1798 ... to Bar ton Pattern . . . one thousand acres, more or less, situate on Gannon and Marebone Creeks—this ninth day of August, 1814 ... to Tlvls Pat tern . . . four hundred acres, more or less, situate on Sycamore Creek. . . . this nineteenth day of August, 1825 ... to Sparrel Pattern . . . three hundred and fifty acres, more or less, situate on Horsepen Branch, and bounded and de scribed as follows, to-wit: . . . this tenth day of September, 1854.’ ” “These are old ones, all right," Reuben was saying, turning them over In his hands and smelling the odor of old paper. “The Patterns have been here a long time, haven’t (they?” “Just a hundred years now.” “I suppose this is a good time to sell if you’ve got timber-land.” Reuben was again looking at the deeds. “ 'Beginning at a twelve inch white oak on Cranesnest Point from which a two-foot hickory bears to the northeast about one pole; . . . thence along the ridge about sixty poles to a twenty-inch black oak . . .’ These bearings and distances are not very definite. Looks like we’ll have to do some hunting and guessing.” “I guess Saul and Barton Just stepped It off and marked trees with an ax when they surveyed,” Sparrel said with a chuckle. “Where is this Cranesnest and Pinnacle?” Reuben asked. “The two points you saw up yon der from the porch, Cranesnest on your right,” Jasper said. “We’ll go up there and see If we can make a start tomorrow.” Cynthia heard the talk go on to Sparrel’s books and the Weekly Ga zette and Cincinnati, where all the big Ohio Itlver boats went, and the growth of the coal and lumber busl ness and the Big Sandy River traf fic, the coal mines and unsightly vil lages, and the river towns of Cat lettsburg and Ashland and Irontown and Portsmouth all beginning to er pand with sawmills and furnaces and brick plants and wholesale houses. She finished the kitchen and went to prepare the beds. The sound of their voices carried no words to Cynthia in the corner room. She smoothed the sheet and got two large soft pillows and laid them in the place of the bolster. “I guess that’s ready for him, and It’s not any slouchy.” She looked at the bed again, and then went to the closet and chose the best red and-whlte coverlet in the difficult snail-trail and cat-track patterns, spreading It over the foot of the bed. Then she went down to the kitchen and said to Sparnjl In the exact manner of Julia that the beds were ready any time now. She got Into her nightgown, feel lng the cool star-touched dark mov ing about in the bottoms and look ing Into her room. “May nights on Wolfpen are cool and soft. What a long day since Mother went to Jenny’s. It was *ust this morning. Now It Is night and I have cooked two meals and served a stranger who was not yet so strange. I wasn’t by the sheep fold, I wasn’t by the well, I wasn't by a pear tree In a soft blue gown. I was Just hot nnd fretted and un tidy-looking. But Rebekah had a water-jug on her shoulder, and 1 don’t reckon that’s any different much from a wooden howl In a body's arms, and It’s as good to feed a man good bread that he likes as to water some dusty old camels. Mother was on a chip pile. The orchurd Is so quiet at night like the (treat Dipper above the Pinnacle. Saul Is quiet and Barton Is quiet, nnd Tlvls. The men are quiet, and the mill wheel down there Is still— There weren’t any blossoms on the peach tree, any way." CHAPTER VIII CYNTHIA was up before day break, alert and happy In the feeling that she was mistress of the household on this first morn ing. She brushed her hair care fully. “Mother always looks neat and fresh when she goes to get breakfast, like she was going to meeting or somewhere.” Sparrel was In the kitchen build ing the fire. He greeted her kindly. “I didn’t have to call you this morning.” *1 had it on my mind and I woke up.” "I reckon Jnlia’ll be back by noon. She picked a good time to go,” Sparrel said, but gently and with no wish to embarrass her. Sparrel went on to the barn. Be fore Cynthia had rolled the biscuit dough flat on the bread board to be cut into circles, the boys were at the wash rock. Abral was excit ed and playful. When Jesse came up, still rubbing his eyes, Abral flung a pan of cold water in his face, and then dodged him, laugh ing, about the well and the rock. Reuben laughed with them. He saw Cynthia before the table in the kitchen looking fresh and rested and without confusion. “Good morning.” “Good morning." “I’m afraid we’ve made a lot of extra work for you.” "Not at all,” she said, and slipped the pan of biscuits into the oven. “It’s not much work, and it’s al ways fun to see if the biscuits will rise and get crisp without burning.” “I hope these won’t burn,” Reu ben said. And they didn’t. They were brown and flaky and the men broke them open with their fingers and put but ter in them to melt, and ate them with honey. Cynthia served them and watched them eat with satis faction, thinking of the different moods this strange spring had brought. She liked to hear Reuben talking with Sparrel about the work, his pleasant voice speaking easily and cnpably to the point. “We will need two ax-men to clear a sight, and a rod-man and two chalnmen. You’ll have to help me find the marks on the trees and keep directions. The early deeds won’t help much except to tell us that the line crosses a ravine or ends on a rock ledge.” "One of my boys will have to stny on the place to look after things,” Sparrel answered. “The other two can help. We can get another chalnman and two ax-men all right.” Jesse and Abral drew lots for the beginning: Jesse won. But Abral was so full of disappointment that Reuben said to Sparrel, “We can't do more than get started this morn ing. If you can spare them, sup pose we all go up and look over the ground.” And Abral looked across the ta ble at Cynthia and smiled. From the kitchen window Cyn thia watched the live men, curry ing axes, a corn knife, the compass and the chain, go out of the yard by the well, and along the path that led to the Shelf and then, more vaguely, up to Cranesnest. They stopped by the rails on the Shelf and Sparrel answered Reu ben's questions, telling of the Pat tern men who lay there, and of Cynthia’s fancy concerning Saul. “I should have been of Saul’s time,” Reuben said. “Think of be ing the first white man to stand on one of these points, just as the mist is lifting, and saying to the si lence, ‘AH 1 can see when the mist is up will be the Pattern lands.' " “The next best thing is to re-sur vey the land those old fellows first walked over.” Then he laughed boyishly, and they climbed on up to the rocky point of Cranesnest The Pattern men stood behind Reuben, seeing the glorious pano rama afresh through his eyes. “This Is a good place to begin just about anything,” Reuben said, .itching the glint of sun on Gan . on creek where it bent out oi sight They had no trouble finding the oak tree designated as the begin ning point In the deed of 1S14. It was dow a huge tre% and tho three ax marks In the r*ugh bark had grown and spread until no Inex perienced eye could have Identified them. “That’s the old corner tree,” Spar rel said. And Reuben, looking at the deed, “ ‘Thence In a southeast erly direction, following the back of the ridge, about fifty-five poles to a sixteen-inch walnut.’ ” Slowly they made their way along the ridge, Abral pushing ahead through the underbrush trying to locate marked trees, Jasper hack ing at the slender saplings with his ax. Jesse slashing the greenbriers and the small brush with the knife, Sparrel and Reuben stepping off the distance as they advanced. After a long time, they reached a fork of the ridge. "But the deed says nothing at all about a fork," Reuben said. They tried the left fork. There was the big rock aud a small clump of great walnut trees. There were no marks, but Abral was so sure that Ik seized an ax and cut through the bark Into the tree,exposing a black scar where Barton had once sunk his ax. “1 guess we’ll have to make you our reeonnolterer, Abral,” Reuben said. "What’s that?” demanded Abral. Reuben smiled at him. “The chap who goes ahead of the detachment to spy out the enemy and get shot first.” "I guess the Indians are all gone now.” “I hope the corner trees aren’t.” Julia was riding up Wolfpen. They watched the Finemare pace the Long Bottom and disappear into the orchard. "That will give us a start," Reu ben said. “We’ll get course and distance on this line tomorrow. It’s a big job we have on our hands.” They went on to the head of Barn Hollow, and then made their "I’m Afraid We’ve Made a Lot of Extra Work for You." way down the cool seclusion of Its tiny branch toward the house. The sound of the dinner bell went up Wolfpen. “I don’t reckon we could have timed It any better than that,” Sparrel said. Sparrel Introduced Reuben, and Julia spoke kindly to him. “I’m right sorry I was gone Just when you came. I don’t very often leave the place." She helped Cynthia with the din ner table. In the afternoon, Jasper went to get help for the surveying, and Jesse and Abral went to the fields. Reuben studied the deeds again, making notes in his brown book. “Have you any idea how long It will take to run off this place?" Sparrel asked. ^ . “It’ll take a long time. Most of the summer. At least I hope so,” Reuben added and luughed. The days soon slipped into a qui etly exciMng routine, pushed for ward by the activity of morning ar.d evening and the pleasant talk of the men about tho small details of their work. It was almost as If the old and customary adjustment of life on Wolfpen were upset not bv destruction but by the creation of a new quality of enlargement. Cynthia knew that the joyous ten sion under which she carried the increasing burden of the housework had come from the presence of Reuben. Their few words were outwardly the commonplace greetings at the wash rock before the meals,- or a phrase at the table,or a polite word ns he sat down before the drawing table arranged for him in one cor ner of the kitchen. Hut deep with in each of them, where the life of a word begins before It Is wrapped and delivered In sound, were being formed those mysterious rearrange ments of the soul which adjust two people to the recognition of love. Each evening after supper Reu ben would sit for a time on the porch with Sparrel, watching the first evening stars take form above the valley, or he would walk to the barn with the boys. In that Inter val, Cynthia would finish the dishes and place the clean and polished lamp on the table neatly covered with Reuben’s materials for plot ting the lines he had survived on that day. Then he would one In with the brown leather hook recording the day's Jourrit. .ugh the underbrush. Into the hollon> and over the hills. Sparrel and the boys would crowd about him to watch the curious process of re producing in miniature on a piece of brown paper the boundaries of the pluce they had surveyed. "There," lteuben said, pointing with the pencil, “is Cranesnest. Then we went straight to the wal nut tree, and there Is the hollow, and then up the hill to that first big poplar, and down that gully to the big stone In the creek right there. . . She lingered In the room with the men as long as she felt good man ners would allow. Then she left them and went out Into the orchard in the night She felt the silent tu mult of all things alive nnd In fer ment with growth. The apple trees were lilling with plump green fruit, bearing on their navels the last of the withered blossoms. Even the orphaned lamb was turbulent with expanding energy, and his thin nnd incapable legs were now strong nnd reliable. All along the valley every thing was shooting recklessly up out of the pregnant ground. "It’s a soft night. You can feel the live wind come fresh out of the woods and run softly over your face and delicately under your dress and around your body. And then you are not tired and more, and you seem more alive than you ever were before. Next to tlie curiosity of the way the chickens crow In the morn ing. like they thought it was time for the day and God had forgot to light up the sun nnd set It over Crnnesnest, and then they wait a little while In quiet to give Hint a chance to remember before they break out ngain;and suddenly when titey do the dark begins to run down from the Pinnacle, slow, fast, und then faster until the sun pops up nnd takes the valley nnd all the chickens crow again a third time bigger than ever as though they had done the miracle—next to that In this pluce Is the night-sounding quiet at the end of May and the way it goes Inside of you und makes something happen to you and you tremble with It The way It is now. It Is not the tremble of seeing a snake swallowing a toad ^p the aft ternoon. It's the tremble of being born or released Instead of de voured. It feels like the night were trying to say something to you nnd you can hear It speak. I know what it means even without the words. I reckon Rebeknh heard It saying wordless things to her when she lis tened under the stnrs In the Holy Land and thought of Isaac In a far country thnt she Is a woman and that love can reach over a long way and touch her and take her even to another place; and that the life In her will go on In a new place far from her father’s land. “It begins the way corn comes up, the blades curled tight Into a green gimlet boring Its way through the ground. You can’t see how such a tiny blade can move away the dirt and climb out of the place it was burled without breaking. II you Just so much as touch It It goes to green water and scum on your fingers. But almost overnight the blades unwind In arched pairs from the stalk and when you hold the two points together they make the figure of a heart “Does Reuben feel the living thing In the woods when he Is all day among the timber, nnd do the sweet damp smells of the hollow and the intervals of silence In the midst of hill sounds show things Inside of him he hadn’t found there before? The way he looks up at me and the shine comes Into his eyes, like he had been away and had Just got back and was happy over It. Reuben’s face keeps chang ing like he took each thing aud placed It higher or lower than some thing else. He looks at me over the head of the others when they don't take up all there Is In something he or Daddy says, and he smiles at me to say, ‘You see all the colors In a rainbow, not just the red.’ I don’t, though. Things have been happening so fast and so strange I can’t get them nil straight and I just sit out here In the night pos sessed by them and wondering what’s going to happen next. I could nearly wish It might stay Just the way It is. But It doesn't ever stay the way it Is. The night Itself goes on. I reckon from the movement of the stars I ought to be hack at the house. If you could just gather up an armful of an evening like this the way you do wild honeysuckles and put It away to feel and look at after the moment Is gone . . (TO BE CONTINUED) People of Bahrein The majority of the inhabitants of tlie Bahrein islands, off the Per sian coast, make their living by pearl diving. Others build boats, weave sailcloth and reed mats, work in tfie oil Helds, raise dates, breed donkeys, or, using a peculiar kind of weed as bait, catch the tish so pro lific In the Persian gulf, says the National Geographic society. Most of the archipelago’s 120,000 Inhabitants are Arabs, although there are European and American ''colonies" and communities of wealthy Indian (Persian) and In dian merchants. Minarets towering above the date groves Indicate that the native religion is Mohammedan. Stretching for over a mile along the north shore of Bahrein island is Manama, the chief port and com ferclal center of the archipelago. Connected with Manama by motor launches and a stone causeway is Muharrnq, another large town on an island of tfie same name, nortb I east of Bahrein. "Duck Pond" in Stitchery Pattern 5602 The “Duck Pond”— a quiet, shady nook where graceful ducks float to and fro, is a charming sub ject indeed for a wall-hanging, the detail will prove fascinating to embroider. It's no time before every stitch is in, done in wool or rope silk, and you're ready to line and hang it. In pattern 5002 you will find a transfer pattern of a wall hanging When It Is the Other Fellow Have you ever noticed that when the other fellow is set in his way, he’s obstinate; when you are, it’s just firmness? When the other fellow doesn’t like your friends, he’s prejudiced when you don’t like him, you are a good judge of human nature? When the other fellow tries to treat someone especially well, he’s toadying; when you try the same game, you are using tact? When the other fellow picks flaws in things, he’s cranky; when you do, you are discriminating? When the other fellow says what he thinks, he’s spiteful; when you do, you are frank? Best Guides Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless; as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes.—George Eliot. 15 by 20 inches; material require ments; Illustrations of all stitches needed; color suggestions. 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Woodwork which has to be painted should be well smeared with lime water, which can be obtained at any. druggist’s. Let dry and then paint The paint will dry in half the time. Put the brush in water when you have finished. It will be quite soft for next day. * • » If you want your linen to wear well, try this plan: Instead of folding tablecloths and sheets lengthwise, as is usually done, fold them the other* way oc casionally. They last far longer if the folds are sometimes changed than if they are always folded in the same place. © Associated Newspapers.—WNU Service. Practical Gifts T'HOSE things that are not practicable are not desir able. There is nothing in the ■ world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and well-protected pursuit. There is nothing that God has judged good for us that he has not given us the means to accom plish both in the natural and the moral world. 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