"It ees ver' gre't, for sure," said Mose, and he raised a side of the hamper as though it was something holy, and helped Lem carry it across to the pavilion.
When the remainder of Ginger's pack had been stored they lingered in the arbor, making conjectures, and certifying them, as to the contents of various bags and bundles, until further investigation was stopped by the voice of the teacher in the clearing.
It was a bright day at the end of February, the Puget Sound spring, and she had found and fastened on her breast a first cluster of Oregon currant. The heart of the blossoms was reflected on her cheeks; the light of the early morning was in her eyes. "Oh," she said, "what a splendid table, Mose." And turning to the town carpenter, who accompanied her, "Isn't it fine? And this is the boy of whom I told you. He has split all of the shakes, hewn flooring, cut logs. He has done everything except what the young ranchers could do for me in a few odd days."
The carpenter admitted that Mose had done "uncommon well." Then while the boy, pleased and embarrassed, led away and picketed the horses, she showed the man the building site and talked over the material and plans. But, presently, there were voices on the trail, and here were the Laramies, the Phianders, with Eben Myers and Martha and Mother Girard, followed by the people from the prairie and many more. The men walking, bearing axes, saws, sometimes a rifle; the young folk afoot also, while the older women and children rode double and by threes on mules, draught horses, steers and Indian ponies. Then, were not those the hoof-beats of John Phiander's Baldy, timed by the rapid pace of Mill Thornton's sorrel? And the plodders in the trail must press quickly forward or crowd into the thicket, to give the young blood room.
But these gay fellows were capable of sobering down. They were ready to "match muscle," urging each other with dares and taunts to set their swelling chests and heaving shoulders to the heavy timbers. And surely the Nisqually had never seen another such raising; never so great a company. People from Yelm and Tenalquet were there, and from Tacoma, in Pierce County beyond the Puyallup. The walls went up apace; the huge fir rafters were swung into position, and then appeared a wondrous gable, its sloping eaves arching a roomy balcony. Surely the settlement had yet to see as fine a cabin. Wild things crept to cover. And the soughing of the chinook in the branches, the distant thunder of the falls, the falling of rock up the mountain, were not to be heard in this tumult of construction, the babel of voices, multiplied by the answering clamor of the speaking hills.
But while these experienced settlers, men who had themselves conducted raisings and superintended the building of a score of cabins, moved about, taking meekly the orders of the town carpenter, their wives followed the novel directions of the young teacher. Never before had the Nisqually looked on such a table. All the long board was fringed with cedar and twigs of flowering dogwood; turkeys and chickens placed on huge wooden platters were garnished with the glossy leaves of the Washington holly; hams in big trenchers, bearing yet the fragrance of pine, were decorated with crisp sprigs of salal; and there were haunches of venison and rounds of bear meat, or at intervals a wild goose, a brace of ducks, all decked with bright shoots of spruce or fir. But the center of the board was given to the great white cake, throned on a bank of moss and embellished, to Lem's delight, with small flags. Others, of a larger size, intermingled with Japanese lanterns, were fastened in groups and singly among the trees which bordered the clearing. The boughs over the table flamed with them.
"I give it up, but I 'low ther's 'bout five hundred." Lem cast a final calculating glance over the table and the surrounding decorations. He was seated on a lofty stump, his arms folded, his bare heels beating a slow tattoo on the bark. "Ther small ones down to Yelm sells fur ten cents er half dozen." He paused, then added speculatively, "I wonder what she's goin' ter do with 'em when she gits through?"
His reverie was broken by a summons to table, and in the general rush, he slipped from his perch and ferreted into a place at the foot of the board. Only the men were seated, while the women served; the children played or loitered about, watchful of the chance attention that sometimes fell to them. At last in her rounds the boy's mother detected him. "Wal, ef you don't beat all," she said, stopping short with a huge tray of carved venison in her hands. "You git right up an' make yourself scarce tell ther men's through."
Lem sat with his head bent, hands folded meekly; Ginger himself had never shown greater dejection, and, like Ginger, he did not move.
"Oh, let him erlone," said Mill Thornton, lifting his tankard and including the company with a bland smile. "He's goin' ter sing ther Ole Settler fur us."