CHAPTER XV
IN THE SOUTHWARD COUNTRY
ACROSS the brook the woods spread away to westward and to southward,—majestic oak trees, lulling pines, pale birches, besides the walnut and beech trees, and a host of others, the names of which Miles did not know. Thick though they stood in the forest, all were soundless now, and well-nigh motionless in the still air of morning. In all the wood the only active thing seemed the sunshine, which came sliding through the branches to mottle the turf or make the pine needles shiny.
An ardent sun it was too, even where it fell sparsely among the trees, and beyond the thickets, where the path led over unprotected hilltops, it beat fiercely through the breathless air till the heat fairly stifled the travellers. "Shall you go far before you build your house, Miles?" panted Dolly, when the roofs of the settlement were barely sunk from sight.
Miles explained that he held it best to push on to the river where he had gone eeling, so he might have plenty of fish in his dooryard. He thought to make his way directly to the place, but the journey through the heat seemed longer than when he tramped it in the springtime, and he could not find an easy path so adroitly as Squanto had found one. He had to bear away inland too, lest on the seacoast he come upon some of the colonists gathering shellfish; and inland, not only was the going through the undergrowth difficult, but the hills shut off the least whiff of coolness from the sea.
Soon Dolly gasped for breath, Trug lolled out his tongue, and even Miles found many pretexts to rest. Here amid the moss bubbled a spring, where the children delayed to drink and cool their hands; there lay a muddy pond, covered with white lilies, which Miles, though he wet his feet, strove to get with a long stick; and again and yet again they came on tangles of luscious raspberries, where they paused to eat their fill.
Miles had in his pocket a fourpenny whittle, his dearest possession, with which he stripped a great piece of bark from a birch tree, and, cleaving two sticks, shaped it into a basket, in which to carry away some of the berries "against dinner-time." But the basket proved an incumbrance to the wayfarers, so, before they had wandered another mile, the two children sat down in a pine grove, and ate the berries they had gathered. They tied Trug carefully, a needless precaution, for the old dog, with as burdening a sense of responsibility as Miles himself, had no thought of trotting home and leaving those two foolish little bodies to their own protection.
By the position of the sun Miles judged it past noon, when they came at last to a brook, which he thought might be the upper waters of the stream he was seeking. He waded in first to try its depth; then, in gallant fashion, would have carried Dolly over, but little mistress wished the fun of paddling too. The alders, coming low to the brookside, cast a rippling shadow on the water, and the sandy bottom was firm and cool; so when both children once had waded in, they spent some time in splashing to and fro, while Miles set forth to Dolly how he had caught eels.
The shadows were beginning to lengthen when they climbed out on the farther side of the brook, and passed slowly up the next hillslope. Dolly now found she was tired, so Miles said they might as well build their house there as anywhere. Indeed, halfway up the slope they found a capital spot, where the hill, drawing back on itself, left a little level space, with sparse undergrowth and tall trees, the vanguard of the forest higher up, that cast a good shade.
To be sure, the exposure was northern, but that would make the place cool in summer, Miles set forth its advantages, and when winter came, they could move round and pitch their camp on the other side of the hill, to southward. "But I shouldn't like to dwell in the wood when it snows," protested Dolly. "Let us go back and stay at Plymouth, come winter."