But we must now on with our tale, the main incidents of which we have only foreshadowed, not touched.
CHAPTER XI.
“Hearts will be prophets still.”
The week succeeding the logging bee was an extremely busy one with the Elwoods, who still had a heavy task to perform on their new field, before it could be considered properly cleared or fitted for seeding and harrowing. Sixty days before, that field was covered with a heavy growth of primitive forest, standing in its native majesty, a mountain mass of green vigor and sturdy life, and as seemingly invincible against the assaults of man as it had been against those of the elements whose fury it had so long withstood. But the busy and fatal axe had done its work. That towering forest had been laid prostrate with the earth, and the first process of the Herculean task of converting the forest into the field had been completed. The second and third process, also, in the burning of the slash and the gathering the trunks of the trees into log-heaps, as we have seen, had been in turn successfully accomplished. But the fourth and last process still remained to be performed. Those unseemly log-heaps, cumbering no inconsiderable portion of the field, must be disposed of, to complete the work. This was now the first task of the Elwoods, and time pressed for its speedy execution. Accordingly, the next morning after the bee, they sallied out, each with a blazing brand in his hand, and commenced the work of firing the piles,—a work which, unlike that of firing a combustible and readily catching slash, required not only considerable time, but often the exercise of much skill and patience. But they steadily persevered, and, before sunset, had the gratification of beholding every one of those many scores of huge log-piles, that thickly dotted the ground, clearly within the grasp of the devouring element; and afterwards of seeing that grasp grow stronger and stronger on the solid material on which it had securely fastened, till, to the eye of fancy, the dark old forest seemed by day to be reproduced in the numerous, thickly-set columns of smoke that shot upward and spread out into over-arching canopies above, while, with the gathering darkness of the night, that forest seemed gradually to take the form of a distant burning city in the manifold tapering pillars of fire which everywhere rose from the field, fiercely illuminating the dark and sombre wood-wall of the surrounding forest, and dimly glimmering over the sleeping waters of river and lake beyond.
They had now made the fire their servant, and got it safely at work for them; but that servant, to insure its continued and profitable action, must be constantly fed and fostered. The logs, becoming by the action of the fire partially consumed, and, by thus losing their contact with each other, ceasing to burn, required, every few hours, to be rolled together, adjusted, and repacked; when, being already thoroughly heated and still partly on fire, they would soon burst out again into a brisk blaze. This tending and re-packing of the piles demanded, for many of the succeeding days, the constant attention of the Elwoods; who, going out early each morning, and keeping up their rounds at short intervals through the day and to a late hour at night, assiduously pursued their object, till they had seen every log-heap disappear from the field, and the last step of their severe task fully accomplished.
Few of those who live in cities, villages, or other places than those where agricultural pursuits prevail; few of those, indeed, who have been tillers only of the subdued and time-mellowed soils of the old States and countries, have any adequate conception of the immense amount of hard labor required to clear off the primitive forest, and prepare the land for the first crop; nor have they, consequently, any just appreciation of the degree of resolution, energy, and endurance necessary to insure continued perseverance in subduing one piece of forest-land after another, till a considerable opening is effected. It is the labor of one man’s life to clear up a new farm; and few there be, among the multitudes found making the attempt, who have the sustaining will and resolution—even if the pecuniary ability is not wanting—to accomplish that formidable achievement. Probably not one in five of all the first pioneer settlers of a new country ever remain to become its permanent settlers. The first set of emigrants, or pioneers, are seen beginning with great resolution and energy, and persevering unfalteringly till the usual ten-acre lot is cleared, the log-house thrown up, and the settlement of the family effected. Another piece of forest is the next year attacked, but with a far less determined will, and the clearing prosecuted with a proportionate lack of energy and resolution; and the job, after being suffered to linger along for months beyond the usual period for completion, is finally finished. But, in view of the hard labors and prolonged struggles they have experienced in their two former trials for conquering the wilderness, they too often now falter and hesitate at a third attempt. Perhaps the lack of means to hire that help, which would make the toil more endurable, comes also into the case; and the result is that no new clearing is begun. They live along a while as they are; but, for want of the first crops of the newly-cleared land and the usual accessions to their older fields, they soon find themselves on the retrograde, and finally sell out to a new set of incoming settlers, who in their turn begin with fresh vigor, and with more means generally for prosecuting advantageously, the work which had discouraged or worn out their predecessors. But even of this second set a large proportion fail to succeed, and, like the former, eventually yield their places to more enterprising and able men, who, with those of the two former sets of settlers that had succeeded in overcoming the difficulties and retaining their places, now join in making up the permanent settlers of the country.
Such is generally the history of the early settlement of every new country. Those who have endured the most hardship, encountered the greatest difficulties, and performed the hardest labor, do not generally reap the reward which might eventually crown their toils, but leave that reward to be enjoyed by those to whom such hardships and toils are comparatively unknown. This seems hard and unjust; but, from the unequal conditions and characters of men, it is doubtless a necessary state of things, and one which, though it may occasionally be somewhat modified, will never, probably, as a general thing, be very essentially altered.
The Elwoods, having now thus brought the labors of clearing to a successful close, next proceeded to the lighter and more cleanly task of taking the incipient step towards securing the ever-important first crop which was to reward them, in a good part, for their arduous toils. Accordingly, the previously engaged supply of winter wheat intended for seed was brought home, the requisite help and ox-work enlisted, the seed sown, and the harrows and hoes put in motion to insure its lodgment beneath the surface of the broken soil. And, by the end of the second day from its commencement, this task was also completed, leaving our two persevering settlers only the work of gathering in the small crops of grain and potatoes they had succeeded in raising on their older grounds, to be performed before leaving home on the contemplated trapping and hunting expedition; the appointed day for which was still sufficiently distant to allow them abundant time to do this, and also to make all other of the necessary arrangements and preparations for that, to them, novel and interesting event.
But how, in the meanwhile, stood that domestic drama of love and its entanglements, which was destined to be deeply interwoven with the other principal incidents of this singular story? All on the surface seemed as bright and unruffled as the halcyon waters of the sleeping ocean before the days of storm have come to move and vex it. But how was it within the vail of the heart and teeming mind, where the currents and counter-currents of that subtle but powerful passion flow and clash unseen, often gaining their full height and unmasterable strength before any event shall occur to betray their existence to the public. How was it there? We shall see.
While the events we have described in the last foregoing chapters were transpiring, Mrs. Elwood held her peace, studiously avoiding all allusion to what still constituted the burden of her mind,—the thickening intimacy between her family and the Gurleys; but, though she was silent on the subject, yet her heart was not any the less sad, nor her thoughts any the less busy. She had been made aware that a reconciliation had taken place between her husband and Gaut Gurley; and she had seen how artfully the latter had brought it about, and regained his old fatal influence over the former. She believed she fully understood the motives which actuated Gaut in all these movements. And she now looked on in helpless anguish of heart to see the toils thus drawn tighter and tighter around the unconscious victims, and those victims, too, her husband and son, with whose happiness and welfare her own was indissolubly connected. She saw it with anguish, because her feelings never for once were permitted even the alleviation of a doubt that it could result in aught else than evil to her family. She could not reason herself into any belief of Gaut’s reformation. She felt his black heart constantly throwing its shadow on to her own; she felt this, but could not give to others, nor perhaps even to herself, what might be deemed a satisfactory reason for her impressions and forebodings; for in her was exemplified the words of the poet: