In my last letter I told you how wretched Father McBirney was feeling. Well, he grew worse and worse, till at last he did not know a moment when he was free from pain. Jim and I tried to keep things going, but it was hard. We began to grow anxious about money and the bare necessaries. Then I said:
“I’m going out to see about the mountain chairs. I’m going to ride Paprika over the mountains and get up the contracts with the chair-makers. Then, if they’ll not haul them to market, Jim must.”
Mother objected. So did Father. I reminded them how they had always said that a woman was perfectly safe in these mountains. But it was different, it seemed, when the woman was their own girl. However, I overcame their objections, and one rainy morning I set forth on my pony with my saddlebags well packed with food and clothing, and with carefully written directions from Father McBirney in my pocket.
“Stick to them there orders,” said Pa, “and you can’t go wrong, Zalie. Except, maybe at the Trillers. I said for you to go to where the branch turns by the two black gums, but it might so be that Triller has cut down them gums. Seems as if he can’t take no rest while there’s a tree standin’ around his place. But anyhow, if you follow the branch after it takes a bend—that is to say, after you have taken the right-hand road turning off from the Session’s pike—then you can’t a-miss it.”
“I don’t mean to miss it,” I declared. “Don’t you worry, you two.”
Jim wasn’t at home. I made a point of going while he was down at Lee with some timber. He never would have let me go in peace.
I was not at all afraid. Indeed, I was very happy. I grew up on the road, as you remember, Carin. It isn’t as if I always had been house-bound. The woods were very still and lovely, with gray veils falling in among the trees, and the distance all hidden. The great tree trunks with their green moss and their lichen looked beautiful. I had been feeling a little gray in my mind, and the day just suited me.
By noon, though, I was chilly and rather miserable, though my raincoat kept me dry enough. But I was longing for a house, as you may well imagine, and just then, sure enough, I saw a tiny cabin in a clearing. I slipped off Paprika, and knocked at the door. No one answered. A smell of wood smoke came out from the chimney and I knew there was a fire inside, and I did want awfully to sit by it. Really, my teeth were chattering. So I tried the door. It was not locked, and I went in and crouched before the fire in the great blackened fireplace. It was very homy, with its great kettle of soup hanging over the coals, and its comfortable mountain chairs, thickly padded with cushions covered with butternut homespun. There were braided rugs on the floor, and in the darkest corner, one lofty bedstead with posts and a wonderful pieced bedquilt. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everything was outrageously clean, but on the other hand, it was not disagreeably unclean—just an easy medium. Anyway, the fire was a blessing and the soup a temptation.
So what do you think I did?
Yielded to temptation, of course. I dished myself out a good helping of the soup, took some of my own bread from my lunch box, and ate till I was satisfied. Meantime, I had got as warm as toast and felt as if I had lived in that house forever. Then I took a little snapshot picture of myself from my notebook and laid it on the table with some loaf sugar, some coffee and a fine piece of Mother McBirney’s honey cake, and wrote: