“I never saw so warm a place as that camp. William covered it all over with brush outside, and the snow drifted over it; we had plenty of bear and wolf skins, and if it had not been for the hole in the roof we should have roasted.”
“How did you get the wagon here,—there was no road?”
“William got a teamster who was going to Pittsburg with four horses and a light load to take the canoe, and it arrived in Pittsburg before we did. We put our things, part of ‘em, in that, and we came in; the next day he got the rest and left the wagon till winter, and then made a sled and hauled it up the river on the ice. The river makes an excellent road in winter for a sled and in summer for the canoe.”
“Yes; and Providence keeps it in repair, and no road tax to work out,” said her husband.
James could not have been placed in a better school to learn how to cut his way through life than with this cheerful, resolute pair in the wilderness.
The next morning they took the birch canoe from the barn; Whitman gummed the seams, and they carried it to the water. Whitman held it, told James to get in, sit down in the middle and keep still; he then got in himself, and standing up, with one stroke of the paddle, sent the light craft flying into the middle of the stream. James was delighted with the movement of the buoyant craft.
William then told him to kneel down and take the paddle while he kept the balance, and to paddle without fear, for he would keep her on her bottom.
“James, you have got to learn to use this birch. Can you swim?”
“Like a fish.”
“Well then, take off part of your clothes and try it; for most likely you’ll upset.”