West Wind Drift

by George Barr McCutcheon

Sailors, sniffing the gale that night, shook their heads and said there was snow on the tail of it. Morning found the ground mottled with splashes of white and a fine, frost-like sleet blowing fitfully across the plain. The ridge of trees over against the shore became vague and shapeless beneath the filmy veil, while the sea out beyond the breakers was clothed in a grey shroud, bleak and impenetrable.

Knapendyke was positive and reassuring in his contention that no great amount of snow ever fell upon the island. While much of the vegetation was of a character indigenous to the temperate zone, there was, he pointed out, another type peculiar to tropical climates,—and although the latter was of a singularly hardy nature, it was not calculated to survive the rigours of a harsh, protracted winter.

“We'll have spells like this, off and on, just as they occasionally do in Florida or Southern California, is the way I figure it out,” he said to the group of uneasy men who contemplated the embryonic blizzard with alarm and misgiving. “Moreover, I believe the wet, cold season is a short one here. The birds are content to stick it out. The fact there is no migration is proof enough for me that the winter is never severe. As the weather prognosticators say, look out for squalls, unsettled weather, frost tonight, rising temperature tomorrow, rain the next day, doctors' bills the end of the month. Avoid crowded street-cars, passenger elevators and places of amusement. Take plenty of out-door exercise and don't eat too many strawberries.”

Children, on their way to school in the town hall, shouted with glee as they romped in the snow-laden gale. It had no terrors for them. They were not concerned with the dour prospect that brought anxiety to the hearts of their elders.

“It's fine to be a kid,” said Percival, watching the antics of a crowd of boys. “Why do we have to grow up?”

“So that we can appreciate what it was to be a kid,” said Randolph Fitts.

Ruth Clinton was one of the teachers. There were, all told, about thirty children in the school, their ages ranging from five to fourteen. Most of them were youngsters from the steerage, bright-eyed little Latins who had picked up with lively avidity no small store of English. They were being taught in English.

The council, spurred by the far-seeing Percival, recognized the perils of a period of inactivity following the harvest and the flailing days. The majority of the men and women would be comparatively idle. Preparations for the building of a small ship occupied the time and interest of a few engineers and ship-carpenters, but as some weeks were bound to pass before the work could be begun in earnest, an interim of impatience would have to be bridged. Work, and plenty of it, was the only prescription for despair.

Already symptoms of increasing moodiness marked the mien of the less resourceful among the castaways. While it was not generally known, two men had attempted suicide, and one of the Brazilian ladies,—a beautiful young married woman,—was in a pitiful state of collapse. She had a husband and two small children in Rio Janeiro. The separation was driving her mad. There were others,—both men and women,—whose minds were never free from the thought of loved ones far across the waters and whose hearts ached with a great pain that could not be subdued by philosophy, but they were strong and they were cheerful. In their souls burnt an unquenchable fire, the fire of hope; they stirred it night and day with the song of the unvanquished.

Improvements in the hastily constructed cabins provided not only occupation but interest for the able-bodied men and women. There was no little rivalry in the matter of interior embellishments; those skilled in the use of implements took great pride in hewing out and adding more or less elaborate ornamentation to the facades of their habitations,—such as casements, door-posts and capitals, awnings, porches, and so forth. A shell road was in process of construction from one end of the village to the other, while over in Dismal Forest woodsmen were even now cutting down the towering Norfolk pines and hewing out the staunch timbers for the ship that was to sail out one day in quest of the world they had left behind them. But these enterprises provided work for men only. The women, in the main, were without occupation. With the approach of winter the men in active control of the camp's affairs realized that something would have to be done to relieve the strain,—at least, to lighten it until spring came to the rescue with toil in the fields and gardens.