So there I lay all through the long dark days of the winter, listening sometimes to the howling of the winds from the mountains, then to the beat and rush of the rain, and then at my worst time wondering why everything was so quiet, and learning from Esau that we were snowed up deeply.
I remember that he used to talk rapturously about the beauty of the scene around, with the great pine-trees loaded down with snow, and the sun in the clear blue sky, making the crystals of ice glitter till his eyes ached.
“And you won’t get up and come and have a look,” he said. “You are a fellow.”
“Yes, I am a fellow,” I replied. “Don’t bother me, Esau. I want to go to sleep.”
“But you’re always going to sleep,” he cried; “and so much sleep can’t be good for you.”
All the same I passed through that long winter, and it seemed as if I never should be strong again.
But, as the old country folk say, “Never’s a long day”; and as the earth began to waken from its lone sleep, so did I, and at last I was dressed to sit by the bonny log fire Esau kept up as if he meant to roast me. There came a day when I sat with my window open, listening to the roar of the river, thinking and ready to ask myself whether it had all been a dream. Then another day, when the sun was shining, and the scent of the pines came to where I sat; and at last in the spring-time I was to go out for the first time. I had to lean on patient, constant Esau, and use a stick to get to where a chair had been set for me at the foot of a great Douglas pine, where the moss was golden green, and the barberry leaves bright with a purply bronze. The river ran foaming and splashing before me at the bottom of a slope, looking milky and dirty, but down the rocks close by tumbled and sparkled one of the many tiny streams, and this was clear as crystal, and the brook flashed like diamonds in the bright sunshine.
There was a great scarlet blanket thrown over the chair, ready to be drawn round me as soon as I had taken my seat; and as soon as Esau had safely piloted me there, looking serious as a judge all the time, he suddenly seemed to go mad, for he cut a curious caper, threw his cap high up in the air, and shouted “Hurrah.”
“There,” he cried, as I lay back smiling and content, “you just say you ain’t getting well, and I’ll pitch into you.”
“I’m not going to say it,” I said. “Oh, Esau, I do feel so weak, but so happy and well. I say though, don’t shoot me again.”