“Now, now dear” cooed Isabel, leaning over to take Annie’s hands, “what nonsense to talk of wrong; come now, dry your eyes, and smile at us, like a good girl. You are nervous and tired out with the task of tending your grandmother—that’s all—and this day in the woods will do you a world of good. Don’t let us have even the least little bit of unhappiness in it.”
Seth watched his sister-in-law caress and coax away Annie’s passing fit of gloom, with deep enjoyment. The tenderness and beauty of the process were a revelation to him; it was an attribute of womanhood the existence of which he had scarcely suspected heretofore, in his untutored, bucolic state. Annie seemed to forget her grief quickly enough, and became cheerful again; in quaint docility she smiled through her tears at Isabel’s command, and the latter was well within the truth when she cried: “There! You have never looked prettier in your life!”
Seth nodded acquiescence, and returned the smile. But somehow this grief of Annie’s had bored him, and he felt rather than thought that his country-cousin, even in this radiant moment, was of slight interest compared with the city sister-in-law, who not only knew enough not to cry herself, but could so sweetly charm away tears from others.
Seth tested all the joints of his pole, and changed the hook and baited it with studious care, before he climbed out on the jam. Gingerly feeling his way from log to log, he got at last upon the wet mossy birch which projected like a ledge at the bottom of the pile. The women watched his progress from the mound, and gave a little concerted shout of triumph when, at the very first cast of his line into the froth of the dark eddy, it was caught and dragged swiftly across the stream, and a handsome pike a moment later paid the penalty.
“That’s by far the biggest yet, isn’t it?” Annie asked.
“Wait, there are bigger yet. Watch this!”
The line, thrown in again, had been sharply jerked and was now being drawn upstream under the logs. Seth moved down to the end of the birch, stooping under the jutting heap of logs above, to be able to play the pole sidewise, and save the fish. It was a difficult position to stand in; he held the rod far forward with one hand, and grasped a bough above for support as he leaned out over the stream.
The thing snapped—exactly how it was no one knew—a log released from its bondage shifted position, a dozen others rolled over it rumbling, and the women held their breath affrighted as they saw, without moving, the whole top of the jam tremble, lift a jagged end or two, and then collapse with a hollow noise. As they found voice to scream, the water was covered with floating debris, and the air filled with a musty fungus-like smell.
There was no sign of Seth.
The roar of the falling timber had scarcely died away before Annie had left the mound, had torn her way through the alders at the bottom, and stood panting on the wet slimy rocks at the edge of the stream. She hardly heard the frightened warning which Isabel, pale and half-fainting, called out to her: