Winter was loitering through its last calendar month, although it usually fastens its iron claws upon the first days of spring also, and is dislodged only after a gusty struggle. Brooke turned from the cross-way into the river road, upon the daily walk she forced herself to take in all but impossible weather, according to her compact with Dr. Russell. Of walking in general she would have declared that she was passionately fond, but navigating the uneven roads, scarred by the storms of a winter of unusual severity, did not come under the usual term.
After crossing an especially slippery bit she paused to rest for a moment, supporting herself by the rough fence of split rails that made a barrier between the road edge and the rocky bank which fell away, at first sharply, and then more gradually toward the Moosatuk. As she stood there, looking up and down, the saying came forcibly to her, “Whosoever loves the land in February, loves for life.” Did she love nature, or was she only baffled and cowed by its omnipotence and bent to it by the force of necessity? This day she herself could not have judged.
All the sources of inspiration seemed closed. Silence reigned in the River Kingdom; the voice of the ruler was stilled. Great, sooty crows, lean and ravenous, patrolled the river meadows, croaking ominously as they quarried a meal from the frozen wild apples, or rent asunder the few blighted ears that remained in the corn-fields.
The day before had been one of sleet and wind; no human being had even passed the homestead—merely a brindled cat of the half-wild breed, and he had scuttled along on the other side of the road under cover of the wall. Robert Stead was ill of a sudden cold, Adam had reported when he returned from his daily lessons, consequently José, the Mexican half-breed factotum, had not left the shack even to fetch the mail.
Thinner than when she had come to Gilead a month before, Brooke’s supple figure had the spring and elasticity of physical health in spite of its lack of roundness, for the long nights of sleep and the simplicity of the daily routine offset the strain of unaccustomed toil. Neither was she lonely in the common meaning of the word, which always implies a great degree of leisure; also she was young, and Bulwer was right—“The young are never lonely.” Then there were the books that the silent man brought her—poetry, story, and all the lore of her fellows, the birds and beasts of the field, that heretofore had been to her unknown creatures of mystery; while Adam (she had never called him the Cub since the night of his return) and she had many new sympathies, and when the boy, inspired by the talk of his teacher, rushed in to tell her of the track that he thought perhaps might belong to a fox or a mink, or with the surmise that a strange bird was feeding by the granary, she was as eager as he to see and to prove it.
The grisly mood that had seized upon her this 12th day of February was born of the sudden stepping into the foreground of the future with all its necessities, which, until that moment, had been blended optimistically with the middle distance at the very least.
In two days more Mrs. Peck’s period of “accommodation” would be over; the 1st of March Larsen would go to Gordon, and the spring work must be begun if they would eat of the harvest. Toil as she and the boy might with their hands, there must either be more money, or cattle and land must be parted with, the homestead depleted, and the family start on that dreadful shrivelling process of acquiring the habit of doing with less and less, instead of pushing forward to fresh effort, which enervates the mental, and finally the moral, nature, and has made some parts of New England a graveyard of abandoned farms. For the thousandth time Brooke thought of her mother’s little dower,—this, if it had not vanished, would have more than doubled the monthly yield,—then she put the thought from her as she had done before, but this time less forcibly.
With all around ice, snow, dusky tree trunks, and rock of granite, she felt all the sensations that would belong to a wild animal at bay. Indeed, she might have lingered on there to her hurt, had not Tatters barked and pulled her by the skirt.
“Yes, I will come now, old man! I’m sorry I stood so long; I know your paws must be chilled!” she exclaimed ruefully. “You want to go to Gilead village instead of to the foot of Windy Hill to see old Mrs. Fenton? Well, so be it, we shall see more people on that road; besides, I think that both you and I need something from the store,—post-stamps, and lavender oil, for I’m going to try my hand at painting, you see, Tatters, if it’s only Easter bonbonnières. Cookies? Yes, sugar cookies, and you can get two stale ones for this penny. Watch out, Tatters,” and Brooke, throwing off her dismal mood with an effort, held the copper coin before his nose as she spoke, and the dog, comprehending either tone, word, gesture, or all three, preceded his mistress joyfully in an uneven but steady trot, that ate up the road and caused her fairly to break step in order not to be left behind.
The cookies were bought and eaten, mistress and dog resting awhile at the little shop that sold simple drugs, etc., and eleven o’clock saw Brooke climbing the upper road toward home. She had gone but half of the way when, missing Tatters, she turned about to look for him. Whistling and waiting a moment, she saw his head appearing slowly over the last upward roll in the road, and noticed that he was limping painfully. She hurried back to where he had paused, as soon as he knew that he was in no danger of being deserted, and he began to lick one of his front paws, which had been cut by a sharp, jagged piece of ice, and which was bleeding profusely. Kneeling in the road beside him, Brooke moistened her handkerchief by the slow process of holding snow in her hands until it melted, and, after cleansing the cut as well as she could, wound the handkerchief tight around it.