We started. But I never got to see my dear grandmother and grandfather, whom I had never seen. Something happened on the way and I was all alone. And I did n’t feel happy. There were strange people that I had never seen before, and I was afraid of them. They made me to keep very still, and we went for no walks in the field. But we traveled a long, long way.
Then it was they put me with Mrs. Whiteley. The day they put me with her was a rainy day, and I thought she was a little afraid of them too. She took me on the train and in a stage-coach to the lumber camp. She called me Opal Whiteley, the same name as that of another little girl who was the same size as I was when her mother lost her. She took me into the camp as her own child, and so called me as we lived in the different lumber camps and in the mill town.
With me I took into camp a small box. In a slide drawer in the bottom of this box were two books which my own Mother and Father, the Angel Father and Mother I always speak of in my diary, had written in. I do not think the people who put me with Mrs. Whiteley knew about the books in the lower part of the box, for they took everything out of the top part of the box and tossed it aside. I picked it up and kept it with me, and, being as I was more quiet with it in my arms, they allowed me to keep it, thinking it was empty. These books I kept always with me, until one day I shall always remember, when I was about twelve years old, they were taken from the box I kept then hid in the woods. Day by day I spelled over and over the many words that were written in them. From them I selected names for my pets. And it was the many little things recorded there that helped me to remember what my Mother and Father had already told me of different great lives and their work; and these books with these records made me very eager to be learning more and more of what was recorded in them. These two books I studied much more than I did my books at school. Their influence upon my life has been great.
[CHAPTER I
How Opal Goes along the Road beyond the Singing Creek, and of all she Sees in her New Home.]
To-day the folks are gone away from the house we do live in. They are gone a little way away, to the ranch-house where the grandpa does live. I sit on our steps and I do print. I like it—this house we do live in being at the edge of the near woods. So many little people do live in the near woods. I do have conversations with them. I found the near woods first day I did go explores. That was the next day after we were come here. All the way from the other logging camp in the beautiful mountains we came in a wagon. Two horses were in front of us. They walked in front of us all the way. When first we were come, we did live with some other people in the ranch-house that was n’t all builded yet. After that we lived in a tent, and often when it did rain many raindrops came right through the tent. They did fall in patters on the stove and on the floor and on the table. Too, they did make the quilts on the beds some damp—but that did n’t matter much because they soon got dried hanging around the stove.
By and by we were come from the tent to this lumber shanty. It has got a divide in it. One room we do have sleeps in. In the other room we do have breakfast and supper. Back of the house are some nice wood-rats. The most lovely of them all is Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus. By the wood-shed is a brook. It goes singing on. Its joy song does sing in my heart. Under the house live some mice. I give them bread-scraps to eat. Under the steps lives a toad. He and I—we are friends. I have named him. I call him Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil.
Between the ranch-house and the house we live in is the singing creek where the willows grow. We have conversations. And there I do dabble my toes beside the willows. I feel the feels of gladness they do feel. And often it is I go from the willows to the meeting of the road. That is just in front of the ranch-house. There the road does have divides. It goes three ways. One way the road does go to the house of Sadie McKibben. It does n’t stop when it gets to her house, but mostly I do. The road just goes on to the mill town a little way away. In its going it goes over a hill. Sometimes—the times Sadie McKibben is n’t at home—I do go with Brave Horatius to the top of the hill. We look looks down upon the mill town. Then we do face about and come again home. Always we make stops at the house of Sadie McKibben. Her house—it is close to the mill by the far woods. That mill makes a lot of noise. It can do two things at once. It makes the noises and also it does saw the logs into boards. About the mill do live some people, mostly men-folks. There does live the good man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice.
Another way, the road does go the way I go when I go to the school-house where I go to school. When it is come there, it does go right on—on to the house of the girl who has no seeing. When it gets to her house, it does make a bend, and it does go its way to the blue hills. As it goes, its way is near unto the way of the rivière that sings as it comes from the blue hills. There are singing brooks that come going to the rivière. These brooks—they and I—we are friends. I call them Orne and Loing and Yonne and Rille and Essonne.
Near unto the road, long ways between the brooks, are ranch-houses. I have not knowing of the people that do dwell in them. But I do know some of their cows and horses and pigs. They are friendly folk. Around the ranch-houses are fields. Woods used to grow where now grows grain. When the mowers cut down the grain, they also do cut down the cornflowers that grow in the fields. I follow along after and I do pick them up. Of some of them I make a guirlande. When the guirlande is made, I do put it around the neck of William Shakespeare. He does have appreciations. As we go walking down the lane, I do talk with him about the one he is named for. And he does have understanding. He is such a beautiful gray horse, and his ways are ways of gentleness. Too, he does have likings like the likings I have for the hills that are beyond the fields—for the hills where are trails and tall fir trees like the wonderful ones that do grow by the road.