“There you’re right. Let me draw you back in the room and close the door. It will freeze to-night, I’m thinking.”
“Oh, not yet, please! I have yet to see the gloryful sky of the west. Last evening how it was beautiful! To-night it will be more lovely to look upon for the long line of little cloud there on which the red of the sun will burn like fire in the heaven over the mountain.”
“You must enjoy the beauty, Amalia, and then pray that there may be no snow. It looks like it, and we want the snow to hold off until Larry comes back.”
“We pray, always, my mamma and I. She that he come back quickly, and me––I pray that he come back safely––but to be soon––it is such terror to me.”
“Larry will find a way out of the difficulty. He will have an excuse all thought out for your mother. I am more anxious about the snow with a sunset sky like that, but I don’t know anything about this region.”
“Mr. ’Arry, so very clever you are in making things, can 270 you help me to one more thing? I like very much to have the sticks for lame walking,––what you call––the crutch? Yes. I have for so long time spoken only the Polish that I forget me greatly the English. You must talk to me much, and make me reproof of my mistakes. Do you know for why I like the crutch? It is that I would go each day––many times to see the water fall down. Ah, how that is beautiful! In the sun, or early in the morning, or in the night, always beautiful!”
“You shall have the crutches, Amalia, and until I get them made, I will carry you to the fall each day. Come, I will take you there now. I will wrap these furs around you, and you shall see the fall in the evening light.”
“No, ’Arry King. To-morrow I will try to ride on the horse if you will lift me up on him. I will let you do this. But you may not carry me as you have done. I am now so strong. You may make me the crutch, yes.” Of all things he wished her to let him carry her to the fall, but her refusal was final, and he set about making the crutches immediately.
Through the evening he worked on them, and at nightfall the next day he brought them to her. As he came down from his shed, carrying the crutches proudly, he heard sweet, quavering tones in the air wafted intermittently. The wind was still, and through the evening hush the tones strengthened as he drew nearer the cabin, until they seemed to wrap him in a net of interwoven cadences and fine-spun threads of quivering melody––a net of sound, inclosing his spirit in its intricate mesh of sweetness.
He paused and breathed deeply, and turned this way and that, as if he would escape but found no way; then he 271 walked slowly on. At the door of the cabin he paused again. The firelight shone through from underneath, and a fine thread of golden light sifted through the latch of the door and fell on the hand that held Amalia’s crutches. He looked down on the spot of light dancing over his hand as if he were dazed by it. Very gently he laid the crutches across the threshold, and for a long time stood without, listening, his head bowed as if he were praying.