Cynthe Cardinal was coming up Beaver Run on her way back to French Village. She had been to put the first flowers of the Spring on the grave of Rafe Gadbeau, where Father Ponfret had blessed the ground for him and they had laid him, there under the sunny side of the Gaunt Rocks that had given him his last breathing space that he might die in peace. They had put him here, for there was no way in that time to carry him to the little cemetery in French Village. And Cynthe was well satisfied that it was so. Here, under the Gaunt Rocks, she would not have to share him with any one. And she would not have to hear people pointing out the grave to each other and to see them staring.
The water tumbling down the Run out of the hills sang a glad, uproarious song, as is the way of all brooks at their beginnings, concerning the necessity of getting down as swiftly as possible to the big, wide life of the sea. The sea would not care at all if that brook never came down to it. But the brook did not know that. Would not have believed it if it had been told.
And Cynthe hummed herself, a sad little song 313 of old Beaupre––which she had never seen, for Cynthe was born here in the hills. Cynthe was sad, beyond doubt; for here was the mating time, and–– But Cynthe was not unhappy. The Good God was still in his Heaven, and still good. Life beckoned. The breath of air was sweet. There was work in the world to do. And––when all was said and done––Rafe Gadbeau was in Heaven.
As she left the Run and was crossing up to the divide she met Jeffrey Whiting coming down. He had been over in the Wilbur’s Fork country and was returning home. He stopped and showed that he was anxious to talk with her. Cynthe was not averse. She was ever a chatty, sociable little person, and, besides, for some time she had had it in mind that she would some day take occasion to say a few pertinent things to this scowling young gentleman with the big face.
“You’re with Ruth Lansing a lot, aren’t you?” he said, after some verbal beating about the bush; “how is she?”
“Why don’t you come see, if you want to know?” retorted Cynthe sharply.
Jeffrey had no ready answer. So Cynthe went on:
“If you wanted to know why didn’t you come up all Winter and see? Why didn’t you come up when she was nursing the dirty French babies through the black diphtheria, when their own 314 mothers were afraid of them? Why didn’t you come see when she was helping the mothers up there to get into their houses and make the houses warm before the coming of the Winter, though she had no house of her own? Why didn’t you come see when she nearly got her death from the ’mmonia caring for old Robbideau Laclair in his house that had no roof on it, till she shamed the lazy men to go and fix that roof? Did you ask somebody then? Why didn’t you come see?”
“Well,” Jeffrey defended, “I didn’t know about any of those things. And we had plenty to do here––our place and my mother and all. I didn’t see her at all till Easter Sunday. I sneaked up to your church, just to get a look at her. She saw me. But she didn’t seem to want to.”
“But she should have been delighted to see you,” Cynthe snapped back. “Don’t you think so? Certainly, she should have been overjoyed. She should have flown to your arms! Not so? You remember what you said to her the last time you saw her before that. No? I will tell you. You called her ‘liar’ before the whole court, even the Judge! Of one certainty, she should have flown to you. No?”