Hard, hard at work, little play, not too much sleep. The wind blows ceaselessly. Rockwell is forever good,—industrious, kind, and happy. He reads now quite freely from any book. Drawing has become a natural and regular occupation for him, almost a recreation—for he can draw in both a serious and a humorous vein. At this moment he’s waiting in bed for some music and another Andersen fairy tale.
Another day has gone and a new morning is hours on its way. Out in the moonlit night strained, tired eyes open wide and are made clear again, cramped knees must dance in the crisp air, the curved spine bends backward as the upstretched arms describe that superb embracing gesture of the good-night yawn. November the thirteenth! how time sweeps by. And I look over the black water that we soon must cross again to Seward. The wind bursts around the cabin corner. I shiver and—go to bed.
CHAPTER V
WAITING
Thursday, November fourteenth.
We’re ready to go to Seward the moment the weather moderates—which may be not for two weeks or two months. I’ve packed blankets and several days’ food in a great knapsack so that if we’re driven to land somewhere we’ll not perish of hunger. And this trip while it may be carried out speedily may on the other hand strand us days without number in Seward and cost three or four times that many dollars.
The wind is still in the North, the days are wonderfully beautiful, and the nights no less. This very night Rockwell and I skated for the third time, Ah, but it was glorious on the lake, the moon high above us in a cloudless sky, the snow and ice on the mountain sides glistening and the spruces black. We skated together hand in hand like sweethearts; going far to one end of the lake in the teeth of the wind and returning before it like full-rigged ships. And Rockwell whose second skate to-day this was improves every minute.