The next day and the next it is mild, resting—the weather seems to be—at this peaceful holiday season. We cut no wood and do little work. We write long letters, both of us, and consume at meal-time the food left over from Christmas. I read the “Odyssey,” great story! Just now I am past that magnificent slaughter of the wooers, else these delayed pages would still be unwritten. A few more Odysseys to read here in this wild place and one could forget the modern world and return in manners and speech and thought to the heroic age. That would be an adventure worth trying! Maybe we are not so deeply permeated with the culture of to-day that we could not throw it off. Surely the spirit of the heroes strikes home to our hearts as we read of them in the ancient books.
Saturday, December twenty-eighth.
For the first time in days the sun has risen in a clear sky and shone upon the mountains across from us. It is colder, for ice has formed again on the tub of water out-of-doors. But there is a little wind.
I am writing in preparation for Olson’s trip. He too is making ready. Food for the foxes is on the stove for many days’ feeding, his engine gets a little burnishing—it’s no insignificant voyage to Seward in the winter. If only it holds out fair and calm until a steamer comes! There’s the hitch now. We have seen none go to Seward since the first of the month.
To-morrow probably the Christmas tree must come down. The hemlock trimmings shed all over the cabin till to-day I tore them out. Last night we had our final lighting of the tree. Rockwell and I stood out-of-doors and looked in at it. What a marvelous sight in the wilderness. If only some hapless castaways had strayed in upon us lured by that light! We sang Christmas carols out there in the dark, did a Christmas dance on the shore, and then came in and while the tree still burned told each other stories. Rockwell’s story was about the adventures of some children in the woods, full of thrilling climaxes. It came by the yard. I told him of an Indian boy who, longing for Christmas, went out into the dark woods at night and closed his eyes. And how behind his closed eyes he found a world rich in everything the other lacked. There was his Christmas tree and to it came the wild animals. They got each a present, the mother porcupine a box of little silken balls to stick onto her quills for decoration, and the father porcupine a toothbrush because his large teeth were so very yellow. After the story it was bedtime. Well ... this fair day has passed, and with the night have come clouds and a cold gloom foreboding snow. But I have learned to expect nothing of the weather but what it gives us.
Sunday, December twenty-ninth.
Squirlie’s birthday party. Squirlie is seated in a condensed milk box. At his back hangs a brown sweater. About him stand his presents consisting chiefly of feathers. The table is spread with the feast in shells and the whole is brilliantly illuminated by a Christmas tree candle. Long life to Squirlie and may he never fall to pieces nor be devoured by moths!
Monday, December thirtieth.
Yesterday it rained gently, to-day it pours. I sit here with the door open and the stove slumbering—such weather in this country that the world believes to be an iceberg! But in Seward and on the mountains no doubt it is snowing enough. To-day I made so good a drawing that I’m sitting up as if the flight of time and the coming of morning were no concern of mine. It is half-past twelve!
New Year’s Eve! Tuesday. This is the tenth anniversary of Rockwell’s parents and I have kept it as well as I could, working all day upon a drawing for his mother and to-night holding a kind of song service with Rockwell. Rockwell, who at nine years has every reason to celebrate to-day, however he may feel at twenty-nine, has written his mother a sweet little letter. I’m terribly homesick to-night and don’t know what to say about it in these genial pages. It has been a solemn day.