At last the moon crept over the white crested mountains. It turned the lake into a sheet of silver. Dark spots moved across that sheet. They came closer and closer. Thirty yards they were from shore, now twenty yards, and now ten yards. The girl caught one long sighing breath. Then, bang! Bang! Both barrels spoke.
A moment later, waist deep, the girl waded for the shore. In each hand she carried a dead bird, two big, fat geese. Tomorrow there would be a feast. Romance? Adventure? Well, perhaps, a little. But much more was to come. She felt sure of that now. Her heart leaped as she hurried forward to meet Mark and Mary, who were racing toward her demanding what all the shooting was about.
“A feast!” Mary cried joyously. “A real pioneer feast. Thanksgiving in June! The Pilgrim Fathers have nothing on us.”
Such a feast as it was! Roast wild goose with dressing, great brown baked potatoes, slashed and filled with sweet home-made butter, all this topped with cottage pudding smothered in maple sauce.
“Who says pioneering is a hard life?” Mark drawled when the meal was over.
“It couldn’t be with such a glorious cook,” Florence smiled at her aunt.
When, at last, she crept up to her bed in the loft that night, she was conscious of an unusual stiffness in her joints. Little wonder this, for all day long she had wielded a grubbing hoe, tearing out the roots of stubborn young trees. They were preparing their land for the plow. They would raise a crop if no one else among the new settlers did. What crops? That had not been fully decided.
As Florence lay staring at the shadowy rafters she fell to musing about what life might be like if one remained in this valley year after year. “A farm of your own,” she thought, “cows, chickens, pigs, a husband, children.” Laughing softly, she turned on her side and fell asleep.
Five days later their first real visitor arrived. She was Mrs. Swenson, a short, plump farm mother and old-time settler of the valley. She had lived here for fifteen years.
Florence, who was churning while Mary and her mother were away in the town, gave her an enthusiastic welcome. The handle of the old-fashioned dasher churn went swish-swash.