When you buy a house, or even a cabin in the wilderness, how much of it do you really buy? All of it or only part? The walls, the roof, the floor, surely all these are yours. But all those other things, the little cupboard in the corner, all carved out from logs with crude tools, but done so well for someone who has been loved—do you buy this too? And all the other delicate touches that made a house a home, can you buy these or do you only try to buy these and fail? It was thus that Florence thought as she sat dreaming in the sun outside the cabin.
From within came the sound of voices. Her aunt and Madam Chicaski were talking. Already her aunt had come to love the company of this huge Russian woman who had first made this cabin into a home.
A week had passed and still the woman lingered. How long would she stay? No one knew nor seemed to care overmuch. She insisted on working, this stout old woman. And how she did work! When Mark began going to the forest cutting dead trees and dragging them in with the tractor for the winter’s supply of wood, she shouldered an axe and went along. Then how the trees came crashing down! Even Mark was no match for her. In five days a great pile of wood loomed up beside the cabin. High time, too, for the first flurry of snow had arrived.
That Madam Chicaski had a gentler side they learned as she talked beside the fire in the long evenings. She told of her own adventure on this very spot when the valley was all but unknown and life for her was new. Many things she told, tales that brought forth smiles and tears.
One subject she never touched upon, nor was she asked to tell, what had become of the great copper kettle, the seven golden candlesticks and all else that had been left behind. “If she stays long enough, in time I shall know,” Florence assured herself.
There were other things she did not tell. Why had she left the valley and how? Where was her husband now? This much was certain, she was not now in want. Florence had come upon her one afternoon unobserved. She was thumbing a large roll of bills. At the slightest sound she concealed them under her ample dress.
At times she acted strangely. She would go to the back of the yard and stand, for a quarter hour or more, contemplating the great stump. Over this, during the summer, morning-glories had bloomed in profusion. At that moment it was covered only by dry and rustling vines. At such times as this on the Russian woman’s face was a look of devotion. “Like one saying her prayers,” Florence thought.
There came a day when, for a time at least, all thoughts of the mysterious Madam Chicaski were banished from the little family’s thoughts. Mystery was replaced by thrilling adventure.
Once again the air was filled with sound. A large, gray hydroplane came zooming in from the west. They were waiting at the water’s edge, the Hughes family and Madam, when the pilot taxied his plane close in to shore. Florence was not there. She was away on a visit to Palmer.
“How would you like to paddle out and get me?” the pilot invited as he climbed out upon the fuselage.