“I knowed it was the children. You won’t never talk so again? Just you come with me; I’ve got something’ll surprise you.”
“What’s that, Joe?” She was just now intent on quieting his fears. “Do tell me.”
“No! You come along. Looks like rain a bit.”
“Well, I’ll go.” She threw her hair aside, and went out with him, saying, “You are a queer old man; I guess I’m right curious.” Well pleased, he went along, the woman following.
By and by they came into the open space around which the underbrush grew so close that it would have puzzled one unused to the way to find it.
“You just stand there a bit,”—and, as he spoke, he bent over the ready pile,—“and don’t look yet,” he added.
“What’s that white thing?” The night was dark, and, in the forest, of inky blackness, because of the coming storm.
“You wait,” he repeated. “Don’t you look yet.”
He struck a match on his corduroys, and lighted the birch-bark shavings. Instantly a red light leaped up, and in a moment the flame soared high, flaring in the gusts of wind, so that the tall pines cast all around wild lengths of shivering shadows, and the forest became as day; while the white oblong of stone came sharply out into view.
“I done it,” he said. “I done it for you, Susie! I done it.”