The making of a man

by W. D. Flatt

In all this, of course, Robert was thinking primarily of the queen of the home-to-be, but provision was made as well for a welcome for the chance stranger, for he intended that hospitality of a true kind would be one of the features of the new home.

With these labors the winter had passed and summer was rapidly approaching. The sun was growing warmer each day and the generous mantle of snow was slowly but surely disappearing. Glancing occasionally down toward the bay through the little clearing which came as a result of his efforts during the winter, Robert noted that the ice was breaking up. A few weeks later the ground seemed to be alive with spring flowers all around his cabin, and the young man’s heart was full of joy and gladness in the results of the successful working-out of the early part of his plans. The birds, too, were plentiful and continually told their story of gladness in their own way.

In spite of his happiness, however, he had a continual feeling that something was lacking. At times he was lonesome. He wished to share his good fortune and he felt that he would not only be happier but that he could do better work if he had someone to work for—someone to share his happiness. When the evening came and his work was done he would sit in his cabin with his face in his hands and gaze into the glowing ashes of the fire that had been used for the preparation of his evening meal. He longed to hear the light step on the floor behind him. He longed for someone in the cabin to call him by his name. At first his struggles with the trees had been new and had kept him busy. He had found it exciting to chop away into the heart of one of the giants, to watch it tremble and then start faster on its downward journey, this to end in a final crash. But this had become commonplace. The camp-fires, the old tenting-places, the rippling streams, the forest with the birds and flowers, were all right in their place; but now he had become a real man there was a place in his heart for something bigger and stronger than any of these. Sometimes he felt that he had been very foolish in completing his cabin without making some provision for the one who was to share it with him, but again he felt that all in good time the lack would be provided for. Finally, as he sat in the cabin thinking his usual thoughts on a Saturday evening, his mind turned toward conditions in his old Orkney home, and he realized fully the real home that had been. He saw, as he never had before, that the light of that home had been mother. It was mother who kept the family waters calm. It was she who had lighted the spirit of love which had illumined that old home. In the midst of these dream fancies he was brought from his thoughts of the loved ones across the sea with a start when it seemed that suddenly a maiden’s voice called to him, clear and sweet, saying: “Robert, how is it that you are here alone? I have been dreaming too, and I have heard a call that was borne to me in the whispering of the wind, in the branches in the trees, by the song of the birds as they fluttered through the forest. These have been singing songs of love to me, songs full of hope and cheer to which my soul responds. Let me light up your life. Let me have a share in your heart.”

Robert was at a loss to understand the vision, but he felt that it was real. Naturally his last few years of life in the heart of nature had made him a believer in the spirit world, and while he could not understand nor explain the circumstances of the message which had come to him, he felt that there must be a reason for it. He felt, too, that it was an evidence that some of his longings were to be answered and, as can be anticipated, he went to sleep that evening very happily.

This feeling persisted when he arose the next morning, Sunday, and as the sun rose clear and warm and threw a golden gleam of light through the forest he knelt in a fervent prayer of thankfulness. When he sat down to his morning meal he did not forget also to give thanks for his food, for he realized that he owed all to his Heavenly Father for guiding him to this verdant spot and for helping him up to this time, and with his prayers his hope was kindled anew.

That morning, for some reason which he could hardly define, Robert felt an impulse to follow some unaccustomed paths through the forest. He had made visits to his neighbors along the trail back to Little York, but had been so busy that he had not followed the paths in any other direction. This time impulse moved him to travel north-west, and after he had covered about five miles he met a newly-blazed trail leading away from the main pathway. Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps it was impulse which led him to follow this, but after a little time his heart suddenly jumped in his throat, and he felt himself quivering with more hesitancy than he had felt even when he was face to face with the Indians in the far North-West, when he heard a girl’s voice clearly and sweetly singing a morning hymn his mother had sung back in the old Orkney home, evidencing a love for the Great Father on high. As he listened he knew that the voice was approaching, and peering through the trees he finally caught a glimpse of the first woman he had seen in the district. It was not surprising that to this youth, who had scarcely seen a white woman, much less spoken to one since he left the old land, the voice should seem like that of an angel from heaven or as sweet as the birds that sang among the blossoms in the trees. Naturally the last thing Robert wished to do was to alarm the maiden, so he walked slowly in her direction, looking through the trees as though he had not seen her. In a moment, however, the young woman caught sight of him and stood motionless, waiting for him to approach.

“WITH A PRAYER OF THANKFULNESS IN HIS HEART
ROBERT GREETED HER.”

In these days, when we live under the restrictions of social usage, the matter of the first meeting of a youth and a maiden is usually a somewhat formal one. Usually, too, anything but serious matters are discussed on such an occasion. Conditions were different with these two. Here was a youth who had scarcely spoken to a woman of his own class during the years since he had left his father’s home, a boy. Now a man who had established his character and had made considerable of a name for himself in a new land, he was having his first words with a maiden, who likewise had had little to do with men of her own age and who latterly, outside of the members of her own family, had not known what it was to mingle with young men. With a prayer of thankfulness in his heart Robert greeted her, and while he knew all in a moment that this was the maiden of his dreams, he was practical enough to note the beauties of face and figure and also to see that the young woman of the forest was dressed in a becoming, if simple, new gown.

In her turn also the young woman was experiencing feelings which had heretofore been unknown. She too had had dreams. She too felt that in this young man whom she had by chance met so appropriately that Sabbath morning lay the realization of her visions, and, as happiness such as she had not before known came to her, it suddenly seemed that all the songsters under the skies had gathered in the trees about and were now singing their sweetest songs for them. The girl’s cheeks were fair and perfect as a rose. Her sparkling blue eyes seemed to Robert as brilliant as stars in the heavens. She was indeed for him the forest queen. For a moment they looked into one another’s eyes with an understanding which surely was suggested in realms above the earth, and then naturally, if somewhat shyly, she invited him to her home, noting that it was just a mile further along the trail. “Father and mother would welcome you courteously, as all the people in the district do.”