“I simply retrieved the clock from the wagon, unwrapped it, and passed it over to him, and he accepted it as payment quite happily and at once carried it into his house. Where I hope Mary and Ruth did not see it.”
I looked back at the women. Ruth held her half-sister Sarah’s hand, and beside her Mary held Annie’s; the two women were themselves holding hands and chatting lightly to one another. “No, I’m sure they didn’t see Mister Partridge carrying off Great-Grandfather’s clock. They seem very happy,” I added uselessly.
“They will know it soon enough. Oh, I am a fool!” he pronounced. “A fool!”
I did not know what to say, so, as usual, said nothing. Most times, when I did not understand something that Father had done or said, it was because he had acted or spoken more wisely than I. At such times, for obvious reasons, my best course was to remain silent and await the arrival of understanding. In this case, however, the Old Man had indeed been foolish, and by comparison I was the wise one.
Still, I remained silent. I loved my father, and respected him, even when he did a foolish or wrong thing.
By mid-morning, we were well out of the valley, and for a while the track turned steeply uphill. Mr. Epps, or Lyman, as I had begun calling him, got down from the box and walked beside the struggling horses, coaxing them on, and Father and I fell back and got behind the wagon and put our shoulders to it. The dense, impenetrable forests up here had never been cut, even those trees that closed like a pale against the road, and the towering pines and spruces had begun to block off the sky from our view, covering us with thick, cooling day-long shadows.
Although we were now far above the greening valley, the air was still sufficiently warm that most of yesterday’s snowfall had melted early and had run off the sides into small rivulets and brooks that dropped away from the ridge, disappearing into the forest, where we could see dark gray remnants of the winter snows, which looked permanent, practically, and glacial. The only birds we saw up here were curious little chickadees and siskins and the occasional screaming blue jay — winter birds. None of the hardwood trees or low bushes had put out their buds yet, and the scattered thatches of grasses we saw lay in yellowed mats, still dead from last year’s frost.
Nothing in the natural world appeared ready for the resurrection of spring. Worse, it was as if we were steadily slipping backwards in time, with May and then April disappearing behind us and darkest winter rising into view just ahead. Soon we were struggling through yesterday’s unmelted, ankle-deep snow. It was cold and nearly dark here below the tall trees, as if earlier this morning, before crossing overhead, the sun, unbeknownst to us, had reversed its path and had descended and set behind us. Except for Father, we had shrouded ourselves with blankets again. A steady, high wind blew through the upper branches of the trees, raising a distant unbroken chorus of grieving voices to accompany our slow pilgrimage.
After a while, almost without my noticing it, the ground leveled off somewhat, and Father and I no longer had to stay close to the wagon to be ready to push it. Our little group had strung itself out practically in single file, as if we each of us wished to be alone with our morbid thoughts, with Father in his greatcoat up at the head of the column, and then the team and wagon driven by Lyman, and me trudging along in its tracks. Behind me came Mary, Ruth, Sarah, and Annie, picking their way through the snow in a ragged line, while stretching back for many rods walked the livestock, singly or sometimes two animals abreast, with Salmon and Oliver positioned among them to keep them moving, and back somewhere out of sight, Watson and the collie dogs brought up the rear.
The road by now had dwindled to a narrow, palisadoed trail barely the width of our wagon. It no longer switch-backed across the side of the mountain, and there were no longer the occasional breaks in the trees with views of the forested slopes and ridges below. Instead, plunging across slabs of rock and over snarls of thick roots, the trail ran straight into the still-darkening forest, as if down a tunnel, and had we met a wagon or coach coming out of the tunnel towards us, we could not have turned aside to let it rush past. It seemed that there was nothing ahead of us but slowly encroaching snow and darkness.
When, suddenly, as if struck by a blow, I realized that we had emerged from the forest. Light poured down from the skies, and the towering trees seemed to bow and back away. Dazzled by the abrupt abundance of light and space, I saw that we were passing along the shore of a long, narrow lake that lay like a steel scimitar below high, rocky escarpments and cliffs, beyond which there loomed still higher mountains, which curved away and disappeared in the distance. The enormous scale of open space, snow-covered mountains, precipices, and black, sheer cliffs diminished our size to that of tiny insects, as we made our slow way along the edge of the glistening lake. Wonderstruck, gaping, we traced the hilt of the sword-shaped body of water and crossed the long slant of its cutting edge to the point, where we exited from the gorge as if through an ancient stone gate.
We had passed through Cascade Notch, and below us lay the beautiful wide valley of North Elba. Off to our left, mighty Tahawus and Mclntyre rose from the plain, splitting the southeastern cloudbank. To our right, in the northwest, we could see Whiteface Mountain, aged and dignified by its wide scars and pale gray in the fading afternoon sun. And between the mountains, spreading out at our feet for miles, lay undulating forests scratched by the dark lines of rivers and the rich, dark tablelands, grassy meadows, and marshes that we would call the Plains of Abraham.
Lyman drew the wagon to a halt, and the family came and gathered around it and admired the wonderful sight together. We removed the damp blankets from our shoulders, folded them and placed them back into the wagon. Then Father took himself off from us a ways and lowered his head and silently prayed, while the rest of us continued simply to admire the generosity and beauty of the land.
For a long time, no one spoke, and then, when Father had rejoined us, Lyman said, “We better keep moving, Browns, if we wants to get home by nightfall.” He slapped the reins, and the wagon jerked forward along the rocky, narrow road, and we all moved back into line behind it, walking easily downhill into the valley, as the sun descended towards the hills and mountains beyond.
Chapter 6
On our arrival at North Elba, after Lyman Epps had departed for his own home, we passed nearly a full week at the long-abandoned farm on the Keene Road, before any of us ventured forth again — time spent unpacking the wagon and cleaning, re-organizing, and repairing the tumble-down cabin and shed, which were too small to be properly called a house and barn. In various ways we were stretching the structures so as to fit our many belongings and our numerous selves. Then, on the morning that I came to breakfast ready to commence plowing the one sizeable, cleared field on the place, Father instructed me not to plow.
This surprised me. With the shortness of the growing season, there was a clear need to get the ground turned over and the seed sown as quickly as possible. It was a clear, dry day, and Watson and Salmon were already waiting for me in the shed. I stood at the door to the cabin on my way outside, while Father perched on a three-legged stool next to the stove, finishing his morning shave.
“You don’t want me to plow today,” I said to him, making it a statement, not a question. Repeating his words was one of my ways of getting the Old Man to explain his purpose without seeming to question his authority.