The Master; a Novel

Since the sled accident that had crippled him for life, Billy was full of nervous terrors, and the night had been charged with mysterious noises. Within the lonely wooden house weather-boards and beams cracked; without, twigs snapped and branches crashed; at times Billy heard reports as loud as pistol-shots. One of these shots meant the bursting of the wash-basin on the bedroom bench, Matt having forgotten to empty its contents, which had expanded into ice.

Matt curled himself up more comfortably and almost covered his face with the blanket, for the cold in the stoveless attic was acute. In the gray half-light the rough beams and the quilts glistened with frozen breaths. The little square window-panes were thickly frosted, and below the crumbling rime was a thin layer of ice left from the day before, solid up to the sashes, and leaving no infinitesimal dot of clear glass, for there was nothing to thaw it except such heat as might radiate through the bricks of the square chimney that came all the way from the cellar through the centre of the flooring to pop its head through the shingled roof.

“Matt!” Billy was nudging his brother in the ribs again.

“Hullo!” grumbled the boy.

“Thet thar ain’t the frost. Hark!”

“‘Tis, I tell ye. Don’t you hear the pop, pop, pop?”

“Not thet; t’other down-stairs.”

“Oh, thet’s the wind, I reckon.”

“No; it’s some ’un screamin’!”

Matt raised himself on his elbow, and listened.

“Why, you gooney, it’s on’y mother rowin’ Harriet,” he said, reassuringly, and snuggled up again between the blankets.

The winter, though yet young, had already achieved a reputation. Blustrous north winds had driven inland, felling the trees like lumbermen. In the Annapolis Basin myriads of herrings, surprised by Jack Frost before their migratory instinct awoke, had been found frozen in the weirs, and the great salt tides overflowing the high dykes had been congealed into a chocolate sea that, when the liquid water beneath ran back through the sluices, lay solid on the marshes. By the shores of the Basin of Minas sea-birds flapped ghostlike over amber ice-cakes, whose mud-streaks under the kiss of the sun blushed like dragon’s blood.

Snow had fallen heavily, whitening the “evergreen” hemlocks, and through the shapeless landscape half-buried oxen had toiled to clear the blurred roads bordered by snow-drifts, till the three familiar tracks of hoofs and sleigh-runners came in sight again. The stage to Truro ploughed its way along, with only dead freight on its roof and a furred animal or two, vaguely human, shivering inside. Sometimes the mail had to travel by horse, and sometimes it altogether disappointed Billy and his brothers and sisters of the excitement of its passage; for the stage road ran by the small clearing, in the centre of which their house and barn had been built--a primitive gabled house, like a Noah’s ark, ugliness unadorned, and a cheap log barn of the “lean-to” type, with its cracks corked with moss, and a roof of slabs.

Jack Frost might stop the mail, but he could not stop the gayeties of the season. “Wooden frolics” and quilting-parties and candy-pullings and infares and Baptist revival-meetings had been as frequent as ever; and part of Matt’s enjoyment of his couch was a delicious sense of oversleeping himself legitimately, for even his mother could hardly expect him to build the fire at five when he had only returned from Deacon Hailey’s “muddin’ frolic” at two. He saw himself coasting down the white slopes in his hand-sled, watching the wavering radiance of the northern lights that paled the moon and the stars, and wishing his mother would not spoil the after-glow of the night’s pleasure and the poetic silence of the woods by grumbling about his grown-up sister Harriet, who had deserted them for an earlier escort home. He felt himself well rewarded for his afternoon’s labor in loading marsh mud for the top-dressing of Deacon Hailey’s fields; and a sudden remembrance of how his mother had been rewarded for helping Mrs. Hailey to prepare the feast made him nudge Billy in his turn.

“Cheer up, Billy. We’ve brought back a basket o’ goodies: there’s plum-cake, doughnuts--”

“It’s gettin’ worst,” said Billy. “Hark!”

Matt mumbled impatiently and redirected his thoughts to the “muddin’ frolic.” The images of the night swept before him with almost the vividness of actuality; he lost himself in memories as though they were realities, and every now and then a dash of sleep streaked these waking visions with the fantasy of dream.

“My, how the fiddle shrieks!” runs the boy’s reminiscence. “Why don’t ole Jupe do his tunin’ to home, the pesky nigger? We’re all waitin’ for the reel--the ‘fours’ are all made up; Ruth Hailey and me hev took the floor. Ruth looks jest great with thet white frock an’ the pink sash, thet’s a fact. Hooray!--‘The Devil among the Tailors!’--La, lalla, lalla, lalla, lalla, flip-flop!” He hears the big winter top-boots thwack the threshing-floor. Keep it up! Whoop! Faster! Ever faster! Oh, the joy of life!

Now he is swinging Ruth in his arms. Oh, the merry-go-round! The long rows of candles pinned by forks to the barn walls are guttering in the wind of the movement; the horses tied to their mangers neigh in excitement; from between their stanchions the mild-eyed cows gaze at the dancers, perking their naïve noses and tranquilly chewing the cud. A bat, thawed out of his winter nap by the heat of the temporary stove, flutters drowsily about the candles; and the odors of the stable and of the packed hay mingle with the scents of the ball-room. Matt’s exhaustive eye, though never long off pretty Ruth’s face, takes in even the grains of wheat that gild many a tousled head of swain or lass as the shaking of the beams dislodges the unthreshed kernels in the mow under the eaves, and, keener even than the eye of his collie, Sprat, notes the mice that dart from their holes to seize the fallen drops of tallow. But perhaps Sprat is only lazy, for he will not vacate his uncomfortable snuggery under the stove, though he has to shift his carcass incessantly to escape the jets of tobacco-juice constantly squirted in his direction. It serves him right, thinks his young master, for persisting in coming, though, for the matter of that, the creature, having superintended the mud-hauling, has more right to be present than Bully Preep. “Wonder why sister Harriet lets him dance with her so of’n!” the panorama of his thought proceeds. “What kin she see in the skunk, fur lan’ sakes? I told her ’bout the way he bully-ragged me when he was boss o’ the school and I was a teeny shaver. But she don’t seem to care a snap. Girls are queer critters, thet’s a fact. He used to put a chip on my shoulder, an’ egg the fellers on to flick it off. But, gosh! didn’t I hit him a lick when he pulled little Ruth’s hair? He’d a black eye, thet’s a fact, though he giv’ me two, an’ mother an’ teacher ’ud a giv’ me one more apiece, but there warn’t no more left. I took it out in picters though, I guess. My! didn’t ole McTavit’s face jest look reedic’lous when he discovered Bully Preep in the fly-leaf of every readin’-book. Thet’s jest how mother is glarin’ at Harriet this moment. Pop! pop! pop! What a lot o’ ginger-beer an’ spruce-beer Deacon Hailey is openin’! Pop! pop! pop! He don’t seem to notice them thar black bottles o’ rum. He’s ’tarnal cute, is ole Hey. Seems like he’s talkin’ to mother. Wonder how she kin understand him. He allus talks as if his mouth was full o’ words--but it’s on’y tobacco, I reckon. Pop! pop! pop! Thet’s what I allus hear him say, windin’ up with a ‘Hey’--an’ it does rile me some to refuse pumpkin-pie, not knowin’ he’s invitin’ me to anythin’ but hay. I ’spect mother’s heerd him talk considerable, just es I’ve heerd the jays an’ the woodpeckers; though she kin’t tell one from t’other, I vow, through bein’ raised at Halifax. Thunderation! thet’s never her dancin’ with ole Hey! My stars, what’ll her elders say? Well, I wow! She is backslidin’. Ah, she recollecks! She pulls up, her face is like a beet. Ole Hey is argufyin’, but she hangs back in her traces. I reckon she kinder thinks she’s kicked over the dashboard this time. Ah, he’s gone and taken Harriet for a pardner instead; he’ll like sister better, I guess. By gum! He’s kickin’ up his heels like a colt when it fust feels the crupper. I do declare Marm Hailey is lookin’ pesky ugly ’bout it. She’s a mighty handsome critter, anyways. Pity she kin’t wear her hat with the black feather indoors--she does look jest spliffin’ when she drives her horses through the snow. Whoop! Keep it up! Sling it out, ole Jupe! More rosin. Yankee doodle, keep it up, Yankee doodle dandy! Go it, you cripples; I’ll hold your crutches! Why, there’s Billy dancin’ with the crutch I made him!” he tells himself as his vision merges in dream. “Pop! pop! pop! How his crutch thumps the floor! Poor Billy! Fancy hevin’ to hop through life on thet thar crutch, like a robin on one leg! Or shall I hev to make him a longer one when he’s growed up? Mebbe he won’t grow up--mebbe he’ll allus be the identical same size; and when he’s an ole man he’ll be the right size again, an’ the crutch’ll on’y be a sorter stick. I wish I hed a stick to make this durned cow keep quiet--I kin’t milk her! So! so! Daisy! Ole Jupe’s music ain’t for four-legged critters to dance to! My! what’s thet nonsense ’bout a cow? Why, I’m dreamin’. Whoa, there! Give her a tickler in the ribs, Billy. Hullo! look out! here’s father come back from sea! Quick, Billy, chuck your crutch in the hay-mow. Kin’t you stand straighter nor that? Unkink your leg, or father’ll never take you out to be a pirate. Fancy a pirate on a crutch! It was my fault, father, for fixin’ up thet thar fandango, but mother’s lambasted me a’ready, an’ she wanted to shoot herself. But it don’t matter to you, father--you’re allus away a’most, an’ Billy’s crutch kin’t get into your eye like it does into mother’s. She was afeared to write to you ’bout it. Thet’s on’y Billy in a fit--you see, Daisy kicked him, and they couldn’t fix his leg back proper; it don’t fit, so he hes fits now an’ then. He’ll never be a pirate now. Drive the crutch deeper into the ice, Charley; steady there with the long pole. The iron pin goes into the crutch, Billy; don’t get off the ashes, you’ll slide under the sled. Now, then, is the rope right? Jump on the sled, you girls and fellers! Round with the pole! Whoop! Hooray! Ain’t she scootin’ jest! Let her rip! Pop! Snap! Geewiglets! The rope’s give! Don’t jump off, Billy, I tell you; you’ll kill yourself! Stick in your toes an’ don’t yowl; we’ll slacken at the dykes. Look at Ruth--_she_ don’t scream. Thunderation! We’re goin’ over into the river! Hold tight, you uns! Bang! Smash! We’re on the ice-cakes! Is thet you thet’s screamin’, Billy? You ain’t hurt, I tell you--don’t yowl--you gooney--don’t--”