LeClare’s Story: The Initialed Tree.

“It’s only a boy and girl story, but, all the same, that’s why I’ve been a gold digger. At our first meeting on the plains I said I was from the Eastern provinces. That was all right for the time. The truth happens to be, though, that our native homes are separated only by the fifteen miles of intervening water channels of the Archipelago. When you look to the southward from your farm on The Front, across the great expanse of water, dotted here and there with wooded islands, and then extend the view to the sloping sides of the irregular mountain range which meets the eye, you may perhaps see there, reposing sleepily upon the banks of the winding Salmon, a small American village. Four miles down the river, after traversing for the full distance the cranberry marshes of Arcadia, its waters are gathered into one of the nearest channels of the St. Lawrence. The approach is so unpretentious that the coming of its added volume is only recognized by the idler drifting in his canoe along the shores of the Archipelago from the blue and gray color line made by the mingling of the waters. For it is just here at this line that the now docile mountain cataracts of the Adirondacks are greeted by the turquoise-blue waters flowing seaward from the Great Lakes.

“In Darrington, this village on the Salmon, lived Lucy Maynard. Two miles to the eastward, upon one of the fertile farms in the valley of the St. Lawrence, was my home. There I was taught the law of the Ten Commandments, living in the midst of sunshine and happiness and blest with the love of a devoted father and mother. This is only a childish romance, Andy, and perhaps you don’t care to hear it.”

“Go on, Edmond,” came the reply. “You know my story. Now tell me yours.”

“At the age of seventeen I had been considered by my parents a graduate from the district school, and at the beginning of the Autumn term I was entered in the intermediate grade of the high school up in the village of Darrington. This was an auspicious event in my hitherto uneventful career. Living always upon the farm, my playmates and acquaintances were of the neighboring farm children. Tramping the same way to the district school-house, we had pelted the croaking frogs in the ditches by the roadside, and fired stones at the rows of swallows swinging upon the telegraph wires, and in the season we picked the daisies from the nearby fields, handing them roughly, almost rudely, to the girl of our choice amongst the strolling group of school children; while in the Autumn, in the groves by the roadside, we hurled sticks high into the chestnut trees, then scrambled upon our hands and knees at a lucky throw we had made, each to pocket his catch. Simple and healthful were our sports. Barefooted we stubbed our toes in the game of ‘tag’ and at ball games in ‘Three Old Cats,’ where ‘over the fence is out.’ We were each a star player of the national game. Happy children of the country, Andy, primitive in thought, with gentle rural manners, acquired in the religious homes of a Scotch Presbyterian settlement. Once a week upon the Sunday, since childhood, I attended with my father and mother the church at Darrington, and there wistfully, shyly, I looked across the high backs of the family pews at the children of the villagers. In my childish mind their lot in life was greatly to be envied and admired, compared with mine. Their ‘store’ clothes and their pert, familiar manner placed them in my estimation so far above my station in the social scale that my deference toward them amounted to something like worship.

“In one of the family seats, across and several pews advanced from ours, moving restlessly about between her father and mother, was a handsome, large-eyed child, forever looking backward, and, of course I fancied, often glancing in my direction. She was Lucy Maynard. For years, and until I entered the village high school, we had seen each other upon Sundays, across the backs of the seats, never a word from either, nor a smile of recognition, Lucy’s large, brown eyes looking toward me as she knelt on her knees upon the seat; then, as I returned her wistful gaze, she would sink slowly down upon her mother’s shoulder, burying her face from view. I saw her grow to be a young lady, a village lady; she saw me an awkward country boy. In childhood I dared to return her glances. As a boy of seventeen, when I found myself that autumn in the village high school, in the same class with the girl always before me in my youthful day dreams, I had not the courage even to look in the direction of the seat which she occupied.

“Everything seemed strange to me, Andy. I knew nothing in common with the village boys. They played ball differently; they called their game of ‘hide and seek’ by another name, and they didn’t even throw stones at a mark as we had done in the country. Some of the boys tolerated my backwardness and others turned up their noses at my awkward attempts at being agreeable. But one silent champion I felt I always had during those first weeks of my introduction into that school. Standing near in the hallways, with others girls in our class, at recess, Lucy Maynard, with that soulful look from those large, brown eyes, reproved the boy whose rude remark was aimed at the defenseless, or the one slowest at repartee in the gossip under discussion.

“A few weeks of the Autumn term had passed, and the class in mathematics had been requested to remain after the grades had been dismissed, to receive further instruction from the professor. A board walk extends the full length of the campus from the school-house, ending in a turnstile at the street. The class dismissed, I hurried out of the building. Rustling behind me in a quick step came a young lady. I knew instinctively it was Lucy.

“‘Don’t you think it is about time you had something to say to me, Mr. LeClare?’ she said, as she came beside me. ‘I won’t think you are a bit nice if you go on like this.’ I felt my face turning red, and I forgot everything I had learned a thousand times before to say to her. Then I begged her pardon for nearly stepping upon her, and I felt that I was about to collapse. The turnstile came to my assistance, and, as Lucy lived in an opposite direction from that in which I had to go, we parted. I had regained enough of my scattered senses, though, to thank her for having spoken to me.

“The Winter term of school had come and gone, and the Summer closing was at hand. The other boys in my class had soon overlooked my misfortune, as they considered it, of having lived in the country, and I was proud of the devotion of Lucy, whose name was now paired off with mine, as were the other boys and girls paired off in our same class. To celebrate the close of the school, the class proposed a basket party to be held upon the bank of the St. Lawrence, each male member of the party offering to row his share of the ladies in his separate boat down the winding Salmon, a five miles jaunt. With Lucy at the helm, my craft sped down stream propelled by a youthful spirit of pride and enthusiasm.

“Dinner under the trees on Tyno’s Point was quickly over, and the young admirers soon found some interesting object to engage their attention in pairs. Lucy and I, always quieter when alone, had realized that very shortly we would not see each other as often, and that perhaps in the next year we should be sent away to different colleges.

“And thus it came about that as we knelt carving our initials, one above the other, on the trunk of a basswood tree, we queried: ‘Shall we always grow up together in life as our names will always remain together on this tree?’ Lucy said: ‘I will cut one stroke in the frame to inclose our names which says we will,’ and she cut a strip in the bark over the initials. Then she looked into my eyes with that soul-pleading look, and I at once cut a line down one side. Lucy immediately cut the mark for the opposite side, and three sides of the frame were then formed. It was my turn, and I hesitated, for I knew what it meant to both of us. I thought it too early for an engagement. Lucy sank slowly down by the side of the tree, as she used to do from the back of the seat in church upon her mother’s shoulder, and waited for me to say something. I was wrong, Andy. I said we’d better wait before we made the other stroke to complete the frame. There was an awkward silence; Lucy toyed with the penknife she held in her hand, but looked no more at the initials cut into the bark of the tree.”