Flitting whitethroats and chewinks shot in and out of the sun-patches of the May woods, and a hen-partridge stood stiffly on the end of a log, clucking to the young brood that scurried through the ferns, as David, pausing frequently as though looking for some one, came down the trail from the three cabins.

The hen-partridge, unruffled and tense, stretched her neck straighter, but gave no sign of departing. Farther on, a noisy squirrel filled the woods with his running-down-clock-works diminuendo as the intruder passed him. A rabbit hopped leisurely along the shady path, stopping at intervals to sit up. His left oblique into the bushes, as David came nearer, was a flashing epitome of startled agility, and as the dab of cotton on the rear end of the epitome disappeared, David laughed.

“Feelin’ purty good this mornin’, Dave?”

David stopped and gazed about him.

“Here I be,” called Avery, striding toward him David was amused to see that the old man had been picking wild-flowers.

“Looks kind of queer to ye, don’t it—me a-pickin’ posies, though it do be a Sunday mornin’.” Hoss rubbed his hand down his forehead, along his nose, and so on, to the end of his beard, which he wound round one finger and released slowly. It seemed as though he had drawn off the harlequin mask worn on work-days. Despite the all-but-sealed and watery orifice where his “off eye,” as he called it, used to be, and the blink and twinkle of his good eye, the old man looked dignified, almost majestical. Perhaps the fact that he was not chewing tobacco lent him a certain impressive unreality. He usually plunged into a narrative like a bull going through a snake-fence, head down and tail whisking. Now he seemed to be mentally letting down the bars, one by one, that he might carry himself with dignity into unfrequented fields of reminiscence.

“Mebby you have often been wonderin’ how I come to have the name of ‘Hoss.’ Like as not you have thought of it. A city feller ast me thet once, but he didn’t find out; howcome I did tell him it mought pussibly be fur the same reason he oughter be called a Jassax. He didn’t ast me no distickly pussonel questions a’ter thet.

“Mebby likewise you’re wonderin’ how I come to lose this here blinker. Another feller ast me thet onct. I didn’t do nothin’ to him. I jest said, says I, ‘I overworked it tryin’ to see too fur into other folkses business.’ And he quit astin’ me pussonel questions, likewise. Now, you ain’t never ast me nothin’ like thet; howcome I reckon you be goin’ to ast me suthin’, from the way you be lookin’ at me. And you kin, and I’ll tell you.”

“I did want to see you,” replied David. “Of course, you know Swickey and I are going to be married, but I thought I’d come and ask you for her just the same.”

“Wal, thet’s what I call mighty ginerous of you; howcome I don’t see as you be worryin’ what the answer’ll be.”

“We intend to go for a trip,” continued David. “I want my Aunt Elizabeth to know Swickey,—I know they will like each other,—and I want Swickey to see something of the country before we settle down here to stay. We want you to come with us.”

“Say, Dave, thet’s as near to tellin’ a lie as I ever knowed you to come. Do you reckon I’d spile your trip and Swickey’s trip by ridin’ on them trains and hangin’ around hotels in store-clothes and feelin’ mis’rable?”

“But we want you—Swickey says she won’t go unless you come.”

“No,” replied the old man. “Swickey thinks she wants me and she says she won’t go ’less I come, hey?” He chuckled at David’s seriousness. “My whiskers ain’t gray jest because I like ’em thet way. I was young onct—and mebby you mought figure out thet Swickey had a ma onct, likewise.”

“Of course—I know that, but—”

“And seein’ as I’m givin’ you my gal,—howcome I reckon she’s guv herself on the resk I’d say ‘yes,’—you jest let me enj’y it my way, and stay to home. When you thinkin’ of leavin’?” he asked, after a pause.

“We haven’t just decided on the day, but we should like to go some time this month. It’s May—”

“Uhuh, it’s May ... May,” he muttered. “Think you kin leave Swickey up at the house fur a spell? I got suthin’ to say ’bout her ma, and I ain’t never felt like sayin’ it to you afore this.”

David came and sat on the log beside him.

“It’s kind of good,” said Avery, “to empty out a feller’s insides,—meanin’ the place where he keeps storin’ up feelin’s ’bout what are done and can’t be did over ag’in,—and take a fresh start so’st he kin fill up ag’in ’thout crowdin’. ’Long about this time of year when growin’ things is takin’ a new holt on the ground, birds singin’ and flies and skeeters jest commencin’ to feel their oats, I allus come up here and gits some of these”—pointing to the trilliums he had gathered—“fur a friend. I allus gits white uns, howcome the red uns is purty.” And he took a single stalk and turned it round and round meditatively.

“When I was consid’able older than you be, I was called ‘Bud.’ ‘Bud Avery,’ they called me. Hosses was my failin’ and my luck. Nex’ to a good woman, I reckon a hoss is ’bout the best thing they is. I was a purty frisky young blue-jay them days, goin’ to all the raisin-bees, dancin’, trappin’ at times, drinkin’ licker, fightin’ and bein’ fit. The feller what got this here eye, he never tole no pusson ’bout it, so no pusson knows, aside of him, jest how it come to not be thar. He were a French-Canady man. He come over the line—in a hurry, too, I reckon—and brung his sister along. He built a cabin on the p’int at the head of the lake, near where I was livin’ then, and went into the woods workin’ fur the Great Western, what was cuttin’ timber them days. I was haulin’ fur the Comp’ny at the time and he was workin’ with the crew swampin’ out roads. He never said much to no one and some said he had a good reason fur keepin’ still. And he had. Seems he knifed a breed over in Canady, fur gettin’ sassy to his sister when he had licker in him. No, the breed—Jules—warn’t the drinkin’ sort. Jules Marbeau was his name. Anyhow, he had to light out, and he brung his sister along. She stuck to him, seein’ as the row was about her. She reckoned to keep him stiddy; howcome the knifin’ business warn’t none of her fault. Her name was Nanette.”

The trillium ceased its twirling in Avery’s fingers, and nodded at the pause as if saying daintily, “Nanette, Nanette.”

“I were drivin’ a team of big grays then. Feet on ’em as big as your hat and built accordin’ to their feet. They was as likely a team as they was in the woods. They used their heads workin’ as well as their feet. Long’s they was mine nobody never laid a hame or a britchin’ over ’em but me. I worked them hosses—Gray Billy and Gray Tom—by feelin’ ’em through the lines and lettin’ ’em feel what I wanted through the lines. You understand?”

David nodded.

“My cabin and stable was a few rods from Marbeau’s cabin, and sometimes Jules and Nanette would come over to see ‘Mo’sieur Averee’s beeg hosses.’ She would talk to ’em and pat ’em and she were special fond of Gray Billy and he were special fond of her. Thet hoss knowed her step and used to whinner afore he seed her comin’. She ’most allus had a piece of maple sugar for ’em. I reckon thet helped ’em remember, likewise. I used to go over their way some, too, in the evenin’s. Jules he never said much, but smoked. Me and Nanette done most of the talkin’, sech as we could, seein’ I warn’t no Frencher, but nex’ to a hoss a woman kin understand some things ’thout talkin’ ’most as good as a hoss kin.

“Wal, it was goin’ on three year I’d been comin’ in the evenin’s, sayin’ to myself I’d ast her nex’ time, but nex’ time I come I’d set and figure how to go at it, bein’ short on the French words, to make a good job of it, and one night—wal, anyhow—I ast her and she promised. Said she’d take me along with the hosses so ’st to keep us all t’gither. Said she liked Gray Billy more’n she done me,—jokin’, fur sure,—but she warn’t jokin’ when she put her hands out and said, quiet-like, jest as I was leavin’ her thar in the moonlight, ‘Bud, I know you good to Gray Billy and Gray Tom and I know you be good to me.’

“It warn’t jest what I calc’lated she’d say, if I done any calc’latin’ jest then, but it sounded like it was so. And it was.

“Wal, we went to keepin’ house, and was as happy as plain folks got any right to be. Then the baby come, my Swickey—and then we was as happy as God A’mighty calc’lates to let any kind of folks git, whatsoever. For two years we jest lived right clus to thet baby, and then—

“Wal, Gray Billy was a onlucky hoss. Settin’ aside bein’ a prime fav’rite with Nanette and seein’ as I’d never laid a gad to him in his life, Billy were onlucky—fur us.

“Nanette’s brother Jules were ’fraid of thet team,—bad sign, I take it, when a man’s sca’d of hosses,—and one day he come over at noon to talk about the foller we was goin’ to work t’gither in the spring. It was winter then and he were jest a-goin’ back to his work in the woods, when Billy, what was standin’ steamin’ in the cold from a big mornin’s haulin’, shook hisself, makin’ a sharp rattlin’ noise with the trace-hooks. Jules he had hair-trigger nerves and he throwed up one arm like as if some one was comin’ from behint, and stepped back a’most under Gray Billy’s nose. Thet hoss didn’t jerk up his head like I seen some. No, sir! He brung his head down slantin’ and quick, and he bit. He was a big hoss and pow’ful. Then I knowed Jules was bad clean through, howcome I kin sca’cely say how I knowed.

“Jules he screamed, and afore I could wink he had thet quick knife of his ’n into Gray Billy twict. You won’t think I’m jokin’ when I tell you I felt thet knife like as if it was in me. And I’d ruther it had of been.

“Billy riz up and a’most fell back, but I didn’t wait to see what come of him. I quit feelin’ like a human. I commenced to feel big and strong and quiet inside, like God A’mighty. I walked over to Jules, takin’ off my mackinaw as I went. He didn’t move. Jest stood thar holdin’ thet knife as was drip, drip, drippin’, makin’ leetle red holes in the snow.

“‘Keep the knife,’ I says. ‘You are a-goin’ to need it’; and then I only recollec’ suthin’ hot across this here eye and I had a holt of him. I could lift a bar’l of flour by the chimes, them days.... When I had stomped what I reckoned to be all the life outen him, I took Gray Billy by the forelock—his bridle bein’ off so ’st he could eat—and led him up to the thing on the snow. ‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I can’t see good—suthin’ queer in my eyes, but I kin see a black suthin’ on the snow what mebby was a man onct and mebby not. Thet man stuck a knife into you, but he won’t stick no hosses no more.’

“Then I led Billy acrost the thing on the snow, twict, but thet hoss stepped over it, instid of on it as I were wishful. Then I kind of slumped down ag’in’ a tree and went to sleep. The boys come back on the road a’ter the noon spell, and found me settin’ ag’in’ the tree, and it layin’ on the snow, and Gray Billy a-shiverin’ whenever anybody come a-nigh him. The hoss got along purty good, but was always a bit tetchy a’ter thet knifin’ business. He never feared me none, though. Jules warn’t dead, which were no fault of mine, but Gray Billy’s.

“I recollec’ layin’ in the cabin thet night, listenin’ to the kettle bilin’ and the baby chirrupin’ and Nanette movin’ round. She come in whar I was and see I was some easier than when they fetched me home. ‘Bud,’ she says, ‘you almos’ keel Jule.’ ‘Reckon I have,’ says I. ‘Ain’t he dead yit?’ She didn’t say nothin’ to thet. ‘You seen Billy’s shoulder?’ says I. ‘Oui, Bud,’ she says. Thet was all. A woman kin understand some things without talkin’ ’most as good as a hoss kin. But Billy were onlucky. Jules he pulled through—them kind allus does—and went up into Canady ag’in—Northwest Territ’ry this time. Spring come and I got so ’st I could see outen my good eye. One evenin’ Nanette she fetched in a bunch of them flowers, the white uns, and fixed ’em up on the table. I reckoned thet was sign thet Jule hed got well. It came along to rain about sundown, and I started to go and see to the hosses. Then she says, ‘No, Bud, not yet. You take cold.’ And she reached down one of Jule’s ole coats and says, ‘I go.’ And why she kissed me and laughed and then kissed leetle Swickey, and said ‘Good-bye, Bud,’—jokin’ fur sure.—I ain’t never understood yit. I was pretendin’ to play with the baby when I heard a goin’s-on in the stable, and when Nanette didn’t come back I went out to see.”

As Avery paused David noticed that his big-knuckled hands were folded on his knee in unconscious finality. He was treading very softly toward the end of his journey.

“Thet coat done it! Gray Billy smelt thet coat of Jule’s, and from what I could see, he lashed out jest as she come behint him. I carried her in and laid her on the bed. When she spoke, I could sca’c’ly hear,—her side was crushed in suthin’ turrible.

“‘Bud,’ she says, ‘Gray Billy didn’t know it was me. He thought—it—was—’ and then she said suthin’ in French, what, I couldn’t ketch. I reckon she prayed.

“Then she kep’ astin’ me suthin’ with her eyes. I brung Swickey to her and she tetched the baby’s dress. I seed she was goin’. Then I stooped down and she whispered, drawin’ in her breath and holdin’ it fur every word, ‘Good-bye, Bud. Be good to Billy.’ Then she tetched the baby ag’in. ‘Take—care—of—her—.’ She lifted herself up and then fell back.... I don’t recollec’ clear....”

Avery had long passed the point where David’s interest in the story meant anything to him. He was regathering old memories, and he spoke, not of them but through them, with a simplicity and forgetfulness of his present self that showed the giant behind the genial mask, albeit battered by age and perilous toil. Presently he remembered David and continued:

“Wal, I sold Gray Billy and Gray Tom. Hain’t never tetched a hoss since. But a’ter thet the name of ‘Hoss’ sorter crawled along ahead of me from camp to camp. Then I took to handlin’ the dinnimite.”

He gathered the trilliums together and arose.

“Nanette’s posies,” he said, half to himself. Turning to David he handed him the flowers. “Here, Dave, take ’em to Swickey, and tell her her Pa says she kin go.”

THE END

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