Chapter 31
“It will smell,” I said, “but it will keep in the heat and keep out therain and snow.”
We were surveying the completed seal-skin roof.
“It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the mainthing,” I went on, yearning for her praise.
And she clapped her hands and declared that she was hugely pleased.
“But it is dark in here,” she said the next moment, her shouldersshrinking with a little involuntary shiver.
“You might have suggested a window when the walls were going up,” I said.“It was for you, and you should have seen the need of a window.”
“But I never do see the obvious, you know,” she laughed back. “Andbesides, you can knock a hole in the wall at any time.”
“Quite true; I had not thought of it,” I replied, wagging my head sagely.“But have you thought of ordering the window-glass? Just call up thefirm,—Red, 4451, I think it is,—and tell them what size and kind of glassyou wish.”
“That means—” she began.
“No window.”
It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aughtbetter than swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known themisery of the open boat, it was a snug little habitation. Following thehousewarming, which was accomplished by means of seal-oil and a wick madefrom cotton calking, came the hunting for our winter’s meat and thebuilding of the second hut. It was a simple affair, now, to go forth inthe morning and return by noon with a boatload of seals. And then, whileI worked at building the hut, Maud tried out the oil from the blubber andkept a slow fire under the frames of meat. I had heard of jerking beefon the plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and hung in thesmoke, cured excellently.
The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the first, andonly three walls were required. But it was work, hard work, all of it.Maud and I worked from dawn till dark, to the limit of our strength, sothat when night came we crawled stiffly to bed and slept the animal-likesleep exhaustion. And yet Maud declared that she had never felt betteror stronger in her life. I knew this was true of myself, but hers wassuch a lily strength that I feared she would break down. Often andoften, her last-reserve force gone, I have seen her stretched flat on herback on the sand in the way she had of resting and recuperating. Andthen she would be up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. Where sheobtained this strength was the marvel to me.
“Think of the long rest this winter,” was her reply to my remonstrances.“Why, we’ll be clamorous for something to do.”
We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It was the endof the third day of a fierce storm which had swung around the compassfrom the south-east to the north-west, and which was then blowingdirectly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove were thundering withthe surf, and even in our land-locked inner cove a respectable sea wasbreaking. No high backbone of island sheltered us from the wind, and itwhistled and bellowed about the hut till at times I feared for thestrength of the walls. The skin roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, Ihad thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and innumerableinterstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud hadsupposed, disclosed themselves. Yet the seal-oil burned brightly and wewere warm and comfortable.
It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social functionon Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our minds were atease. Not only had we resigned ourselves to the bitter winter, but wewere prepared for it. The seals could depart on their mysterious journeyinto the south at any time, now, for all we cared; and the storms held noterror for us. Not only were we sure of being dry and warm and shelteredfrom the wind, but we had the softest and most luxurious mattresses thatcould be made from moss. This had been Maud’s idea, and she had herselfjealously gathered all the moss. This was to be my first night on themattress, and I knew I should sleep the sweeter because she had made it.
As she rose to go she turned to me with the whimsical way she had, andsaid:
“Something is going to happen—is happening, for that matter. I feel it.Something is coming here, to us. It is coming now. I don’t know what,but it is coming.”
“Good or bad?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it is there, somewhere.”
She pointed in the direction of the sea and wind.
“It’s a lee shore,” I laughed, “and I am sure I’d rather be here thanarriving, a night like this.”
“You are not frightened?” I asked, as I stepped to open the door for her.
Her eyes looked bravely into mine.
“And you feel well? perfectly well?”
“Never better,” was her answer.
We talked a little longer before she went.
“Good-night, Maud,” I said.
“Good-night, Humphrey,” she said.
This use of our given names had come about quite as a matter of course,and was as unpremeditated as it was natural. In that moment I could haveput my arms around her and drawn her to me. I should certainly have doneso out in that world to which we belonged. As it was, the situationstopped there in the only way it could; but I was left alone in my littlehut, glowing warmly through and through with a pleasant satisfaction; andI knew that a tie, or a tacit something, existed between us which had notexisted before.