Rolf in the Woods

At the west side they were to invite Mrs. Callan to join their shopping trip, but in any case they were to borrow a horse and buckboard. Neither Mrs. Callan nor the buckboard was available, but they were welcome to the horse. So Annette was made comfortable on a bundle of blankets, and chattered incessantly while Rolf walked alongside with the grave interest and superiority of a much older brother. So they crossed the five-mile portage and came to Warren’s store. Nervous and excited, with sparkling eyes, Annette laid down her marten skin, received five dollars, and set about the tremendous task of selecting her first dress of really, truly calico print; and Rolf realized that the joy he had found in his new rifle was a very small affair, compared with the epoch-making, soul-filling, life-absorbing, unspeakable, and cataclysmal bliss that a small girl can have in her first chance of unfettered action in choice of a cotton print.

“Beautiful?” How can mere words do justice to masses of yellow corn, mixed recklessly with green and scarlet poppies on a bright blue ground. No, you should have seen Annette’s dress, or you cannot expect to get the adequate thrill. And when they found that there was enough cash left over to add a red cotton parasol to the glorious spoils, every one there beamed in a sort of friendly joy, and the trader, carried away by the emotions of the hour, contributed a set of buttons of shining brass.

Warren kept a “meal house,” which phrase was a ruse that saved him from a burdensome hospitality. Determined to do it all in the best style, Rolf took Annette to the meal-house table. She was deeply awed by the grandeur of a tablecloth and white plates, but every one was kind.

Warren, talking to a stranger opposite, and evidently resuming a subject they had discussed, said:

“Yes, I’d like to send the hull lot down to Albany this week, if I could get another man for the canoe.”

Rolf was interested at once and said: “What wages are you offering?”

“Twenty-five dollars and board.”

“How will I do?”

“Well,” said Warren, as though thinking it over: “I dunno but ye would. Could ye go to-morrow?”

“Yes, indeed, for one month.”

“All right, it’s a bargain.”

And so Rolf took the plunge that influenced his whole life.

But Annette whispered gleefully and excitedly, “May I have some of that, and that?” pointing to every strange food she could see, and got them all.

After noon they set out on their return journey, Annette clutching her prizes, and prattling incessantly, while Rolf walked alongside, thinking deeply, replying to her chatter, but depressed by the thought of good-bye tomorrow. He was aroused at length by a scraping sound overhead and a sharp reprimand, “Rolf, you’ll tear my new parasol, if you don’t lead the horse better.”

By two o’clock they were at Callan’s. Another hour and they had crossed the lake, and Annette, shrill with joy, was displaying her treasures to the wonder and envy of her kin.

Making a dress was a simple matter in those and Marta promised: “Yah, soom day ven I one have, shall I it sew.” Meanwhile, Annette was quaffing deep, soul-satisfying draughts in the mere contempt of the yellow, red, green, and blue glories in which was soon to appear in public. And when the bed came, she fell asleep holding the dress-goods stuff in arms, and with the red parasol spread above her head, tired out, but inexpressibly happy.

Chapter 53. Travelling to the Great City

He’s a bad failure that ain’t king in some little corner.

— Sayings of Sylvanne Sylvanne

The children were not astir when Rolf was off in the morning. He caught a glimpse of Annette, still asleep under the red parasol, but the dress goods and the brass buttons had fallen to the floor. He stepped into the canoe. The dead calm of early morning was on the water, and the little craft went skimming and wimpling across. In half an hour it was beached at Callan’s. In a little more than an hour’s jog and stride he was at Warren’s, ready for work. As he marched in, strong and brisk, his colour up, his blue eyes kindled with the thought of seeing Albany, the trader could not help being struck by him, especially when he remembered each of their meetings — meetings in which he discerned a keen, young mind of good judgment, one that could decide quickly.

Gazing at the lithe, red-checked lad, he said: “Say, Rolf, air ye an Injun??”

“No, sir.”

“Air ye a half-breed?”

“No, I’m a Yank; my name is Kittering; born and bred in Redding, Connecticut.”

“Well, I swan, ye look it. At fust I took ye fur an Injun; ye did look dark (and Rolf laughed inside, as he thought of that butternut dye), but I’m bound to say we’re glad yer white.”

“Here, Bill, this is Rolf, Rolf Kittering, he’ll go with ye to Albany.” Bill, a loose-jointed, middle-aged, flat-footed, large-handed, semi-loafer, with keen gray eyes, looked up from a bundle he was roping.