“Nickie, where we’re going to live isn’t as solemn as this, is it?”
“No. Don’t you worry. There it’s cheerful. You just enjoy this, Littless. This is good for you. This is the way forests were in the olden days. This is about the last good country there is left. Nobody gets in here ever.”
“I love the olden days. But I wouldn’t want it all this solemn.”
“It wasn’t all solemn. But the hemlock forests were.”
“It’s wonderful walking. I thought behind our house was wonderful. But this is better. Nickie, do you believe in God? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. You don’t have to say it. But you don’t mind if I say my prayers at night?”
“No. I’ll remind you if you forget.”
“Thank you. Because this kind of woods makes me feel awfully religious.”
“That’s why they build cathedrals to be like this.”
“You’ve never seen a cathedral, have you?”
“No. But I’ve read about them and I can imagine them. This is the best one we have around here.”
“Do you think we can go to Europe some time and see cathedrals?”
“Sure we will. But first I have to get out of this trouble and learn how to make some money.”
“Do you think you’ll ever make money writing?”
“If I get good enough.”
“Couldn’t you maybe make it if you wrote cheerfuller things? That isn’t my opinion. Our mother said everything you write is morbid.”
“It’s too morbid for the
“But the
“I know,” said Nick. “But I’m too morbid for it already. And I’m not even grown-up.”
“When is a man grown-up? When he’s married?”
“No. Until you’re grown-up they send you to reform school. After you’re grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.”
“I’m glad you’re not grown-up then.”
“They’re not going to send me anywhere,” Nick said. “And let’s not talk morbid even if I write morbid.”
“I didn’t say it was morbid.”
“I know. Everybody else does, though.”
“Let’s be cheerful, Nickie,” his sister said. “These woods make us too solemn.”
“We’ll be out of them pretty soon,” Nick told her. “Then you’ll see where we’re going to live. Are you hungry, Littless?”
“A little.”
“I’ll bet,” Nick said. “We’ll eat a couple of apples.”
They were coming down a long hill when they saw sunlight ahead through the tree trunks. Now, at the edge of the timber, there was wintergreen growing and some partridgeberries and the forest floor began to be alive with growing things. Through the tree trunks they saw an open meadow that sloped to where white birches grew along the stream. Below the meadow and the line of the birches there was the dark green of a cedar swamp and far beyond the swamp there were dark blue hills. There was an arm of the lake between the swamp and the hills. But from here they could not see it. They only felt from the distances that it was there.
“Here’s the spring,” Nick said to his sister. “And here’s the stones where I camped before.”
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful place, Nickie,” his sister said. “Can we see the lake, too?”
“There’s a place where we can see it. But it’s better to camp here. I’ll get some wood and we’ll make breakfast.”
“The firestones are very old.”
“It’s a very old place,” Nick said. “The firestones are Indian.”
“How did you come to it straight through the woods with no trail and no blazes?”
“Didn’t you see the direction sticks on the three ridges?”
“No.”
“I’ll show them to you sometime.”
“Are they yours?”
“No. They’re from the old days.”
“Why didn’t you show them to me?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “I was showing off I guess.”
“Nickie, they’ll never find us here.”
“I hope not,” Nick said.
At about the time that Nick and his sister were entering the first of the slashings the warden who was sleeping on the screen porch of the house that stood in the shade of the trees above the lake was wakened by the sun that, rising above the slope of open land behind the house, shone full on his face.
During the night the warden had gotten up for a drink of water and when he had come back from the kitchen he had lain down on the floor with a cushion from one of the chairs for a pillow. Now he waked, realized where he was, and got to his feet. He had slept on his right side because he had a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver in a shoulder holster under his left armpit. Now, awake, he felt for the gun, looked away from the sun, which hurt his eyes, and went into the kitchen where he dipped up a drink of water from the pail beside the kitchen table. The hired girl was building a fire in the stove and the warden said to her, “What about some breakfast?”
“No breakfast,” she said. She slept in a cabin out behind the house and had come into the kitchen a half an hour before. The sight of the warden lying on the floor of the screen porch and the nearly empty bottle of whiskey on the table had frightened and disgusted her. Then it had made her angry.
“What do you mean, no breakfast?” the warden said, still holding the dipper.
“Just that.”
“Why?”
“Nothing to eat.”
“What about coffee?”
“No coffee.”
“Tea?”
“No tea. No bacon. No corn meal. No salt. No pepper. No coffee. No Borden’s canned cream. No Aunt Jemima buckwheat flour. No nothing.”
“What are you talking about? There was plenty to eat last night.”
“There isn’t now. Chipmunks must have carried it away.”
The warden from down state had gotten up when he heard them talking and had come into the kitchen.
“How do you feel this morning?” the hired girl asked him.
The warden ignored the hired girl and said, “What is it, Evans?”
“That son of a bitch came in here last night and got himself a pack load of grub.”
“Don’t you swear in my kitchen,” the hired girl said.
“Come out here,” The down-state warden said. They both went out on the screen porch and shut the kitchen door.
“What does that mean, Evans?” The down-state man pointed at the quart of Old Green River which had less than a quarter left in it. “How skunk-drunk were you?”
“I drank the same as you. I sat up by the table—”
“Doing what?”
“Waiting for the goddam Adams boy if he showed.”
“And drinking.”
“Not drinking. Then I got up and went in the kitchen and got a drink of water about half past four and I lay down here in front of the door to take it easier.”
“Why didn’t you lie down in front of the kitchen door?”
“I could see him better from here if he came.”
“So what happened?”
