University of Virginia Library

47. CHAPTER XLVII.

The season for sugar-making had arrived. The
sun was oppressively hot during the greater part of
the day, and yet the frost at night was as certain,
if not as severe, as in January. The usual anxious
race after kettles was in full cry, and all the world
had but one object of interest. At this crisis William
Beamer gave due notice to Mr. Arden that he
should prosecute in case of any attempt to use the
contested tract, and Arden on his part made his
usual preparations, and proceeded to the boring of
the trees, as if his claim had been confirmed by the
majesty of the law. I dare say he was wrong;
but our principal concern in the matter lies with
our friend Lewis, who was sent on by his father to
maintain possession at all hazards. About five
hundred trees were bored,—kettles set, and a
shanty built; and here Lewis, with a bed of hemlock
branches, was to pass day and night, during
the whole sugaring season.

A wrathful man was William Beamer when he
was apprized of the cool determination of his opponent.
He cursed the slow process of law,—he
revolved many a scheme of desperate vengeance,
and concluded by declaring that the Ardens should
never make a grain of sugar on that land, if he had
to burn every tree to eject them.

Miss Duncan, who thought she had made considerable
progress in his good graces, and who now
began to talk of taking a school in the neighborhood,
took care that no whisper of village gossip
should escape his ear—no innuendo of want of
spunk,—no fear that he would “be wronged out
of his property after all!” She was one of those
spirits of unrest whose atmosphere is a storm, however
petty. She made mischief, partly for the love
of it, partly because she fancied it increased her
consequence with the world in general, partly
hoping to gain an interest in the mind of William
Beamer, by feeding his angry humor. She felt as
if he'd oughter know what folks said! She could
not bear to see him imposed upon! Any body so
high-sperrited hadn't oughter be cheated out of their
own! Amiable creature!

Lewis had been two or three days at the sugar-bush,
assisted during the day by several men, but
passing his nights alone in the shanty. Brooding
over the treatment he had received, where he had
garnered up his heart, his reflections were of any
but a soothing character; and he had more than

once received William Beamer and his angry
remonstrances with an air of reckless defiance
which exasperated that worthy to the last degree.
On one of these occasions William came home
foaming with rage, and declared within hearing of
the trembling Candace, whose heart was sore with
sad misgivings since she had begun to see through
Miss Duncan a little, that he would bear it no
longer, but take the law into his own hands, and
“settle up with the Ardens, short metre.”

“There's no chance at that rascal in the day-time,
with three or four stout fellows to back him,”
said he; “but I'll go this night, after he's left
alone, and I'll have it out with him, if it costs me
all I'm worth.”

“Well! I should think you'd put up with their
impidence long enough!” said the amiable Henrietta;
“you've had more patience with 'em than
I should have had, I'm sure! I should have thought
you'd have given them their deservin's long ago!”

“I'll do it all up at one job,” said William, as
he sat peeling a great hickory club in the corner.
“The father's too old, or I'd give it to him; but
the young chap'll do! He's just such another!
clear grit, both of 'em! I used to like Lewis Arden,
there was something so manly about him; but he's
very much altered of late.”

Candace seemed to have acquired a new sense of
hearing, so acute that every word her uncle uttered
fell on her quickened ear like a thrill of pain. Mrs.

Beamer tried to soften her brother-in-law's ire, saying
that she knew her old man would not let him
get himself into trouble if he was at home, which
he did not happen to be just then.

“Don't be so wrathy, brother,” said she; “them
that goes out head foremost is very apt to come
home feet foremost. Lewis Arden isn't the boy to
let any body walk through him. If you undertake
to dress him out, you'll like enough get hatchell'd
yourself. Lewis Arden could hug a bear.”

“Yes, but I'm an alligator,” said William, on
whom Mrs. Beamer's eloquence was quite lost.
“Call me at nine o'clock, will you, sister?” he
continued, as he stretched himself out on two
chests at the back of the room, with a bag of corn
for a pillow, and the club laid on the floor close at
his side.

“Indeed, I shall do no such thing!” said Mrs.
Beamer, angrily. “If you're bent upon such unlawful
doings, you may wake when you can. I
will have nothing to do with it!”

The good woman was aroused to an unusual
display of spirit by the warlike preparations of the
bachelor; and she bade Candace go to bed, and
showed a determination to prevent any of her
family from having any concern in the matter.

“Never mind! I'll call you!” whispered Miss
Duncan; and even as she spoke she took from her
“work-pocket” a guard-chain on which she had
been working so long that it had acquired quite a

dusky hue, so that even the beads which composed
the touching motto
had lost their primeval lustre—and seated herself
by the candle, with the air of one who has business
on hand, thus to await the destined hour.

Candace said not a word during this scene. Her
thoughts were in a whirl, and the only distinguishable
point was danger to Lewis. All that had
estranged her was forgotten; she no longer gave a
thought to the offence against herself. Indeed, her
disgust at Miss Duncan's manœuvres had already
gone far towards neutralizing the malicious efforts
of the school-ma'am, and all she now thought of
was how to warn Lewis of the meditated attack.

“I'm glad enough,” said William Beamer, just
before he dropped asleep, “that Candace has given
that young scamp the mitten! She never should
have touched a cent of mine if she hadn't!”

“That was my doin's, warn't it, Candace?”
said Miss Duncan with some exultation; “I put
you up to that, didn't I?”

But Candace was gone, so Miss Henrietta Duncan
went on figuring her guard-chain, and William
Beamer, the alligator, snored like a hippopotamus.

All Candace's ingenuity could suggest but one
way of putting Lewis upon his guard—to be herself
the messenger. The sugar-bush was nearly

two miles off, and the ground was covered with a
thawing snow, which made walking peculiarly
difficult, but this did not give her a moment's
thought. The only hesitation she felt arose from
a natural reluctance to present herself before Lewis
under such circumstances; but the moments were
too precious to allow much deliberation upon this
point or any other. She had no doubt Miss Duncan
would awaken William very punctually, and
the time was already short.

Fortunately for her undertaking, our ceilings
are not fashionably high, so that, stepping from her
window to a shed just beneath it, she was able to
spring to the snowy ground, with very little risk.
Then wrapping her cloak closely round her, she
sped forward like a true daughter of the forest, and
soon found herself in the midst of the newly-cleared
tract which lay between her father's and the sugar-bush.
The snow lay in huge drifts, with spaces
of half-frozen ground between; the night was
piercingly cold, and the stars looked as if they
were shivering in the pale, chilly sky. The half-burnt
trees and stumps stood ghastly and threatening
enough around her on every side, and there
are few sights more exciting to the unpractised
imagination than this; but Candace, who had
lived among them from her infancy, saw not the
horrid forms which they have often figured to
eyes that I know of, but merely simple and very
commonplace stumps, not burnt quite as thoroughly

as they should have been. Once indeed she did
fancy for a moment that she saw a squaw with her
pappoose on her back, but she soon remembered
that the red race had been driven far from our
borders, and her heart resumed its wonted beating,
and she turned all her attention to the devious
path, scarcely perceptible on the fading snow.

Ere long even this faint trace disappeared, and
the thickly-laced branches through which the way
led, scarcely admitted the faint starlight; so that
Candace wandered far and wide in blind uncertainty
until she caught sight of a light which
she knew must proceed from the fires in the sugar-bush.
Towards this she now sped with renewed
courage, and it was not long before she could hear
the welcome sound of the crackling flames.

But the worst difficulty was yet to come, and
she leaned against a bending ash to recover her
breath and recall her waning courage. A dry
branch snapped, and Lewis Arden sprang from the
shanty.

“Who goes there?” he shouted.

Candace's quivering lips refused to frame a word.

“Who is it?” cried Lewis again, advancing towards
her. “A woman! ha! borrowed feathers!”
—and he grasped the cloak rudely and dragged her
forward, evidently suspecting some disguise which
the uncertain light did not allow him to penetrate.

“Lewis!” said Candace—and the young man
fell back as if he had received a blow.

“You here, Candace!” he said; “what is the
matter? what can have happened? are you in
trouble?”

“No, no,—but, O Lewis!—my uncle—uncle
William”—and Candace could get no further.

“What of your uncle?” said Lewis, with much
less eagerness; “has he sent you to persuade me
to give up my father's rights? nonsense! why did
you come on such a silly errand? There was a
time—when you, Candace, could have wound me
round your finger—but that time is past and gone
now.”

“Lewis,” again began Candace, calling up her
prouder self, “I only came to give you warning that
my uncle is coming here to-night, with such threats
—such hard thoughts—such angry words—that
I thought—I felt—I was afraid—”

“Let him come!” said the young man bitterly;
“I am past caring for him or any body else. I am
sent here to maintain possession of this land, and I
shall certainly keep it, and it will be all the worse
for any body that shall try to drive me off. While
you were true-hearted, Candace, I never would have
raised a finger against your uncle or any one belonging
to you; but since you have been bought
off—or coaxed off—or scared off—no matter
which—all men are alike to me—so you had
better go home again, and tell your uncle that you
have had no success.”

No wonder that Candace was angry! no wonder

that she needed no Miss Duncan to urge her to be
“spunky”!

“Lewis!” she said, as she prepared to return
homeward, “I have been very silly, and I deserve
to be punished. If I made myself cheap before, I
have made myself cheaper now, and I shall take
very good care not to do it a third time. Good
night!”

The emphasis on the unfortunate word was such
that Lewis threw himself in her path, insisting
upon an explanation.

“Keep off!” she cried, “let me go!” and so
angrily, that Lewis started back.

If ash-trees bore pumpkins weighing two hundred
pounds apiece, our young folks might have supposed
it a specimen of that kind of fruit which now
plumped heavily on the path between them. But
pumpkins (even Yankee ones) are mute, and this
huge object began at once to utter stranger sounds.

“Oh dear! how sick we are! how bad we do
feel!” drawled the voice of William Beamer, drawn
out into a whine of the most exquisite mockery.
And he looked first at one and then at the other,
and burst into a laugh that made the woods ring
again. “Well! I'd no more idee,” he continued,
“of catching a pair of turkle-doves to-night, than I
had of shootin' a painter! I came along a while ago,
and, thinks I, I'll climb up into this here tree, and
watch that chap a little, and see that he don't carry

pistols; and by and by who should I see a creepin'
along but Miss Candace Beamer, a comin' to visit a
young feller in a shanty! Hey, Candace! that'll
be a good story to tell, won't it?”

“Oh uncle!” said Candace, crying with vexation
and terror, “how can you! I only came because—
you know mother thought it was very wrong—
and I was afraid—afraid you'd get hurt!”

“Oh! poor girl! yes!” and the drawl came
again; “you was afraid your poor dear uncle would
get hurt! But it forgot to say so at home, to uncle,
and it made itself dreadful cheap by comin' here to
tell Lewis about hurtin' uncle! But come, come,
never mind!” continued he, relenting, “uncle a'n't
half so bad as you thought he was—and it's ten to
one that Lewis a'n't half so bad as uncle thought
he was;—and perhaps now, if all was known,
Lewis didn't say any thing naughty about Candace—and
then how foolish we should all look,
eh!”

Lewis did not lack words, and words do not
lack power when one's feelings are thoroughly
roused; so that Candace after a while was brought
to believe Miss Duncan might have been misinformed,
to take the mildest view of the case.
Uncle William waited with wonderful patience
through the explanation, but cut short Lewis's
superfluous protestations by tucking Candace under
his arm, and trudging home again through the
trackless wood.

The next morning, Lewis Arden came to Mr.
Beamer's to breakfast.

“Pretty quick upon the trigger!” muttered
uncle William; and Miss Duncan stared, to the
great hazard of her eye-strings. Mrs. Beamer,
however, announced that Candace was not well,
and could not come down to breakfast, which Miss
Duncan ascribed to spunk.

“Well, I couldn't think where Candace was,
last night,” said the fashionable; “I reckoned she
was sick, and had gone to sleep with you.” Nobody
spoke. Miss Duncan perceived a dawning
coolness, but she had too much at stake to afford
to notice it. “You all seem to be rather dumbfoundered,
this morning,” she said.

Just at this moment a wagon stopped at the
gate, and one of the boys went out to see who it
might be.

“Good day!” shouted a loud hearty voice.
“This is Jeems Beamer's, a'n't it?”

The boy said, “Yes.”

“Well! is my darter Keery here?” said the
voice, and now Miss Duncan could not remark
upon other people's looks. The boy said, “No.”

“Not here! why, Miss Flyaway said she was!”
and thus saying, a stout old farmer walked in,
taking off his bowl-crowned wool hat, and smoothing
down his hair with a great knotty hand.

“Not here!” he exclaimed again: “why, you're

cracked, I guess! a'n't she a settin' there with your
folks, hey? How are you, Keery? How do you
stan' it?”

To judge by Miss Duncan's countenance she
found it very hard to stand it at all.

The boy laughed. “Why, that's Miss Duncan!”
said he.

“Miss Duncan, is it, hey!” said the farmer;
“then she must have got married since I heer'd
from her last. Her name was Kerenhappuch Ann
Dunks, when she left hum; and the Reverend
Believe Bissell of the town of Bean Creek, in the
State o' Maine, gin her that name, or the first part
on't, twenty-seven year ago the fust day of last
April. You a'n't married, be you, Keery?”

“Nor likely to be,” thought William Beamer to
himself, but he said nothing.

The damsel, deeply mortified, said, “No.”

“What did you change your name for, then,
Keery?” said her father. “Wa'n't your old
father's name good enough? it is an honest name,
and it seems to me you might have waited till you
got another of your own. But I s'pose you a'n't
to blame for bein' born on the fust of April, and I
s'pose too that that's the reason why you're so
fond o' readin' these here nawvels, as they call
'em. They make the gals greater fools than they
need be. But howsomdever, you're wanted to
hum now. Your poor old mother's sick, and

wants to see you. I've took the team off the
plough, and I've had a real chase after you. Gather
yourself together as quick as you can.”

Poor Keery needed no urging, but made ready
and departed, terribly crestfallen.

“Well now,” said William Beamer, rather relieved,
“that job's settled up. I'll just fix off
another, since there's no knowin' how great a
fool a man may be.” And without any delay he
made over to Candace Beamer all his right and
title in the contested land; which proved a very
satisfactory mode of putting a stop to the legal
quarrel between the Ardens and the Beamers,
since Lewis found but little difficulty in concluding
a negotiation with the new claimant. The
sequel showed that William had judged well of
probabilities. The tough fibres of his heart had
been so much softened by the power of Miss
Dunks's charms, that the very next attack found
him unequal to any resistance; and he was married
to a tidy damsel of the neighborhood, on the
very day which gave Candace and her sweet heritage
to Lewis Arden.