The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1941-02-21
CHAPTER TX

prise when learned that Sidney
Lander was no longer concerned
with the management of the Willow
Creek Mine. What perplexed me
was the discovery that he didn't 60
to Seward when Barbara Trumbull
sailed for the States.
But it wasn't mine to question
why. All cared to remember was
that, for reasons entirely his own,
he somewhat sedulously kept his
trail from crossing mine.
So, in that interim of suspended
action, lost myself in action enough
of my own. I trimmed the wick
of the lamp Of learning and came
a little closer to my valley neigh
bors. And even Sam Bryson, ! be-
gan to feel, was no longer an open
enemy. He thawed out sufficiently
around the edges to come and in
spect my shack and declare the
school board would have to keep me
in firewood.
One Sunday, as / was shoveling
the drifts from my doorstep, Sock
Eye arrived with a home-manufac-
tured hand sleigh, which same, he
dourly explained, would make it cas-
Ter for me to mush supplies from
the village. On that sleigh, howev-
er, repoSed war-Scarred old rifle
and an equally worn revolver, to
say nothing Of Morris chair which
he had fashioned with his own hands
and upholstered with the hide Of a
moose brought down by his own
trusty forty-ive.
When he took me out to practice
craftsmanship on the side hill back
of the shack, the rifle made my
shoulder sore and the six-gun did
things to my wrist. But I soon
found ] could hit a spruce plank
at twenty PAGES. Sock-Eye, watch
ing me, eventually admitted ] ham
died shooting iron like an old
timer.
'I'Il bet it was your pappy first
showed you how T. handle them
peace-makers," he chucklingly OBJ
served.
ut was" admitted as / took
final pot shot and made the bark
fly from henlock trunk.
''Then he gave you eddication that
meant something, /" conceded Sock
Eye. tive seen heap o. changes
in this cockeyed country. But she's
sti1 raw around the edges. And
there's times when slappin' feathers
still the short cut t square deal"
My teaching was an odd sort of
teaching. For morning by morning,
in parka and mukluks, ! set out for
one or another OF the lonely home
steads, and there, beside a stove
cracking with spruce wood and
birch, held my classes, sometimes
with the Mondays washing or the
Tuesdays ironing being done on the
other side Of the room, sometimes
with the sourdough sponge being
worked into loaves on the far end of
the table at which my solemn-eyed
little scholars were at work with
paper and pencils. ! was asked, as
a rule, to have dinner with the fam
ily Sometimes, when ! started for
home, I'd be given jar of blue
berry jam or a bowl of sauerkraut,
sometimes even slab of deer meat.
But very few of them, found,
were able to be givers. Most of them
were shockingly destitute.
Ibid considerably more than teach
the three RS and correct papers and
pass out assignments. Sometimes
looked after a baby or two, and took
the bread out of the oven, and airily
prescribed for an earache or FROST
bite, and tried my hand at cutting
pupils hair, and attached much
needed buttons and even more ur-
gently needed patches to the gar
ments OF my not ungrateful little
scholars. They no longer laughed at
Sock-Eye's old revolver, which
carried IN belt holster around my
waist and from which I derived
somewhat foolish sense Of protec-
ton. For felt more self-reliant.