Drums Along the Mohawk Read Online Free PDF Page B

had a lump on his forehead, with a red trickle issuing from it. She said, “They never are so thick at home.”
    “You’ll have to get used to it then. Here, take this and slap them off her.”
    He gave her the branch and stopped to cut himself another. Lana kept switching the mare, and after a moment she was glad of the occupation. There had been no driving for her to do for some time, for the mare had to have her head in getting over the rough spots. Lana became so absorbed in batting off the flies that she did not notice the small side road turning off to the left, or the clearing through a narrow fringe of trees. It was only when Gil said, in a pleasanter voice, “That was Demooth’s place,” that she realized she had missed something.
    “Where?”
    “We’ve passed it. But Weaver’s is just ahead.”
    She raised her eyes to see the leaves thinning at last. The sun was just ahead, nearing the horizon, and putting fiery edges on some overtaking slate-gray clouds.
    While she watched, the clouds overlapped the sun, and at the same moment a fresh east wind struck the road, dispersing the flies, and they emerged into the clearing with the rain.
    Lana saw Weaver’s, dimly, through the slanting spear-like fall of rain. A square cabin, with a small wing added on, in which the logs were unweathered, a roof of bark, and a chimney sending up smoke. It stood in the midst of the clearing, surrounded on three sides by Indian corn through which the stumps, blackened by their burning, still showed. In front of the house, like a showpiece, was a three-acre patch of wheat in well-worked ground. A track ran through it toward a low log barn, and just in front of the cabin door two hollyhock plants, one red, one yellow, stood together with a small border of pinks.
    Nowhere was there any sign of people. But on the edge of the woods a new road ran off, making a Y, which Gil told her led to Reall’s on the creek.
    “We’re straight ahead,” he said.
    The Kingsroad burrowed into the woods again, but they ended shortly, and Lana looked out over a long swamp of alder.Half a mile to the left lay the river, sluggish and dark. Beyond, behind a fringe of old willow trees, the ground rose again. Suddenly the road turned left down to the alders, going straight through to the ford.
    The mare stopped there, and Gil came alongside with the cow. His face was streaming wet, but he smiled at her.
    “Well,” he said, “we’re here at last.”
    “Where?” asked Lana, dully.
    “Home.”
    He looked at her.
    “Giddap,” he said roughly to the mare.
    She turned off the road onto a winding pair of wheel tracks. Then Lana saw.
    A small new cabin standing on the higher ground. Beyond, a muddy brook flowed widely through some scattered alders. On the far side the land widened out in swamp grass for perhaps two acres. She saw, almost without seeing these things.
    Her heart was in her throat. “You mustn’t cry,” she said to herself, over and over, “you mustn’t start crying.”
    It seemed to her so utterly forlorn. Behind the cabin were the marks of Gil’s first struggle with the land: the stumps, half burnt, surrounded by corn of all heights, the most uneven patch she ever saw. All round the cabin the earth was bared to the rain and fast turning into mud. Beyond was a low shed to shelter the horse and cow.
    Then Gil cried out, “Look, there’s smoke!”
    She saw it feebly beginning to rise from the chimney. Somehow it made the rain seem drearier than ever. She wanted to say, “Oh, let’s go home.” But then, in a saving moment, she took hold of herself. For better or worse she had married him, she was out of reach of home; it would have to be her business to change the looks of the place.
    They came up to the door, the cart creaking in the rain. Thedoor opened. A raw-boned gray-haired woman, in a faded, dirty calico dress that had been blue once upon a time, was holding a basket with two pinks in it. She looked completely taken