The Day of His Youth

								

they might stop and say, "Who is this fellow who lives in the woods and
stares at people like an owl by night?" But the oars dipped, and the
boat and song went on. The song! if I but knew it! It called my feet to
dancing. It was like laughter and the play of the young squirrels. I
watched for them to go back, and in an hour they did, still singing in
jubilant chorus; and after that came my father. As soon as I saw him, I
knew something had happened. I have never seen him so sad, so weary. He
put his hand on my shoulder, after we had beached the boat and were
walking up to the cabin.
"Francis," he said, "our good days are over."
"Why?" I asked.
It appeared to me, for some reason, that they had just begun; perhaps
because the night was so fragrant and the stars so near. The world had
never seemed so homelike and so warm. I knew how a bird feels in its
own soft nest.
"Because some people have come to camp on the Bay Shore. I saw their
tents, and asked Pierre. He says they are here for the summer. Fool!
fool that I was, not to buy that land!"
"But perhaps we shall like them!" I said, and my voice choked in the
saying, the world seemed so good, so strange. He grasped my shoulder,
and his fingers felt like steel. "Boy! boy!" he whispered. For a
minute, I fancied he was crying, as I cried once, years ago, when my
rabbit died. "I knew it would come," he said. "Kismet! I bow the neck.
Put thy foot upon it gently, if may be."
We went on to the cabin, but somehow we could not talk; and it was not
long before my father sought his tent. I went also to mine, and lay
down as I was: but not to sleep. Those voices sang in my ears, and my
heart beat till it choked me. Outside, the moon was at full flood, and
I could bear it no longer. I crept softly out of my tent, and
ran--lightly, so that my father should not hear, but still swiftly--to
the beach. I pushed off a boat, grudging every grating pebble, and
dipped my oars carefully, not to be heard. My father would not have
cared, for often I go out at midnight; but I felt strangely. Yet I knew
I must see those tents. Out of his earshot, I rowed in hot haste, and
every looming tree on the wooded bank seemed to whisper "Hurry! hurry!"
I rounded the Point in a new agony lest I should never hear those
singing voices again; and there lay the tents, white in the moonlight.
I rowed into the shadow of a cliff, tied my boat, and crept along the
shore. I could see my mates, and they were mad with fun. Perhaps a
dozen people stood there together on the sand laughing, inciting one
another to some merrier deed. I stayed in the shadow of my tree,
watching them. Then five who were in bathing-dress began wading, and
struck out swimming lazily. She was there, the slight, young creature,
now with her hair in a glory below her waist. The jealous dark had hid
its gold, but I knew what it would be by day. They swam about, calling
and laughing in delicious tones, while those on the bank--older people