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diff --git a/43284-8.txt b/43284-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5977439..0000000 --- a/43284-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5037 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in -Alaska, by Rockwell Kent - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska - - -Author: Rockwell Kent - - - -Release Date: July 24, 2013 [eBook #43284] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILDERNESS, A JOURNAL OF QUIET -ADVENTURE IN ALASKA*** - - -E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images -generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries -(http://archive.org/details/americana) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 43284-h.htm or 43284-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43284/43284-h/43284-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43284/43284-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - http://archive.org/details/wildernessjourna00kent - - - - - -[Illustration: ROCKWELL - ALASKA MCMXVIII] - - -WILDERNESS - -A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska - -by - -ROCKWELL KENT - -With Drawings by the author and an Introduction by Dorothy Canfield - - - - - - - -G. P. Putnam's Sons -New York and London -The Knickerbocker Press -1920 - -Copyright, 1920, by Rockwell Kent - -Plates Engraved under the Supervision of William G. Watt - -The Knickerbocker Press, New York - - - - - _To - old L. M. Olson and - young Rockwell Kent - of Fox Island - this journal is - respectfully dedicated_ - - - The author acknowledges the courtesy of the owners of his - drawings in permitting their reproduction in this book: - - - MRS. ERNEST I. WHITE - ROBERT NICHOLS - STEPHEN C. CLARK - MRS. PAYNE THOMPSON - MRS. JOSEPH FLANNERY - MRS. J. S. MORGAN, JR. - DR. ARNOLD KLEBS - HENRY S. CHURCHILL - MRS. PERCY W. DARBYSHIRE - MRS. MEREDITH HARE - PAUL MANSHIP - MRS. VALENTINE WINTERS - HENRY NEWMAN - HUNT DIEDERICH - PURCELL JONES - M. KNOEDLER AND COMPANY - ALBERT STERNER - MARIE STERNER - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -Had jesting Pilate asked "What is Art?" he would have waited quite as -many centuries for an answer as he has for the answer to his question -about Truth. For art to the artist, and art to the rest of us, are two -very different things. Art to the artist is quite simply Life, his -life, of which he has an amplitude and intensity unknown to us. What -he does for us is to thrill us awake to the amplitude and intensity of -all life, our own included. And this is a miracle for which we can -never be thankful enough. - -This, at least, is what Rockwell Kent's Alaska drawings and Alaska -journal do for me; they take me away from that tired absorption in -things of little import which makes up most of our human life and make -me see, not an unreal world of romantic illusion, that fool's pleasure -given by the second-rate artist, but the real wonder-world in which I -live and have always lived. They make me see suddenly that there is a -vast deal more in the world than embittering and anxious -preoccupations, that much of it is fine, much is comforting, much -awe-inspiring, much profoundly tragic, and all of it makes up a whole -so vast that no living organism need feel cramped. - -No other of the qualities of the journal and drawings goes home to me -more than the unforced authenticity of the impression set down by this -strong and ardent artist. Emerson's grandeur is infinitely more -convincing to me because of his homeliness, and I feel a perverse -Yankee suspicion of those who deal in sublimities only. The man who -can extract the whole quaint savor out of that magical, prosaic, -humorous moment of human life, the first stretching yawn of the early -morning, that man can make me believe that I too see the north wind -running mightily athwart the sky. And the artist who can put into the -simplest drawing of a man and a little boy eating together at a rough -table in a rough cabin, all the dear solidity of family and home life, -with its quiet triumph against overpowering Nature, that artist can -make me bow my head before the sincerity of his impressive "Night." - -The homeliness of the diary, its courageously unaffected naturalness, -how it carries one out of fussy complications to a long breath of -relief in the fewness and permanence of things that count! And the -humor of it ... sometimes deliciously unintentional like the picture -of the artist finishing a fine drawing, setting the beans to soak, -bathing in the bread pan, and going to bed to read a chapter of Blake, -sometimes intentional and shrewd like "a banana-peel on a mountain-top -tames that wilderness," or "colds, like bad temper and loss of faith, -are a malady of the city crowd"; sometimes outright and hearty like a -child's joke, as in the amusingly faithful portrait of the -pot-bellied, self-important personality of the air-tight stove! - -There are only three human characters in this quiet, intense record, -all of them significant and vital. First of them is the artist -himself, who in these notes, written originally for the eyes of his -intimates only, speaks out with a free unselfconsciousness as rare in -our modern world as the virgin solitude of the island where he lived. -Here is the artist at work, creating, as Henry James said he could not -be shown; the artist, that is, a man violently alive, full-blooded and -fine, fierce and pure, arrogant and tender, with an elate, boastful, -well-founded certainty of his strength, rejoicing in his work, in his -son, in his friend, in the whole visible world, and most of all in -himself and his own vigorous possibilities for good, evil, and -creative work. - -The other two human characters in this adventuring quest after great -and simple things are acquisitions to be thankful for, also; the -touchingly tender-hearted, knight-like, beautiful, funny little boy; -and lovable, dignified old Olson ... a fiction writer wonders in -despair why old Olson so vividly, brilliantly lives in these unstudied -pages, solid, breathing, warm, as miraculously different from all -other human beings as any creature of flesh and blood who draws the -mysterious breath of life beside you in the same room. - -Fox Island lives too; we walk about it, treading solidly, loving -"every log and rotten stump, gnarled tree, every mound and path, the -rocks and brooks, each a being in itself," just as little Rockwell -does; and we climb with the "two younger ones up the sheer, -snow-covered ridge till across the great jagged teeth of -Fenris-the-Wolf, we see the glory of the open sea." We "look up at -Olson, swaying gigantic on the deck above us, as we bump the side in -our little boat" and we go down into the warm cabin full of the fumes -of cooking and good-fellowship, and drink with the old skipper and the -old Swede till we too see deep "under the white hard surface of where -life is hidden." - -All this firm earth gives authority and penetration to the shining -beauty which pervades the book and the drawings, carries us along to -share it, not merely to look at it; to feel it, not merely to admire -it. - -The notes here published were written, I believe, day by day for the -author's wife and children, and are here published almost as they were -set down, as commentary to the drawings. Well, let us be thankful that -we were let into the family circle and along with them can spend six -months in the midst of strength and beauty and tenderness and fun and -majesty, close to simple things, great because they are real. The -author may be sure that we leave them with the same backward-looking -wistfulness he feels, and with the same gratitude for having known -them. - - Dorothy Canfield. - - - - -PREFACE - - -Most of this book was written on Fox Island in Alaska, a journal added -to from day to day. It was not meant for publication but merely that -we who were living there that year might have always an unfailing -memory of a wonderfully happy time. There's a ring of truth to all -freshly written records of experience that, whatever their -shortcomings, makes them at least inviolable. Besides the journal, a -few letters to friends have been drawn upon. All are given unchanged -but for the flux of a new paragraph or chapter here and there to form -a kind of narrative, the only possible literary accompaniment to the -drawings of that period herein published. The whole is a picture of -quiet adventure in the wilderness, above all an adventure of the -spirit. - -What one would look for in a story of the wild Northwest is lacking in -these pages. To have been further from a settled town might have -brought not more but less excitement. The wonder of the wilderness was -its tranquillity. It seemed that there both men and the wild beasts -pursued their own paths freely and, as if conscious of the wide -freedom of their world, molested one another not at all. It was the -bitter philosophy of the old trapper who was our companion that of all -animals Man was the most terrible; for if the beasts fought and -killed for some good cause Man slew for none. - -Deliberately I have begun this happy story far out in Resurrection -Bay;--and again dropped its peaceful thread on the forlorn threshold -of the town. We found Fox Island on Sunday, August twenty-fifth, 1918, -and left there finally on the seventeenth of the following March. - - R. K. - - Arlington, Vermont, - December, 1919. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - Page - Introduction vii - Preface xi - Chapter - I.--Discovery 1 - II.--Arrival 10 - III.--Chores 41 - IV.--Winter 67 - V.--Waiting 84 - VI.--Excursion 102 - VII.--Home 109 - VIII.--Christmas 134 - IX.--New Year 150 - X.--Olson 182 - XI.--Twilight 200 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Facing Page - - "Zarathustra Himself Led the Ugliest Man by the Hand, in Order - to Show Him His Night-World and the Great Round Moon and the - Silvery Waterfalls Nigh Unto His Cave" 2 - - Unknown Waters 6 - - Home Building 12 - - Fire Wood 16 - - The Sleeper 20 - - The Windlass 24 - - The Snow Queen 28 - - Fox Island, Resurrection Bay, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska 32 - - Rain Torrents 36 - - Day 42 - - Night 46 - - Wilderness 50 - - One of Rockwell's Drawings 54 - - Sunrise 56 - - Adventure 60 - - On the Height 68 - - The Day's Work 72 - - Meal Time 76 - - Day's End 80 - - The Cabin Window 90 - - "Go to Bed" 94 - - Driftwood 98 - - The Whittler 104 - - "Get Up!" 110 - - Man 114 - - Woman 118 - - Foreboding 124 - - Lone Man 128 - - Cain 136 - - Superman 140 - - The North Wind 146 - - Another of Rockwell's Drawings 152 - - Weltschmerz 154 - - Victory 158 - - Zarathustra and His Playmates 164 - - Frozen Fall 168 - - The Hermit 172 - - Ecstasy 176 - - Pelagic Reverie 184 - - Prison Bars 188 - - Running Water 192 - - Immanence 196 - - The Vision 202 - - The Imperishable 206 - - The Star-Lighter 210 - - - - -CHAPTER I - -DISCOVERY - - -We must have been rowing for an hour across that seeming mile-wide -stretch of water. - -The air is so clear in the North that one new to it is lost in the -crowding of great heights and spaces. Distant peaks had risen over the -lower mountains of the shore astern. Steep spruce-clad slopes -confronted us. All around was the wilderness, a no-man's-land of -mountains or of cragged islands, and southward the wide, the -limitless, Pacific Ocean. - -A calm, blue summer's day,--and on we rowed upon our search. Somewhere -there must stand awaiting us, as we had pictured it, a little -forgotten cabin, one that some prospector or fisherman had built; the -cabin, the grove, the sheltered beach, the spring or stream of fresh, -cold water,--we could have drawn it even to the view that it must -overlook, the sea, and mountains, and the glorious West. We came to -this new land, a boy and a man, entirely on a dreamer's search; having -had vision of a Northern Paradise, we came to find it. - -With less faith it might have seemed to us a hopeless thing exploring -the unknown for what you've only dreamed was there. Doubt never -crossed our minds. To sail uncharted waters and follow virgin -shores--what a life for men! As the new coast unfolds itself the -imagination leaps into full vision of the human drama that there is -immanent. The grandeur of the ocean cliff is terrible with threat of -shipwreck. To that high ledge the wave may lift you; there, where that -storm-dwarfed spruce has found a hold for half a century, you perhaps -could cling. A hundred times a day you think of death or of escaping -it by might and courage. Then at the first softening of the coast -toward a cove or inlet you imagine all the mild beauties of a safe -harbor, the quiet water and the beach to land upon, the house-site, a -homestead of your own, cleared land, and pastures that look seaward. - -Now having crossed the bay thick wooded coast confronted us, and we -worked eastward toward a wide-mouthed inlet of that shore. But all at -once there appeared as if from nowhere a little, motor-driven dory -coming toward us. We hailed and drew together to converse. It was an -old man alone. We told him frankly what we were and what we sought. - -"Come with me," he cried heartily, "come and I show you the place to -live." And he pointed oceanward where, straight in the path of the sun -stood the huge, dark, mountain mass of an island. Then, seizing upon -our line, he towed us with him to the south. - -The gentle breeze came up. With prow high in the air we spanked the -wavelets, and the glistening spray flew over us. On we went straight -at the dazzling sun and we laughed to think that we were being carried -we knew not where. And all the while the strange old man spoke never a -word nor turned his head, driving us on as if he feared we might -demand to be unloosed. At last his island towered above us. It was -truly sheer-sided and immense, and for all we could discover -harborless; till in a moment rounding the great headland of its -northern end the crescent arms of the harbor were about us,--and we -were there! - -[Illustration: "ZARATHUSTRA HIMSELF LED THE UGLIEST MAN BY THE HAND, -IN ORDER TO SHOW HIM HIS NIGHT-WORLD AND THE GREAT ROUND MOON AND THE -SILVERY WATERFALLS NIGH UNTO HIS CAVE"] - -What a scene! Twin lofty mountain masses flanked the entrance and from -the back of these the land dipped downwards like a hammock swung -between them, its lowest point behind the center of the crescent. A -clean and smooth, dark-pebbled beach went all around the bay, the tide -line marked with driftwood, gleaming, bleached bones of trees, -fantastic roots and worn and shredded trunks. Above the beach a band -of brilliant green and then the deep, black spaces of the forest. So -huge was the scale of all of this that for some time we looked in vain -for any habitation, at last incredulously seeing what we had taken to -be bowlders assume the form of cabins. - -The dories grounded and we leapt ashore, and followed up the beach -onto the level ground seeing and wondering, with beating hearts, and -crying all the time to ourselves: "It isn't possible, it isn't real!" - -There was a green grass lawn beneath our feet extending on one side -under an orchard of neatly pruned alders to the mountain's base, and -on the other into the forest or along the shore. In the midst of the -clearing stood the old man's cabin. He led us into it. One little -room, neat and comfortable; two windows south and west with the warm -sun streaming through them; a stove, a table by the window with dishes -piled neatly on it; some shelves of food and one of books and papers; -a bunk with gaily striped blankets; boots, guns, tools, tobacco-boxes; -a ladder to the store-room in the loft. And the old man himself: a -Swede, short, round and sturdy, head bald as though with a priestly -tonsure, high cheek bones and broad face, full lips, a sensitive small -chin,--and his little eyes sparkled with good humor. - -"Look, this is all mine," he was saying; "you can live here with -me--with me and Nanny,"--for by this time not only had the milk goat -Nanny entered but a whole family of foolish-faced Angoras, father, -mother, and child, nosing among us or overturning what they could in -search of food. He took us to the fox corral a few yards from the -house. There were the blues in its far corner eying us askance. We saw -the old goat cabin built of logs and were told of a newer one, an -unused one down the shore and deeper in the woods. - -"But come," he said with pride, "I show you my location notice. I have -done it all in the proper way and I will get my title from Washington -soon. I have staked fifty acres. It is all described in the notice I -have posted; and I would like to see anybody get that away from me." - -By now we had reached the great spruce tree to whose trunk he had -affixed a sort of roofed tablet or shrine to house the precious -document. But, ah look! the tablet was bare! only that from a small -nail in it hung a torn shred of paper. - -"Billy, Nanny!" roared the old man in irritation and mock rage; and he -shook his fist at the foolish looking culprits who regarded us this -time, wisely, from a distance. "And now come to the lake!" - -We went down an avenue through the tall spruce trees. The sun flecked -our path and fired here and there a flame-colored mushroom that blazed -in the forest gloom. Right and left we saw deep vistas, and straight -ahead a broad and sunlit space, a valley between hills; there lay the -lake. It was a real lake, broad and clean, of many acres in extent, -and the whole mountain side lay mirrored in it with the purple zenith -sky at our feet. Not a breath disturbed the surface, not a ripple -broke along the pebbly beach; it was dead silent here but for maybe -the far off sound of surf, and without motion but that high aloft two -eagles soared with steady wing searching the mountain tops. Ah, -supreme moment! These are the times in life--when nothing happens--but -in quietness the soul expands. - -Time pressed and we turned back. "Show us that other cabin, we must -go." - -The old man took us by a short cut to the cabin he had spoken of. It -stood in a darkly shadowed clearing, a log cabin of ample size with -a small doorway that you stooped to enter. Inside was dark but for a -little opening to the west. There were the stalls for goats, coops for -some Belgian hares he had once kept, a tin whirligig for squirrels -hanging in the gable peak, and under foot a shaky floor covered with -filth. - -[Illustration: UNKNOWN WATERS] - -But I knew what that cabin might become. I saw it once and said, "This -is the place we'll live." And then returning to our boat we shook -hands on this great, quick finding of the thing we'd sought and, since -we could not stay then as he begged us to, promised a speedy return -with all our household goods. "Olson's my name," he said, "I need you -here. We'll make a go of it." - -The south wind had risen and the white caps flew. We crossed the bay -pulling lustily for very joy. Reaching the other shore we saw, too -late, crossing the bay in search of us the small white sail of the -party that had brought us part way from the town. So we turned and -followed them until at last we met to their relief and the great -satisfaction of our tired arms. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ARRIVAL - - -Our journal of Fox Island begins properly with the day of our final -coming there, Wednesday, September the twenty-eighth, 1918. - -At nine o'clock in the morning of that day we slid our dory into the -water from the beach at Seward, clamped our little patched-up three -and one half horse-power Evinrude motor in the stern, and commenced -our loading. - -Since the main part of such a story, as in all these following pages -we shall have to tell, must consist in the detailing of the -innumerable little commonplaces of our daily lives, we shall begin at -once with a list, as far as we have record of it, of all we carried -with us. It follows: - - 1 Yukon stove - 4 lengths stovepipe - 1 broom - 1 bread pan - 1 wash basin - 1 bean pot - 1 mixing bowl - Turpentine - Linseed oil - Nails, etc. - 10 gals. gasoline - 10 lbs. rice - 5 lbs. barley - 10 lbs. cornmeal - 10 lbs. rolled oats - 10 lbs. hominy - 10 lbs. farina - 10 lbs. sugar - 50 lbs. flour - 2 packages bran - 6 cans cocoa - 1 lb. tea - 1 case milk - 8 lbs. chocolate - 1 gal. sirup - 1 gal. cooking oil - 1 piece bacon - 2 cans dried eggs - 2 cans baked beans - 6 lemons - 2 packages pancake flour - 10 lbs. whole wheat flour - 6 ivory soap - 3 laundry soap - 6 agate cups - 4 agate plates - 4 agate bowls - 2 agate dishes - 4 pots - 2 pillows - 2 comforters - 1 roll building paper - 1 frying pan - 3 bread tins - 10 lbs. lima beans - 10 lbs. white beans - 5 lbs. Mexican beans - 10 lbs. spaghetti - 12 cans tomatoes - 100 lbs. potatoes - 10 lbs. dried peas - 5 lbs. salt - 1 gal. peanut butter - 1 gal. marmalade - Pepper - Yeast - 5 lbs. prunes - 5 lbs. apricots - 5 lbs. carrots - 10 lbs. onions - 4 cans soup - 12 candles - 2 Dutch Cleanser - Matches - 1 tea kettle - Pails, etc. - -Also there were a heavy trunk containing books, paints, etc., one -duffel bag, one suit case, and a few other things. And when these were -stowed away in the dory there was little room for ourselves. However, -at ten o'clock we cast off and started for Fox Island with the little -motor running beautifully. - -It lasted for three miles when at once, with a bang and a whir, the -motor raced, and the boat stood motionless on the calm gray water. -Through the fog we could just discern the cabin of a fisherman on the -nearest point of shore--perhaps a mile distant. We rowed there as -best we could, seated somehow atop our household goods; we unloaded -our useless motor, our gasoline, and our batteries, cleared a little -space in the boat for ourselves to man the oars, and in a miserable -drizzling rain, pushed off for a long, long pull to the island. By too -literal a following of directions I lengthened the remainder of the -course to twelve miles, and that we rowed, I don't know how, in four -hours and a half. Fortunately the water was as calm as could be. -Rockwell was a revelation to me. With scarcely a rest he pulled at the -heavy oars that at first he had hardly understood to manage; and when -we reached the island he was hilarious with good spirits. - -We unloaded with the help of Olson--whom by the way we must introduce -at some length--and stowed our goods in his house and shed. We cooked -our supper on his stove and slept that night and the next on his -floor; and then, having our own quarters by that time in passable -shape, quit his friendly roof for the most hospitable, kindly, and -altogether comfortable roof in the world--our own. - -Olson is about sixty-five years of age. He's a pioneer of Alaska and -knows the country from one end to the other. He has prospected for -gold on the Yukon, he was at Nome with the first rush there, he has -trapped along a thousand miles of coast; and now, ever unsuccessful -and still enterprising, he is the proprietor of two pairs of blue -foxes--in corrals--and four goats. He's a kind-hearted, genial old man -with a vast store of knowledge and true wisdom. - -The map shows our Fox Island estate. Our cabin was built as a shelter -for Angora goats somewhat over a year ago. It is a roughly built log -structure of about fourteen by seventeen feet, inside dimensions, and -was quite dark but for the small door and a two by two feet opening on -the western side. We went to work upon it the morning following our -arrival and in two days, as has been told, made it a fit place to live -in but by no means the luxurious home that it was in our mind to make. -Our cabin to-day is the product of weeks' more labor. To describe -it is to account for our time almost to the beginning of the detailed -days of this diary. - -[Illustration: HOME BUILDING] - -Tread first upon a broad, plank doorstep the hatch of some ill-fated -vessel--the sea's gift to us of a front veranda; stoop your head to -four feet six inches and, drawing the latchstring, enter. Before you -at the south end of the sombre, log interior is a mullioned window -willing to admit more light than can penetrate the forest beyond. -Before it is a fixed work table littered with papers, pencils, paints, -and brushes. On each long side of the cabin is a shelf the eaves' -height, five feet from the floor. The right-hand one is packed with -foods in sacks and tins and boxes, the left-hand shelf holds clothes -and toys, paints and a flute, and at the far corner built to the floor -in orthodox bookcase fashion, a library. - -We may glance at the books. There are: - - "Indian Essays." Coomaraswamy - "Griechische Vasen" - "The Water Babies" - "Robinson Crusoe" - "The Prose Edda" - "Anson's Voyages" - "A Literary History of Ireland." Douglas Hyde - "The Iliad" - "The Crock of Gold" - "The Odyssey" - Andersen's "Fairy Tales" - "The Oxford Book of English Verse" - "The Home Medical Library" - Blake's "Poems" - Gilchrist's "Life of Blake" - "The Tree Dwellers," "The Cave Dwellers," "The Sea People," etc. - "Pacific Coast Tide Table" - "Thus Spake Zarathustra" - "The Book of the Ocean" - "Albrecht Dürer" (A Short Biography) - "Wilhelm Meister" - Nansen's "In Northern Mists" - -In the center of the right-hand wall is a small low window and beneath -it the dining table. Right at the door where we stand, to our left, is -the sheet-iron Yukon stove and behind it another food-laden shelf. A -new floor of broad unplaned boards is under our feet, a wooden -platform--it is a bed--stands in the left-hand corner by the stove. -Clothes hang under the shelves; pots and pans upon the wall, snowshoes -and saws; a rack for plates in one place, a cupboard for potatoes and -turnips behind the door--the cellar it may be called; the trunk for a -seat, boxes for chairs, one stool for style; axes here and boots -innumerable there, and we have, I think, all that the eye can take in -of this adventurers' home! - -Trees stood thick about our cabin when we first came there; and -between it and the shore a dense and continuous thicket of large -alders and sapling spruces. Day by day we cleared the ground; cutting -avenues and vistas; then, though contented at first with these, -enlarging them until they merged, and the sun began to shine about the -cabin. It grew brighter then and drier,--nonsense! am I mistaking the -daylight for the sun? I can remember but one or two fair days in all -the three weeks of our first stay on the island. - -[Illustration: FIRE WOOD] - -For a true record of this matter Olson's diary shall be copied into -these pages. It follows in full with his own phonetic spelling as -leaven. - - Sunday, Aug. 25th--Wary fin Day. over tu Hump Bay got 2 salmon - an artist cam ar to Day and going to seward efter his outfit and - ar going to sta Hear this Winter in the new Cabbin. - - Wed. 28th.--Drisly rain and cold. Mr. Kint and is son arivd - from seward this afternoon. goats out all night. - - Thurs. 29th.--goats cam ome--12.30 p. m. Mr. Kint Working on - the Cabbin fixing at up. Drisly rain all night and all day. - - Fri. 30th.--Wary fin day and the goats vant for the montane - igan. Help putting Windoes i to the Cabbin. - - Sat. 31st.--Foggy day. Big steamer going to seward. - - September - - Sun. 1st.--Mead a trip around the island. Cloudy Day. - - M. 2.--Big rainstorm from the S. E. goats all in the stabel. - - T. 3.--Drisly rain all Day. - - W. 4.--going to seward. - - T. 5.--Came Home 1 P.M. - - F. 6.--Drisly rain and Calm Wather. - - S. 7.--S. E. rainstorm. - - Sun. 8.--Big S. E. rainstorm. - - M. 9.-- " " " " - - T. 10.-- " " " " - - W. 11.--first Colld night this fall. Clear Calm Day. - - T. 12.--Clowdy and Calm. Tug and Barg going West. - - F. 13.--Steamer from the Sought 5.30 P.M. Drisly rain and Calm. - - S. 14.--raining Wary Hard. the litly angora queen ar in Hit - this morning. Fraet steamer from West going to Seward. - - Sun. 15.--raining Wary Hard all Day. the goats ar in the cabbin - all Day sought Est storm. - - M. 16.--S.E. rainstorm. - - T. 17.--raining all Day. North Est storm With Caps and Wullys - all over. - - W. 18.--Wary fear day. Mr. Kint and the Boy vant to seward this - morning. - - T. 19.--raining heard all day steamer from West going to seward - 4 P.M. - - F. 20.--raining heard all Day. - - S. 21.--Wary rof rainstorm from Soght Est. Wullys all over. - - Sun. 22.--Steamer from West going to Seward 2 P.M. the tied - vary Hie Comes clear up in the gras and the surf ar Stiring up - all the Driftwood along the shore. raining lik Hell. - - M. 23.--raining all Day. - - T. 24.--Snow on top of the mountins on the maenland a tre - mastid skuner from West going to Seward. toed by som gassboth - raining to Day egan. Mr. Kint and son got ome to the island - this Evening. - - - September fourteenth. - -I stopped writing, for the fire had almost gone out and the cold wind -blew in from two dozen great crevasses in the walls. The best of log -cabins need recalking, I am told, once a year, and mine, roughly built -as it is, needs it now in the worst way. Some openings are four or -five inches wide by two feet long. We've gathered a great quantity of -moss for calking, but it has rained so persistently that it cannot dry -out to be fit for use. - -Well, it rains and rains and rains. Since beginning this journal we've -had not one fair day, and since we've been here on the island, -seventeen days, there has been only _one_ rainless day. There has been -but one cloudless sunrise. I awoke that day just at dawn and looking -across out of the tiny square window that faces the water could see -the blue--the deep blue--mountains and the rosy western sky behind -them. At last the sun rose somewhere and tipped the peaks and the -hanging glaciers, growing and growing till the shadows of other peaks -were driven down into the sea and the many ranges stood full in the -morning light. The twilight hours are so wonderfully long here as the -sun creeps down the horizon. Just think! there'll be months this -winter when we'll not see the sun from our cove--only see it touching -the peaks above us or the distant mountains. It will be a strange life -without the dear, warm sun! - -I wonder if you can imagine what fun pioneering is. To be in a country -where the fairest spot is yours for the wanting it, to cut and build -your own home out of the land you stand upon, to plan and create -clearings, parks, vistas, and make out of a wilderness an ordered -place! Of course so much was done--nearly all--when I came. But in -clearing up the woods and in improving my own stead I have had a taste -of the great experience. Ah, it's a fine and wholesome life!... - -Another day. The storm rages out of doors. To-day I stuffed the -largest of the cracks in our wall with woolen socks, sweaters, and all -manner of clothes. It's so warm and cozy here now! Olson has been in -to see me for a long chat. I believe he can give one the material for -a thrilling book of adventure. Take his story, or enough of the -thousand wild incidents of it, give it its true setting--publishing a -map of that part of the coast where his travels mostly lay--let it be -frankly _his_ story retold, above all true and savoring of this -land--and I believe no record of pioneering or adventure could -surpass it. He's a keen philosopher and by his critical observations -gives his discourse a fine dignity. On Olson's return to Idaho in the -'80's after his first trip to Alaska a friend of his, a saloon-keeper, -came out into the street, seized him, and drew him into his place. -"Sit down, Olson," he said, "and tell us about Alaska from beginning -to end." And the traveler told his long wonder-story to the crowd. - -[Illustration: THE SLEEPER] - -At last he finished. - -"Olson," said his friend, "that would make the greatest book in the -world--if it was only lies." - -Gee, how the storm rages! - -I'm relieved to-night; Rockwell, who seems to have a felon on his -finger, is improving under the heroic treatment he submits to. I've -had visions of operating on it myself--a deep incision to the bone -being the method. It is no fun having such ailments to handle--unless -you're of the type Olson seems to be who, if his eye troubled him -seriously, would stick in his finger and pull the eye out,--and then -doubtless fill the socket with tobacco juice. - -We have reached Wednesday, September the eighteenth. - -That day the sun did shine. We rowed to Seward, Rockwell and I; -stopped for the motor that on our last trip we had left by the way, -but found the surf too high. At Seward the beach was strewn with -damaged and demolished boats from a recent storm. Moreover, in the -town the glacial stream was swollen to a torrent; the barriers had, -some of them, been swept away; a bridge was gone, the railroad tracks -were flooded, the hospital was surrounded and almost floated from its -foundations. And we saw the next day, when it again poured rain, the -black-robed sisters of charity, booted to the thighs, fleeing through -the water to a safer place. It stormed incessantly for four days more. -Although I had taken what seemed ample precaution for the safety of my -dory, she was caught at the height of the storm by the exceptional -tide of that season and carried against a stranded boat high up on the -shore, and pinioned there by a heavy pile torn from the wharf. But our -boat escaped undamaged. - -Seward was dull for Rockwell and me. We've not come this long way from -our home for the life of a small town. America offers nothing to the -tourist but the wonders of its natural scenery. All towns are of one -mold or inspired, as it were, with one ideal. And I cannot see in -considering the buildings of a single period in the East and in the -West any indication of diversity of character, of ideals, of special -tradition; any susceptibility to the influence of local conditions, -nothing in any typical American house or town where I have been that -does not say "made in one mill." There's a God forsaken hideousness -and commonplaceness about Alaskan architecture that almost amounts to -character--but it is not quite bad enough to redeem itself. Somewhere -in the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies there's a little town of one -street backed up against the towering mountains. Dominating the town -is the two-or three-story "Queen Hotel," the last word in flamboyant, -gimcrack hideousness. Hotel and Mountain! it is sublime, that bald and -crashing contrast. - -On September third, I wrote to a friend: "They strike me as needlessly -timid about the sea here, continually talking of frightful currents -and winds in a way that seems incredible to me and would, I think, to -a New England fisherman. However, I must be cautious. Olson says that -in the winter for weeks at a time it has been impossible to make the -trip to Seward. Well, I'll believe it when I try it and get stuck." - -Three weeks later,--Tuesday, September twenty-fourth, we were in -Seward. The morning was calm varying between sun and rain, but it -seemed a good day to return to Fox Island. Rockwell and I had some -difficulty launching our boat down the long beach at low water; but at -last we managed it, loaded our goods aboard,--viz., two large boxes -of groceries, fifty-nine pounds turnips, a stove, five lengths of -stovepipe, a box of wood panels, two hundred feet one inch by two inch -strips, suit case, snowshoes, and a few odd parcels. - -[Illustration: THE WINDLASS] - -At ten forty-five we pushed off. At just about that moment the sun -retired for the day and a fine and persistent rain began to fall. -After about three miles we were overtaken by a fisherman in a motor -sloop bound to his camp three miles further down the shore. He took us -in tow and, finally arriving at his camp, begged us to stay "for a cup -of tea"--he was an Englishman. I yielded to the delay there against my -own better judgment. After a hearty meal we left his cove at two -fifteen. - -Still it drizzled rain and the breeze blew faintly from the northeast. -We had a seven-mile row before us. Near Caines Head we encountered -squalls from the south and were for sometime in doubt as to the wind's -true direction. We headed straight for Fox Island only to find the -wind easterly, compelling us to head up into it. I fortunately -anticipated a heavier blow and determined to get as far to windward -and as near the shelter of the lea shore as possible, and without any -loss of time. Our propulsion toward the island I left to the tide -which was about due to ebb. We made good headway for a little time -until the wind bore upon us in heavy squalls. - -The aspect of the day had become ominous. Heavy clouds raced through -the sky precipitating rain. The mountainous land appeared blue black, -the sea a light but brilliant yellow green. Over the water the wind -blew in furious squalls raising a surge of white caps and a dangerous -chop. I was now rowing with all my strength, foreseeing clearly the -possibility of disaster for us, scanning with concern the terrible -leeward shore with its line of breakers and steep cliffs. Rockwell, -rowing always manfully, had great difficulty in the rising sea and -wind. Fortunately he realized only at rare moments the dangers of our -situation. - -We were now rowing continually at right angles to our true course. I -had but one hope, to get to windward before the rising sea and gale -overpowered us and carried us onto the dreaded coast that offered -absolutely no hope. Once to windward I had the choice of making a -landing in some cove or continuing for Fox Island by running with the -wind astern. At last the surface of the water was fairly seething -under the advancing squalls; the spray was whipped into vapor and the -caldron boiled. I bent my back to the oars and put every ounce of -strength into holding my own with the gale. It was a terrible moment -for I saw clearly the alternative of continuing and winning our fight. - -"Father," pipes up Rockwell from behind me at this tragic instant -"when I wake up in the morning sometimes I pretend my toes are asleep, -and I make my big toe sit up first because he's the father toe." At -another time Rockwell, who had shown a little panic--a very -little--said: "You know I want to be a sailor so I'll learn not to be -afraid." - -At last we turned and made for the island. We had reached the point -where with good chances of success we _could_ turn,--and where we -_had_ to. We reached the shelter of the island incredibly fast, it -seemed, with the sea boiling in our wake, racing furiously as if to -engulf us,--and then bearing us so smoothly and swiftly upon its crest -that if it had not been so terrible it would have been the most -soothing and delightful motion in the world. In rounding the headland -of our cove a last furious effort of the eluded storm careened us -sailless as we were far on one side and carried us broadside toward -the rocks. It was a minute before we could straighten our boat into -the wind and pull away from the shore, then twenty feet away. Olson -awaited us on the beach with tackle in readiness to haul our boat out -of the surf. We landed in safety. Looking at my watch I found it to be -a quarter to six. (The last four miles had taken us three hours!) - -Olson's dory had been hauled up onto the grass and tied down -securely. Mine was soon beside it. The tides and heavy seas of this -time of year make every precaution necessary. - -[Illustration: THE SNOW QUEEN] - -The wind that night continued rising 'til it blew a gale. And that -night in their bed Rockwell and his father put their arms tight about -each other without telling why they did it. - - - Wednesday, September twenty-fifth. - -It stormed from the northeast throughout the day. After putting the -cabin in order and hanging out our bedding to dry by the stove--for we -had found it very damp--I set about cutting a large spruce tree whose -high top shut out the light from our main windows. A few more still -stand in the way. The removal of all of them should give us a fair -amount of light even in the winter when the sun is hid. It occurs to -me that it may be rather fortunate that my studio window looks to the -south. I'll certainly not be troubled with sunlight while I may yet -borrow some of the near-sun brilliancy from above our mountain's top. -Rockwell and I worked some time with the cross-cut saw. I'm constantly -surprised by his strength and stamina. Rockwell read nine pages in his -book of the cave dwellers. So nine of "Robinson Crusoe" were due him -after supper. He undresses and jumps into bed and cuddles close to me -as I sit there beside him reading. And "Robinson Crusoe" is a story to -grip his young fancy and make this very island a place for adventure. - - - Thursday, September twenty-sixth. - -These are typical days, I begin to feel sure, of prevailing Alaska -weather. It rains, not hard but almost constantly. Nothing is dry but -the stove and the wall behind it; the vegetation is saturated, the -deep moss floor of the woods is full as a sponge can be. We took the -moss that weeks ago we'd gathered and spread along the shore to dry -and commenced with this sopping stuff the calking of our cabin. It -went rapidly and the two gable ends are nearly done. What a difference -it makes; to-night when my fire roared for the biscuit baking the heat -was almost unbearable. The usual chores of wood and water; a little -work at manufacturing stationery; supper of farina, corn bread, peanut -butter, and tea; six pages for Rockwell; and the day, but for this -diary, is done. - - - Friday, September twenty-seventh. - -At last it's fair after a clear moonlit night. I worked all day about -the cabin calking it and almost finishing that job, splitting wood, -and working with the cross-cut saw. Added stops to the frame of our -door, made a miter box, and cut my long strips brought from Seward -last trip into pieces for my stretcher frames. And Rockwell all this -time helped cheerfully when he was called upon, played boat on the -beach, hunted imaginary wild animals with his bow and arrow of -stone-age design, and was as always so contented, so happy that the -day was not half long enough. - -Ah, the evenings are beautiful here and the early mornings, when the -days are fair! No sudden springing of the sun into the sky and out -again at night; but so gradual, so circuitous a coming and a going -that nearly the whole day is twilight and the quiet rose color of -morning and evening seems almost to meet at noon. We glance through -our tiny western window at sunrise and see beyond the bay the many -ranges of mountains, from the somber ones at the water's edge to the -distant glacier and snow-capped peaks, lit by the far-off sun with the -loveliest light imaginable. - -To-night for supper a dish of Olson's goat's milk "Klabber" (phonetic -spelling), simply sour milk with all its cream upon it, thick to a -jelly. It was, in the favorite expression of Rockwell, "delicious." - -[Illustration: FOX ISLAND, RESURRECTION BAY, KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA] - - - Saturday, September twenty-eighth. - -Beginning fresh but overcast the day soon brought us rain,--and it is -now raining gently as I write. And yet we accomplished a great deal, -clearing of undergrowth a part of the woods between us and the shore, -felling three more trees, and cutting up a monster tree with the -cross-cut saw. At dinner time Olson ran in with the greatest -excitement. On the path in the woods near the outlet of the lake he -had seen at one time five otters. They came from the water and -advanced to within twenty feet of where he and Nanny--the milk -goat--stood. And there they played long enough for him to have taken a -dozen pictures. In the afternoon we saw a number of otters at another -place, on the rocks at one end of the beach. They were in and out of -the water, going at times for little excursion swims far out into the -harbor, then chasing each other back and playing hide-and-go-seek -among the rocks. This afternoon I prepared all my wood panels to begin -my work, painting them on both sides. - - - Sunday, September twenty-ninth. - -The Lord must have been pleased with us to-day for the grand clearing -up we gave this place of His. Olson has begun to work toward me in -clearing the still wild part of the intervening space between our -cabins. It begins to look parklike with trees stripped of limbs ten or -twelve feet from the ground and the mossy floor beneath swept clean. -With the cross-cut saw I finished up the giant tree we felled a few -days ago; and then, the ground being clear, I cut the large tree that -kept so much light from our windows. The difference it has made is -wonderful; our room is flooded with light. - -There is a fascination in cutting trees. Once I have gripped my axe, -or even the tedious saw, I find it hard to relinquish it, returning to -it again and again for one more cut. I believe that the clearing of -homesteads gave the pioneer a compelling interest in life that was in -wonderful contrast to the ordinary humdrum labor to which at first he -must have been bred. It is easy to understand the rapid conquest of -the wilderness; begin it--and you cannot stop. - -Rockwell has set his heart upon trapping, in the kindest and most -considerate way known, some wild thing--and having it for a pet. I -rather discouraged his taming the sea urchin and persuaded him out of -consideration for the intelligent creature's feelings to restore him -to the salt water--and let me have back the bread pan. But now one of -Olson's box traps is set for a magpie. They're plentiful here. I built -myself a fine easel to-day, the best one I've ever had; and put a -shelf under my drawing table. The room is clean and neat to-night; it -is in every way a congenial place. I don't see why people need better -homes than this. It was cloudy most of to-day and rained a very little -from time to time. Soon I can no longer keep from painting. - - - Monday, September thirtieth. - -The morning brilliant, clear, and cold with the wind in the north. I -promised Rockwell an excursion when we had cut six sections from a -tree with the cross-cut saw. It went like the wind. Then with cheese, -chocolate, and Swedish hard bread in my pocket for a lunch we started -for the lowest ridge of the island that overlooks the east. We had -always believed this to be a short and easy ascent until one day just -before supper we tried it in a forced march and found, after the -greatest exertions in climbing, that the ridge lay still the good part -of an hour's climb above us. - -So to-day, though we chose our path more wisely, it proved hard -climbing along rough stream beds, across innumerable fallen trees, -through alder, bramble, and blueberry thickets, and always with the -soft, oozy moss underfoot. But we reached the top-steep to the very -edge. Suddenly the trees ended, the land ended,--falling sheer away -four hundred feet below us; and we stood in wonder looking down and -out over a smooth green floor of sea and a fairyland of mountains, -peaks and gorges, and headlands that cast long purple shadows on the -green water. Clouds wreathed the mountains, snow was on their tops, -and in the clear atmosphere both the land and the sea were marvelous -for the beauty of their infinite detail. Tiny white crested wavelets -patterned the water's surface with the utmost precision and -regularity; and the land invited one to its smooth and mossy slopes, -its dark enchanted forests, its still coves and sheltered valleys, its -nobly proportioned peaks. It was a rare hour for us two. - -[Illustration: RAIN TORRENTS] - -We then followed the ridge toward the south walking in the smoothly -trodden paths of the porcupines. It led us up the lofty hill on the -east side of the island between its two coves. But the steepness of -the ascent and the matted thickets of storm-dwarfed alders that were -in our way were too much, I thought, for Rockwell, and after going -some distance farther alone I returned to him and we started -homewards. - -Once on the mountain side we sat down in the moss and mountain -cranberry to rest. And all at once we saw a great old porcupine come -clambering up the hill a short way from us. I spoke to him in his own -whiny-moany language and he was much pleased; he sat up, listened, and -then came almost straight toward us. I continued talking to him until -after several corrections of his course--determined upon by sitting up -and listening--he arrived within four or five feet of Rockwell, and -sat up again. - -We could hardly keep from laughing, he looked so foolish. But he -sensed things to be wrong, dropped down, elevated his quills, then -turned and started off. Somehow I couldn't let him go without annoying -him; so, grabbing a stick I pursued him poking at him to collect a few -quills. But at this Rockwell set up such a shrieking and wailing that -I had to stop,--and finally apologized profusely and explained that I -meant no harm to the sweet creature. Rockwell madly loves wild -animals, has not the slightest fear of them, and would really, I -believe, try out his theory of calming the anger of a bear by kissing -him. - -Then we came home and had a good dinner. I cut more wood and at last, -after one month here on the island, I PAINTED. It was a stupid sketch, -but no matter, I've begun! A weasel came out and looked at me as I -worked, then whisked off. The magpies look into our trap, squint at -the food, and then at once leave that neighborhood. It is cloudy and -rainlike to-night. Is it too much to hope for more than one fair day? - - - - -CHAPTER III - -CHORES - - - Tuesday, October first. - -To-day it rained! We attended first to our fascinating chores, plying -the cross-cut saw as the drizzle fell. Then we went to work as -artists, Rockwell with his water colors and I with my oils. Rockwell -has a number of good drawings of the country here and of the things -that have thrilled him. - -Pop! The cork of my jug of new made yeast has just struck the ceiling. -That brew has been a part of this day's work. Hops, potatoes, flour, -sugar, raisins, and yeast; stewed and strained and bottled. To-day -also was completed and served the first. - -Fox Island Corn Souffle - - "Take two cups of samp (whole hominy) and stew for an indefinite - time in salted water (it should cook at least three or four - hours). It should boil almost dry. Make of the remainder of the - water and some milk two cups of cream sauce dissolving in it - some cheese. Mix with the corn and pour into a baking dish. - Spread cheese over the top and put into oven to brown." - -We offer this delicious discovery to the world on the condition only -that "Fox Island Corn Souffle" shall be printed on the menu wherever -it is used. - -I made to-day a grandfather's chair for myself. It is as comfortable -as it is beautiful. - -Every day I read in the "History of Irish Literature." The Deirdre -Saga I read to-day. It must be one of the most beautiful and the most -perfect stories in all the world. So little do we feel ourselves -related, here in this place, to any one time or to any civilization -that at a thought we and our world become whom and what we please. -Rockwell has been a cave dweller hunting the primeval forest with a -stone hatchet and a bow of alder strung with a root. To me it is the -heroic age in Ireland. - - - Wednesday, October second. - -Incessant, hard rain. The two artists at their work a good part of the -day, Rockwell making several new drawings in his book of wonderful -animals. We bathed and I washed the accumulated clothes of several -weeks. And to-night Olson came for a long call. He's a good story -teller and his experiences are without end. And so closes this -day--with the rain still pouring monotonously on the roof. - - - Thursday, October third. - -To-day was fair at sunrise, cloudy at nine o'clock, and showery all -the rest. We worked again with the beloved cross-cut saw, setting -ourselves an almost unattainable task--and then surpassing it. And -I cleared the thicket for a better view of the mountain to the south; -and in the afternoon felled another large tree. Stretched canvass for -a while; and painted and drew, and felt the goddess Inspiration -returning to me. - -[Illustration: DAY] - -Olson, Rockwell, and I, with levers and blocks, turned and emptied the -three boats that the recent rains had almost filled. Already we fear -the frost. The mountains have been capped with snow, all green has -gone from their sides; the dark season is near at hand. - -Rockwell is ever sweet, industrious, and happy. He is beautiful after -his bath. - - - Friday, October fourth. - -A gloriously lovely day, a cloudless sky and the wind in the north. -That puts life into men! Up at sunrise, we two. Before breakfast the -axe was going, and afterwards we brought down two mighty trees. (The -trees of this part of Alaska are not to be compared with the giants of -the Western States. Two feet is a large diameter.) Then I painted for -a while futilely, the green and wind blown sea, the pink mountains, -snowy peaks, and golden morning sky. - -Rockwell and I couldn't restrain our spirits and had to clamber up the -steep mountain side; up, up we went straight above our clearings; and -soon, in looking back, the bay, the lake, and our neck of land lay -like a map below us. Cliffs and the steep slopes baffled us at times -but we found a way at last to reach the peak of the spur above us. -There it was like a pavilion, a round knoll carpeted with moss, a ring -of slender, clean-trunked trees; and beyond that nothing nearer than -the sea nine hundred feet below. Coming down we ran across a porcupine -toiling up the slope. We played with him a bit and finally let him -climb a tree. Olson would have had us bring him home for dinner. -They're said to taste good. - -We cut with the saw a while in the afternoon. Rockwell drew and I made -two more sketches--one a good one. The evening at sundown was more -brilliant even than the day. For such days as this we have come to -Alaska! - - - Saturday, October fifth. - -A hard day full of little bits of work. Sawed up a tree _alone_,--to -punish Rockwell! for not studying. Caulking the east side of the -cabin--the last side. Painted, baked, and built myself an arrangement -out-of-doors to sketch in comfort. I sit on the board with my -palette--a box end--secured before me and my picture above it. -Rockwell took his punishment so to heart that in the afternoon he read -ten pages in his book. All of to-day has been overcast, but with a -clean, refreshing atmosphere. In the account of Anson's voyage around -the Horn it is remarked that fair weather in those latitudes rarely -lasts. It may be true of the same latitudes north. - - - Monday, October seventh. - -Yesterday I wrote nothing in the diary--there was nothing to write, -but that it rained. "Rain like Hell" Olson's journal doubtless -reads,--and ditto for to-day. - -The storm is even harder now. The wind strikes our cabin first from -the west, then north, east, and south. The surface of the cove is -seething under the cross squalls; that is called the "wullys." A boat -not strongly managed would be whipped round and round. Olson has been -much in to see us, lonely old man! I drop my drawing while he is here -and take to stretching canvass, all the while yarning with him. -Rockwell likes the calls as a diversion. Rockwell's good humor and -contentment is without limit. He draws with the deepest interest hours -a day, reads for a time, and plays--talking to himself. - -[Illustration: NIGHT] - -We have good hearty fights together in which Rockwell attacks me with -all his strength and I hit back with force in self-defense. We have a -good time washing dishes, racing,--the washer, myself, to beat the -dryer. Rockwell falls down onto the floor in the midst of the race in -a fit of laughter. Rockwell's happiness is not complete until I spank -him. I grab the struggling creature and throw him down, trying to hold -both his hands and feet to have free play in beating him. This I do -with some strength sometimes using a stick of kindling wood. The more -it hurts the better Rockwell likes it--up to a limit that we never -reach. - -So much for the day's play. Of our work mine is mostly over the -drawing table. Both yesterday and to-day I made good drawings; and my -ideas come crowding along fast. Cooking, somehow, is the least -troublesome of all the daily chores. We live, as may be imagined, with -a simplicity that would send a Hoover delegate flying from the door in -dismay. This is our daily fare: - - BREAKFAST - - (invariably the same) - Oatmeal - Cocoa - Bread and Peanut Butter - - - DINNER - - Beans (one of several kinds and several ways) - or - Fox Island Corn Souffle - or - Spaghetti - or - Peas - or - Vegetable stew (barley, carrots, onions, potatoes) - and - Potatoes or rice - and (often) - Prunes or apricots or apples (dried) - - - SUPPER - - (invariably the same) - Farina - Corn bread with peanut butter or marmalade - Tea for father, milk for son - And sometimes dessert--stewed fruit, chocolate, or, when Olson - gives it, goat milk junket. - -Let us here record that to this date we have had not the least little -sickness,--only glowing health and good spirits. - - - Tuesday, October eighth. - -RAIN! But what difference does it make to us. Everyone is in a good -humor. The house is warm and dry; we've lots to eat and lots to do. - -Olson's dory was again half full of water so we turned her and the -skiff over. I stretched canvass and primed it and finished Anson's -"Voyage Around the World" a thrilling book. Late this afternoon it -began to clear; the sun shone and we were presently at work with the -saw--only to be driven in again by the shower. I expect fair weather -to-morrow. But---- - -[Illustration: WILDERNESS] - - - Wednesday, October ninth - -Fair weather is still as far away as ever, unless a sharp but cloudy -afternoon and sundown with brilliant light in the western sky spell -change. Olson says the foxes will not eat to-night and that this is -invariably a sign of change to good days--that in bad weather they eat -and in fair they abstain. It poured in the morning and we worked -indoors. After dinner we all moved a lumber pile that stood on the -shore abreast of our cabin to a place nearer Olson's--this only to -better our view of the water. We sawed wood for a while and piled all -that we have so far cut ready for winter use. There are in all fifty -sections of short stove wood. That is a month and a half's supply. I -painted towards evening, and made two good sketches. - -The nights have grown colder. For the past two days the mountains -across from us, the nearest ones, have been covered with snow -downwards to half their height. The farther ranges have for weeks been -white. They're beautiful and invite one to go climbing and sliding -over their smooth white snowfields. Close to, one would find -impassable crags and crevasses, a howling wind and bitter cold. -Rockwell to-day finished his second book, "The Cave Dwellers." - -Midnight Bulletin: the stars are out, brilliant in a cloudless sky! - - - Thursday, October tenth. - -It's raining! All day has been overcast, but sharp and clear. It was -for us all a day of hard work. We cleared up the woods between Olson's -cabin and ours carrying one large pile of brush from our door yard to -the beach and burning another huge one. That was a wild sight as night -came. It had become a great fire of logs burning steadily and lighting -up all the woods around. It is still burning in the pouring rain. We -sawed a little--always more than keeping pace with our consumption of -wood. Rockwell worked almost the whole day and went to bed tired. I -read to him an hour. He loves to hear poetry. - -We set an elaborate contrivance to catch a magpie; and were humiliated -by the bird who walked round and round the snare eying it wisely, then -suddenly rushed in only far enough to secure a piece of decoy -bait--and fled. Painted to-day making a good little sketch, but, on my -first trial of the home-made canvas, finding it to need more priming. -Work! work! - -[Illustration: ONE OF ROCKWELL'S DRAWINGS] - - - Friday, October eleventh. - -This day we should have been in Seward. It was calm although it rained -from time to time. Olson offered to tow us across to Caine's Head; -but, the rain coming up as we were about to start in the morning, we -waited till afternoon, started, proceeded half a mile, encountered -engine trouble, and finally ignominiously rowed home, I pulling Olson -and his motor and Rockwell bringing in our own dory. If it had not -been so late we would have kept on. - -We have a magpie. I saw one hop into Olson's shed, quickly ran and -closed the door, and there he was. Now he's in a box-trap cage set on -a specially constructed shelf on our front gable. He's a garrulous -creature and bites angrily; but he's a youngster and we hope to teach -him to say all sorts of pretty things; Olson says they take naturally -to swearing. So Rockwell has at last a pet. - -If only it will hold calm! To-night it is fair and starlight--but we -can never be sure of the weather's constancy. We hold everything in -readiness to start in the morning. - - - Saturday, October twelfth. - -A mild and lovely day on our island but in the bay a breeze from the -north that would have made our rowing to Seward difficult. Still we -wait with our things assembled for the trip. We shall go at the very -first good chance. This morning Olson cleared the limbs from the trees -about us to ten or twelve feet from the ground. Only the tall, clean -trunks are now between us and our mountains across the bay. I painted -most of the afternoon. My canvas is still quite impossible--rough and -absorbent. We built a large cage for the magpie he was so restless in -his small one. And now he's quite contented. - -Rockwell said to-day that he would like to live here always. That when -he was grown he'd come here with his many children and me, if I was -not dead, and stay. It is hard to write, it is hard to work, with the -trip to Seward at hand. Olson says it is Sunday. I think he's right. -Somehow I've missed a day. - - - Sunday, October thirteenth. - -(I still keep to my chronology until we find out from Seward where we -stand.) A wonderfully beautiful day with a raging northwest wind. I -must sometime honor the northwest wind in a great picture as the -embodiment of clean, strong, exuberant life, the joy of every young -thing, bearing energy on its wings and the will to triumph. How I -remember at Monhegan on such a day, when it seemed that every living -thing must emerge from its house or its hole or its nest to breathe -the clean air and exult in it; when men could stand on the hilltops -and look far over the green sea and the distant land and delight in -the infinite detail of the view, discerning distant ships at sea and -remote blue islands, and, over the land, sparkling cities and such -enchanting forests and pastures that the spirit leaped the intervening -miles and with a new delight claimed the whole earth to the farthest -mountains--and beyond; on such a day there crept from his hole an -artist, and, shading his squinting eyes with his hand, saluted the day -with a groan. "How can one paint?" he said, "such sharpness! Here is -no mystery, no beauty." And he crept back, this fog lover, to wait for -earth's sick spell to return. - -This morning the magpie sang--or recited poetry; he made strange glad -noises in his throat--and that in a cage! We worked, the rest of us, -like mad. At five-thirty Olson, resting at last, said: "Well, you've -done a great day's work." And after that I painted a sketch, cut and -trimmed three small spruce trees; and then, it being dark, prepared -supper. - -But when do we go to Seward? My bag is packed. Olson begins each day -by testing his motor. The wind must moderate in time. We see it pass -our cove driving the water as in a mill-race. To-day it swept the cove -itself. - -Rockwell went for a walk in the woods; he has a delightful time on his -rambles, discovering goats' wool on the bushes, following the paths of -the porcupines to their holes, and to-day finding the porcupine -himself. He always returns with some marvelous discovery or new -enthusiasm over his explorations. He has been practicing writing -to-day. He says that if he could only write he would put down the -wonderful stories of his dreams. These stories would run into volumes. - -[Illustration: SUNRISE] - - - Tuesday, October fifteenth. - -Yesterday we left the island. The day was calm though cloudy, and at -times it rained. Olson towed us to Caine's Head. From there we made -good time Rockwell rowing like a seasoned oarsman, as indeed he has -now a right to be called. We stopped at the camp where we had in -August left our broken-down engine, and brought that away with us, as -well as some turnips and half a dozen heads of beautiful lettuce grown -on that spot. - -By night it was raining hard and blowing from the southeast. We spent -the evening at the postmaster's house, playing, I, on the flute to -Miss Postmaster's accompaniment. It went splendidly and until midnight -we played Beethoven, Bach, Hayden, Gluck, Tchaikowsky, till it seemed -like old times at home. Then Rockwell with his eyes shut in sleep, -consumed a piece of apricot pie and a glass of milk, and we came home -bringing along two glasses of wild currant preserve. I read my letters -over and then went to bed. But the storm raged by that time and I -couldn't sleep for worry about my boat. At last I rose and dressed and -went down to the shore. The dory was safely stranded but too low down. -So with great toil I worked her higher up the beach beyond high water. - -To-day it has rained incessantly. I have bought a few odd supplies and -registered for the draft. - -Above all to-day the engine has resumed its running and we'll return -to Fox Island under power. I know nothing about an engine but I have -eight miles to learn in before the only hazardous part of the voyage -begins. To-night Rockwell and I spent the evening at the house of a -young man whom we've found congenial and who above all is a friend of -a young German mechanic for whom I've a liking. So the four of us sang -the evening through, seated before a great open fire. The house is of -logs and stands out of the town on the border of the wilderness. There -are spots like this little house and its hospitable hearth that show -even the commercial desert of Seward to have its oases. And now we're -in our room. Rockwell is asleep in bed. It is past midnight. I am -thinking of dear friends at home, and I bid them affectionately -good-night. - - - Thursday, October seventeenth. - -Yesterday in Seward was about as every other day. We spent it between -letter-writing in our hotel room and visiting from store to store. It -poured rain and blew from the southeast. We spent our evening with the -German. We have planned with him to signal back and forth from Seward, -particularly to send me the news of peace. If I can distinguish, with -glasses a high-powered electric light that he will show from a house -on the highest point in the town, then, by means of the Morse code -with which I am furnished and which he knows, I'll receive messages on -appointed days. - -To-night Rockwell and I went a quarter of a mile down our beach to a -point that commands a view up the bay to Seward and lighted a bonfire -there. Boehm, the German, was regarding us, we presume, through a -telescope. On Sunday night, if it is clear, we are to look for his -light. The difficulty will be to distinguish it from others. - -We left Seward this morning at 9.45, our dory laden with about one -thousand pounds of freight--including ourselves. The little three and -one half horse-power motor worked splendidly and carried us to the -island in a little over two and a quarter hours. The day was calm, to -begin with, with a rising north wind as we crossed from Caine's Head. -On the island we found a visitor. There had been two other men but -they were gone to Seward the night before. All had been on Monday -forced by the rough sea to turn back from attempting to go around the -westward cape. The old fellow who is still here told me to-night that -in the twenty years that he had been in Alaska he had never seen such -weather. That's good news. At Seward the mountains are covered with -snow to within a few hundred feet of the town's level. I'm tired. This -ends to-day. Incidentally my dates proved to be correct when I reached -Seward. - -[Illustration: ADVENTURE] - -Oh, I've almost forgotten our loss. The poor magpie lay dead on the -floor of his cage. So we found him, killed, I believe, by the storm, -for Olson neglected to cover him. Rockwell, who straight on landing -had run there, wept bitterly but finally found much consolation in -giving him a very decent burial and marking the spot with a wooden -cross. - - - Friday, October eighteenth. - -The night is beautiful beyond thought. All the bay is flooded with -moonlight and in that pale glow the snowy mountains appear whiter than -snow itself. The full moon is almost straight above us, and shining -through the tree tops into our clearing makes the old stumps quite -lovely with its quiet light. And the forest around is as black as the -abyss. Although it is nearly ten o'clock Rockwell is still awake. It -is his birthday--by our choice. His one present, a cheap child's -edition of Wood's "Natural History," illustrated, has filled his head -with dreams of his beloved wild animals. I began to-night to teach him -to sing. We tried Brahms's "Wiegenlied," with little success, and then -"Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf," which went better. These songs and many -other German songs, all with English words, are in the song book I -bought him. I hope I shall have the patience and the time to succeed -with Rockwell in this. - -Three men are now with Olson in his cabin, for the two who were gone -to Seward returned to-day. They are younger men, one of them -Emsweiler a well-known guide of this country. I spent an interesting -hour with them this evening. Olson told me to-day that his age is -seventy-one. The smell of fresh bread is in our cabin, for I baked -to-day. Baking, wood-cutting, darning of socks, putting the cabin in -order, and the building of a shelf, these, with the other usual -chores, were the whole day's work; a profitless day lies on my -conscience. I shall draw a little and then go to bed. - - - Saturday, October nineteenth. - -To-day was raw and cloudy, mild and sunny; in the morning windy, in -the afternoon dead calm so that the hills were reflected in the bay. -The men have left, I am glad to say, not that they were in themselves -at all objectionable, but it somehow did violence to the quiet of this -place to have others about. Emsweiler slaughtered one of the goats for -Olson, so there's now one less of us here. I felled a large tree -to-day and later sharpened the cross-cut saw preparatory to cutting it -up. To-night the sun set in the utmost splendor and left in its wake -blazing, fire-red clouds in a sky of luminous green. Not many more -days shall we see the sun; it sets now close to the southern headland -of our cove. - -Rockwell works every day on his wild animal book. To obtain absolutely -new and original names for his strange creatures he has devised an -interesting method. With eyes closed he prints a name or rather a -group of miscellaneous letters. Naturally the result he perceives on -opening his eyes is astonishing. - - - Sunday, October twentieth. - -It has been a beautiful, clear, cold, violent northwest day. I've -painted on and off all day with wood cutting between. One can't stop -going in such weather, and out-of-doors you can't stand still for it -is too icy cold and windy. - -Rockwell and I have just now, eight o'clock, returned from down the -beach where we went to look for lights from Seward. But we could -distinguish nothing meant for us. The moon has risen and illuminates -the mountain tops--but we and all our cove are still in the deep -shadow of the night. It is most dramatic; the spruces about us deepen -the shadow to black while above them the stone faces of the mountain -glisten and the sky has the brightness of a kind of day. Olson brought -us goat chops for dinner. We could not have told them from lamb. - -This afternoon late a small power boat appeared in the bay attempting -to make its way toward Seward. After some progress the wind forced her -steadily and swiftly back. When we last saw her she seemed to be -trying to make the shelter of our island or one of the outer islands, -the while driving steadily seaward. It's a wild night to be out in the -bay though doubtless calm at sea. It is such an adventure that we must -be on our guard against. As we look across the bay toward Bear -Glacier, which is hidden by a point of land, we can see the effect of -the north wind sweeping down the glacier, a mist driving seaward. It -is nothing less than the fine spray of that wind-swept water. - - - Monday, October twenty-first. - -It is so late that I shall write only a little. To-day was again -wonderful, a true golden and blue northwest day. I have painted and -sawed wood, and built myself a splendid six-legged saw horse. Olson -thinks I have already cut my winter's supply of wood--but it seems to -me far from it. Rockwell has been most of the day at his own animal -book, making some strange and beautiful birds. This morning the ground -was frozen with a hard crust. It did not thaw throughout the day, and -again to-night it is very cold. Winter is at last upon us, the long, -long winter. And the sun retreats day by day farther toward the -mountain. I look to the sun's going with a kind of dread. We have seen -nothing of the boat that last night was driven to shelter. We believe -the men to be in the other cove of our island. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -WINTER - - -Endlessly, day after day, the journal goes on recording a dreary -monotony of rain and cloud. Who has ever dwelt so entirely alone that -the most living things in all the universe about are wind and rain and -snow? Where the elements dominate and control your life, where at -getting up and bedtime and many an hour of night and day between you -question helplessly, as a poor slave his master, the will of the -mighty forces of the sky? Dawn breaks, you jump from bed, stand -barefoot on the threshold of the door, look through the straight -trunked spruces at the brightening world, and read at sight God's will -for one more whole, long day of life. "Ah God! it rains again." And -sitting on the bed you wearily draw on your heavy boots, and -rainy-spirited begin the special labors of a rainy day. Or maybe, at -the sight of clouds again, you laugh at the dull-minded weather man or -curse at him good naturedly. Still you must do those rainy-weather -chores and all the other daily chores in hot wet-weather garments. -That is destiny. - -Most of the time, to do ourselves real justice, we met the worst of -weather with a battle cry, worked hard,--and then made up for outdoor -dreariness and wet by heaping on the comforts of indoors,--dry, cozy -warmth, good things to eat, and lots to do. - -We have reached late fall--for northern latitudes. The sky is brooding -ominously, heavy, dull, and raw. Winter seems to be closing in upon -us. We're driven to work as if in fear. Hurry, hurry! Saw the great -drums of spruce, roll them over the ground and stack them high. Calk -tight with hemp the cabin's windward eaves so that no breath of wind -can enter there and freeze the food inside upon the shelf. Set up the -far-famed air-tight stove where it will keep you warm,--warm feet in -bed and a warm back while painting. Patch up the poor, storm-battered -paper roof,--two or three holes we find and we are sure it leaks from -twenty. About the cabin pile the hemlock boughs, dense-leafed and -warm, making a green slope almost to the eaves. Now it looks cozy! -Outside and in the last is done to make us ready for the winter's -worst, and just in time! It is the evening of October twenty-second -and the feathery snow has just begun to fall. Olson comes stamping in. -"Well, well," he cries, "how's this! How does our winter suit you?" It -suits us perfectly. The house is warm, Rockwell's in bed, and I am -reading "Treasure Island" to him. - -"What are you going to make of him?" asked Olson that night speaking -of Rockwell. I was at that moment pouring beans into the pot for -baking. I slowed the stream and dropped them one by one: - - "'Rich-man, poor-man, beggar-man, thief, - Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.' - -How in the world can anyone lay plans for a youngster's life?" - -[Illustration: ON THE HEIGHT] - -Rockwell lay in his bed dreaming, maybe, of an existence lovelier far -than anything the poor, discouraged imagination of a man could reach. -A child could make a paradise of earth. Life is so simple! Unerringly -he follows his desires making the greatest choices first, then onward -into a narrowing pathway until the true goal is reached. How can one -preach of beauty or teach another wisdom. These things are of an -infinite nature, and in every one of us in just proportion. There is -no priesthood of the truth. - -We live in many worlds, Rockwell and I,--the world of the books we -read,--an always changing one, "Robinson Crusoe," "Treasure Island," -the visionary world of William Blake, the Saga Age, "Water Babies," -and the glorious Celtic past,--Rockwell's own world of fancy, kingdom -of beasts, the world he dreams about and draws,--and my created land -of striding heroes and poor fate-bound men--real as I have painted -them or to me nothing is,--and then all round about our common, daily, -island-world, itself more wonderful than we have half a notion of. Is -it to be believed that we are here alone, this boy and I, far north -out on an island wilderness, seagirt on a terrific coast! It's as we -pictured it and wanted it a year and more ago,--yes, dreams come true. - -And now the snow falls softly. Winter, to meet our challenge, has -begun. - -Short notes in the journal mark "Treasure Island's" swift passage. -Then enter "Water Babies!" "Just after Rockwell's heart and mine," I -have recorded it. But Kingsley must lose his friends,--a warning to -the snob in literature. How it did weary us and madden us, his -English-gentry pride,--unless we outright laughed. "At last it's -finished. That's an event. When Kingsley isn't showing off he's -moralizing, and between his religious cant and his English snobbery he -is, in spite of his occasional sweet sentiment, quite unendurable. So -to-night we read from 'Andersen's Fairy Tales'--forever lovely and -true." - -Children have their own fine literary taste that we know quite too -little about. They love all real, authentic happenings, and they love -pure fairy tale. But to them fiction in the guise of truth is wrong, -and fairy romance, unconvincing in its details, is ridiculous. Action -they like, the deed--not thoughts about it. Doubtless the simple saga -form is best of all,--life as it happens, neither right nor wrong, -words that they can understand, things they can comprehend, -interesting facts or thrilling fancy. Such simple things delight the -child that half of "Robinson Crusoe" and three quarters of the smug -family from Switzerland are forgiven for the sweet kernel of pure -adventure that is there. - -As for adventure,--that is relative. Where little happens and the -gamut of expression is narrow life is still full of joy and sorrow. -You're stirred by simple happenings in a quiet world. - -The killer-whales that early in September played in the shoal water of -our cove not thirty feet from land, rolled their huge, shining bodies -into view, plunged, raced where we still could follow their gleaming, -white patch under water,--there's a thrill! - -The battles that occurred that month between huge fish out in the bay, -their terrible, mysterious, black arms that beat the water with a -sound like cannon, the plunge into the depths of the poor, frantic, -wounded whale, and his return again for air; again the thunder sound -and flying foam and spray as the dread black arm is beating on the -sea; then calm. You shudder at that huge death. That was a drama for -Fox Islanders. - -And later the poor magpie's death. Real tears were shed from a poor -boy's half-broken heart. - -Two strangers come these days and stop with Olson. They're on the -search of that small craft that we saw driving seaward in a tempest. - -[Illustration: THE DAY'S WORK] - -_There_ is mystery! Was she adrift unmanned, broke from her moorings, -or was there life aboard as we had thought? In that case she'd been -stolen, and who were the men and where? Wrecked safely on some island, -drowned, or driven out to sea? No man shall ever know. - -A porcupine is captured wandering near our house. We build for him a -cozy home--he doesn't like it much but still he _should_. We care for -him day after day, he twines himself, about our hearts. Then at last -one day when we'd pastured him in freedom out in the new fallen snow, -trusting his tracks to lead us to him, the goats cut in and spoiled -the trail and he was lost to us. - -Olson has gone to Seward: days of waiting, days of waiting! How many -times do we travel down the cove to the point from whence Caine's Head -is seen, going in hope, returning gloomily. - -The goats beset us yearning for their missing master. Billy, that -maddening beast, eats up one corner of our broom. I throw a heavy -armful of kindling wood into his face--and he just sneezes. But -Rockwell plays with the goats as if they're human, or rather, as if he -were goat. They half believe it, he has told me,--and, Rockwell, so do -I. - - - Sunday, November third. - -To-day was gloriously bright and clear with a strong northwest wind. -The mountains are covered with snow, beautiful beyond description. I -painted in-and out-of-doors continuously all the day except when -Rockwell and I plied the saw. It is no little thing to have one's work -on a day like this out under such a blue sky, by the foaming green sea -and the fairy mountains. - -Three days go by. It rains and hails and snows, and then is quiet. -Over the dead, still air comes the roar of pounding seas. Immense and -white they pile on the black cliffs of Caine's Head, the wash of a -storm at sea. Still over the heaving, glassy water we look in vain -for Olson. Dark days, and the short hours are long with waiting. How -many times we traveled down the cove to look toward Seward, how many -score of times we peered through the little panes of our west window -never to find the thing we sought for. - -I've loaded my arms with firewood from the pile. I turn my head and -there in our cove before my very eyes at last is Olson! This is -November sixth,--nine days away! - -"The war is over," cried Olson as he landed. By all that's holy in -life may the world have found through its mad war at least some -fragrance of the peace and freedom that we discovered growing like a -flower, wild on the borders of the wilderness.... - -Long into night I read the mail, count sweaters, caps, and woolen -stockings, all that the mail has brought. It is late, Rockwell is -asleep, the room is cold, it snows out-of-doors.... And now instead of -bed I'll stir the fire and begin my work. - - - Thursday, November seventh. - -A true winter's day with the snow deep on the ground and the profound -and characteristic winter silence of the out-of-doors to be sensed -even in this ever silent place. At earliest daylight began a heavy -thunderstorm with lightning all about and a downpour of hail. It -occurred intermittently throughout the morning.... I did the washing, -using Olson's washboard and getting the clothes nearly white. - -Olson is full of amusing gossip. To the curious in Seward who asked -him why I chose to be in this God-forsaken spot he replied: "You damn -fools, you don't understand an artist at all. Do you suppose -Shakespeare wrote his plays with a silly crowd of men and women -hanging around him? No, sir, an artist has to be left alone." - -"Well, what does he paint?" - -"That's his business. Sometimes I see he has a mountain there on a -picture, and next time I see it's been changed to a lake or something -else." - -[Illustration: MEAL TIME] - -One can imagine Olson with his questioners. The thing he most wants, -his ambition, one might say, is to make people sit up and take notice -of Fox Island, his homestead. It is in fact one reason why he brought -us here to live. Thanks to its amateur detective, Seward had rejoiced -for a short time in rumors of a German spy on Fox Island. I told Olson -that the authorities might still come and remove me. He flared up, -"I'd like to see them try it! We could take to the mountains with -guns, and more than one of them would never try the thing again." And -then he went on to tell me how in Idaho he had tracked for days and -weeks a notorious gang of outlaws and horse-thieves and at last run -them to earth,--one of his most thrilling and, I believe, absolutely -true stories of his adventures. - -At this moment a steamer is blowing in the bay, navigating by the echo -from the mountain faces. She is near to us now but hidden by the -snowstorm. - -Rockwell has begun to write the story of a long, waking dream of his. -It's a sweet idea and reads most amusingly in his own queer spelling. -Now, though it is already late, I must draw a while longer and then, -after bathing in the bread pan, sit up in bed and read a chapter of -the life of Blake. - - - Friday, November eighth. - -It is so late that I half expect to see the dawn begin. I have been -working on a drawing of Rockwell and his father--and it looks ever so -fine. - -Whew! just at this moment the wind has swept down upon our cabin and -blown the roof in as far as it would with great creaking yield,--and -then passed on sucking it out in its wake to such a spread that a -board that lay across overhead like a collar-beam has fallen with a -crash and clatter,--and Rockwell sleeps on! The wind does blow -to-night, and it doesn't stop outside the walls of the cabin either. -My lamp flutters annoyingly. But ah! the room is comfortable and warm. - -This morning, it being at first wondrously fair, Rockwell and I set -out for a boat ride. But what with the fussing of installing our motor -and the launching of our cumbersome boat the wind was given time to -rise and spoil the day for us. But we went out into the bay and played -in the waves to see what the north wind could do. The chop was -devilish, short and deep; the boat bridged from one crest to another -with, it seemed, a clear tunnel underneath,--and then running up onto -a wave mountain she would jump off its dizzy peak landing with a -splash in the valley beyond and dousing us well with water. In a -calmer spot I stopped the engine and sketched our island; after which -we rowed home. The rest of the day we worked on the motor--first to -find out why she wouldn't run, then, having found and fixed that, to -put other parts in still better order, and then, by far the longest -time and still to continue to-morrow, to mend what in the course of -our fixing we had broken. - -Rockwell's in bed, asleep, dreaming of the little, wild nightingale -that sang of freedom to that poor, unhappy Chinese Emperor; while far -from here in streets and towns the tin nightingale of law-made liberty -charms the world. And it's now my reading time, my time for bread and -jam and a soft-cushioned back. - -The days run by, true winter days, snow, cold, and wind,--what wind! -It is terrifying when from our mountain tops those fierce blasts sweep -upon us roaring as they come; flying twigs and ice beat on the roof, -the boards creak and groan under the wind's weight, the lamp flutters, -moss is driven in and falls upon my work-table, the canvas over our -bed flaps,--and then in a moment the wind is gone and the world is -still again save for the distant wash of the waves and the far off -forest roar. - -[Illustration: DAY'S END] - -Olson is full of treats. His latest was in pleasant violation of the -law. From a bottle of pale liquid half filled with raisins he poured -me a drink, mixing it with an equal amount of ginger ale and a dash of -sugar. It tasted pretty good, quite thrilling in fact. - -"What is it?" I asked. - -"Pure alcohol," he said, smacking his lips. - -Olson then launched forth on confidential advice, "from one trapper to -another," on how to trap men,--in my case rich patrons. He has my need -of them quite upon his mind. - -Olson's eggs, by the way, taste good enough. (They gave him in Seward -twenty-four dozen bad eggs to bring out for the foxes.) We have eaten -a dozen. To-day I cracked seventeen to find six for dinner. Onion -omelette is the fashion to cook them in. Rockwell pronounces them -delicious and--well--so do I. - -Hard, hard at work, little play, not too much sleep. The wind blows -ceaselessly. Rockwell is forever good,--industrious, kind, and happy. -He reads now quite freely from any book. Drawing has become a natural -and regular occupation for him, almost a recreation--for he can draw -in both a serious and a humorous vein. At this moment he's waiting in -bed for some music and another Andersen fairy tale. - - * * * * * - -Another day has gone and a new morning is hours on its way. Out in the -moonlit night strained, tired eyes open wide and are made clear again, -cramped knees must dance in the crisp air, the curved spine bends -backward as the upstretched arms describe that superb embracing -gesture of the good-night yawn. November the thirteenth! how time -sweeps by. And I look over the black water that we soon must cross -again to Seward. The wind bursts around the cabin corner. I shiver -and--go to bed. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -WAITING - - - Thursday, November fourteenth. - -We're ready to go to Seward the moment the weather moderates--which -may be not for two weeks or two months. I've packed blankets and -several days' food in a great knapsack so that if we're driven to land -somewhere we'll not perish of hunger. And this trip while it may be -carried out speedily may on the other hand strand us days without -number in Seward and cost three or four times that many dollars. - -The wind is still in the North, the days are wonderfully beautiful, -and the nights no less. This very night Rockwell and I skated for the -third time, Ah, but it was glorious on the lake, the moon high above -us in a cloudless sky, the snow and ice on the mountain sides -glistening and the spruces black. We skated together hand in hand like -sweethearts; going far to one end of the lake in the teeth of the wind -and returning before it like full-rigged ships. And Rockwell whose -second skate to-day this was improves every minute. - -I've cut Rockwell's hair, four months' growth. He has had the -appearance of a boy of the Middle Ages with his hair cut to a line -above his eyes. Now he's truly a handsome fellow--and such a man under -the hardships of this cold place and rough life that I'm very proud of -him. - - - Saturday, November sixteenth. - -Still it blows, yesterday and to-day, cold, clear, and blue,--and the -moon these nights stands straight above us and stays till dawn, -setting far in the north. It is really cold. Olson is quite miserable -and wonders how we can keep at our wood cutting and skating. But I -think I shall never live in such cold again as in that first winter on -Monhegan in my unfinished house when on cold days the water pails four -feet from the stove froze over between the times I used them, and my -beans at soak froze one night on the lighted stove. We love this -weather here. While the cabin is drafty I pile on fuel remorselessly, -and that's a real delight after having all my life had truly to count -the pieces of coal and wood. The ice on the pond is six inches thick, -part of it clear black that one can see the bottom through. This -morning Rockwell changed to heavy underwear. He complains always of -the heat, day and night. - -The days go on about as usual varied only by an occasional weekly or -monthly chore and success or failure in my painting. This morning with -Olson's help I brought my boat up onto the land above the beach. The -boat is an extremely heavily built eighteen-foot dory with a heavy -keel; and yet the wind carried it four feet last night and, if it had -not been secured, might have blown it down into the water where the -waves would soon have wrecked it. This night I shall not read in bed; -it's quite too far away from the stove. - - - Sunday, November seventeenth. - -We jumped from bed in a hurry this morning believing that the apparent -stillness boded a calm day and a fit one for the Seward trip. But the -sea beyond our cove was running swiftly and within two hours there was -a gale of wind and some snow. Cold it was and dark. We'd hardly put -the lamp out after breakfast, before we lighted it again for late -dinner. Still in that short daylight I painted and Rockwell skated and -painted, and we both cut a lot of wood. I've spent the evening -writing, trying an article for "The Modern School." We turned my boat -over and secured it to the ground with ropes just in time to escape -the fall of snow to-night that lies deep on the ground. The moon is up -and through the clouds there comes a general illumination like -daylight. - - - Monday, November eighteenth. - -To-day a storm from the southeast. It blows like fury. Breakfast by -lamplight, work until dark, then dinner--in the neighborhood of three -o'clock or maybe four--more work, and a nap, for I felt exhausted. -Rockwell goes to bed and is read to, I work a while longer, then a -light supper for which Rockwell gets up again, then--the dishes washed -and R. again in bed--a call on Olson for three quarters of an hour, -leaving there at ten, to work again till some wild hour. What a -strangely arranged day! I'm determined to have a clock. But now it -will be seen that no more time must be spent this night upon this -diary. Amen. - - - Tuesday, November nineteenth. - -A dreary, dreary, a weary day. But I've worked or somehow been -ceaselessly busy and now I'm about ready for my nightcap of reading -and bed. Four canvases stretched and primed stand to my credit and -that alone is one day's work in effort and conquered repugnance. -What a tedious work. My Christmas letters are written, nearly all of -them. And as Christmas draws near it seems more and more impossible -without home and the children. It will be a huge make-believe for one -of our family here! - -[Illustration: ROCKWELL'S DREAM] - -There's a big storm at sea from the look of the water and the sound of -the wind. And the rain falls drearily and on the roof it rattles. From -the tall trees the great drops fall like stones; they beat to pieces, -little by little, the paper roof, and now when the rain is hardest we -hear the drip, drip of the water on the floor. But we are -comfortable--so what of it all. - -I read "Big Claus and Little Claus" to Rockwell to-night. That's a -great story and we roared over it. Rockwell doesn't like the stories -about kings and queens, he says, "They're always marrying and that -kind of stuff." Just the same Rockwell himself has his life and -marriage pretty closely planned,--the journey from the East alone, the -wife to be found at Seattle to save her carfare--and yet not put off -as far as Alaska, for there they don't look nice enough,--and then -life in Alaska to the end of his days. And I'm to be along if I'm not -dead,--as I probably shall be, he says. - -I have just finished the life of Blake and am now reading Blake's -prose catalogue, etc., and a book of Indian essays of Coomeraswamy. -The intense and illuminating fervor of Blake! I have just read this: -"The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To -suppose that Art can go beyond the finest specimens of Art that are -now in the world is not knowing what Art is; it is being blind to the -gifts of the Spirit." Here in the supreme simplicity of life amid -these mountains the spirit laughs at man's concern with the form of -Art, with new expression because the old is outworn! It is man's own -poverty of vision yielding him nothing, so that to save himself he -must trick out in new garb the old, old commonplaces, or exalt to be -material for art the hitherto discarded trivialities of the mind. - - - Wednesday, November twentieth. - -To-morrow we hope to get off--although it still storms. There's a -terrific sea running but even such a sea would trouble us less than -the chop of the north wind. The wind above all else is to be feared -here. - -I painted little--it was so dark. Somehow on these short days it is -difficult to accomplish much. Certain things _have_ to be done by -daylight: the chopping of wood, carrying of water from a hundred yards -away, lamp filling, and some cooking. I made myself a lot of envelopes -to-day and second-coated the canvases of yesterday's stretching. And -now it is bedtime for to-morrow we rise early. Oh! the porcupine -returned to-day and was discovered feeding calmly near the cabin. He -showed no alarm at Rockwell's approach, and, when finally after some -hours of undisturbed nibbling and napping Rockwell carried him home by -his tail and set him down a little distance from his old cage, he ran -straight there and interned himself. - - - Friday, November twenty-second. - -Both yesterday and to-day are to be recorded. The porcupine is dead! -And yesterday he endeared himself so to us, playing about in the house -with the utmost content. The cause of his death we cannot know--unless -it was our kindness. Rockwell with Olson's leather mittens on did -carry him about a good deal. Of course they are creatures nocturnal -and we had planned to let him have his regular hours for exercise and -feeding, Rockwell delighting in the plan that he should stay with him -in the woods at night, which I was certainly going to let him try. But -it's over,--and Pet No. 2 has gone to his happy hunting grounds. - -It storms, yesterday violently with such wind and rain as seemed -incredible. The thin paper roof made the noise deafening so that I -could not sleep; and the surf beat and the forest roared; it was a -wild night. To-day is better though it pours every half hour. When, -_when_ shall we get to Seward! And here before me are displayed all -the pretty Christmas presents I have made and that Rockwell has made. -Here we sit, these dark short days, working together at the same table -just like two professional craftsmen. On these days I cannot -paint,--and Olson calls upon us more than he should. Still, we let him -sit here in silence and he is wise enough to be quite content. Now it -is late. The stove is out and I must go to bed. Two meals only -to-day,--another is due me. Oh! I made myself a beautiful die for note -paper yesterday and printed it on my envelopes to-day. - -[Illustration: THE CABIN WINDOW] - - - Saturday, November twenty-third. - -It dawned calm with rain hanging in the air. We hurried with our -breakfast in the hope that we should get off; but within an hour at -the turn of the tide the northwest wind whipped down from the -mountains and the rain fell in torrents. And now at a late hour of the -night it still rains although the wind has fallen. We felled a tree -to-day and partly cut it up. Although it was dismally dark all the -time I managed to paint a little. And I wrote much and drew in black -and white. Rockwell has been industrious as usual, drawing at my side. -He told me an amusing anecdote of little Kathleen that is worthy to go -down here. When in play she wants to change her doll's name she sends -for the pretend doctor, again herself, and he operates on the doll. -Cutting a hole in her stomach he stuffs into it a little piece of -paper on which he has written the new name. And so the name is -changed. - -Tried some cottonseed oil of Olson's to-day that was too bad. A year -or two ago he was given a case of spoiled mayonnaise dressing for fox -food. Olson saved the oil which had separated from the rest of it. I -made dough for doughnuts while I heated the oil to fry ourselves that -great treat. Then arose a pinching, rancid odor that almost made me -ill but which Rockwell called delicious. However I baked the -doughnuts. Still, the oil unheated seemed not bad. - - - Sunday, November twenty-fourth. - -Olson declares this day to be Sunday and in honor of the day he gave -me a cup of milk for junket. And in honor of the day, whatever it is, -I worked so hard that now I'm tired out. The day began with snow and -continued with it. It blustered and blew much as a day in March and -the bay looked wild. And now to-night it is clear and starlight. Will -the north wind begin to blow again to-morrow? The chances are that it -will and Seward and the sending of my mail will be as far away as -ever. I painted with some success for the snow makes the cabin -lighter. Really my picture looks well. Eight canvases are far along so -that I'm proud of them. We cut wood to-day of course; it would be -great fun if only we'd more minutes of daylight to spare. Steamer must -be due in Seward now. We've seen none for two weeks or longer. - - - Monday, November twenty-fifth. - -It rages from the northeast! The bay is a wild expanse of breakers. -They bear into our cove and thunder on the beach. A mad day and a wild -night. And Seward is as far off as ever! It is now my hope that a -steamer will go to Seward before me. Olson finds by his diary that -none has been seen to go there for two weeks. I began two new pictures -to-day trying for the first time to paint after dark. My lamp is so -inadequate in this dark interior--it burns only a three-quarter inch -wick--that I can work only in black and white. But I've laid in the -whole picture in that way. Rockwell spends several hours a day -out-of-doors exploring the woods, searching out porcupine trails and -caves. It is weeks since I have stopped my work even for a walk. In -this "out-of-doors life" I see little of out-of-doors. It's a blessing -to me to have to saw wood every day. - -[Illustration: "GO TO BED"] - -I finished Coomeraswamy's "Indian Essays" to-day, an illuminating and -inspiring book. Coomeraswamy defines mysticism as a belief in the -unity of life. The creed of an artist concerns us only when we mean by -it the tendency of his spirit. (How hard it is to speak of these -intangible things and not use words loosely and without exact -meaning.) I think that whatever of the mystic is in a man is -essentially inseparable from him; it is his by the grace of God. After -all, the qualities by which all of us become known are those of which -we are ourselves least conscious. The best of me is what is quite -impulsive; and, looking at myself for a moment with a critic's eye, -the forms that occur in my art, the gestures, the spirit of the whole -of it is in fact nothing but an exact pictorial record of my -unconscious living idealism. - - - Tuesday, November twenty-sixth. - -After a terribly stormy and cold night the day was fair with the wind -comfortably settled in the north as if he meant to stay there. Only at -night has it been calm. To-night again is so and if I had not Rockwell -on my hands to make me timid I'd go at night to Seward. Olson was a -real Santa Claus to-day. First he gave us Schmier Kase, then a good -salt salmon--two years old which he said we'd "better try"--and -to-night a lot of butter churned by him from goat's milk. It looks -like good butter and, with the added coloring matter, more palatable -than the natural white butter of the goat. We felled two trees -to-day--fairly small ones. We consume a vast amount of wood with our -all-night fire. Well--to-morrow, let us say again, we'll be off to -Seward. - - - Wednesday, November twenty-seventh. - -To-day, if we had known how the weather would turn, we should have -started. It was lovely, cold but fair with the wind in the -south-west. It had in the morning all appearances of a heavy blow and -we failed to get in shape to take advantage of its calming as the -afternoon advanced. At any rate I have a little picture of it with the -soft haze of the day and the loose clouds. I painted besides on the -large canvas of Superman begun a few days ago. Olson lent me his -"grub-box" to use, a wooden box of small grocery size with a cover -fastened with a strap and buckle. Such a box is part of the outfit of -every man on the Yukon. My emergency grub is now in it, my letters, -Christmas presents, and all that's bound for Seward. Rockwell took -Squirlie out for an airing to-day, wrapping him with tender care in a -sweater. They went for a long way into the woods like good companions. -Then Rockwell drew a portrait of his muffled pet which is destined for -Clara's Christmas. - - - Thursday, November twenty-eighth. - -This continual waiting is getting upon my nerves. Most of to-day I -spent tinkering with the engine. It goes now--in a water barrel. The -trouble with the best of these little motors is that the moment they -get wet they stop, and they are attached at such an exposed place, on -the stern, that they will get wet if there's much of a sea. Then -you're in a bad fix for it's impossible to make any headway rowing -with the engine--or rather the propeller--dragging. Most of the -engines are hung right on the stern and can be readily detached and -drawn into the boat. But mine fits into a sort of pocket built in the -stern and is difficult even on land to lift out. It weighs decidedly -over a hundred pounds. So I don't relish getting caught with such an -equipment. I must have mentioned, by the way, that the engine was -"thrown in" with the boat as of no value. - -So there's the day gone. To-night we go to bed early and if it is calm -just before daylight in the morning we shall start at once. - -[Illustration: DRIFTWOOD] - - - Friday, November twenty-ninth. - -Last night a terrific storm from the east. A few blasts struck the -house with such force that it seemed our thin roof could not stand it. -Of course it is really quite strong enough but the noise of those -sudden squalls bearing along snow and ice from the tree tops is simply -appalling. In the morning it became milder but continued to rain and -snow and for most of the day to blow heavily from the eastward. In the -afternoon to my despair a steamer entered for Seward; she'll doubtless -leave at daylight. There goes one of my chances to get my Christmas -mail off. - -I painted splendidly to-day and am in the seventh heaven over -it,--which takes away some of my gloom at never reaching Seward. A -long call from Olson to-night. He sits here patiently and silently -while I draw. It snows steadily. What will to-morrow bring? - -Francis Galton, the inquirer into human faculty, would have been -charmed at Rockwell's casual mention of the colors of proper names. -They do apparently assume definite colors that seem to him appropriate -and characteristic beyond question. Clara, too, sees names as colors. -Father is blue, Mother is a darker blue. The breadth of vowel sound -apparently, judging from this and other examples he gave me, lowers -the tone of color. Kathleen is a light yellow, very light. Now for a -bite to eat, for I've had but two meals--and then to bed. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -EXCURSION - - - Thursday, December fifth. - -November thirtieth we arose before daylight. It was a mild, still -morning and the melting snow dripped from the trees. Without breakfast -we set about at once to carry our things over to the boat. Olson was -aroused and turned out to help. There's always much to be carried on a -trip to Seward; gasoline, oil, tools, my pack bag--containing clothes, -heavy blankets, and spare boots,--and the grub box Olson had given me -packed with mail, books, grub, and the flute. The engine was in good -order and started promptly. So away we went out over the bay just as -the day brightened. - -It was calm and beautiful. The sun from below the horizon shot shafts -of light up into the clouds, gray became pink, and pink grew into gold -until at last after an hour or more the sun's rays lighted up the -mountain peaks, and we knew that he had risen. It continued calm and -mild all the way, but nevertheless I caught myself singing -"Erlkönig," such is my anxiety at carrying Rockwell with me. Rockwell -enjoyed the trip wrapped up in a sheepskin coat of Olson's. We stopped -at a fishing camp for a moment's chat from the water. The man living -there had just caught a good-sized wolverine. We declined breakfast -and hurried on. - -In Seward we stored our things in Olson's cabin, a little place about -eight feet square, and started for the hotel. One of our friends met -us with a shout, "Well, you've had good sense to stay away so long." - -Influenza, I then learned, had raged in Seward, there having been over -350 cases; and smallpox had made a start. But the deaths had been few -and it was now well in hand. However, I shunned the hotel. A little -cottage was generously put at our disposal and we were soon -comfortably settled there with our mail from home spread before us. I -left everything of mine at the hotel untouched and we continued to -wear our old clothes throughout the stay. At midnight I went with Otto -Boehm to pull the dory up above the tide and overturn her, and then -continued letter writing until three-thirty A.M. - -December first and every day of our stay at Seward was calm and fair. -We kept house in our cottage, I continually busy writing and doing up -Christmas presents, for a steamer had entered on the thirtieth and was -due to leave Sunday night, the first. The people of Seward are -friendly without being the slightest bit inquisitive, and they are -extremely broad-minded for all that their country is remote from the -greater world. I don't believe that provincialism is an inevitable -evil of far-off communities. The Alaskan is alert, enterprising, -adventurous. Men stand on their own feet--and why not? The confusing -intricacy of modern society is here lacking. The men's own hands take -the pure gold from the rocks; no one is another's master. It's a great -land--the best by far I have ever known. - -What a telltale of reaction from our lonely island life is this -roseate vision of the little city of the far northwest! We came in -time to see Seward quite differently and, with confidence in Alaska, -to believe it to be in no way a typical and true Alaskan town. The -"New York of the Pacific," as it is gloriously acclaimed in the -literature of its Chamber of Commerce, numbers its citizens perhaps at -half a thousand--the tenacious remnant of the many more who years ago -trusted our government to fulfill its promises to really build and -operate a railroad into the interior. One's indignation fires at the -recital of the men of Seward's wrongs,--until you recollect that -Seward was built for speculation, not for industry, and that by the -chance turn of the wheel many have merely reaped loss instead of -profit. There are no resources at that spot to be developed and there -is consequently no industry. - -Seward is planned for growth and equipped for commerce. Wide avenues -and numbered blocks adorn the town-site maps where to the naked eye -the land's a wilderness of stumps and briars. The center of the -built-up portion of the town, one street of two blocks' length, is -modern with electric lights and concrete pavements. The stores are -wonderfully good; there are two banks and several small hotels, a -baker from Ward's bakery in New York and a French barber from the -Hotel Buckingham. There's a good grammar school, a hospital, and -churches of all sorts. There is no public library; apparently one -isn't badly missed. Seward's a tradesmen's town and tradesmen's views -prevail,--narrow reactionary thought on modern issues and a trembling -concern at the menace of organized labor. A strike of the three -newsboys of the Seward paper plunged the poor fool its printer into -frantic fear of an I. W. W. plot. But even Seward smiled at the little -man's terror. The worst of Seward is itself; the best is the strong -men that by chance are there or that pass through from the great -Alaska. - -[Illustration: THE WHITTLER] - -December second was a day for shopping. I bought all manner of -Christmas things, things for the tree, things to eat, little presents -for Olson--but nothing for Rockwell. He and I must do without presents -this Christmas. Then more letters were written. A wood block that I -had cut proved, on my seeing a proof of it, to be absolutely -worthless. - -December third I had still so much mail and business to attend to that -I stayed over another day. Set a door frame for Brownell and spent -that evening at his house. The postmaster came too, fine fellow, and -we'd a great evening taking turns singing songs--and the P. M. did -mighty well with "School-master Mishter O'Toole." The day I'd spent -writing and gossiping about town. - -I heard then a story about Olson that's worth while. He was once -telling a crowd of men about the reindeer to the northward. Among his -listeners was a Jew who was annoyed with his "hectoring." At last this -joker asked: "Olson, if you bred a reindeer to a Swede what would you -get?" "You'd get a Jew," replied Olson. The Jew, who still lives in -Seward, has not bothered Olson since. The old man has a rare -reputation for his honesty and truth and all round sterling qualities. - -It's truly a satisfaction to be in a country where men are alert -enough to take no offense at alertness, where enterprise is so common -a virtue that it arouses no suspicion, and where it is the rule to -mind your own business. - -December fourth we set about to leave for Fox Island. It took two -hours to wind up our final business in town and embark. Brownell -helped with the boat. Of course the engine balked for fifteen minutes -and then (not "of course") went beautifully. After traveling a quarter -of a mile I learned that Rockwell had left our clock standing in the -snow by Olson's cabin. So for that we went back. Brownell saw us and -brought it. - -The trip was swift and smooth. At Caine's Head it began to snow, -obscuring Fox Island, but I knew the course. In mid-channel the engine -stopped. After ten minutes' tinkering it resumed going and went -beautifully till we rounded the head of our cove. Then it sputtered -and I had continually to crank it. However, it carried us to thirty or -forty feet of the shore when it breathed its last, thanks to the snow -that had by now thoroughly wet the engine and ourselves. We unloaded -and with great labor hauled up the dory and turned her over. That -night I was exhausted and went straight to bed, leaving Rockwell at -his drawing. So now we're on Fox Island again. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -HOME - - - Thursday, December fifth (Continued). - -Mild rainy, snowy, sleepy--this first day back at home. - -I've done little work and dared look at but one picture--that of -Superman--and it appears truly magnificent. The sky of it is luminous -as with northern lights, and the figure lives. After all it is Life -which man sees and which he tries to hold and in his Art to recreate. -To that end he bends every resource straining at what limits him. If -he could only be free, free to rise beyond the limits of expression -into _being!_ at his prophetic vision of man's destiny assuming -himself the lineaments of it, in stature grown gigantic, rearing -upwards beyond the narrow clouds of earth into the unmeasured space of -night, his countenance glowing, his arms outstretched in an embrace of -wider worlds! This is the spirit and the gesture of Superman.--So I'm -not unhappy. Now work begins again. For weeks there'll be no mail in -Seward and for more weeks none here. - - - Friday, December sixth. - -I'm reading a little book on Dürer. What a splendid civilization that -was in the Middle Ages, with all its faults. To men with my interests -can anything be more conclusive proof of the superiority of that age -to this than the position of the artist and the scholar in the -community? Let me quote from Dürer's diary. (Antwerp, a banquet at the -burgomaster's hall.) - - "All their service was of silver, and they had other splendid - ornaments and very costly meats. All their wives were there - also. And as I was being led to the table the company stood on - both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And there - were among them men of very high position, who all treated me - with respectful bows, and promised to do everything in their - power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I was sitting - there in such grandeur, Adrian Horebouts, the syndic of Antwerp, - came with two servants and presented me with four cans of wine - in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bid - him say that they wish thereby to show their respect for me and - assure me of their good will. Wherefore I returned my humble - thanks--etc. After that came Master Peeter, the town carpenter, - and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer of his - willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time - together till late at night, they accompanied us home with - lanterns in great honor." - -Oh land of porcelain bath-tubs! A man has only to leave all that by -which we to-day estimate culture to realize that all of his own -civilization goes with him right to the back woods, and lives there -with him refined and undiminished by the hardships there. - -Civilization is not measured by the poverty or the wealth of the few -or of the millions, nor by monarchy, republicanism, or even Freedom, -nor by whether we work with hands or levers,--but by the final fruit -of all of these, that imperishable record of the human spirit, Art. -The obituary of to-day in America has surely now been written in the -poor workshop of some struggling, unknown man. That is all that the -future will know of us. - -All records for winds are broken by what rages to-night. From the -northwest it piles into our cove. The windows are coated with salt, -and tons of flying water sail in clouds out of the bay hiding the -mountains from the base to half their height. Our rafters bend beneath -the blast; ice--from we know not where--falls upon us with a -thundering noise. The canvases suspended aloft sway and flap, and from -end to end of the cabin the breeze roves at will. It's so ridiculously -bad and noisy and cold that Rockwell and I just laugh. But the wood is -plentiful for we cut some more to-day. - -[Illustration: "GET UP!"] - -Last night at bedtime the wind had risen. At some midnight hour the -stove went out for I awoke at two and found the cold all about us and -the wind hard at it. So with a generous use of kerosene the fire was -made to burn again and I returned to a good night's rest. Somehow one -doesn't mind short exposures to the cold. Many a day I have stood -naked out in the wind and then become at once glowing warm again in -the hot cabin. Baked bread to-day and it turned out very well. -Painted, shivered, wrote, and to-night shall try to design a picture -of the "Weird of the Gods." But at this moment our supper is ready and -two hungry, cold mortals cannot be kept from their corn mush. - - - Saturday, December seventh. - -Late! Now that we have a clock--I stole one in Seward--we live by -system, our hours are regular. The clock I set by the tide, marking -the rise of the water in the new-fallen snow. We rise at 7.30. It is -then not yet sunrise but fairly light. Breakfast is soon cooked and -eaten. To start the blood going hard for a good day's work we spring -out-of-doors and chop and split and saw in the glorious, icy -north-wind. Then painting begins. I have scared Olson away--poor -soul--but I make it up by calling on him just at dark when my painting -hours are over. - -Now it's eleven at night and I've still my bit to read. Whew, but -it's cold to-night and the wind is rising to a gale. And last -night!--what a bitter one. I got up four times to feed the ravenous -fire. And even so the water pails froze. We cannot afford to let it -freeze much in the cabin for our stores are all exposed. What if the -Christmas cider should freeze and burst! I painted out of doors -to-day--in sneakers! and stood it just about as long as one would -imagine. To love the cold is a sign of youth--and we do love it, the -Awakener. - - - Sunday, December eighth. - -Log cabins stuffed with moss should be wonderful in the tropics. I'm -about frozen. On this work table I must weight my papers down to keep -them from flying about the room. And the wind is icy; it is bitterly, -bitterly cold. Olson says we need expect no colder weather than this -all winter. Of course we don't really mind it. The stove is red hot -and we may go as close to it as we please, and the bed is warm--except -towards morning. At night I move my jugs of yeast and cider toward the -stove, fill the "air-tight" to the top, pile blankets and wrappers -upon the bed, and sleep happily. - -The gale still rages, fortunately not with its utmost fury. This -morning Rockwell and I hurried through our chores and then climbed to -the low ridge of the island. The snow in the woods is crusted and bore -us up well so that we traveled with ease and soon reached the crest. -Ah, there it was glorious; such blue and gold and rose! We looked down -upon the spit and saw the sea piling upon it; we looked seaward and -saw the snow blown from the land, the spray and the mist rising in -clouds toward the sun,--and the sun, the beautiful sun shone on us. We -took a number of pictures and then with numbed fingers and toes raced -down the slope playing man-pursued-by-a-bear. Rockwell was wonderful -to look at with his cheeks so red and clear. He loved our little -excursion. - -And for the rest of the day we've worked. I stretched and coated -three large canvases, hateful job! painted, sawed wood, felled a -tree--which the wind carried over onto another so that there it hangs -neither up nor down,--and that's about all. It's again eleven and time -for bed. The night is beautiful even if it is terrible; and the young -moon is near setting. - -[Illustration: MAN] - - - Monday, December ninth. - -It blows worse than ever, and it is colder. All day the blue sky has -been hidden in clouds of vapor and flying spray. The bay seethes and -smokes and huge breakers race across it. It is truly bitter weather. -Olson to-night ventured the prophecy that this was about the -culmination of winter--but I know Olson by now. I cut another tree -this morning to release the one of yesterday and both fell with a -magnificent crash. Then we went to work with the cross-cut saw and -stocked our day's wood. - -Olson called this afternoon and related his recollection of the early -days of Nome. - - "A certain man," he began, "deserted from a whaler that stopped - for water on the north coast of Alaska. He'd been shanghaied in - San Francisco and was a tailor by trade. He made his way down - the coast with the occasional help of the esquimaux. At last he - came to Nome. The men were gone from the native village but a - woman took him in. She was named English Mary. Now she had heard - of the gold finds on the Yukon and she asked the man if he was a - miner. He answered, 'Yes.' 'You come with me,' she said, and led - him to a certain creek and showed him the shining nuggets lying - thick upon the bottom. But the tailor really knew nothing about - gold and let it lie. He continued down the coast and was at last - carried to St. Michael. There he met a missionary and a young - fellow who had come to Alaska with a party of prospectors. With - those two he returned in a boat to Nome. You'll hear different - stories, to be sure, of how they got there but this is the right - one, for I've seen the boat they came in lying there off the - beach. Well, they came and saw the gold but none of them could - say for certain what it was. So one of them went off to get a - man from the party of prospectors with whom the young fellow had - come to Alaska. At last they got him there and he proved that it - was sure enough gold. They staked their claims and began to work - them. But word of gold travels fast and already others began to - come. The miner of that first party drew up mining laws for the - country and these were enforced. I was up on the Yukon when I - heard of the first find at Nome. I went down and arrived there - in the fall, a little more than a year after the strike. By that - time there was quite a number there. - - "Some man had drawn up a plan of a town and was selling lots. I - bought one on the northwest corner of the block. It was on the - tundra. (Tundra is vegetation covered ice, soggy to a foot's - depth.) There was a tent on my lot and some wood, so I bought - those too. But shortly after when I came home one day from - prospecting I found that both the tent and the wood had been - stolen. I bought lumber for the frame of a new tent. It cost me - thirty dollars; that is, fifty cents a foot. By that time all - kinds of people were pouring into Nome. They were taking out - gold on the creek, those that had claims, at the rate of $5000 - in a couple of hours. It was so heavy in the sand you couldn't - handle a pan-full. - - "Someone cut into my tent and cleaned me out--but I had nothing - much besides a jack-knife. I borrowed ten dollars and went to - work at a dollar an hour. A couple of rascals had come there, a - judge and a lawyer; and they began to get busy swindling - everybody out of their titles to claims. It was said openly - that if you saw anyone's claim 'jump it,' and the lawyers would - make more money for you than you could get out in gold. There - was no use in a man without money trying to hold a claim. And - the crowd that was there! Gamblers, sharps, actors,--men and - women of every kind--and they did act so foolish!--all out of - their heads over the gold. The brothels were running wide open - and robberies occurred in the town by daylight. Every man slept - with his gun beside him and if he shot it was to kill. The - robbers chloroformed men as they slept in their tents. - - "There were thousands of people then and you could look out on - the beach and see them swarming like flies. Everything was - overturned for gold,--the entire beach for ten miles both ways - from Nome was shoveled off into the sea. They dug under the - Indian village till the houses fell in, and even under the - graveyard." - -[Illustration: WOMAN] - -And so Olson's story continues. A story of his life would really -be--as an old pioneer in Seward told me--a history of Alaska. Because -Olson has never succeeded he has been everywhere and tried everything. -I have not done him justice in my abridgment of his Nome story. His -recollections are so intimate. He remembers the words spoken in every -situation and never, no matter how much an adventure centers in -himself, does he depart in what he tells of himself from his character -as I know him. - -I would not have devoted all of the time I have to this day's entry if -I had not a good day's work to my credit including the conception of a -new picture so vivid that the doing of it will be mere copying. It is -the "North Wind." Surely after the past four days I may tell with -authority of that wild Prince from the North. - - - Wednesday, December eleventh. - -Yesterday was too gloomy a day for me to risk a page in this journal. -As to weather it was another fierce one, cold and windy. As to work -accomplished--nothing. Olson in his cabin, on such a day, is a treat -to see. I open the door and enter. There he sits near the stove, a -black astrakhan cap on his head and the two female goats in full -possession of the cabin. Nanny the milch goat is a most affectionate -creature. She lays her head on Olson's lap and as he scratches her -head her eyes close in blissful content. - -"See her pretty little face," says Olson, "and her lovely lips." He's -certainly the kindest creature to animals--and to human ones too we -have good reason to know. - -To-day it is milder. The vapor is thick on the bay but it lies low -upon the water and the magnificent mountains sparkle in the sunlight. - -Work has gone better for me and it has been a day not without -accomplishment. I baked bread--beautiful bread, cut wood, helped Olson -a bit, and had a glorious rough-house with my son. He's a great -fighter. I train him for the fights he's bound to have some day by -letting him attack me with all his strength; and that has come to be -not a little thing. - - - Friday, December thirteenth. - -In the midst of letter writing I stop to note down a dramatic cloud -effect. That's the way the day's work goes. If I'm out-of-doors busy -with the saw or axe I jump at once to my paints when an idea comes. -It's a fine life and more and more I realize that for me at least such -isolation--not from my friends but from the unfriendly world--is the -only right life for me. My energy is too unrestrained to have offered -to it the bait for fight and play that the city holds out, without its -being spent in absolutely profitless and trivial enterprises. And here -what a haven of peace! Almost the last touch is added to its -perfection by the sweet nature of the old man Olson. I have never -known such a man. I'm no admirer of the "picturesqueness" of rustic -character. Seen close to it's generally damnably stupid and coarse. I -have seen the working class from near at hand and without illusion. -But Olson! he has such tact and understanding, such kindness and -courtesy as put him outside of all classes, where true men belong. - -To-night it looked like the picture I have drawn. These are beautiful -days. Yesterday it was as calm in our little cove as one would look -for on a summer's day. The day was blue and mild, a day for work. I -made of my "North Wind" the most beautiful picture that ever was. I -stood it facing outwards in the doorway and from far off it still -showed as vivid, _more_ vivid, and brilliant than nature itself. It's -the first time I've taken my pictures into the broad light. There's -where they should be seen. - -Last night was calm until four o'clock in the morning. Then the wind -again struck in and the trees roared and the roof creaked and groaned. -To-day it was calmer. We began by felling a tall spruce more than two -feet in diameter. It lies now near the cabin a great screen of -evergreen. Its wood should last us many weeks. I painted out-of-doors -on two pictures. That's bitterly cold work--to crouch down in the -snow; through bent knees the blood goes slowly, feet are numbed, -fingers stiffen. But then the warm cabin is near.... - -This minute I've returned from splitting wood out in the moonlight. On -days when painting goes with spirit the chores are left undone. - -If only it were possible to put down faithfully all of Olson's -stories! Last night he told of his return to San Francisco from the -Yukon thirty years ago, how the little band of weather-beaten, -crippled miners appeared on their return to civilization. Olson was on -crutches from scurvy, his beard and hair were of a year's growth; all -were in their working clothes, all bearded, brown, free spirited. And -their wealth they carried on them in bags, gold, some to $7000 worth. -As Olson tells it you yourself live in that day. You hear the German -landlady of the "Chicago Hotel" in San Francisco, a motherly woman who -put all the grub on the table at once so you could help yourself, say, -"You boys have some of you been in Alaska for years and I know about -how you've lived. Now that you're back you must have a hankering for -some things. Tell me whatever you want and I'll get it for you." And -up spoke one big fellow, "I remember how my mother used to have -cabbage. I want you to get me one big head and cook it and let me have -it all to myself!" - -That night they went to the music halls in their miners' clothes all -as they were, and drank gallons of beer; and from the boxes and the -balconies the girls all clamored to be asked to join them--who were -such free spenders. Two days later they were paid in coin for their -gold--by the mint--and all went to the tailors and got them fine suits -of clothes.... And so it continues. And he told of Custer's massacre. -And, to-night of the sagacity of horses in leading a trapper back to -the traps he'd set and maybe lost. When a horse swims with you across -a stream guide him with your hand on his neck, but pull not ever so -little on the line or he'll rear backwards in the water and likely -drown himself and you. - - - Saturday, December fourteenth. - -A pretty useless day. No work accomplished but the daily chores. What -is there to say of such a day. Olson brought over his letter to -Kathleen to-night and read it to us. It's just like him to be really -himself even at letter writing. The letter is full of nice humor. -"She'll think what kind of an old fool is that," he said, "but what do -I care. I'll just say whatever I feel like saying." And he always -does. In a mild way he lives Blake's proverb, "Always speak the -truth and base men will avoid you." Some people have found Olson -very rough and ill-mannered. - -[Illustration: FOREBODING] - -Made bread to-night and stamped about seventy-five envelopes with my -device. To-night it is mild and overcast. A light snow has begun to -fall. So far this winter the fall of snow has been extremely light. It -should bank up almost to the cabin's eaves.... My bed awaits me. -Good-night. - - - Sunday, December fifteenth. - -This is another day that is hardly worth recording, one that would not -be missed from a life. - -It's time something were again said about young Rockwell who is the -real, live, crowning beauty of the community. Weeks have passed since -I last recorded his fresh delight in everything here. It is the same -to-day. For hours he plays alone out-of-doors. Now he's an animal -crawling on all fours along the trunk of a tree that I have felled, -going out upon its horizontal branches as the porcupines do, hiding -himself in the foliage and growling fiercely--hours long it -seems--while the foolish goats flee in terror and the foxes race -wildly up and down the extent of their corral. Again he's a browsing -creature eating the spruce needles with decided relish,--doing it so -seriously. Truly he lives the part he plays when it is one of his -beloved wild creatures. Then he tears up and down the beach mounted -like a four-year-old kid on a stick horse, yelling as loud as he can, -going to the water's edge, and racing the swell as it mounts the -slope. And presently I capture him for his end of the saw. At that he -no longer knows fatigue,--he's as good as a man. He really never tires -and the work goes on with a fine, jolly good-will that makes of the -hardest chore one of the day's pleasures. Rockwell is lonely at times; -but if he tells me he'd like somebody to play with he's sure to add in -the same breath, "Ah well, never mind." - -I don't know how such a haphazard education if continued would fit him -for participation in the "practical" affairs of life. But I am -convinced that if all the little beauties of spirit that can now be -seen budding could be allowed free, clean growth, quite away from the -brutal hand of mass influences, we'd have nothing less than the full -and perfect flowering of a human soul;--and in our reachings toward -supermanhood none can do more. - -Here, as an example, is an achievement of his imagination that it is -hard to picture as surviving long in the atmosphere of a large school. -Rockwell for two or three years has called himself the "mother of all -things." It is not a figure of speech with him but an attitude towards -life. If it were the creed of a great poet--and it could be--the -discerning critic might discover it to be of the profoundest -significance in modern thought. In little Rockwell it is of one piece -with his whole spirit which expresses itself in his love for all -animals, the fiercest to the mildest, and for all growing things. The -least manifestation of that which is thought to be _typical_ cruelty -of boys outrages his whole nature. - -I am far from believing Rockwell to be a unique example of childhood. -I think that while cruelty appears uppermost where boys herd together, -the love of animals is no less characteristic of many sensitive -children. But of this I am certain,--that nothing will make a child -more ridiculous in the eyes of the mob child than this most perfect -and most beautiful attitude of some children toward life. In -considering the education of a child and weighing what is to be gained -or lost by one system or another I am inclined to think that no gain -can outweigh the loss to a child of its loving, non-predatory -impulses. - - - Tuesday, December seventeenth. - -Once a miner died and presently found his way to the gates of heaven. - - -"What do you want?" said St. Peter. - -"To come in, of course." - -"What sort of man are you?" - -"I'm a miner." - -"Well," said St. Peter, "we've never had anyone of that kind here -before, so I suppose you might as well come in." - -But the miner once within the gates fell to tearing up the golden -streets of heaven, digging ditches and tunnels all over the place and -making a frightful mess of it all. At last a second miner presented -himself at the gates. - -"Not on your life," said St. Peter. "We have one miner here and we -only wish we knew some way to get rid of him. He's tearing up the -whole place." - -"Only let me in," said the second miner, "and I'll promise to get rid -of that fellow for you." So St. Peter admitted him. - -This second miner easily found the other who was hard at work amid a -shower of flying earth. Going up to him he cried in an undertone: -"Partner! They've struck gold in Hell!" - -The miner dropped his work and sprang toward the gates. "Peter, Peter, -open, open! Let me out of Heaven, I'm off to Hell!" - -[Illustration: LONE MAN] - -What a book of yarns and jokes this is becoming! To-day work went a -little better--and the weather a little worse. It pours. For the end -of December it is wonderfully mild; but then I expect little really -cold weather here. To-night it is full moon. The tide is at its -highest for the year and the southeast wind piles the water up till it -reaches and overflows the land. Olson expects it to touch his house -to-night if the wind continues. Tree trunks, uprooted somewhere from -the soil, monstrous and grotesque, grind along our beach; the water is -full of driftwood and wreckage. - - - Wednesday, December eighteenth. - -There's a little bucket of dough that stands forever on the shelf -behind the stove. Sour dough is made with yeast, flour, and water to -the consistency of a bread sponge and then allowed to stand -indefinitely. For all that you take out you add more flour and water -to what's left in the bucket and that shortly is as fit for use as the -original mixture. Alaskans use it extensively as the basis for bread -and hot cakes. You add but a pinch of soda and a little water to the -proper consistency and it's all ready for use. The old time Alaskans -rejoice in the honorable title of "Sour Doughs." - -Olson's cabin in Seward stands comfortably on a little lot in a quite -thickly settled part of the town. I wondered at his affluence in -possessing a house and lot. Here is its history as he told it to me -to-night. When Olson first came to Seward he built--or he bought -already built--a little cabin standing on a part of the beach now -occupied by the railroad yard. In course of time he went to Valdez for -a winter's work. Returning, he found no cabin. It was gone from that -spot and he has not found it since. But corporations and governments -are nothing to Olson when he feels himself injured. He went to one -official and said, "See here! Winter's at hand and I have no house, -what are you going to do about it?" Well, they would see what could be -done, and in time referred him to a higher authority. "I want a -cabin," Olson said to this one. "If you don't _give_ me the lumber to -build one with I'll have to steal it from you. I have no money and no -cabin. Winter is here and I'm certainly going to live in a cabin this -winter." So they gave him an old shed to tear down and use but told -him not to build on the beach. The town of Seward was laid off in -lots. By the stakes Olson could tell a lot from a street, and fair and -square on a lot, somebody's lot, he put his cabin. The owner of the -land was tolerant and let it stay there a few years; but one day he -ordered Olson's house taken off. So Olson carried it somehow out into -the middle of the street where it fitted in nicely among the tree -stumps. Well and good for a little time till in the summer before last -the town of Seward improved that street and sent a man and team to -remove the stumps. "If you're paid to remove the stumps you may as -well move my house for me," said Olson. "Where to?" asked the man. -"You can suit yourself," said Olson. So the cabin was again planted on -a "desirable" lot of somebody's,--and there it stands to-day, neat and -trim, with a little wooden walk connecting its doorway with the plank -sidewalk of the street. Alaska is, to be sure, a great free country! - -To-day has been wonderfully mild and comfortable. From time to time -the rain has fallen gently. Over the water the clouds have drooped, -hiding the mountain peaks. The sea has been glassy save for the long -swell--and this more to be _heard_ upon the beach than seen. Rockwell -and I at dusk walked the shore out to the point between the coves. We -saw the glowing sky where the sun had set, the mountainous islands to -the southward, and our own cove and its mountain ramparts--beautiful -in the black and white of the spruces and the snow. If I but had my -prepared canvas I'd make large studies of the many views from this -point. - -Rockwell at dinner begged me repeatedly to have part of his junket -besides my own. I wondered at it for although he is always considerate -and polite this was almost too much. And in other ways I noticed his -alacrity to be obliging. Later in the day he told me, after much -embarrassment, that he had made up his mind to be nicer about -everything and to do more for me,--and yet I had previously found no -fault with him; how could I! So ends a day;--and again I think that in -this country I would gladly live for years. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -CHRISTMAS - - - Thursday, December nineteenth. - -This day is never to be forgotten, so beautiful, so calm, so still -with the earth and every branch and tree muffled in deep, feathery, -new-fallen snow. And all day the softest clouds have drifted lazily -over the heaven shrouding the land here and there in veils of falling -snow, while elsewhere or through the snow itself the sun shone. Golden -shadows, dazzling peaks, fairy tracery of branches against the blue -summer sea! It was a day to Live,--and work could be forgotten. - -So Rockwell and I explored the woods, at first reverently treading one -path that the snow about us might still lie undisturbed. But soon the -cub in the boy broke out and he rolled in the deepest thickets, shook -the trees down upon himself, lay still in the snow for me to cover him -completely, washed his face till it was crimson, and wound up with a -naked snow-bath. I photographed him standing thus in the deep snow at -the water's edge with the mountains far off behind him. Then he dried -himself at the roaring fire we'd made ready and felt like a new -boy--if that can be imagined. We both sketched out-of-doors for a -little while in the morning like young lady amateurs. I tried it again -two or three times throughout the day with indifferent results; it was -too beautiful. We cut wood too, and that went with a zest. While -Rockwell dried himself after his bath I searched in the woods for a -Christmas tree and cut a fair-sized one at last for its top. Christmas -is right upon us now. To-night the cranberries stew on the stove. - - - Friday, December twentieth. - -The beautiful snow is fast going under the falling rain! With only -five more days before Christmas it is probable we'll have little if -any snow on the ground then. A snowless Christmas in Alaska! - -This day was as uneventful as could be. Part of the morning was -consumed in putting a new handle into the sledge hammer. It was too -dark to paint long, really hardly an hour of daylight. These days slip -by so easily and with so little accomplished! Only by burning midnight -oil can much be done. - - - Sunday, December twenty-second. - -Both yesterday and to-day it has poured rain. They've not been -unpleasant days, however. Occasional let-ups have allowed us to cut -wood and get water without inconvenience. This morning Olson, fearing -that a continuance of the mild weather would melt the ice in the lake -and send his bags of fish to the bottom, went out to the center of the -lake where they hung suspended through a hole in the ice and brought -them in. But so precarious has the ice become that he carried a rope -and took me along in case of trouble. To get out upon the ice we had -to go some distance along the lake's shore. - -Returning we missed meeting Rockwell who had gone to join us. Not for -some time did it occur to me to call him. It was well I did call. The -poor boy on not seeing us had suddenly concluded we were drowned. A -strip of water separated him from the ice. He was on the point of -wading into this at the moment I called him. He was still terribly -excited when he reached us. - -Both days I have been occupied with humble, housewifely -duties,--baking, washing, mending, and now the cabin is adorned with -our drying clothes. Here where water must be carried so far it is the -wet days that are wash days. Darning is a wretched nuisance. We should -have socks enough to tide us over our stay here. Last night after -Rockwell had been put to bed I sat down and did two of the best -drawings I have made. At half past twelve I finished them, and then to -calm my elation a bit for sleep read in the "Odyssey." At this my -second reading of the book it's as intensely interesting--or more -so--than before. As a story it is incomparably better than the -"Iliad." To me it is full of suggestions for wonderful pictures. - -Ten days from now it comes due for Olson to go to Seward. If only then -we have mild, calm weather! But as yet we have seen no steamer go to -Seward since early in the month. It looks as if the steamship -companies had combined to deprive Alaska of its Christmas mail and -freight in a policy of making the deadlock with the government over -the mail contracts intolerable. Meanwhile, instead of serving us, the -jaunty little naval cruisers that summered here in idleness doubtless -loaf away the winter months in comfortable southern ports. - -[Illustration: CAIN] - - - Monday, December twenty-third. - -Up to this morning the hard warm rain continued, and now the stars are -all out and it might be thought a night in spring. At eight-thirty I -walked over in sneakers and underwear for a moment's call on Olson, -but he had gone to bed. And now although we'll have no snow the -weather is fair for Christmas. - -If Olson believes, as he says, that Christmas will pass as any other -day he is quite wrong. The tree waits to be set up and it will surely -be a thing of beauty blazing with its many candles in this somber log -interior. I've given up the idea of dressing Olson as Santa Claus in -goat's wool whiskers. Santa Claus without presents would move us to -tears. There are a few little gifts,--a pocketknife and a kitchen set -of knife, fork, and can-opener for Olson. An old broken fountain pen -for Rockwell, some sticks of candy,--and the dinner! What shall it be? -Wait! - -It is midnight. I've just finished a good drawing. The lamp is about -at its accustomed low mark--yesterday it had to be filled twice! Those -nights when without a clock I sat up so late and to so uncertain an -hour I have discovered by the lamp and clock together to have been -really long. My bedtime then was after two or three o'clock--but I -arose later. To-day I finished a little picture for Olson and so did -Rockwell. These were forgotten in my list of presents as I've just -written it. I have shown in my picture the king of the island himself -striding out to feed the goats while Billy, rearing on his hind legs, -tries to steal the food on the way. Rockwell's picture is of Olson -surrounded by all the goats in a more peaceful mood. Olson's cabin is -in the background. I wish we had more to give the good old man. At any -rate he dines with us. - - - Christmas Eve! - -We've cleaned house, stowed everything away upon shelves and hooks and -in corners, moved even my easel aside; decorated the roof timbers -with dense hemlock boughs, stowed quantities of wood behind the -stove--for there must be no work on that holiday--and now both -Rockwell and I are in a state of suppressed excitement over to-morrow. - -What a strange thing! Nothing is coming to us, no change in any -respect in the routine of our lives but what we make ourselves,--and -yet the day looms so large and magnificent before us! I suppose the -greatest festivals of our lives are those at which we dance ourselves. -You need nothing from outside,--not even illusion. Certainly children -need to be given scarcely an idea to develop out of it an atmosphere -of mystery and expectation as real and thrilling to themselves as if -it rested upon true belief. - -Well, the tree is ready, cut to length with a cross at the foot to -stand upon, and a cardboard and tin-foil star to hang at its top. And -now as to Christmas weather. This morning, as might just as well have -been expected, was again overcast. Toward evening light snow began to -fall. It soon turned to rain and the rain now has settled down to a -gentle, even, all-night-and-day pace. Let it snow or rain and grow -dark at midday! The better shall be our good Christmas cheer within. -This is the true Christmas land. The day _should_ be dark, the house -further overshadowed by the woods, tall and black. And there in the -midst of that somber, dreadful gloom the Christmas tree should blaze -in glory unrivaled by moon or sun or star. - - - Christmas Day on Fox Island. - -It is mild; the ground is almost bare and a warm rain falls. First the -Christmas tree all dripping wet is brought into the house and set upon -its feet. It is nine feet and a half high and just touches the peak of -the cabin. There it stands and dries its leaves while Rockwell and I -prepare the feast. - -[Illustration: SUPERMAN] - -Both stoves are kept burning and the open door lets in the cool air. -Everything goes beautifully; the wood burns as it should, the oven -heats, the kettle boils, the beans stew, the bread browns in the oven -just right, and the new pudding sauce foams up as rich and delicious -as if instead of the first it were the hundredth time I'd made it. And -now everything is ready. The clock stands at a quarter to three. Night -has about fallen and lamp light is in the cabin. - -"Run, Rockwell, out-of-doors and play awhile." Quickly I stow the -presents about the tree, hang sticks of candy from it, and light the -candles. - -Rockwell runs for Mr. Olson, and just as they approach the cabin the -door opens and fairyland is revealed to them. It is wonderful. The -interior of the cabin is illuminated as never before, as perhaps no -cabin interior ever was among these wild mountains. Then all amazed -and wondering those two children come in. Who knows which is the more -entranced? - -Then Olson and I drink in deep solemnity a silent toast; and the old -man says, "I'd give everything--yes everything I have in the world--to -have your wife here now!" - -And the presents are handed out. For Olson this picture from Rockwell. -Ah, he thinks it's wonderful! Then for Rockwell this book--a surprise -from Seward. Next for Olson a painting, a kitchen set, and a -pocketknife. By this time he's quite overcome. It's the first -Christmas he has ever had! And Rockwell, when he is handed two old -copies of the "Geographic Magazine" cries in amazement, "Why I thought -I was to have no presents!" But he gets besides a pocketknife and the -broken fountain pen and sits on the bed looking at the things as if -they were the most wonderful of gifts. - -Dinner is now set upon the table. Olson adjusts his glasses and reads -the formal menu that lies at his place. So we feast and have a jolly -good time. - -It is a true party and looks like one. Rockwell and I are in clean -white shirts, Olson is magnificent in a new flannel shirt and his -Sunday trousers and waistcoat. He wears a silk tie and in it a gold -nugget pin. He is shaven, and clipped about the ears. How grand he -looks! The food is good and plentiful, the night is long, only the -Christmas candles are short-lived and we extinguish them to save them -for another time. Finally as the night deepens Olson leaves us amid -mutual expressions of delight in each other's friendship, and Rockwell -and I tumble into bed. - -The next day and the next it is mild, resting--the weather seems to -be--at this peaceful holiday season. We cut no wood and do little -work. We write long letters, both of us, and consume at meal-time the -food left over from Christmas. I read the "Odyssey," great story! Just -now I am past that magnificent slaughter of the wooers, else these -delayed pages would still be unwritten. A few more Odysseys to read -here in this wild place and one could forget the modern world and -return in manners and speech and thought to the heroic age. That -would be an adventure worth trying! Maybe we are not so deeply -permeated with the culture of to-day that we could not throw it off. -Surely the spirit of the heroes strikes home to our hearts as we read -of them in the ancient books. - - - Saturday, December twenty-eighth. - -For the first time in days the sun has risen in a clear sky and shone -upon the mountains across from us. It is colder, for ice has formed -again on the tub of water out-of-doors. But there is a little wind. - -I am writing in preparation for Olson's trip. He too is making ready. -Food for the foxes is on the stove for many days' feeding, his engine -gets a little burnishing--it's no insignificant voyage to Seward in -the winter. If only it holds out fair and calm until a steamer comes! -There's the hitch now. We have seen none go to Seward since the first -of the month. - -To-morrow probably the Christmas tree must come down. The hemlock -trimmings shed all over the cabin till to-day I tore them out. Last -night we had our final lighting of the tree. Rockwell and I stood -out-of-doors and looked in at it. What a marvelous sight in the -wilderness. If only some hapless castaways had strayed in upon us -lured by that light! We sang Christmas carols out there in the dark, -did a Christmas dance on the shore, and then came in and while the -tree still burned told each other stories. Rockwell's story was about -the adventures of some children in the woods, full of thrilling -climaxes. It came by the yard. I told him of an Indian boy who, -longing for Christmas, went out into the dark woods at night and -closed his eyes. And how behind his closed eyes he found a world rich -in everything the other lacked. There was his Christmas tree and to it -came the wild animals. They got each a present, the mother porcupine a -box of little silken balls to stick onto her quills for decoration, -and the father porcupine a toothbrush because his large teeth were so -very yellow. After the story it was bedtime. Well ... this fair day -has passed, and with the night have come clouds and a cold gloom -foreboding snow. But I have learned to expect nothing of the weather -but what it gives us. - - - Sunday, December twenty-ninth. - -Squirlie's birthday party. Squirlie is seated in a condensed milk box. -At his back hangs a brown sweater. About him stand his presents -consisting chiefly of feathers. The table is spread with the feast in -shells and the whole is brilliantly illuminated by a Christmas tree -candle. Long life to Squirlie and may he never fall to pieces nor be -devoured by moths! - - - Monday, December thirtieth. - -Yesterday it rained gently, to-day it pours. I sit here with the door -open and the stove slumbering--such weather in this country that the -world believes to be an iceberg! But in Seward and on the mountains no -doubt it is snowing enough. To-day I made so good a drawing that I'm -sitting up as if the flight of time and the coming of morning were no -concern of mine. It is half-past twelve! - -New Year's Eve! Tuesday. This is the tenth anniversary of Rockwell's -parents and I have kept it as well as I could, working all day upon a -drawing for his mother and to-night holding a kind of song service -with Rockwell. Rockwell, who at nine years has every reason to -celebrate to-day, however he may feel at twenty-nine, has written his -mother a sweet little letter. I'm terribly homesick to-night and don't -know what to say about it in these genial pages. It has been a solemn -day. - -When Olson was here to-night I began from playing the flute to sing. -He was delighted and I continued. What a strange performance here -in the wilderness, a little boy, an old man, listening as I sing -loudly and solemnly to them without accompaniment. Olson brought us a -pan of goat's milk to-day, as he often does. I make junket of it and -it is a truly delicious dish, ever so much better than when made of -cow's milk. It resembles a jelly of pure cream. - -[Illustration: THE NORTH WIND] - -It has rained hard most of the day. At times a mist has hung in a band -halfway up the mountain's height across the bay. It is a remarkable -sight. To-night is as warm as any night in spring or autumn. It thaws -continually and even the ice that once covered the ground beneath the -snow is fast disappearing. The year goes out without a steamer having -been seen to come with the Christmas mail. - -It is close to midnight. I have one secret resolution to make for the -new year and, that I may make it as earnestly and as truly as -possible, the stars and the black sky shall be my witness. And so with -the year nineteen hundred and eighteen I end this page. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -NEW YEAR - - -To Rockwell who asked what happened on the New Year that everybody sat -up to see it come we tried hard to tell all sorts of yarns about -explosions and rumblings, but he wouldn't believe a bit of it. He -might have said, "How can anything like that happen here where nothing -ever comes from the sky except rain?" - -So far the new year is just exactly like the old's latter end but that -it is more joyous. And the joy came at eleven-thirty P.M. of January -first, gliding by about two miles out in the bay, a dazzle of lights -like a fairy citadel, the STEAMER! At my cry Rockwell sat up in bed -and gazed too. Olson unfortunately was in bed and we did not call him. -So I set at once to work writing, tying up parcels, making lists, -until two o'clock of this morning. - -At eight we had Olson out of bed. I hung about there threatening him, -ordering him, begging him to hurry. Old men are hard to move fast. He -shaved standing up there in his cabin with the door wide open and the -goats playing about him. I let him have a bite of breakfast, but not -much. The dory had to be unbound--for we tie them to the ground--and -turned right-side up, and loaded and launched,--but all that only -after half an hour's cranking of the engine, the infernal things! It -would look like snow one minute and be fair the next; but it held fair -enough finally for Olson to get off and disappear--to our immense joy. -He laughs at our eagerness to get him off for the mail. - -Yesterday was Olson's day for celebrating and many times we drank to -the New Year together. But I _would_ work, to his disgust. Still he -understands pretty well the strange madness that possesses me, and is -not at all unsympathetic. I explained to him one day the difference -between working to suit yourself and working to suit other people. -He'd defy the world at any time he chose no matter how poor his -fortunes. - -Well, now we wait for mail. Already I'm impatient for Olson's return -and that cannot well be before the day after to-morrow. Rockwell and I -walked around the bay in the afternoon more to have a look toward -Seward where our mail comes from than for anything else. But Seward -was hidden in falling snow. All the bay was shrouded in mist and snow. -But our own cove was beautiful to look back upon with its white peaks -and dark forest, and far down at the water's edge our tiny cabins from -one of which the thick smoke of the smoldering fire curled upwards. - - - Sunday, January fifth. - -Olson is still away. It is wearing to wait this way in hope,--for we -will hope even if the wind blows and the snow falls. And so it has -done. The day following Olson's departure it was wonderfully fair and -calm, but the next day, it being the day he should have returned, a -heavy snowstorm set in. And to-day with less snow there was more -wind,--not so much that he could not have come but enough that he -didn't. We walked down the beach and scanned the bay with the glasses, -and up to dark I looked continually for the little boat to be rounding -the headland. - -[Illustration: ANOTHER OF ROCKWELL'S DRAWINGS] - -It seems as if that were all the news, but the days have really been -full of work and other interest. The snow itself, lying deep and light -and over all--even the tree tops--is a delight. Rockwell and I played -bear and hunter to-day tracking each other in the woods. Only the -goats are miserable these days with their browse all covered but what -they can gnaw from the tree trunks. Billy at this season is a fury. -One has really to go armed with a clout. Yesterday he burst in the -door of Olson's shed and then inside managed to shut the door on -himself. When I investigated the strange banging that I'd been hearing -for some time, I found him. He had even piled things against the door. -While no actual damage has been done he has tossed every blessed thing -about with his horns. Boxes, pails, sacks of grain, cans, rope, tools, -all lie piled in confusion about the floor. It does no good to beat -the creature. He will learn nothing. It is about one-thirty A. M. I've -written more than I intended writing. My heart is set upon the mail -and nothing else. - - - Monday, January sixth. - -With Olson still away and the mail with him what can there be to -report. It snows. It is so mild that we walk about hatless, coatless, -mittenless. Drip, drip, drip, goes it from the eaves continuously. The -snow has fallen from the trees. On the ground it lies deep and heavy. -To-morrow maybe we shall take to snowshoes. Rockwell and I each took a -trip along the beach to look for Olson. As I stood there peering into -the haze toward Seward a head arose from the water close to me. It was -a seal. He looked all about him for the greatest while, went under, -reappeared again near by once more, and then was gone. Billy burst -open that shed of Olson's again. Some day I shall murder a goat! - - - Wednesday, January eighth. - -Two more days and Olson still away. I'm furious at him. Yesterday he -could well have come, to-day it has been impossible. We seem to do -little here but wait. Even at the height of to-day's storm I found -myself continually going to the little window to look for a boat. Rain -and snow, rain and snow! Ah, if only we had our mail here--then these -warm, white days would be delightful. Yesterday we wore our snowshoes -for the first time, but only to tramp down the cove and look toward -Seward. - -The only recompense for Olson's absence is Nanny's milk. I'm an expert -milker now and can do the job before she finishes her cup of oats. I -_have_ to, for at the finish she leaps madly to escape me. Goat's milk -junket and orange marmalade; sublime! - - - Friday, January tenth. - -One hour ago it was as beautiful a moonlit night as one ever beheld. -The softest veils of cloud passed the moon and cast over the earth -endlessly varied, luminous shadows. The mountain tops, trees, rocks, -and all, are covered with new snow; the valleys and the lower levels -are black where rain has cleared the trees. It is so beautiful here at -times that it seems hard to bear. And now at this moment the rain -falls as if it had fallen for all time and never would cease. Oh -Olson, Olson! Is it anything to you in your old age to be so madly -wanted? Here it truly is conceivable that any condition of bad weather -could visit us for months without relief. There seems no rhyme or -reason to it until you see it as the reverse of marvelously fair -weather; a blue sky is here as wrong as rain in a rainless desert -land. - -Nothing has happened. I am making good drawings and have made two -small woodcuts. Billy to-day again tackled the door of Olson's shed. -My fixing of the lock proved _too_ good. That held--while he burst the -door to pieces. I caught him at the finish of it; I become a maniac at -such a time. I pursued the beast with a club in a mad chase through -the heavy snow, catching him often enough to get some satisfaction at -least in the beating I gave him. He fears me now and that's something -gained. But it's a bad matter both for Billy and for me. - -It is now after midnight and I've just finished a drawing. Rockwell is -concerned about these late hours and when I told him that I could work -so very well alone at night he seriously suggested that I send him out -in the daytime to stay all day without dinner so that I could work -better. I'm reading about King Arthur and the round table to him; -that's good for both of us. He has made himself a lance and a sword -and to-morrow I expect to confer some sort of knighthood upon him. -Apropos of the book of King Arthur, Rockwell said to-day, "I don't -think the pictures in the book are half nice enough. I think of a -wonderful picture when you read the story and then when I see the one -in the book I'm disappointed." And these King Arthur pictures are -rarely good in execution. It just shows that one need not attempt to -palm off unimaginative stuff, much less trash, on children. The -greatest artists are none too good to make the drawings for children's -books. Imagination and romance in pictures and stories a child asks -for above all, and those qualities in illustration are the rarest. - -[Illustration: WELTSCHMERZ] - - - Monday, January thirteenth. - -Of the three days that have again passed two have been quite fair -enough for Olson to have come. Both yesterday and to-day Rockwell and -I made frequent trips down the shore to look for him. It is terribly -depressing to have your heart set upon that mail that doesn't come. I -begin to think that some other cause than the weather holds Olson -away. It is possible that the steamer we saw going to Seward was no -mail steamer, and that Olson, who has gone for his pension money, is -waiting for a mail. I feel like making no record of these days. I take -pleasure only in their quick passage. - -Saturday night Rockwell received the order of knighthood. For three -quarters of an hour he stayed upon his knees watching over his arms. -He was all that time as motionless as stone and as silent. Now he is -Sir Lancelot of the Lake and jousts all day with imaginary giants and -wicked knights. He has rescued one queen for himself but as yet none -for me. - -We have run about some on our snowshoes, though the snow is nowhere -deep enough for that except along the shore. The weather is still -mild--hardly freezing at all--and it forever successively rains, -snows, and hails. All the animals are still alive. I don't love them, -they're rather a nuisance. Nothing could be less amusing than a blue -fox,--small creatures, excessively timid, of cowed demeanor. Saturday -I had to get a bag of fish from the lake where they had been soaking -and cook up another great supply of fox food. - - - Wednesday, January fifteenth. - -Yesterday to begin with a snowstorm and then a clear, gray day. To-day -blue sky in the morning, a north wind and bitter cold; gray again at -noon and mild. By the geological survey report of Kenai Peninsular, -January should average in temperature at Seward sixteen degrees. From -now on it must average close to zero to give us sixteen for the month. -Here it's not as cold as New York. Rockwell bathed to-night standing -within six feet of the open door. I have definitely decided that Olson -stays for some cause other than the weather, although to-day and -yesterday he could not have come. We snowshoed a bit to-day. Alaska -snowshoes are certainly the easiest that ever were to travel on. - - - Thursday, January sixteenth. - -Well, after to-day there remains no doubt that Olson stays away -purposely--unless he's sick or dead. Rockwell's theory that Seward has -been totally swept away by a terrible fire, with every man, woman, and -child of its inhabitants, I disproved to-night. We walked down the -beach and there were the lights of the great city brighter it seemed -than ever. Either there has been no mail boat at all since early in -December or there has been no mail from Juneau whence Olson's -"check-que," as he calls it, comes. Well it profits us nothing to -speculate on this. - -The day has been glorious, mild, fair, with snow everywhere even on -the trees. The snow sticks to the mountain tops even to the steepest, -barest peaks painting them all a spotless, dazzling white. It's a -marvelous sight. Rockwell and I journeyed around the point to-day and -saw the sun again. To-night in the brilliant moonlight I snowshoed -around the cove. There never was so beautiful a land as this! Now at -midnight the moon is overhead. Our clearing seems as bright as -day,--and the shadows are so dark! From the little window the -lamplight shines out through the fringe of icicles along the eaves, -and they glisten like diamonds. And in the still air the smoke ascends -straight up into the blue night sky. - -[Illustration: VICTORY] - - - Saturday, January eighteenth. - -Two beautiful days, these last. And to-night the wind blows and the -snow falls and it is very cold. The days are uneventful. We journey -many times down the beach over our snowshoe trail. That's our -out-of-doors diversion,--to look up the bay toward Seward. But the -view is beautiful. Loftier mountains, more volcano shaped are about -Seward, and they're dazzling white. - -Yesterday Rockwell found otter tracks crossing from the salt water to -the lake,--a lot of them. It's wonderful to think that those fine -creatures have crossed the five long miles of water. Their footprints -are as large as a good-sized dog's. They seem to have a great time -frisking about as they travel. On one little slope they have made a -slide. No footprints are there at all,--only the smoothly worn track. -We see no wild life as a rule but the eagles. They're all about in -plenty, magnificent birds when seen close to, and when flying at the -mountain's height still surprisingly large. - -The milk goat is dry,--so that's one chore less. Rockwell feeds the -goats every day, but I can't trust him with the foxes; he'd leave the -door open as likely as not. (It was reserved for Olson himself to let -this happen. May twenty-ninth he writes in a letter to me: - - "Had a skear or acksedent on the eighteenth, i vas putteng som - grase in to the fox Corrals an i most heav left the hok of van i - turnd around the dor vas open and 1. fox goan the litle femall - in the Corall naxst to the goat Hous. And the fox var over at - the tant i cald to em et vas suppertam to Com bake and get som - sepper and He sat down and luckt at me bot finly mosed of op in - the Hill. i take the other fox and put em in the other Corall - and left the 2--tow Coralls open and put feed in the seam es - nothing ad apen. the first night i did not sleep vary val. the - sakond night and not showing up, bot naxst morning i Came out to - the Corall the feed vas goin en the pan and the fox vas sleping - on the box var he allves du and i felt a litle Beatter van the - doors ar shut.") - -I'm hard at work painting by day and drawing at night. Twenty-five -good drawings are done. On the fair, warm days Rockwell spends most of -his time out-of-doors. Being Sir Lancelot still delights him and -there's not a stump in the vicinity that has not been scarred by his -attacks with lance and sword. These stumps are really mostly all -giants. I am now reading the Department of Agriculture year book. It's -very instructive. - - - Tuesday, January twenty-first. - -The north wind rages to-night. It is cold and clear starlight. With -the violent wind-gusts the snow sweeps by in clouds-sweeps _by_ except -for what sweeps _in_. Over my work table it descends in a fine, wet -spray so that I've had to cover that place with canvas and work -elsewhere. A wild day it has been and a wild night is before us. And -yesterday was little brother to it. - -These days are wonderful but they are terrible. It is thrilling now -with Olson absent to reflect that we are absolutely cut off from all -mankind, that we cannot, in this raging sea, return to the world nor -the world come to us. Barriers must secure your isolation in order -that you may experience the full significance of it. The romance of an -adventure hangs upon slender threads. A banana peeling on a mountain -top tames the wilderness. Much of the glory of this Alaska is in the -knowledge I have that the next bay--which I may never choose to -enter--is uninhabited, that beyond those mountains across the water is -a vast region that no man has ever trodden, a terrible ice-bound -wilderness. - -We begin to think less of Olson's return. I have settled to my work -and can imagine things continuing as they are for weeks. They _will_ -continue so unless the wind forsakes the north. Two days ago after a -very cold night we awoke to thunder and lightning--and snow! In two -hours the sun was out. That afternoon I stripped and danced awhile in -the snow--a _little_ while. Then, after a hot bath, out again in my -nakedness for a roll in the snow, dressed,--and felt a new man. -Rockwell loves it all more and more. He seems absolutely contented and -spends hours a day outdoors. - -What a marvel is a child's imagination! It is a treat for Rockwell to -play "man-eater" at bedtime and attack me furiously. And if at any -time I'll just enter his pretend-world it's all he can wish for. -Another filthy mess of fox-food has been prepared and a new sack of -salt fish put to soak in the lake. I do hate that chore. Pioneering I -relish; ranching I despise, at least blue fox ranching. The miserable -things slink about so in such sick and mean spirited fashion. - - - Thursday, January twenty-third. - -Sometimes the smoke goes up the flue--and sometimes down. And that's -not good for the fire. I sit within six inches of the stove with a -frozen nose and icy feet. The wind sifts through the walls. Now, with -our moss calking shrunken and dried and shriveled further with the -cold, our cabin would be light without windows. These are so far the -coldest days of winter. Although it blows straight from the north, -whence only fair weather comes, the day is dark with drifting snow -cloud high. The water of the bay is hidden in driving vapor. We cut -wood and stuff it everlastingly into the stove. To-day seventy pieces -for the ravenous air-tight, big chunks, have been cut and split--and -we'll cut again to-morrow. But with all the trouble of cold weather -we'd be mightily disappointed if the winter slipped by without it. - -It's a real satisfaction to find that my calculations in supplies, in -bedding, in heating equipment were just right for conditions here. -We're running low now in cereals and milk but we had planned to visit -Seward this month to restock. Olson's absence is quite outside of all -plans. If he isn't sick it's hard to explain reasonably in any way. - -For the past three weeks I have made on an average no less than one -good drawing a day, really drawings I'm delighted with. I've struck a -fine stride and moreover a good system for my work here to continue -upon. During the day I paint out-of-doors from nature by way of fixing -the forms and above all the color of the out-of-doors in my mind. Then -after dark I go into a trance for a while with Rockwell subdued into -absolute silence. I lie down or sit with closed eyes until I "see" a -composition,--then I make a quick note of it or maybe give an -hour's time to perfecting the arrangement on a small scale. Then when -that's done I'm care free. Rockwell and I play cards for half an hour, -I get supper, he goes to bed. When he's naked I get him to pose for me -in some needed fantastic position, and make a note of the anatomy in -the gesture of my contemplated drawing. Little Rockwell's tender form -is my model perhaps for some huge, hairy ruffian. It's a great joke -how I use him. Generally I have to feel for the bone or tendon that I -want to place correctly. - -[Illustration: ZARATHUSTRA AND HIS PLAYMATES] - -Last night I drew laughing to myself. A lion was my subject. I have -often envied Blake and some of the old masters their _ignorance_ of -certain forms that let them be at times so delightfully, impressively -naïve. I've thought it matters not a bit how little you know about the -living form provided you proceed to draw the thing according to some -definite, consistent idea. Don't conceal your ignorance with a slur, -be definite and precise even there. Well, by golly, this lion gave me -my chance to be unsophisticated; such a silly, smirking beast as I -drew! At last it became somewhat rational and a little dignified, but -it still looks like a judge in a great wig. But a lion that lets a -naked youth sleep in his paws as this one does may be expected to be a -little unbeastly. When I began to write these pages to-night the stars -were out. Now it snows or hails on the roof! - - - Saturday, January twenty-fifth. - -It is bitterly cold weather, as cold continuously as I've ever -experienced. Both yesterday and to-day the wind has been exceptionally -violent and the air full of flying snow. Both of Olson's water -barrels--in the house--have frozen solid. One bulged and burst the -bottom rolling itself off onto the floor. - - - Sunday, January twenty-sixth. - -A day of hard work with Rockwell in bed for a change. Just a little -stomach upset--and he's all right now. Felled a tree and cut up -fifteen feet of it, taking advantage of this glorious day. It was much -milder than for days it has been and it still holds so to-night. -There's no wind and that makes ever so much difference in the cabin. -Now if it will hold calm and mild for a day we'll see whether or not -Olson is yet ready to return. - - - Tuesday, January twenty-eighth. - -I'm reading "Zarathustra," "Write with blood, and thou wilt learn that -blood is spirit." So that book was written. Last night I made a -drawing of Zarathustra leading the ugliest man by the hand out into -the night to behold the round moon and the silver waterfall. What a -book to illustrate! The translator of it says that Zarathustra is such -a being as Nietzsche would have liked himself to be,--in other words -his ideal man. It seems to me that the ideal of a man _is_ the real -man. You _are_ that which in your soul you choose to be; your most -beautiful and cherished vision is yourself. What are the true, normal -conditions of life for any man but just those perfect conditions with -which he would ideally surround himself. A man is not a sum of -discordant tendencies--but rather a being perfect for one special -place; and this is Olson's creed. - -My chief criticism of Zarathustra is his taste for propaganda. Why, -after all, concern himself with the mob. In picturing his hero as a -teacher has not Nietzsche been tricked away from a true ideal to an -historical one? Of necessity the great _selfish_ figures of all time -have gone down to oblivion. It's the will of human society that only -the benefactors of mankind shall be cherished in memory. A pure ideal -is to be the thing yourself, concerning yourself no bit with proving -it. And if the onward path of mankind seems to go another way than -yours--proud soul, let it. - -[Illustration: FROZEN FALL] - - - Wednesday, January twenty-ninth. - -Alaska _can_ be cold! Monday broke all records for the winter. Tuesday -made that seem balmy. It was so bitterly cold here last night in our -"tight little cabin" that we had to laugh. Until ten o'clock when I -went to bed the large stove was continuously red hot and running at -full blast. And yet by then the water pails were frozen two inches -thick--but ten feet from the stove and open water at supper time, my -fountain pen was frozen on the table, Rockwell required a hot water -bottle in bed, the fox food was solid ice, my paste was frozen, and -that's all. My potatoes and milk I had stood near the stove. At twelve -o'clock the clock stopped-starting again from the warmth of breakfast -cooking. I put the water pail at night behind the stove close to it, -and yet it was solid in the morning. We burn an unbelievable amount of -wood, at least a cord a week in one stove. So I figure we earn a -dollar a day cutting wood. We felled another tree to-day and cut most -of it up. Still we manage to gain steadily with our wood pile always -in anticipation of worse weather. Last night at sundown the bay -appeared indescribably dramatic. Dense clouds of vapor were rising -from the water obscuring all but a few peaks of the mountains and -darkening the bay. But above the sun shone dazzlingly on the peaks and -through the thinner vapor, coloring this like flames. It was as if a -terrible fire raged over the bay. This morning for hours it was dark -from clouds of vapor. They swept in over our land and coated the trees -of the shore with white frost. - -Yesterday I had to go to the lake and chop out a bag of fish for the -foxes. I returned covered with ice and the fish were frozen solid -before I reached the cabin. I cut them up to-day with the axe and -cooked a week's supply of food for the foxes. - -Rockwell has been a trump. The weather can't be too cold for him. This -morning he pulled his end of the saw without rest. He rarely goes out -now without his horse, lance, and sword and he addresses me always as -"My lord." Surely Lancelot himself was no gentler knight. And now it's -bedtime. The cold is less than last night but still I sit huddled at -the stove. It is the bitter wind that makes the trouble. - - - Thursday, January thirtieth. - -A splendid day of wood cutting. It was milder and quite windless in -our cove, although in the bay there were whitecaps. A light snow had -begun to fall by noon and it continues. To increase our lead on the -weather we set to work upon a twenty-eight inch tree. We had to throw -it somewhat against its natural lean and it was a terrible job. The -wedge would not enter the frozen tree and when it at last did it -wouldn't lift the great mass that rested on it. Only after an hour's -continuous pounding with the heavy sledge-hammer did I drive the wedge -in clear to the head, and then the great tree fell. The fall of one of -these monsters--for to us they seem gigantic--is thrilling. This one -went straight where we had aimed it, down a narrow avenue in the -woods. Ripping and crashing it fell carrying down a smaller tree with -its limbs. Then Rockwell and I set to work with the saw. When the -drums were split we hauled them to the cabin on Olson's Yukon sled. -And now our wood pile is a joyous sight, while within the cabin we -have a whole, cold day's supply. - -Last night just as I was going to bed Rockwell began to talk in his -sleep about some wild adventure with his imaginary savages. I asked -him if he were cold. "No, my lord," he murmured and slept on. Very -fine barley soup to-day. Water in which barley had been boiled, two -bouillon cubes, onions browned in bacon fat. Rockwell said it was the -best yet. - - - Saturday, February first. - -Again the days are like spring. Yesterday began the thaw and today -continues it with rain most of the time. So we've stayed within -doors, Sir Lancelot and my lordship working here at our craft. I -have just completed my second drawing for the day. One a day has been -the rate for a month--but yesterday the spirit didn't work. But the -news! A great, old tramp steamer entered yesterday. That must carry -mail and freight and send Olson back to us. If only it were a regular -liner I'd know for sure. It is possible this steamer has been -chartered to relieve the situation. Well--the next fair, calm day will -show. - -[Illustration: THE HERMIT] - - - Sunday, February second. - -It's before supper. Rockwell, who has just run out-of-doors for a -romp, calls at this moment that he has lost his slipper in the snow -and is barefooted. Out-of-doors is to us like another room. Mornings -we wash in the snow, invariably. And with a mug of water in hand clean -our teeth out there--and this in the coldest weather. We scour our -pots with snow before washing them, throw the dish water right out of -the door, and generally are in and out all day.... It is surely -nonsense to think that changes of temperature give men colds. Neither -of us has had a trace of a cold this winter, we haven't even used -handkerchiefs--only sleeves. Nor does it give one a cold to _be_ cold. -I've tried that often enough to know. And a variable climate has, too, -nothing to do with it, for what variableness could exceed an Alaska -winter. Colds, like bad temper and loss of faith, are a malady of the -city crowd. - -It rains--this moment, the next it will hail--and then snow. Sometime -to-day the sun has shone, sometime the wind has blown, and for the -rest been calm. Altogether it has been too uncertain for us to expect -Olson. And now for the sour-dough hot cakes and supper. For Rockwell, -barley, "the marrow of men." - -Rockwell to-day asked me how kings earned their living. I said they -didn't earn it--just got the people to give it to them. - -"What's that," he said laughing, "some sort of a joke they play on the -people?" - -So I guess it takes education to appreciate privilege. Incidentally, -the war must be over and the heroes, having proved by their might that -might does _not_ make right--or that it does? (!) now have doffed the -soldier's uniform of glory for the little-honored clothes of toil. - - - Monday, February third. - -We are in the second month of Olson's absence. To-day it stormed -mostly; heavy snow in the morning. Through the thick of it we heard -faintly a steamer whistle. It seemed to be receding, outward bound. At -four o'clock while a light snow fell the lightning played merrily and -thunder crashed. It is like this: snow for half an hour, then -rain--silence and calm for a few minutes. Suddenly huge hailstones -pelt the roof, for all the world like rocks. This lasts a few seconds, -there's a fierce gust of wind showering ice and snow from the tree -tops down upon us, again calm and silence--and the performance is -ready to begin again. - - - Tuesday, February fourth. - -It has been so changeable to-day that we are still uncertain of -Olson's intentions. We snowshoed down the beach in the beautiful, -soft, new snow so at least to have a look toward Seward. There lay the -bay calm and beautiful--and spotless. The scale of things is so -tremendous here that I've little idea how far we shall be able to see -the little, bobbing boat when it does come. - -We sawed a lot of wood to-day bringing our pile clear up into the -gable peak. It becomes a mania seeing the pile grow. In quiet weather -we cut to forestall the storm; in the storm we still cut to be well -ahead for days that may be worse. It is beautifully mild now. On -February first Rockwell brought in some budding twigs. The alders -all seem to be in bud and some charming, red-stemmed shrubs as well. -It is midnight and past. My drawing is finished, the stove is piled -for the night, cereal and beans in place upon it, so--Good-night. - -[Illustration: ECSTASY] - - - Wednesday, February fifth. - -A beautiful snowstorm all the day and to-night, still and mild. -Rockwell has been out in it all day dressed in my overalls and -mittens. He plays seal and swims in the deep snow. We built a snow -house together. It is now about seven feet in diameter inside and as -cozy as can be. I'm sure Rockwell will want to sleep there when it's -finished. A curtain of icicles hangs before our little window. - -I have carefully figured the cost of our living here from the food -bills, all of which I have kept. I have bought $114.82 worth of -provisions. I still have on hand $19.10 worth. For one hundred and -fifty days it has cost us sixty-four cents a day for two, or -thirty-two cents each,--a little over ten cents a meal. This for the -current high prices everywhere and additionally high in Alaska seems -very reasonable living. The figures include the very expensive -Christmas luxuries. - - - Friday, February seventh. - -Yesterday, THE SUN! For how many days he might have been shining at us -I don't know, for it has been cloudy. However at noon it was all over -the ground about us and shining in at my window. What a joyous sight -after months of shadow! To-night the sun at setting again almost -reached us. And yesterday as if spring had already come we begin the -day with snow baths at sunrise. Ha! That's the real morning bath! And -to-day again. We step out-of-doors and plunge full length into the -deep snow, scour our bodies with it, and rush back into the sheltering -house and the red-hot stove. To Rockwell belongs all credit, or blame, -for this madness. He _will_ do it--and I'm ashamed not to follow. -These two days have been cold and windy, north days,--but how -beautiful! All of the day Rockwell plays out-of-doors swimming in the -deep snow, now a seal, again a walrus. Gee, he's the great fellow for -northern weather. Cooked the filthy fox mess yesterday, washed clothes -to-day, sawed wood on both. Now it's twelve-thirty at night and I'm -tired. - - - Saturday, February eighth. - -All about me stand the drawings of my series, the "Mad Hermit." They -look mighty fine to me. Myself with whiskers and hair! First, to-day, -when the storm abated a bit, we sank a bag of fish in the lake and -then started on snowshoes for the ridge to the eastward. The snow lay -in the woods there heavy and deep. No breath of wind had touched it. -The small trees, loaded, bent double making shapes like frozen -fountains. Some little trees with their branches starting far from the -ground formed with their drooping limbs domed chambers about their -stems. Coming down it was great sport. We could slide down even in our -sticky snowshoes. Rockwell, who was soaked through, undressed and -spent the afternoon naked, playing wild animal about the cabin. Then -at six-thirty we both had hot baths, and snow baths following. I begin -to relish the snow bath. Rockwell was the picture of health and beauty -afterwards with his rose-red cheeks and blue eyes. - - - Monday, February tenth. - -Yesterday morning I bathed in a snowstorm, this morning it was too -terribly, howlingly blusterous to run out into it. And now since one -o'clock it is as calm and mild as it ever could be. Within the cabin -it's even more cozy than usual. The snow is banked up against the big -window to a third the window's height. By day the light seems -curtained, by night doubly bright from reflected lamplight. Heavy -drifts are everywhere. Last night fine snow filtered in upon our -faces as we slept but not enough to be uncomfortable. The cabin is -fortunately placed as to drifts and our door-yard remains clear with a -splendid bathing bank skirting it. Rockwell is at work now upon -multiplication tables. He's a real student and is always seriously -occupied with something in his hours indoors. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -OLSON! - - -He returned last night, the eleventh of February, in a blaze of glory! -Ah, the wonder of it and of all he brought. Rockwell and I sat at our -cards just before supper-time. The day, a calm one, a fair one, had -passed and Olson again had not come. We were downcast. Every possible -cause for his continued absence had been reviewed in my mind. To wait -longer was not to be endured. And so we sat with far-off thoughts and -toyed with the silly cards. Suddenly the long, clear sound of a boat's -horn reached us from the night outdoors. We ran and peered into the -darkness. At last we saw a black spot moving far out on the water. Oh -God! it was entering the cove. In what a frenzy of excitement we -hurried down the beach! Nearer they come and nearer, men's voices, the -little cabin light, and the vessel gliding toward us; they're abreast -of us, they drop anchor. "Olson, Olson," I shout, "Olson, is that -you?" "He's aboard," is answered, "How are you, and how's the little -boy?" We see them loading a dory from the vessel's deck,--and now they -row it to the shore. It's good to see a fine young fisherman and shake -his hand. Again and once again the loads are ferried in and carried up -the long and slippery low-tide beach. Rockwell has lighted Olson's -lamp, he sweeps his cabin, and starts the fire in the stove. At the -last load I slip aboard the vessel. I am "_wanted_." There stands -Olson swaying gigantic on the deck above us as we bump the side. A -bear's greeting! Olson is radiant, radiant and mellow with the joy of -homecoming and the warmth of tasted spirits. The skipper I know, yes! -the good Englishman, Hogg, who had us once to dinner at his camp. Down -in the cabin in the heat and fumes of a cooking feast we tip the -friendly bottle. - -Ah! tell me not, abstainer, of any glories you have known. One night, -one midnight out on the black waters of a Newfoundland harbor, the -million stars above, and on the wretched vessel's deck the hoard of -half-drunk, soul-starved men saying their passionate farewells,--on -the dull plain of their life a flash of lightning revealing an -abyss;--this night on the still, dark cove of Resurrection Bay, rimmed -with wild mountains and the wilderness, strong men about you, mad, -loosened speech and winged, prophetic vision,--God! but sane daylight -seeing seems to touch but the white, hard surface of where life is -hidden. - -From the hot cabin I climbed the boat's ladder, up, up onto the -world's heights. Ah, how the cold, clean wind from the wide spaces -then swept my soul, and how close about my head the dome of heaven and -the stars! This is no earth-ship but the deck of a meteor vessel that -I tread, the moon ship of the ancient northern gods. - -I row ashore for Rockwell, stow the goods higher on the beach, and we -return aboard for supper. Over Rockwell the skipper makes a great -fuss, says he's a famous oarsman and could beat his daddy, a fine, -big, strong boy. Warm hearted skipper!--and he reaches again for the -bottle and I drink. It's _vinegar_! Profuse apologies, and the right -one is found. - -We eat, we stuff!--and then the three of us, Rockwell laden with -presents of fruit, say good-night and row ashore. Poor, tired Olson -has little strength to move the heavy loads from the beach. No matter, -I struggle alone and finally stow them in his cabin, a great pile. -Then a cup of coffee with the old man, a little furious talk about the -war,--fury at a world that could mess things so,--and home to bed -where already Rockwell slept. - -This morning the icy bath. Then without breakfast we began upon our -mail. What a wonderful Christmas at last! The bed was piled high with -presents, the table high with letters. We sorted and gloated like -hungry tigers that in the ecstasy of possession merely lick their -food. All through the morning and deep into the afternoon I read the -mail. Unwashed dishes stood about, for meals we but ate what was at -hand. (Here follows in the journal a list two pages long of presents, -of books--what a shelf of them!--woolen clothes and sheepskin -slippers, music for the flute, plum-pudding, candy, chocolate, -cigarettes,--and ever so much more.) And that being about seven times -as much as we've ever had before is all. Ah, in the wilderness you -love your friends and they too think of you. Better than all, though, -are the letters; such friendly letters never were before. - - - Friday, February fourteenth. - -The days go like the wind. So warm to-day and yesterday! We live -out-of-doors. Now as I write the door stands open and the soft, moist, -spring air enters to dispel the fumes of turpentine. I primed eight -canvases to-day, six of which I had also stretched. This afternoon I -painted at the northern end of the beach almost beneath a frozen -waterfall, an emerald of huge size and wonderful form. - -[Illustration: PELAGIC REVERIE] - -Rockwell is in high spirits. I think the augmentation of our diet -brought by Olson's return will do him a lot of good. We had cut down -on our use of milk to a can in two or three days. Now we may live on -fish which Olson has in such quantities that we're to help ourselves. -Olson has insisted on my accepting a fifty-pound sack of flour for my -services during his six weeks' absence, and I expect to find it hard -to be allowed to return the cereals that I am borrowing. What a -contrast this free-handed country to the mean spirit of Newfoundland! - - - Monday, February seventeenth. - -Three days! and what has happened? I guess that on the first of them I -stretched and painted canvas. On the second all day I painted -out-of-doors, it was quite summer-like and the sun shone through -diamond-dripping trees. And to-day I have written from early morning -before breakfast until now, eleven at night. I have decided to go to -Seward in a few days. It has become necessary to go back to New York -very soon. I told Rockwell of this to-day and his eyes have scarcely -been dry since. He has reasoned with me and inquired into every detail -of the situation. He doesn't _want_ to go to New York nor even to live -in the country in the East. There'll be no ocean near nor any warm -pond for bathing. And not even the thought that elsewhere he'd have -playmates weighs against his love for this spot. - -You should see Sir Lancelot now. His clothes are outgrown and outworn. -They hang in tatters about him. His trousers are burst from the knee -to the hip, his overalls that cover them are rags. His shirt is -buttonless but for two in front. From above tattered elbows his -sleeves hang in ribbons. His hair is long and shaggy; where it hung -over his eyes I have cut it off short. _But_, his fair cheeks are as -pink as roses, his eyes are beautiful and blue, his lips are red, and -his face glows always with expression. So we don't care a rap for the -rest--only Rockwell does! One day after he had regarded for a long -time a certain unfortunate photograph of himself in which he looked -like an idiot, he said, "Father, I'd like to dress up some day and put -on my best clothes and brush my hair,--because I want to see if I -really look like I do in this picture." Rockwell loves to look well -and it's a real treat for him to dress up. So, that being the case and -his tidy nature being so well assured I don't trouble a bit to adorn -him. He cleans his teeth regularly and likes to do it. Mornings we get -up together and go through a set of Dr. Sargent's exercises, do them -with great energy. Then we go naked out-of-doors. The period of -chattering teeth is past. No matter what the weather is we go calmly -out into it, lie down in the drift, look up into the sky, and then -scrub ourselves with snow. It's the finest bath in the world. - -It rains to-day--or snows. The snow lies three feet deep on the level. -At our windows it is above the sills. In Seward,--have I written this -before?--it lies so deep that one can't see across the street. The -snow is the deepest, and that last cold snap the coldest, of any -winter remembered or recorded. The cold was very many degrees below -zero. So we _have_ experienced a true winter. We're so glad to know -it. - - - Tuesday, February eighteenth. - -Such mild weather! With the fire nearly out it's hot indoors to-night. -A little snow, a little rain, but altogether a pleasant day. It's -always pleasant when I paint well. To-day I redeemed two straying -pictures and they're among the elect now. To-night a steamer entered -from the westward, the _Curaçao_, long expected. She must have been -here two or three days ago and since then been to Seldovia. With -incredible slowness she crept over the water. What old hulks they do -put onto this Alaska service. - -[Illustration: PRISON BARS] - -Rockwell's mothering of all things exceeded reason to-day. He put two -sticks of wood on the fire after I had intended it to go out. I -removed them, blazing merrily. "Don't" cried Rockwell seriously, -"you'll hurt the fire's feelings." - -Rockwell cleared off the boat to-day. Next we must dig her out. -To-morrow the engine must be put in order. We must find a hole in the -gasoline tank and solder it and then coax it into starting. It is on -such jobs that whole precious days are wasted. - -Rockwell loves every foot of this spot of land. To-night he spoke of -the beauties of the lake, its steep wooded shores, clean and pebbly, -and the one low, clear, and level spot where we approached the water. -He had planned to live this summer the day long on the shores of the -lake, naked, playing in and out of the water or paddling some craft -about. I thought of putting up a tent in some mossy dell along the -shore and letting Rockwell sleep there nights alone and learn early -the wonders of a hermit's life. And none of it is to be! - - - Wednesday, February nineteenth. - -It rains and storms. But to-day we repaired the engine and we're ready -to start for Seward when it clears. Above every other thought now is -the sad realization that our days on this beloved island are nearing -an end. What is it that endears it so to a man near forty and a little -boy of nine? We have such widely different outlooks upon life. It may -be that Alaska stands midway between us, and that I, turning backward -from the crowded world that I have known and learned to fear, meet -Rockwell in his _forward_ march from nothing--to this. If that be so -we have met only for a moment for such perfect sympathy. His love will -pass on from this and mine will grow dissatisfied and wander still. -But I think it's otherwise. It seems that we have both together by -chance turned out of the beaten, crowded way and come to stand face to -face with that infinite and unfathomable thing which is the -wilderness; and here we have found OURSELVES--for the wilderness is -nothing else. It is a kind of living mirror that gives back as its own -all and only all that the imagination of a man brings to it. It _is_ -that which we believe it to be. So here we have stood, we two, and if -we have not shuddered at the emptiness of the abyss and fled from its -loneliness, it is because of the wealth of our own souls that filled -the void with imagery, warmed it, and gave it speech and -understanding. This vast, wild land we have made a child's world and a -man's. - -I know nothing in all life more beautiful than the perfect belief of -Rockwell in his Paradise here. Unopposed, his romance has kindled -every object on the homestead; so that now for hours he can steal -about in the forest, on the beach, along the lake,--in absolute -contentment, for it is wonderland itself. The "King's road," the -"Giant's path" where stand the gummy "ten-pound butter tree" and all -the giants with whom Sir Lancelot must joust, the magpie's grave -marked with a cross, the otter's cave, the marvelous frozen stream; -those strange wild people, the Treaps, who visit these shores -occasionally to hunt the white man for his skin as the white man has -hunted their dear animals; rain-bears and wild-cat-eaters--appalling -animals that inhabit the dark woods but are good friends to Rockwell. -Every log and rotten stump, the gnarled trees, with or without -"butter," every mound and path, the rocks, the streams, each is a -being in itself; and with those most living goats, and the brilliant -magpies, the pretty, little, dingy sparrows, the glorious and virtuous -porcupines, the black, black crows, the great and noble eagle, the -rare spider and the rarer fly, and the wonderful, strong, sleek otters -that leap in sport through the snow and coast down-hill, they make a -world of romance that has thrilled one little boy to the very bottom -of his soul. To live here, to accumulate about him more and more -animals and shelter them from harm, to live forever or, if he must, -grow old, and _very_ old; here marry--not a Seward girl but one more -beautiful--or an Indian!--here raise a great family--and here die. -That now is the ideal of little Rockwell. And if we, his family, all -of us, would count we must come here to him where with patriarchal -magnificence and dignity he will care for us. - -[Illustration: RUNNING WATER] - - - Thursday, February twentieth. - -All day out-of-doors, both of us. In the morning Rockwell and I -journeyed around the point between the two coves of the island. It's a -rocky promontory with a great jumble of bowlders at its base that one -must scramble over. These are generally wet and slippery and not much -fun. However we went well around and I set up my canvas and painted -while Rockwell crawled about in caves and crevasses playing some sort -of wild beast. The wind rose as I finished and made it difficult to -convey my wet canvas without damaging it. And in the afternoon again I -painted on two pictures out-of-doors. That's to be my work now till -the time I go. To-morrow if the day is right we start for Seward. Our -boat is dug out of the snow, our goods are packed, the engine chafes -at the throttle. I am tired to-night and it is bedtime. - - - Sunday, February twenty-third. - -Friday was calm. We left the island at about eleven--after the usual -hours fussing with the engine. At Hogg's camp we called in for -something to bale with, for the boat, being leaky, had taken in a lot -of water. No one at home--so I stole a bowl from the shed and we -proceeded. By then the sun shone upon us and we could observe, what we -later confirmed at Seward, that the sun shines at the head of the bay -while the island, _our_ island, is shrouded in clouds. Quite different -conditions prevail in the two localities. With us it is warmer and -much wetter. The recorded rainfall for Seward, that some time ago -seemed incredibly small, does not fit Fox Island at all. Olson's -records for last summer show prevailing rainy weather--and Seward -rejoiced in unprecedented sunshine! And during these three days in -Seward now, days wonderfully fair, thick clouds have always been over -Fox Island. And even the wind blows there when Seward's waters are -calm. - -And so on Friday we reached Seward with flying colors, stowed our boat -up high, put the engine into Olson's cabin, and walked again the -streets of civilization. Here everyone is friendly. The first night -Rockwell dined out at one house and slept at another with a lot of -children. What must they have thought of his underclothes! I went -supperless--writing letters instead. And then flute music at the -postmaster's. Next day very early the steamer came and the day passed -for me in the wild excitement of receiving mail. - - - Wednesday, February twenty-sixth. - -Yesterday we came home! We left Seward with only a light load aboard. -It blew briskly in the bay from the north. Before we reached Caine's -Head there was a splendid, white-crested chop racing along with us. -Midway across it was about all the engine could have stood. The -propeller is not set at enough depth in our boat and in yesterday's -sea it was most of the time out of water, racing at a furious pace. -Then the boat would naturally lose steerage way and we'd swing far out -of our course. But it was great sport. Into it we could have made no -headway; _before_ it nothing could stop us. And the engine kept right -on going!--only as usual it was continually falling apart. On Friday -the flywheel came loose six times, the muffler four, and the valve -spring fell off and stayed off. Coming back all went well till we were -in the roughest sea; then the muffler came loose. Not wanting to stop -the engine in that sea I spent half the time on my knees holding the -tiller in one hand and the muffler nut with a pair of pliers in the -other. Rockwell bailed most of the time. The boat leaks like a sieve. - -[Illustration: IMMANENCE] - -And how fine to get home again! Only an hour and we were again seated -at dinner in our warm cabin. Rockwell said it was hard for him to -remember whether Mr. Olson or we had just been to Seward. I brought -Olson a battery box and batteries as a present. He was much pleased. -But particularly his mail pleased him. I saw him soon after our -arrival seated with his spectacles on studying his letters. He rarely -gets any. This time came a post-card and letter from Rockwell's -mother. - -The day passed and evening came. Then appeared entering our cove a -cabined gasoline boat. Two young fellows came ashore and we all -chatted in Olson's cabin. One had his wife aboard. They claimed to be -hunting a stray boat,--but Olson whispered to me later, dramatically, -that they were doubtless out dragging somewhere for a cache of -whiskey. Lots of whiskey has been sunk in the bay. Marks were taken at -the time to determine its location and now the owners as need arises -fish up what they want. It's just like the buried treasure of the days -of piracy. Doubtless there are now many charts extant with the -position of liquid treasure marked upon them. - -To-day has been again overcast but beautifully mild. It is really a -wonderful climate. Rockwell makes the most of these last days. He went -this morning to the ridge's top east of us, and this afternoon high up -on the mountain side. He now wants to stay here and become a wild man. -There is no question in my mind about his entire willingness, his -desire, to be left here when I go. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -TWILIGHT - - -The first of March! If only the dull weather would clear up I could -get more done these last days here. Fifteen brand-new canvases hang -from my ridge pole waiting for pictures to adorn them. To-day is the -only day that work out-of-doors has been quite out of the question. It -snows hard. Last Thursday morning Rockwell and I began to take our -morning baths in the bay--the snow having become too hard. And now at -just seven-fifteen--on cloudy mornings, clothed in sneakers we scamper -down the shore and plunge into the waves. Brrrrrrrr! it's cold, but -mighty good. Olson, after predicting for some time a dire end to our -morning performances, has at last evinced enough curiosity to drag -himself out of bed and come over to see. But he has not yet been early -enough to catch us. - -The days are lengthening rapidly. It is now after six o'clock in the -evening and our lamp's not lighted! - -Last time in Seward Olson bought a lot of odds and ends of molding for -picture frames. And now, with my help, all the little things that we -have given him are gorgeously framed. On the little picture of himself -that I painted he has what he calls a "comoflag" frame; it's made of -_different_ moldings on the four sides. Well, Olson is mighty proud of -his pictures. He's really very fond of us. People in Seward say he -talks of us continually. And there it is thought quite remarkable how -I have managed with the "crazy" old man. I guess the craziness -explains it. I picture with horror having as a constant companion here -one of the fine, stalwart, shrewd, honest, wholesome-to-sterility -Americans that our country likes to be so proud of. - -I told Olson of Kathleen's amusement over the brusque ending of his -letter, "Answer this if you feel like it--and if you don't it's all -the same to me." - -"Well," he said, "that's the way it is here in Alaska; if anyone don't -like the way a man does he can go to Hell!" - -I've heard an amusing story about Olson and his goats at a little -Seward exposition at which they were shown. They put his two goats -into narrow packing boxes that their dirt might not fall onto the -floor of the building. Olson arrived and seeing the plight of his pets -flew into a rage. He lifted them out, hurled the packing boxes out of -the door into the street, and denounced the fair-committee for their -abuse of animals. And although the whole place tumbled about the old -man's ears, he won, and saw his goats given an honorable amount of -freedom in a special enclosure--curtained off, "admission to see the -goats ten cents,"--which notice Olson promptly disregarded, letting -everyone in--and a big crowd at that--free. - - - Monday, March third. - -Inauguration day passed here without event. In this ideal community of -Fox Island we're so little concerned with law-the only law that bears -on us at all we delight in breaking--that one wonders how far _no -government_ can be carried. One goes back to first principles in such -speculation, endows man again with inalienable rights or at least -inalienable desires, and then has simply to wonder how much of the -love of order there is in the natural man. The fact that a large -proportion of mankind can live and die without any definite knowledge -of the laws of the community and without ever running counter to the -forces of law is sign enough that most of the law code is but a -writing down of what the average man naturally wants to do or keep -from doing. There's a sharp difference between such "common" law and -the exceptional law that strikes at the personal liberty of a man, -laws concerning morals, temperance, or that conscript unwilling men -for war. In all law there is tyranny, in these laws tyranny shows its -hand. The man who wants true freedom must escape from the whole thing. -If only such souls could gravitate to a common center and build the -new community with inherent law and order as its sole guide!--well, we -have returned to the problem. A state that was truly interested in -progress would dedicate a portion of its territory to such an -experiment. But no state is interested in anything but the gain of one -class, which means the oppression of the rest. How farcical sound -these days "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." "No -government without the consent of the governed," and other -old-fashioned principles. But they have still to be reckoned with till -the last Bolshevik has been converted into a prosperous tradesman and -the last idealist is dead. And now for Fox Island. - -The weather is dull and gray--only last evening an hour before sundown -the clouds suddenly vanished out of the heavens and the sun shone as -warm and beautiful as on the fairest summer day. Then I sat -out-of-doors and painted while the snow and ice melted and dripped all -about. The mornings are cold, doubly cold it seems when in the -half-light of dawn and perhaps a driving snow squall we run naked down -the long stretch of beach and plunge into the bay. I work ceaselessly. -Time flies like mad and the day of our departure is close. - -[Illustration: THE VISION] - - - Tuesday, March fourth. - -A day of snow and rain spent by us indoors, Rockwell hard at work upon -his chart of "Trobbeabl Island"--a wonderful imaginary land where his -own strange species of wild animals live--and I washing and mending. -My seaman's bag, damaged on its way here in the hold of the steamer, -is now quite professionally patched, and the knee of my blue overalls -shines with a square patch of white canvas. - -Olson was welcome and spent much of the day with us. He has reread -Kathleen's letter to him and is charmed with it. He feels authorized -by it to keep me here longer and surely does his best to persuade me. -He treasures the picture little Kathleen sent him. All these things, -the letters and little trifles that we have given him will be stored -away in his too empty box of treasures among a very few old letters -and a photograph or two of pioneer ladies and gentlemen in the -dress-up costumes of thirty years ago. These scant treasures, what a -memorial of a very lonely life! He showed me to-day a photograph of -Tom Crane, an old associate of his in Idaho, and two large, splendid -looking women, Crane's wife and his wife's sister. The wife was frozen -to death in the snow while on a short journey with her husband. He -lost both feet. Olson led the rescue party bringing in with great -difficulty the dead woman and then tending Crane through long, painful -days until his crippled recovery. - - - Thursday, March sixth. - -It's mighty hard work, this painting under pressure. I'm too tired to -attempt more than the briefest record on this page of two days' -doings. Yesterday it was gray. At sundown it cleared giving us the -most splendid and beautiful sunset, the sun sinking behind the purple, -snowy mountains and throwing its rays upward into a seething red-hot -mass of clouds. I painted most of the afternoon out-of-doors. - -To-day we bathed at sunrise, brisk and cold and clear. The morning -tide was so exceedingly low that I ran dry shod clear around the north -side of the cove until the whole upper bay was visible. Olson had not -known it could be done. Returning we put Olson's boat into the water -and Rockwell and I embarked with my painting outfit. I landed on the -point I had just visited afoot. Rockwell in jumping ashore with the -painter timed it badly, slipped, and fell full length into the surf of -the ground swell, the dory almost riding over him. I roared with -laughter--to his great fury. He rowed about in the harbor for almost -two hours returning to bring me home. In the afternoon we repeated our -excursion--all but the water sports--going this time to the south side -of the cove. Rockwell's a good little oarsman and above all to be -trusted to do as he's told to--a vice in grown-ups, a virtue in -children. - - - Friday, March seventh. - -That to-day began in snow and cloud matters not,--it ended in a glory. -Olson, Rockwell, and I sat that late afternoon far out on the bay -basking in the warmth of a summer sun, rocked gently on a blue summer -sea. For hours we had explored the island's western shore, skirting -its tumbled reefs, riding through perilous straits right up to where -the eddying water seethed at some jagged chasm's mouth. That's fine -adventuring! flirting with danger, safe enough but close--so close to -death. We landed on the beach of Sunny Cove, found in the dark thicket -the moldering ruins of an old feed house of the foxes, gruesome with -the staring bones of devoured carcasses. And then we younger ones -dashed up the sheer, snow-covered eastward ridge--dashed on all fours -digging our feet into the snow, clinging with hands as to a ladder. -There at the top two or three hundred feet above the bay we overlooked -the farthest seaward mountains of Cape Resurrection, then Barwell -Island and the open sea. - -Ah, to see again that far horizon! Wander where you will over all -the world, from every valley seeing forever new hills calling you to -climb them, from every mountain top farther peaks enticing you. Always -the _distant_ land looks fairest, till you are made at last a restless -wanderer never reaching home--_never_--until you stand one day on the -last peak on the border of the interminable sea, stopped by the -finality of that. - -[Illustration: THE IMPERISHABLE] - -From our feet the cliff dropped in a V-shaped divide straight down to -the green ocean; and at its base the ground swell curled, broke white -and eddied. The jagged mountains across shone white against black -clouds,--what peaks! huge and sharp like the teeth of the Fenris-Wolf. - -We hurried back to Olson who waited in the boat. That side--the cove -and the more familiar mountains to the westward--lay half shrouded in -fast dissolving mist. The descent was real sport. We just sat down and -slid clear to the bottom, going at toboggan pace. Poor Olson, who -watched us from below, was aghast. On the shore I found a long, thick -bamboo pole, doubtless carried directly here from the orient by the -Japanese current. We longed to go across to Bear Glacier that we could -now see, a broad, inclined plane, spotless white, with the tallest -mountains rising steeply from its borders. But it was too late and we -returned home. The wonders of this country, of this one bay in fact, -it would take years to know! - - - Monday, March tenth. - -On the eighth it snowed hard all day and both of us worked at our -trade indoors. The ninth dawned fresh and clear and cold. It was too -windy to go out onto the bay as we had intended, so, not to be -entirely cheated out of an excursion, we packed a bag of various -supplies and set off for the ridge to the eastward. - -It was glorious in the woods. New fallen snow lay upon the tree -branches; the sun touched only the tallest tops, the wind rustled -them now and then and made it snow again below. We came out upon the -summit of the ridge more to the north than we had ever been before and -from there beheld again the open sea. Nothing can be more wonderful -than to emerge from the dense forest onto such a view! Right on the -ridge we built a fire beneath the arched roots of a large tree. -Rockwell will long remember that wonderful chimney beneath the roots. -I painted on one of the canvases I had brought while Rockwell played -about or cut wood for the fire. Presently the can of beans that we'd -laid in the ashes went pop!--and we knew that dinner was ready. So we -sat down and ate the good beans, bread and peanut butter, and -chocolate,--while our backs sizzled and our bellies froze. But we -loved it and Rockwell proposed that we spend three or four days there -like that. Then after more painting and some play in the snow we came -home again. - -But the beautiful days must be busy ones for me. I painted out on the -lake for an hour or more; after that again-this time the glorious -sunset. After supper bread to bake and then, tired out, early to sleep -in our great, hard, comfortable bed. Olson would have started to-day -had the weather been moderate. But it has blown fiercely from the -north--and still it blows. All day I worked packing and now my boxes -are made and nearly filled. It is surely true that we are going! All -day it has seemed to me to be fall. We had thought of that before -during these recent days. We scent it and feel it. I believe that it's -the end of a real summer in our lives that we taste the sadness of. - - - Tuesday, March eleventh. - -It blows incessantly, cold and clear,--blue days. I have painted most -of to-day, first indoors, and then outdoors commencing a large -picture. Olson has been with us much of the time. He treasures every -little memento we can give him. In his pocket-book are snapshots of -Kathleen, Clara, and Barbara. He wanted Barbara's curl that I -have--but I couldn't give him that. It looks as if we should all go to -Seward together. This wind is likely to hold until the full moon -passes--and that's still some days off. My trunk is about packed and -what remains can be done in a very few hours. - -[Illustration: THE STAR-LIGHTER] - -Speaking to Olson to-night about the possibility of a shipwrecked man -being able to support life on this coast for any length of time he -told of a native boy of Unga, "crazy Simyon," who lived four years at -Nigger Head, a wild part of Unga Island, with no shelter but a hole in -a sand bank, no fire, no weapons or clothes, or tools; a first-hand -story, long, wild, terrible, beginning with a boy's theft of -sacrificial wine, and ending in madness and murder. - - - Thursday, March thirteenth. - -Last night was bitterly cold. I had to get up repeatedly to attend to -the fire. The wind howled and the vapor flew and Rockwell and I hugged -close together beneath the blankets. Day dawned still icy cold. By -noon it began to snow and the afternoon was calm and mild. And now -again the wind blows fiercely from the northeast and we're freezing -cold! The day was spent in packing. The dismantled cabin looks -forlorn. - - - Sunday, March sixteenth. - -With the full moon has come the most perfect calm. If it holds through -to-morrow we shall leave the island. The past three days have been -busy ones. Bitterly cold weather has prevailed with the wind -unceasingly from the north--almost the coldest days of the winter. -Still I did some painting out-of-doors every day until yesterday, -trying hard to pin upon the canvas a little more of the infinite -splendors of this place. Meanwhile our packing was carried on. We have -made a thoroughly good job of it--I hope! But who can tell what -strain a trip of so many thousand miles will put upon our crates and -bundles? But for a promise we had made Olson to go with him to Sunny -Bay and Humpback Creek--on the eastern mainland--we'd have gone this -day to Seward. - -By noon the most perfect calm had settled upon the water. The sky was -cloudless, and although really it was still very cold the bright sun -_looked_ like warmth--and that helped a lot. So Olson's little engine, -sputtering, stammering, stopping a great deal, carried us upon our -trip. At Humpback Creek there are falls maybe thirty feet high, -perfect falls tumbling sheer down from a plateau into a deep round -basin. The falls to-day were frozen and spread wide over the face of -the cliff; but it was easy to imagine the grace of their summer form. -We had to hurry from here or be stranded by the rapidly retreating -tide. Next we went to a spot on the bay where Rockwell and I might -have lived had we not met Olson that fair Sunday in August. A little -cabin stood there--open to the weather through doorway and window but -otherwise snug and comfortable. Still, even with that _great_ wonder, -the fall, so near, that spot was not to be compared with our own Fox -Island home. Next we went to Sunny Bay to visit the old trapper who -has been wintering there--the same who stopped last fall at our island -while on his way to camp. The old fellow came to meet us as we landed, -a feeble, emaciated figure. He has been sick all winter and has done -practically no trapping. What a forlorn latter end for a man! He drags -himself about each day, cuts wood, lugs water, cooks, and when he -stoops dizziness overcomes him. He sets a small circle of traps and -drags himself around to tend them. His whole winter's work is twelve -ermine and two mink-thirty or forty dollars' worth at the most. We -offered to bring the old man back with us and from here on to -Seward--but he preferred to stay there a few days longer. - -And now I sit here with our packed household goods about me, empty -walls and a dismantled home. Still we hardly realize that this -beautiful adventure of ours has come to an end. The enchantment of it -has been complete; it has possessed us to the very last. How long such -happiness could hold, such quiet life continue to fill up the full -measure of human desires only a long experience could teach. The -still, deep cup of the wilderness is potent with wisdom. Only to have -tasted it is to have moved a lifetime forward to a finer youth. - - - Tuesday, March eighteenth. - -Fox Island is behind us. Last August Olson picked us up as strangers -and towed us to his island; yesterday, after nearly seven months there -with him we climbed again into our dories and crossed the bay--and now -we extend the helping hand to the old man and tow him and his -faltering engine back to Seward. The day dawned cold and windy. We -proceeded however at once to the completion of our packing and the -loading of the boat. - -A little after noon the wind moderating slightly we persuaded Olson to -come with us. My engine working beautifully carried both boats along -till the other little motor could be prevailed upon to start. In the -bay the wind was fresh and the chop high. Half-way across the wind had -risen and the water flew. Olson's engine worked so poorly that most of -the time I had the full strain of his dory on the line. I feared the -old man's courage would give out as the sea increased, and I grinned -at him reassuringly from time to time. Finally, however, as the -white-crested waves seemed to rush ever more fiercely upon us his face -grew solemn. He waved to us to turn and run back to the island. But -the tow line was fast in my boat and I neither chose to turn nor -loosen it. Showing our backs to him we ran for the shelter of Caine's -Head--and made it. From there onward we skirted the cliffs and found -it smooth enough. The wind again died out and we entered Seward over a -glassy sea. - - * * * * * - -And now at last it _is_ over. Fox Island will soon become in our -memories like a dream or vision, a remote experience too wonderful, -for the full liberty we knew there and the deep peace, to be -remembered or believed in as a _real_ experience in life. It was for -us life as it should be, serene and wholesome; love--but no hate, -faith without disillusionment, the absolute for the toiling hands of -man and for his soaring spirit. Olson of the deep experience, strong, -brave, generous and gentle like a child; and his island--like -Paradise. Ah God,--and now the world again! - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILDERNESS, A JOURNAL OF QUIET -ADVENTURE IN ALASKA*** - - -******* This file should be named 43284-8.txt or 43284-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/2/8/43284 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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