Manners and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
But Lit-lit did not take advantage. Taking a leaf from the book of
her husband, she at once assumed charge of his own growing sons,
giving them added comforts and a measure of freedom like to that
which he gave her. The two sons were loud in the praise of their
new mother; McLean and McTavish lifted their voices; and the Factor
bragged of the joys of matrimony till the story of her good
behaviour and her husband's satisfaction became the property of all
the dwellers in the Sin Rock district.
Whereupon Snettishane, with visions of his incalculable interest
keeping him awake of nights, thought it time to bestir himself. On
the tenth night of her wedded life Lit-lit was awakened by the
croaking of a raven, and she knew that Snettishane was waiting for
her by the river bank. In her great happiness she had forgotten
her pact, and now it came back to her with behind it all the
childish terror of her father. For a time she lay in fear and
trembling, loath to go, afraid to stay. But in the end the Factor
won the silent victory, and his kindness plus his great muscles and
square jaw, nerved her to disregard Snettishane's call.
But in the morning she arose very much afraid, and went about her
duties in momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore
along, however, she began to recover her spirits. John Fox,
soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of
duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go
out of her sight, and when she followed him into the huge cache and
saw him twirling and tossing great bales around as though they were
feather pillows, she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her
father. Also (it was her first visit to the warehouse, and Sin
Rock was the chief distributing point to several chains of lesser
posts), she was astounded at the endlessness of the wealth there
stored away.
This sight and the picture in her mind's eye of the bare lodge of
Snettishane, put all doubts at rest. Yet she capped her conviction
by a brief word with one of her step-sons. "White daddy good?" was
what she asked, and the boy answered that his father was the best
man he had ever known. That night the raven croaked again. On the
night following the croaking was more persistent. It awoke the
Factor, who tossed restlessly for a while. Then he said aloud,
"Damn that raven," and Lit-lit laughed quietly under the blankets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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