The father glanced significantly at his eldest son. "School will be
the place to learn many things," he said in a low tone. The young man
laughed easily. "He's bound to be finding it out some time, anyway,"
he answered, but not so low that the boy's quick ears could not catch
the words. He looked up intently into the faces of the two men, a
startled expression in his big eyes. Then he suddenly scrambled out
from between them, and went behind to where Hamish, his youngest uncle,
sat. He felt vaguely that he was approaching some strange, unforeseen
trouble, and Hamish was always sympathetic.
The sleigh had been moving swiftly through long, narrow forest aisles,
and now it suddenly turned into view of a small farm, a "clearing,"
plentifully besprinkled with snow-crowned stumps and surrounded by the
still unconquered forest, dark and menacing, but sullenly and slowly
retreating.
Here was a home, nevertheless; a home wrested by heroic struggles from
the wilderness. In the centre, on the face of a little sloping hill,
stood the citadel of this newly-conquered territory,--a farmhouse and
out-buildings.
They were all rough log structures, but the dwelling house had about it
the unmistakable atmosphere of a home. Around it, even under the
snowdrifts, were vague signs of a garden; from the low, wide chimney
poured forth a blue column of smoke; and at one of the windows a candle
twinkled cheerfully; both speaking of warmth and welcome within, very
grateful in the chill, winter dusk. And at the side of the house, on a
small knoll, spreading its bare branches over the roof as though to
shield the home from the biting blasts, grew a gigantic silver maple, a
welcome shelter alike in summer and winter.
As the sleigh swept past the house on its way to the barn. Big Malcolm
pushed the boy gently forward. "Run away in, Scotty, man," he said;
"see, Granny will be watchin' for you at the window."
Scotty hesitated; he wanted to go on to the stable, and there give Rory
and Hamish a more detailed account of his glorious battle of the
morning. But Granny was expecting him, and he must not disappoint her;
even Callum dared not do that, and Callum dared almost anything else.
So the boy leaped down and ran swiftly up the rough little pathway. At
his approach the old, weather-beaten door flew open; and he sprang into
a pair of outstretched arms.
II
A NEW NAME
Outside, the ghostly rampikes,
Those armies of the moon,
Stood while the ranks of stars drew on
To that more spacious noon,--
While over them in silence
Waved on the dusk afar
The gold flags of the Northern light
Streaming with ancient war.
--BLISS CARMAN.