FullReads

Huldah heard their stories with all their infinite little details; knew every corner and turn by which they had husbanded strength and life; was grateful to the Corbetts and Varnums and Prescotts and the rest, who, with their oxen and their red right hands, had given such loyal help for the common good; and she heaved a deep sigh when the story ended with the verdict of the failure of the whole,–“No trains on time to-morrow.”

“Bad for the Boston babies,” said Reuben bluntly, giving words to what the others were feeling. “Poor little things!” said Huldah, “Alice has been so pretty all day.” And she gulped down just one more sigh, disgusted with herself, as she remembered that “if” of the afternoon,–“if John had only gone into partnership with Joe Winter.”

IV.

HOW THEY BROKE THE BLOCKADE.

Three o’clock in the morning saw Huldah’s fire burning in the stove, her water boiling in the kettle, her slices of ham broiling on the gridiron, and quarter-past three saw the men come across from the barn, where they had been shaking down hay for the cows and horses, and yoking the oxen for the terrible onset of the day. It was bright star-light above,–thank Heaven for that. This strip of three hundred thousand square miles of snow cloud, which had been drifting steadily cast over a continent, was, it seemed, only twenty hours wide,–say two hundred miles, more or less,–and at about midnight its last flecks had fallen, and all the heaven was washed black and clear. The men were well rested by those five hours of hard sleep. They were fitly dressed for their great encounter and started cheerily upon it, as men who meant to do their duty, and to both of whom, indeed, the thought had come, that life and death might be trembling in their hands. They did not take out the pungs to-day, nor, of course, the horses. Such milk as they had collected on St. Victoria’s day they had stored already at the station, and at Stacy’s; and the best they could do to-day would be to break open the road from the Four Corners to the station, that they might place as many cans as possible there before the down-train came. From the house, then, they had only to drive down their oxen that they might work with the other teams from the Four Corners; and it was only by begging him, that Huldah persuaded Reuben to take one lunch-can for them both. Then, as Reuben left the door, leaving John to kiss her “good-by,” and to tell her not to be alarmed if they did not come home at night,–she gave to John the full milk-can into which she had poured every drop of Carry’s milk, and said, “It will be one more; and God knows what child may be crying for it now.”

So they parted for eight and twenty hours; and in place of Huldah’s first state party of both families, she and Alice reigned solitary that day, and held their little court with never a suitor. And when her lunch-time came, Huldah looked half-mournfully, half-merrily, on her array of dainties prepared for the feast, and she would not touch one of them. She toasted some bread before the fire, made a cup of tea, boiled an egg, and would not so much as set the table. As has been before stated, this is the way with women.

And of the men, who shall tell the story of the pluck and endurance, of the unfailing good-will, of the resource in strange emergency, of the mutual help and common courage with which all the men worked that day on that well-nigh hopeless task of breaking open the highway from the Corners to the station? Well-nigh hopeless, indeed; for although at first, with fresh cattle and united effort, they made in the hours, which passed so quickly up to ten o’clock, near two miles headway, and had brought yesterday’s milk thus far,–more than half way to their point of delivery,–at ten o’clock it was quite evident that this sharp northwest wind, which told so heavily on the oxen and even on the men, was filling in the very roadway they had opened, and so was cutting them off from their base, and, by its new drifts, was leaving the roadway for to-day’s milk even worse than it was when they began. In one of those extemporized councils, then,–such as fought the battle of Bunker Hill, and threw the tea into Boston harbor,–it was determined, at ten o’clock, to divide the working parties. The larger body should work back to the Four Corners, and by proper relays keep that trunk line of road open, if they could; while six yoke, with their owners, still pressing forward to the station, should make a new base at Lovejoy’s, where, when these oxen gave out, they could be put up at his barn. It was quite clear, indeed, to the experts that that time was not far distant.