CHAPTER IV THE GREAT STUMP
There was one thing about their little farm that, from the first time shesaw it, had seemed strange to Florence. Back of the house stood the stumpof a forest giant. Fully three feet across it stood there, roots embeddeddeep, while all about it were pigmies of the tree world. There was not atree on the farm that measured more than thirty feet tall. Why? Perhaps afire had destroyed the primeval forest. Yet here was this great stump.
She tried to picture the tree towering above its fellows. She foundherself wishing that it had not been felled by some woodsman's axe. Whyhad they cut it down? That they might build its logs into the house was anatural answer, yet the house contained no such logs. Well, here was ariddle.
On top of the stump the original dwellers in the cabin had placed amassive flower-box. Somehow, they had secured wild morning-glory seedsand planted them there. These must, from year to year, have replantedthemselves, for, even in June, the vines were beginning to droop over theedge of the box. By autumn the great stump would be a mass of flowers.However others might regard wild morning-glories, Florence knew she wouldadore them.
She was standing staring at the stump and thinking of it with renewedwonder when Mark came in from his plowing.
"There! That's done," he exclaimed as he dropped down upon a bench. "Nowfor the planting." Then, to his cousin's renewed astonishment, he said."Bushels and bushels of tomatoes."
"Mark!" exclaimed Florence. "Why do you keep on insisting that we canraise tomatoes here when Mrs. Swenson, who has lived here so long, sayswe can't?"
"Because we can," Mark grinned broadly.
"How?"
"Sit down and stop staring at that stump as if it hid some strange secretand I'll tell you."
Florence sat down.
"You know the way I have of poking about in all sorts of odd cornerswherever I am," Mark began. "Well, while we were in Anchorage I got toprowling round and stumbled upon a small greenhouse set way back on aside street where very few people would see it.
"Well, you know you'll always find something interesting in a greenhouse.Some new vegetable or flower, a strange form of moss or fungus, or even anew species of plant pest. So I went in."
"And you--"
"I found tomato plants all in blossom, dozens and dozens of them inpots."
"But why--"
"That's what I asked the man--why? He said he'd raised them for somegardener in a town down south, half way to Seattle. Something had gonewrong with the man or his garden. He couldn't use them so--"
"There they were."
"Yes," Mark agreed with uncommon enthusiasm. "There they were, and there,I am quite sure, they are still. They can be bought cheap, probably fourhundred plants in pots. Must be tomatoes big as marbles on them by now."
"And you know," he went on excitedly, "when you set out potted plants theblossoms and small tomatoes do not drop off, they just keep on growing.And here, where the sun will be shining almost twenty-four hours a day,they should just boom along. Have ripe tomatoes in six weeks. Then howthose well-to-do people in Anchorage, Seward and Fairbanks will go afterthem! Tomatoes!" he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. "Bushels andbushels of tomatoes; ripe, red gold!"
"But if there is a frost?"
"Yes," Mark said with a drop in his voice. "A June frost. That happenssometimes. It's a chance we'll have to take. I'm going to Anchorage forthose plants tomorrow.
"You know," his voice dropped, "I can't see all this going in debt forthe things you eat and wear, to say nothing of tools, machinery, and allthat. It's got to be paid sometime and it's going to come hard.
"It's all right if you have to do it, better than getting no start atall. I'm not criticising anyone else. But, as for the Hughes family,we're going to pay as we go if we can, and who knows but those tomatoeswill pay for our winter's supply of flour, sugar, and all the rest?"
"Who knows?" Florence echoed enthusiastically.
Six weeks had passed when once again Florence sat beside the lake. Therewas a moon tonight. It hung like a magic lantern above the snow-cappedmountain. The lake reflected both mountains and moon so perfectly thatfor one who looked too long, it became not a lake at all, but mountainsand moon.
Florence had looked too long. She was dreaming of wandering among thosejagged peaks in an exciting search. A search for gold. And why not? Hadnot the aged prospector appeared once more at their door? Had she notfeasted him on hot-cakes and wild honey? Had he not repaid her with freshtales of her grandfather's doings in the very far north?
"I shall go in search of him," she told herself now. "A search for agrandfather," she laughed. Well, why not? He had lost a rich gold mine.She was strong as a man, was Florence. No man, she was sure, could followa dog team farther nor faster than she. She would find Tom Kennedy andtogether they would find that mine.
"But first this!" she sighed as on other occasions, flinging her armswide to take in the claim, the lake, and the cabin.
"First what?" a voice close at hand said.
Startled, she sprang to her feet. "Oh! It's you, Mark." She made a placefor him beside her on a broad flat rock.
"First your little farm," she said soberly. "Tomatoes and potatoes andall the rest. A shelter for old Boss, everything that will go to makethis a home for you and Mary and your mother."
"And you," Mark's voice was low.
"No. Not for me, Mark. For you this is life. I understand that. I admireyou for it. To have a home, and a small farm, to add to that year afteryear, to change the log cabin for a fine home, to have cattle and sheepand broad pasture and--" she hesitated, then went on, "and children, boysand girls, happy in their home. All this is your life and will be yearson end. But for me, it is only--what should I say--an episode, oneadventure among many, a grand and glorious experience."
"Yes," Mark said, and there was kindness in his voice. "Yes, I supposethat is it. Awfully good of you to share the hardest year with us."
"What do you mean hardest?" Florence demanded. "It's been glorious. Andwe are succeeding so well. Already the tomatoes are up to my shoulders.What a crop they will be!"
"Yes," Mark's voice was husky. "We've been lucky."
For a time there was silence. Then Mark spoke again. "There was a time,and not so long ago, when I thought to myself, 'Life's stream must growdarker and deeper as we go along.' But now--well--" he did not finish.
"Now," Florence laughed from sheer joy of living. "Now you must know thatit grows lighter and brighter."
"Lighter and brighter," Mark laughed softly. "Those are fine words,mighty fine."
"They're grand words," the girl cried. "True words, too. It--why, life islike a summer morning! Only day before yesterday I went out to find oldBoss before dawn. It was more than half dark. Clouds along the horizonwere all black. They looked ominous, threatening. Soon, some power behindthem began to set them on fire. Redder and redder they shone, then theybegan to fade. Salmon colored, deep pink, pale pink, they faded and fadeduntil like a ghost's winding sheet they vanished. Lighter and brighter.Oh, Mark! how grand and beautiful life can be!" Leaping to her feet shedid a wild dance, learned in some gypsy camp with her good friend, PetiteJeanne; then, dropping to her place beside the boy, she looked away intothe night. For her, darkness held no terror, for well she knew thereshould be a brighter dawn.
Of a sudden, as they sat there, each busy with thoughts of days that wereto come, they were startled by a sudden loud splash.
"Oh!" Florence jumped.
"Only some big old land-locked salmon," Mark chuckled.
"I didn't know--"
"That they were here? Oh, sure! I've heard them before."
"Mark, I love to fish. Couldn't we fix up something?"
"Sure. There's a line or two in the cabin and some three gang hooks. I'llcut the handle off a silver-plated spoon. It'll spin all right withoutthe handle. That'll fool 'em. You'll see!"
She did see. The very next day she saw what Mark
's inventive skill woulddo and, seeing, she found fresh adventure that might have ended badly hadnot some good angel guided one young man to an unusually happy landing.