"I've bothered me head loose tryin' to remimber, but for the soul o' me, I can't. It's cold enough up there, I know, to freeze ye solid, for Miss Margaret had wan o' her ears nipped last time she was home."
And so one fine morning in June, with Oliver bursting with happiness, the hair trunk and the leather case and sketching umbrella were thrown out at a New England way-station in the gray dawn from a train in which Oliver had spent the night curled up on one of the seats.
Just as he had expected, the old coach that was to carry him was waiting beside the platform. There was a rush for top seats, and Oliver got the one beside the driver, and the trunk and traps were stored in the boot under the driver's seat--it was a very small trunk and took up but little room--and Marvin cracked his whip and away everybody went, the dogs barking behind and the women waving their aprons from the porches of the low houses facing the road.
And it was a happy young fellow who filled his lungs with the fresh air of the morning and held on to the iron rail of the top seat as they bumped over the "Thank ye marms," and who asked the driver innumerable questions which it was part of the noted whip's duty and always his pleasure to answer. The squirrels darted across the road as if to get a look at the enthusiast and then ran for their lives to escape the wheels; and the crows heard the rumble and rose in a body from the sparse cornfields for a closer view; and the big trees arched over his head, cooling the air and casting big shadows, and even the sun kept peeping over the edge of the hills from behind some jutting rock or clump of pines or hemlock as if bent on lighting up his face so that everybody could see how happy he was.
As the day wore on and the coach rattled over the big open bridge that spanned the rushing mountain-stream, Oliver's eye caught, far up the vista, the little dent in the line of blue that stood low against the sky.
The driver said this was the Notch and that the big hump to the right was Moose Hillock, and that Ezra's cabin nestled at its feet and was watered by the rushing stream, only it was a tiny little brook away up there that anybody could step over.
"'Tain't bigger'n yer body where it starts out fresh up in them mountings," the driver said, touching his leaders behind their ears with the lash of his whip.
"Runs clean round Ezra's, and's jest as chuckfull o' trout, be gosh, as a hive is o' bees."
And the swing and the freedom of it all! No office-hours to keep; no boxes to nail up and roll out--nothing but sweetness and cool draughts of fresh mountain-air, and big trees that he wanted to get down and hug; and jolly laughing brooks that ran out to meet him and called to him as he trotted along, or as the horses did, which was the same thing, he being part of the team.
And the day! Had there ever been such another?
And the sky, too, filled with soft white clouds that sailed away over his head--the little ones far in advance and already crowding up the Notch, which was getting nearer every hour.
And Marvin the driver--what a character he was and how quaint his speech. And the cabins by the road, with their trim fences and winter's wood piled up so neatly under the sheds--all so different from any which he had seen at the South and all so charming and exhilarating.
Never had he been so happy!
And why not? Twenty-three and in perfect health, without a care, and for the first time in all his life doing what he wanted most to do, with opportunities opening every hour for doing what he believed he could do best.
Oh, for some planet where such young saplings can grow without hinderance from the ignorant and the unsympathetic; where they can reach out for the sun on all sides and stretch their long arms skyward; where each vine can grow as it would in all the luxuriance of its nature, free from the pruning-knife of criticism and the straitlaced trellis of conventionality--a planet on which the Puritan with his creeds, customs, fads, issues, and dogmas, and the Cavalier with his traditions and time-honored notions never sat foot. Where every round peg fits a round hole, and men toil with a will and with unclouded brows because their hearts find work for their hands and each day's task is a joy.
If the road and the country on each side of it, and the giant trees, now that they neared the mountains, and the deep ravines and busy, hurrying brooks had each inspired some exclamation of joy from Oliver, the first view of Ezra's cabin filled him so full of uncontrollable delight that he could hardly keep his seat long enough for Marvin to rein in his horses and get down and swing back the gate that opened into the pasture surrounding the house.
"Got a boarder for ye, Ezra," Marvin called to Oliver's prospective host, who had come down to meet the stage and get his empty butter-pails. Then, in a lower tone: "Sezs he's a painter chap, and that Mr. Slade sent him up. He's goin' to bunk in with ye all summer, he sezs. Seems like a knowin', happy kind er young feller."
They were pulling the pails from the rear boot, each one tied up in a wheat-sack, with a card marked "Ezra Pollard" sewed on the outside to distinguish it from the property of other East Branch settlers up and down the road.
Oliver had slipped from his seat and was tugging at his hair trunk. He did not know that the long, thin, slab-sided old fellow in a slouch hat, hickory shirt crossed by one suspender, and heavy cowhide boots was his prospective landlord. He supposed him to be the hired man, and that he would find Mr. Pollard waiting for him in the little sitting-room with the windows full of geraniums that looked so inviting and picturesque.
"Marve sez you're lookin' fur me. Come along.
Glad ter see ye."
"Are you Mr. Pollard?" His surprise not only marked the tones of his voice but the expression of his face.
"No, jes' Ezry Pollard, that's all. Hope Mr. Slade's up and hearty?"
Mr. Slade was never so "up and hearty" as was Oliver that next morning.
Up with the sun he was, and hearty as a young buck out of a bed of mountain-moss.
