Frank R. Stockton

“ I belong to a good family, and am college bred. I am poor, and I love nature. I am working to make money to travel and become a naturalist. I prefer this sort of work because it takes me into the heart of nature. I am not ashamed of what I am, I am not ashamed of my work, and my object in life is a nobler one, I think, than the practice of the law, or a great many other things like it.”
Margery stood and looked at him with wide-open eyes. “Do you mean to say,” she said, “that you want to marry me? It would take years and years for you to become naturalist enough to support a wife.” ”

“ Mrs. Archibald was a systematic woman, and was in the habit of rising at half-past seven, and when that hour arrived she awoke as if she had been asleep all night. Going to the window to see what sort of a day it was, which was also her custom, she looked out upon the lawn in front of the house, and her jaw dropped and her eyes opened. There she beheld Margery and Mr. Clyde strolling along in close converse. For a moment she was utterly stupefied.
“What can this mean?” she thought. “How could they have missed us so soon? We are seldom out of our cabin before eight o’clock. ”

“ As for Margery, she leaned back in the stern, and thought that, after all, she liked Miss Raybold better than she did her brother, for the young lady did not speak one word to her, nor did she appear to regard her in any way.
“But how on earth,” thought Margery, “she can float over this beautiful water and under this lovely sky, with the grandeur of the forest all about her, and yet pay not the slightest attention to anything she sees, but keep steadily talking about her own affairs and the society she belongs to, I cannot imagine. ”

“ Then, upon the bare boards of the floor, which were but a few inches below her little cot-bed, she thought she heard the patter of small feet. A squirrel, perhaps, or, horrible to think of, it might be a rat. She was sure rats would eat straw beds, and her first impulse was to wake Mr. Archibald; but she hesitated, he was sleeping so soundly. Still she listened, and now she became almost certain that what she heard was not the patter of small feet; it sounded more like something soft which was dragging itself over the floor—possibly a snake. This idea was simply awful, and she sat up in bed. ”

“ When I woke this morning I found myself to be an individual who liked to lie in bed and gaze out through an open fold in my tent upon the world beyond, and so I lay and dozed and gazed, until I felt like getting up, and then I got up, and you cannot imagine how bright and happy I felt as I thought of what I had been doing. ”

“ You are as good as other people, although you do happen now to be a guide, and perhaps after a while you may be very well off; but for all that you are a guide, and you are in Mr. Sadler’s employment, and Mr. Sadler’s rights and powers are just like gas escaping from a pipe: they are everywhere from cellar to garret, so to speak, and you couldn’t escape them. It would be a bad, bad thing for you, Martin, if he were to hear that you make propositions of the kind you have made to the ladies that he pays you to take out into the woods to guide and to protect. ”

“ Raybold. “I hold that hunting is a manly art, and that a forester’s life is as bold and free to him as it is to the birds in the air. I believe I have the blood of a hunter in me. My voice is for the woods.”
“I expect you will change your voice,” thought Margery, “when Mr. Sadler takes your gun away from you.” But she did not say so.
Mr. Archibald stood with his hands in his pockets reflecting. He had hoped that these two young men were inveterate hunters, and that they would spend their days in long tramps. He did not at all approve of their fishing. ”

“ There were doubtless persons who could be trusted so sit quietly in a little boat with only one oar, and to float upon a lake out of sight and sound of human beings until another boat could be secured and brought to the rescue, but Margery was not one of these persons. Her greatest danger had been that she was a child of impulse. He went immediately to Camp Roy to see the bishop and express his gratitude, for no matter how great the foolish good-nature of the man had been, his brave rescue of the girl was all that could be thought of now. ”

“ Mr. Clyde half smiled, but instantly grew serious again, and a flush came on his face. “Margery,” said he, “I cannot bear trifling any more about this. No matter what anybody has said to you, whether it is any one in this camp or any one out of it, there is not a man in this world who—”
“Oh, Mr. Clyde,” interrupted Margery, “you must not sit there and speak to me in such an excited way. If any one should see us they would think we were quarrelling. Let us go down to the lake; the air from the water is cool and soothing.” ”

“ Archibald’s mind as she gazed about her, passing silently from room to room of the little house. She was a good woman, and she had made up her mind that she would not be a millstone around the necks of her companions. Many people have been happy in camps, and, indeed, camp-life has become one of the features of our higher civilization, and this, from what she had heard, must be a camp above the common. ”

“ If the party is few in number and of a timid disposition, they can have a camp within shouting distance of his house. If they are brave and adventurous, he will send them out into the depths of the forest. If they like water, he locates them by the shores of a lake. If climbing is their passion, he puts them at the foot of a mountain. Those who want to hunt can do so, and those who dislike fire-arms are placed in a camp where the popping of guns is never heard. He provides tents, guides, provisions, and even dangers and sensations.”
“Safety is what I want,” interrupted Mrs. Archibald. ”

“ Standing with her pretty brows knit, and one heel deep in the soft ground into which she had stamped it, she heard approaching footsteps, and turning, saw the bishop. He came forward with a buoyant step.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Dearborn?” he said. “Do you wish to go out on the lake? Do you want some one to row you?”
“Yes and no,” said Margery. “I want to go out in the boat, and I don’t want anybody to row me. But that chain is fastened with an abominable padlock, and I cannot launch the boat.” ”

“ My sister has a sufficient income of her own, and she likes to have everything suited to her needs. I am different. I am a man of the world, and although I do not always care to conform to circumstances, I can generally make circumstances conform to me. As Shakespeare says, ‘The world is my pottle, and I stir my spoon.’ You must excuse my quoting, but I cannot help it. My life work is to be upon the stage, and where one’s mind is, there will his words be also.”
Mr. Raybold was now in a much more pleasant mood than when he came to sit in the shade with Mrs. Archibald. ”

“ Try as we may to be true to ourselves, it is seldom possible; we are swept away in a current of conventionality. It may be one kind of conventionality for some of us and another kind for others, but we are borne on by it all the same. Sometimes a person like myself or Mr. Archibald clings to some rock or point upon the bank, and for a little while is free from the coercion of circumstances, but this cannot be for long, and we are soon swept with the rest into the ocean of conglomerate commonplace.”
“That’s when we die!” remarked Mrs. Perkenpine, who sat reverently listening. ”

“ When everybody in the camp had gathered around the fire, Corona, her eye-glasses illumined by the light of her soul, gazed around the circle and began to speak.
“My dear friends,” she said, “I have been thinking a great deal to-day upon a very important 155 subject, and I have come to the conclusion that we who form this little company have before us one of the grandest opportunities ever afforded a group of human beings. We are here, apart from our ordinary circumstances and avocations, free from all the trammels and demands of society, alone with nature and ourselves. ”

“ This man, who sat all day in a big rolling-chair, and who knew everything that was going on in the hotel, the farm, and the forest about him, had been a hunter and a guide in his youth, an Indian-fighter in later years, and when he had been wounded in both legs, so that it was impossible for him ever to walk again, he came back to the scenes of his youth and established an inn for sportsmen—a poor little house at first, which grew and grew and grew, until it was the large, well-kept hotel so widely known by his name. ”

“ Archibald did not favor this plan, and his wife was strongly opposed to it. A wedding without a wedding-trip ought not to be thought of.
“During the honey-moon a young couple should live for each other, with each other, apart from the rest of the world. It is a beautiful custom, which should not be rudely trampled upon,” said Mrs. Archibald.
But although Mrs. Archibald cherished a belief that she ought to conform her ideas to the domestic customs of the day, her daughter Kate cherished the belief that the domestic customs of the day ought to conform themselves to her ideas. ”

“ Archibald said, as she approached, than even the sunset sky.
“You should not speak in that way of works of nature,” said his wife.
“Isn’t she a work of nature?” he asked.
“Not altogether,” was the wise reply. “Why did you dress yourself in that fashion?” she asked Margery. “I did not suppose you would bring such a fine gown, as we started out to go into camp. And even in this hotel a travelling-suit is good enough for any one.”
“Oh, I tucked this into one of my bags,” replied Margery. “I always like to have something nice to fall back upon. ”

“ When we explain all that we have gone through, she will not be hard-hearted enough to make us go to a hotel until Friday; Margery can come with us.”
Margery turned upon Mrs. Archibald a pair of eyes filled with earnest inquiry.
“I know what you want,” said Mrs. Archibald. “No, he can go to a hotel in the town; and I shall write to your mother to come to us as soon as she returns; then you two can present yourselves together according to your plans. There is no use talking about it, Hector; it is the only thing we can do.” ”

“ Miss Raybold did not appear to notice his state of mind, and ate heartily. She thought it was fortunate that he happened to have the kettle on the stove, and she asked him how he liked the hermit life—the living for himself alone.
“Haven’t tried it,” he answered, curtly.
“I understand,” said Corona, “you have had to live too much for other people; but it is too soon to expect our plan to run smoothly. In a short time, however, we shall be better able to know our own natures and show them to others.” ”

“ Raybold’s sister? Do you like her?”
“I have met her,” said Clyde; “but she is too lofty for me.”
“What is there lofty about her?” said Margery.
“Well,” said he, “she is lofty because she has elevated ideas. She goes in for reform; and for pretty much all kinds, from what I have heard.”
“I think she is lofty,” remarked Margery, “because she is stuck-up. I don’t like her.”
“It is so seldom,” Corona now continued, “that we find people who are willing to assert their individuality, and when they are found I always want to talk to them. ”

“ Arthur Raybold was in no mood to attend services of any sort. He had spent nearly the whole day trying to get a chance to speak to Margery, but never could he find her alone.
“If I can once put the matter plainly to her,” he said to himself, “she will quickly perceive what it is that I offer her; and when she clearly sees that, I will undertake to make her accept it. She is only a woman, and can no more withstand me than a mound of sand built by a baby’s hand could withstand the rolling wave.”
At this moment Corona arrived and told him that she wanted him at the camp-fire. ”

“ Aunt Harriet and Uncle Archibald, this is Mr. Clyde. He saw a great snake go into a hole over there just before supper-time, and I think we ought all to be very careful how we pass that way.”
“I don’t think there is very much danger after nightfall,” said Mr. Clyde, who was a pleasant youth with brown hair, “and to-morrow I’ll see if I can kill him. It’s a bad place for a snake to have a hole, just where ladies would be apt to take their walks.”
“I don’t think the snake will trouble us much,” said Mrs. Archibald, “for we leave to-morrow. Still, it would be a good thing to kill it.” ”

“ Archibald, “that all of us clearly understand your meaning, but it seems to me that you would like each one of us to become, for a time, a hermit. I do not know of any other class of persons who so thoroughly assert their individuality.”
“You are right!” exclaimed Corona. “A hermit does it. A hermit is more truly himself than any other man. He may dwell in a cave and eat water-cresses, he may live on top of a tall pillar, or he may make his habitation in a barrel! If a hermit should so choose, he might furnish a cave with Eastern rugs and bric-à-brac. ”

“ Mr. Archibald could afford to go away without saying anything about it, but he could not, and, besides, if he should happen to see Miss Raybold it would be far more gentlemanly to tell her that he was going and to bid her goodbye, than to slip off through the woods like a tramp. He would go, that he was determined upon; but he would go like a man.
When he reached Camp Rob the first person he saw was Miss Raybold, standing near her tent with a roll of paper in her hand. The moment she perceived him she walked rapidly towards him. ”