The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent

WILDERNESS
A JOURNAL OF QUIET
ADVENTURE IN ALASKA
BY ROCKWELL KENT

ROCKWELL
ALASKA MCMXVIII

WILDERNESS
A JOURNAL OF QUIET ADVENTURE
IN ALASKA
BY
ROCKWELL KENT

WITH DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR
AND AN INTRODUCTION BY
DOROTHY CANFIELD

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ROCKWELL KENT
PLATES ENGRAVED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF WILLIAM G. WATT

THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS, NEW YORK

To
old L. M. Olson and
young Rockwell Kent
of Fox Island
this journal is
respectfully dedicated

The author acknowledges the courtesy of the owners of his drawings in permitting their reproduction in this book:
MRS. ERNEST I. WHITE
ROBERT NICHOLS
STEPHEN C. CLARK
MRS. PAYNE THOMPSON
MRS. JOSEPH FLANNERY
MRS. J. S. MORGAN, JR.
DR. ARNOLD KLEBS
HENRY S. CHURCHILL
MRS. PERCY W. DARBYSHIRE
MRS. MEREDITH HARE
PAUL MANSHIP
MRS. VALENTINE WINTERS
HENRY NEWMAN
HUNT DIEDERICH
PURCELL JONES
M. KNOEDLER AND COMPANY
ALBERT STERNER
MARIE STERNER

INTRODUCTION

Had jesting Pilate asked “What is Art?” he would have waited quite as many centuries for an answer as he has for the answer to his question about Truth. For art to the artist, and art to the rest of us, are two very different things. Art to the artist is quite simply Life, his life, of which he has an amplitude and intensity unknown to us. What he does for us is to thrill us awake to the amplitude and intensity of all life, our own included. And this is a miracle for which we can never be thankful enough.

This, at least, is what Rockwell Kent’s Alaska drawings and Alaska journal do for me; they take me away from that tired absorption in things of little import which makes up most of our human life and make me see, not an unreal world of romantic illusion, that fool’s pleasure given by the second-rate artist, but the real wonder-world in which I live and have always lived. They make me see suddenly that there is a vast deal more in the world than embittering and anxious preoccupations, that much of it is fine, much is comforting, much awe-inspiring, much profoundly tragic, and all of it makes up a whole so vast that no living organism need feel cramped.

No other of the qualities of the journal and drawings goes home to me more than the unforced authenticity of the impression set down by this strong and ardent artist. Emerson’s grandeur is infinitely more convincing to me because of his homeliness, and I feel a perverse Yankee suspicion of those who deal in sublimities only. The man who can extract the whole quaint savor out of that magical, prosaic, humorous moment of human life, the first stretching yawn of the early morning, that man can make me believe that I too see the north wind running mightily athwart the sky. And the artist who can put into the simplest drawing of a man and a little boy eating together at a rough table in a rough cabin, all the dear solidity of family and home life, with its quiet triumph against overpowering Nature, that artist can make me bow my head before the sincerity of his impressive “Night.”

The homeliness of the diary, its courageously unaffected naturalness, how it carries one out of fussy complications to a long breath of relief in the fewness and permanence of things that count! And the humor of it ... sometimes deliciously unintentional like the picture of the artist finishing a fine drawing, setting the beans to soak, bathing in the bread pan, and going to bed to read a chapter of Blake, sometimes intentional and shrewd like “a banana-peel on a mountain-top tames that wilderness,” or “colds, like bad temper and loss of faith, are a malady of the city crowd”; sometimes outright and hearty like a child’s joke, as in the amusingly faithful portrait of the pot-bellied, self-important personality of the air-tight stove!

There are only three human characters in this quiet, intense record, all of them significant and vital. First of them is the artist himself, who in these notes, written originally for the eyes of his intimates only, speaks out with a free unselfconsciousness as rare in our modern world as the virgin solitude of the island where he lived. Here is the artist at work, creating, as Henry James said he could not be shown; the artist, that is, a man violently alive, full-blooded and fine, fierce and pure, arrogant and tender, with an elate, boastful, well-founded certainty of his strength, rejoicing in his work, in his son, in his friend, in the whole visible world, and most of all in himself and his own vigorous possibilities for good, evil, and creative work.

The other two human characters in this adventuring quest after great and simple things are acquisitions to be thankful for, also; the touchingly tender-hearted, knight-like, beautiful, funny little boy; and lovable, dignified old Olson ... a fiction writer wonders in despair why old Olson so vividly, brilliantly lives in these unstudied pages, solid, breathing, warm, as miraculously different from all other human beings as any creature of flesh and blood who draws the mysterious breath of life beside you in the same room.

Fox Island lives too; we walk about it, treading solidly, loving “every log and rotten stump, gnarled tree, every mound and path, the rocks and brooks, each a being in itself,” just as little Rockwell does; and we climb with the “two younger ones up the sheer, snow-covered ridge till across the great jagged teeth of Fenris-the-Wolf, we see the glory of the open sea.” We “look up at Olson, swaying gigantic on the deck above us, as we bump the side in our little boat” and we go down into the warm cabin full of the fumes of cooking and good-fellowship, and drink with the old skipper and the old Swede till we too see deep “under the white hard surface of where life is hidden.”

All this firm earth gives authority and penetration to the shining beauty which pervades the book and the drawings, carries us along to share it, not merely to look at it; to feel it, not merely to admire it.

The notes here published were written, I believe, day by day for the author’s wife and children, and are here published almost as they were set down, as commentary to the drawings. Well, let us be thankful that we were let into the family circle and along with them can spend six months in the midst of strength and beauty and tenderness and fun and majesty, close to simple things, great because they are real. The author may be sure that we leave them with the same backward-looking wistfulness he feels, and with the same gratitude for having known them.

Dorothy Canfield.

PREFACE

Most of this book was written on Fox Island in Alaska, a journal added to from day to day. It was not meant for publication but merely that we who were living there that year might have always an unfailing memory of a wonderfully happy time. There’s a ring of truth to all freshly written records of experience that, whatever their shortcomings, makes them at least inviolable. Besides the journal, a few letters to friends have been drawn upon. All are given unchanged but for the flux of a new paragraph or chapter here and there to form a kind of narrative, the only possible literary accompaniment to the drawings of that period herein published. The whole is a picture of quiet adventure in the wilderness, above all an adventure of the spirit.

What one would look for in a story of the wild Northwest is lacking in these pages. To have been further from a settled town might have brought not more but less excitement. The wonder of the wilderness was its tranquillity. It seemed that there both men and the wild beasts pursued their own paths freely and, as if conscious of the wide freedom of their world, molested one another not at all. It was the bitter philosophy of the old trapper who was our companion that of all animals Man was the most terrible; for if the beasts fought and killed for some good cause Man slew for none.

Deliberately I have begun this happy story far out in Resurrection Bay;—and again dropped its peaceful thread on the forlorn threshold of the town. We found Fox Island on Sunday, August twenty-fifth, 1918, and left there finally on the seventeenth of the following March.

R. K.

Arlington, Vermont,

December, 1919.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
DISCOVERY

We must have been rowing for an hour across that seeming mile-wide stretch of water.

The air is so clear in the North that one new to it is lost in the crowding of great heights and spaces. Distant peaks had risen over the lower mountains of the shore astern. Steep spruce-clad slopes confronted us. All around was the wilderness, a no-man’s-land of mountains or of cragged islands, and southward the wide, the limitless, Pacific Ocean.

A calm, blue summer’s day,—and on we rowed upon our search. Somewhere there must stand awaiting us, as we had pictured it, a little forgotten cabin, one that some prospector or fisherman had built; the cabin, the grove, the sheltered beach, the spring or stream of fresh, cold water,—we could have drawn it even to the view that it must overlook, the sea, and mountains, and the glorious West. We came to this new land, a boy and a man, entirely on a dreamer’s search; having had vision of a Northern Paradise, we came to find it.

With less faith it might have seemed to us a hopeless thing exploring the unknown for what you’ve only dreamed was there. Doubt never crossed our minds. To sail uncharted waters and follow virgin shores—what a life for men! As the new coast unfolds itself the imagination leaps into full vision of the human drama that there is immanent. The grandeur of the ocean cliff is terrible with threat of shipwreck. To that high ledge the wave may lift you; there, where that storm-dwarfed spruce has found a hold for half a century, you perhaps could cling. A hundred times a day you think of death or of escaping it by might and courage. Then at the first softening of the coast toward a cove or inlet you imagine all the mild beauties of a safe harbor, the quiet water and the beach to land upon, the house-site, a homestead of your own, cleared land, and pastures that look seaward.

Now having crossed the bay thick wooded coast confronted us, and we worked eastward toward a wide-mouthed inlet of that shore. But all at once there appeared as if from nowhere a little, motor-driven dory coming toward us. We hailed and drew together to converse. It was an old man alone. We told him frankly what we were and what we sought.

“Come with me,” he cried heartily, “come and I show you the place to live.” And he pointed oceanward where, straight in the path of the sun stood the huge, dark, mountain mass of an island. Then, seizing upon our line, he towed us with him to the south.

The gentle breeze came up. With prow high in the air we spanked the wavelets, and the glistening spray flew over us. On we went straight at the dazzling sun and we laughed to think that we were being carried we knew not where. And all the while the strange old man spoke never a word nor turned his head, driving us on as if he feared we might demand to be unloosed. At last his island towered above us. It was truly sheer-sided and immense, and for all we could discover harborless; till in a moment rounding the great headland of its northern end the crescent arms of the harbor were about us,—and we were there!

“ZARATHUSTRA HIMSELF LED THE UGLIEST MAN BY THE HAND, IN ORDER TO SHOW HIM HIS IT-WORLD AND THE GREAT ROUND MOON AND THE SILVERY WATERFALLS NIGH UNTO HIS CAVE”

What a scene! Twin lofty mountain masses flanked the entrance and from the back of these the land dipped downwards like a hammock swung between them, its lowest point behind the center of the crescent. A clean and smooth, dark-pebbled beach went all around the bay, the tide line marked with driftwood, gleaming, bleached bones of trees, fantastic roots and worn and shredded trunks. Above the beach a band of brilliant green and then the deep, black spaces of the forest. So huge was the scale of all of this that for some time we looked in vain for any habitation, at last incredulously seeing what we had taken to be bowlders assume the form of cabins.

The dories grounded and we leapt ashore, and followed up the beach onto the level ground seeing and wondering, with beating hearts, and crying all the time to ourselves: “It isn’t possible, it isn’t real!”

There was a green grass lawn beneath our feet extending on one side under an orchard of neatly pruned alders to the mountain’s base, and on the other into the forest or along the shore. In the midst of the clearing stood the old man’s cabin. He led us into it. One little room, neat and comfortable; two windows south and west with the warm sun streaming through them; a stove, a table by the window with dishes piled neatly on it; some shelves of food and one of books and papers; a bunk with gaily striped blankets; boots, guns, tools, tobacco-boxes; a ladder to the store-room in the loft. And the old man himself: a Swede, short, round and sturdy, head bald as though with a priestly tonsure, high cheek bones and broad face, full lips, a sensitive small chin,—and his little eyes sparkled with good humor.

“Look, this is all mine,” he was saying; “you can live here with me—with me and Nanny,”—for by this time not only had the milk goat Nanny entered but a whole family of foolish-faced Angoras, father, mother, and child, nosing among us or overturning what they could in search of food. He took us to the fox corral a few yards from the house. There were the blues in its far corner eying us askance. We saw the old goat cabin built of logs and were told of a newer one, an unused one down the shore and deeper in the woods.

“But come,” he said with pride, “I show you my location notice. I have done it all in the proper way and I will get my title from Washington soon. I have staked fifty acres. It is all described in the notice I have posted; and I would like to see anybody get that away from me.”

By now we had reached the great spruce tree to whose trunk he had affixed a sort of roofed tablet or shrine to house the precious document. But, ah look! the tablet was bare! only that from a small nail in it hung a torn shred of paper.

“Billy, Nanny!” roared the old man in irritation and mock rage; and he shook his fist at the foolish looking culprits who regarded us this time, wisely, from a distance. “And now come to the lake!”

We went down an avenue through the tall spruce trees. The sun flecked our path and fired here and there a flame-colored mushroom that blazed in the forest gloom. Right and left we saw deep vistas, and straight ahead a broad and sunlit space, a valley between hills; there lay the lake. It was a real lake, broad and clean, of many acres in extent, and the whole mountain side lay mirrored in it with the purple zenith sky at our feet. Not a breath disturbed the surface, not a ripple broke along the pebbly beach; it was dead silent here but for maybe the far off sound of surf, and without motion but that high aloft two eagles soared with steady wing searching the mountain tops. Ah, supreme moment! These are the times in life—when nothing happens—but in quietness the soul expands.

Time pressed and we turned back. “Show us that other cabin, we must go.”

The old man took us by a short cut to the cabin he had spoken of. It stood in a darkly shadowed clearing, a log cabin of ample size with a small doorway that you stooped to enter. Inside was dark but for a little opening to the west. There were the stalls for goats, coops for some Belgian hares he had once kept, a tin whirligig for squirrels hanging in the gable peak, and under foot a shaky floor covered with filth.

UNKNOWN WATERS

But I knew what that cabin might become. I saw it once and said, “This is the place we’ll live.” And then returning to our boat we shook hands on this great, quick finding of the thing we’d sought and, since we could not stay then as he begged us to, promised a speedy return with all our household goods. “Olson’s my name,” he said, “I need you here. We’ll make a go of it.”

The south wind had risen and the white caps flew. We crossed the bay pulling lustily for very joy. Reaching the other shore we saw, too late, crossing the bay in search of us the small white sail of the party that had brought us part way from the town. So we turned and followed them until at last we met to their relief and the great satisfaction of our tired arms.

CHAPTER II
ARRIVAL

Our journal of Fox Island begins properly with the day of our final coming there, Wednesday, September the twenty-eighth, 1918.

At nine o’clock in the morning of that day we slid our dory into the water from the beach at Seward, clamped our little patched-up three and one half horse-power Evinrude motor in the stern, and commenced our loading.

Since the main part of such a story, as in all these following pages we shall have to tell, must consist in the detailing of the innumerable little commonplaces of our daily lives, we shall begin at once with a list, as far as we have record of it, of all we carried with us. It follows:

Also there were a heavy trunk containing books, paints, etc., one duffel bag, one suit case, and a few other things. And when these were stowed away in the dory there was little room for ourselves. However, at ten o’clock we cast off and started for Fox Island with the little motor running beautifully.

It lasted for three miles when at once, with a bang and a whir, the motor raced, and the boat stood motionless on the calm gray water. Through the fog we could just discern the cabin of a fisherman on the nearest point of shore—perhaps a mile distant. We rowed there as best we could, seated somehow atop our household goods; we unloaded our useless motor, our gasoline, and our batteries, cleared a little space in the boat for ourselves to man the oars, and in a miserable drizzling rain, pushed off for a long, long pull to the island. By too literal a following of directions I lengthened the remainder of the course to twelve miles, and that we rowed, I don’t know how, in four hours and a half. Fortunately the water was as calm as could be. Rockwell was a revelation to me. With scarcely a rest he pulled at the heavy oars that at first he had hardly understood to manage; and when we reached the island he was hilarious with good spirits.

We unloaded with the help of Olson—whom by the way we must introduce at some length—and stowed our goods in his house and shed. We cooked our supper on his stove and slept that night and the next on his floor; and then, having our own quarters by that time in passable shape, quit his friendly roof for the most hospitable, kindly, and altogether comfortable roof in the world—our own.

Olson is about sixty-five years of age. He’s a pioneer of Alaska and knows the country from one end to the other. He has prospected for gold on the Yukon, he was at Nome with the first rush there, he has trapped along a thousand miles of coast; and now, ever unsuccessful and still enterprising, he is the proprietor of two pairs of blue foxes—in corrals—and four goats. He’s a kind-hearted, genial old man with a vast store of knowledge and true wisdom.

The map shows our Fox Island estate. Our cabin was built as a shelter for Angora goats somewhat over a year ago. It is a roughly built log structure of about fourteen by seventeen feet, inside dimensions, and was quite dark but for the small door and a two by two feet opening on the western side. We went to work upon it the morning following our arrival and in two days, as has been told, made it a fit place to live in but by no means the luxurious home that it was in our mind to make. Our cabin to-day is the product of weeks’ more labor. To describe it is to account for our time almost to the beginning of the detailed days of this diary.

HOME BUILDING

Tread first upon a broad, plank doorstep the hatch of some ill-fated vessel—the sea’s gift to us of a front veranda; stoop your head to four feet six inches and, drawing the latchstring, enter. Before you at the south end of the sombre, log interior is a mullioned window willing to admit more light than can penetrate the forest beyond. Before it is a fixed work table littered with papers, pencils, paints, and brushes. On each long side of the cabin is a shelf the eaves’ height, five feet from the floor. The right-hand one is packed with foods in sacks and tins and boxes, the left-hand shelf holds clothes and toys, paints and a flute, and at the far corner built to the floor in orthodox bookcase fashion, a library.

We may glance at the books. There are:

• “Indian Essays.” Coomaraswamy
• “Griechische Vasen”
• “The Water Babies”
• “Robinson Crusoe”
• “The Prose Edda”
• “Anson’s Voyages”
• “A Literary History of Ireland.” Douglas Hyde
• “The Iliad”
• “The Crock of Gold”
• “The Odyssey”
• Andersen’s “Fairy Tales”
• “The Oxford Book of English Verse”
• “The Home Medical Library”
• Blake’s “Poems”
• Gilchrist’s “Life of Blake”
• “The Tree Dwellers,” “The Cave Dwellers,” “The Sea People,” etc.
• “Pacific Coast Tide Table”
• “Thus Spake Zarathustra”
• “The Book of the Ocean”
• “Albrecht Dürer” (A Short Biography)
• “Wilhelm Meister”
• Nansen’s “In Northern Mists”

In the center of the right-hand wall is a small low window and beneath it the dining table. Right at the door where we stand, to our left, is the sheet-iron Yukon stove and behind it another food-laden shelf. A new floor of broad unplaned boards is under our feet, a wooden platform—it is a bed—stands in the left-hand corner by the stove. Clothes hang under the shelves; pots and pans upon the wall, snowshoes and saws; a rack for plates in one place, a cupboard for potatoes and turnips behind the door—the cellar it may be called; the trunk for a seat, boxes for chairs, one stool for style; axes here and boots innumerable there, and we have, I think, all that the eye can take in of this adventurers’ home!

Trees stood thick about our cabin when we first came there; and between it and the shore a dense and continuous thicket of large alders and sapling spruces. Day by day we cleared the ground; cutting avenues and vistas; then, though contented at first with these, enlarging them until they merged, and the sun began to shine about the cabin. It grew brighter then and drier,—nonsense! am I mistaking the daylight for the sun? I can remember but one or two fair days in all the three weeks of our first stay on the island.

FIRE WOOD

For a true record of this matter Olson’s diary shall be copied into these pages. It follows in full with his own phonetic spelling as leaven.

Sunday, Aug. 25th—Wary fin Day. over tu Hump Bay got 2 salmon an artist cam ar to Day and going to seward efter his outfit and ar going to sta Hear this Winter in the new Cabbin.

Wed. 28th.—Drisly rain and cold. Mr. Kint and is son arivd from seward this afternoon. goats out all night.

Thurs. 29th.—goats cam ome—12.30 p. m. Mr. Kint Working on the Cabbin fixing at up. Drisly rain all night and all day.

Fri. 30th.—Wary fin day and the goats vant for the montane igan. Help putting Windoes i to the Cabbin.

Sat. 31st.—Foggy day. Big steamer going to seward.

September

Sun. 1st.—Mead a trip around the island. Cloudy Day.

M. 2.—Big rainstorm from the S. E. goats all in the stabel.

T. 3.—Drisly rain all Day.

W. 4.—going to seward.

T. 5.—Came Home 1 P.M.

F. 6.—Drisly rain and Calm Wather.

S. 7.—S. E. rainstorm.

Sun. 8.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

M. 9.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

T. 10.—Big S. E. rainstorm.

W. 11.—first Colld night this fall. Clear Calm Day.

T. 12.—Clowdy and Calm. Tug and Barg going West.

F. 13.—Steamer from the Sought 5.30 P.M. Drisly rain and Calm.

S. 14.—raining Wary Hard. the litly angora queen ar in Hit this morning. Fraet steamer from West going to Seward.

Sun. 15.—raining Wary Hard all Day. the goats ar in the cabbin all Day sought Est storm.

M. 16.—S.E. rainstorm.

T. 17.—raining all Day. North Est storm With Caps and Wullys all over.

W. 18.—Wary fear day. Mr. Kint and the Boy vant to seward this morning.

T. 19.—raining heard all day steamer from West going to seward 4 P.M.

F. 20.—raining heard all Day.

S. 21.—Wary rof rainstorm from Soght Est. Wullys all over.

Sun. 22.—Steamer from West going to Seward 2 P.M. the tied vary Hie Comes clear up in the gras and the surf ar Stiring up all the Driftwood along the shore. raining lik Hell.

M. 23.—raining all Day.

T. 24.—Snow on top of the mountins on the maenland a tre mastid skuner from West going to Seward. toed by som gassboth raining to Day egan. Mr. Kint and son got ome to the island this Evening.

September fourteenth.

I stopped writing, for the fire had almost gone out and the cold wind blew in from two dozen great crevasses in the walls. The best of log cabins need recalking, I am told, once a year, and mine, roughly built as it is, needs it now in the worst way. Some openings are four or five inches wide by two feet long. We’ve gathered a great quantity of moss for calking, but it has rained so persistently that it cannot dry out to be fit for use.

Well, it rains and rains and rains. Since beginning this journal we’ve had not one fair day, and since we’ve been here on the island, seventeen days, there has been only one rainless day. There has been but one cloudless sunrise. I awoke that day just at dawn and looking across out of the tiny square window that faces the water could see the blue—the deep blue—mountains and the rosy western sky behind them. At last the sun rose somewhere and tipped the peaks and the hanging glaciers, growing and growing till the shadows of other peaks were driven down into the sea and the many ranges stood full in the morning light. The twilight hours are so wonderfully long here as the sun creeps down the horizon. Just think! there’ll be months this winter when we’ll not see the sun from our cove—only see it touching the peaks above us or the distant mountains. It will be a strange life without the dear, warm sun!

I wonder if you can imagine what fun pioneering is. To be in a country where the fairest spot is yours for the wanting it, to cut and build your own home out of the land you stand upon, to plan and create clearings, parks, vistas, and make out of a wilderness an ordered place! Of course so much was done—nearly all—when I came. But in clearing up the woods and in improving my own stead I have had a taste of the great experience. Ah, it’s a fine and wholesome life!...

Another day. The storm rages out of doors. To-day I stuffed the largest of the cracks in our wall with woolen socks, sweaters, and all manner of clothes. It’s so warm and cozy here now! Olson has been in to see me for a long chat. I believe he can give one the material for a thrilling book of adventure. Take his story, or enough of the thousand wild incidents of it, give it its true setting—publishing a map of that part of the coast where his travels mostly lay—let it be frankly his story retold, above all true and savoring of this land—and I believe no record of pioneering or adventure could surpass it. He’s a keen philosopher and by his critical observations gives his discourse a fine dignity. On Olson’s return to Idaho in the ’80’s after his first trip to Alaska a friend of his, a saloon-keeper, came out into the street, seized him, and drew him into his place. “Sit down, Olson,” he said, “and tell us about Alaska from beginning to end.” And the traveler told his long wonder-story to the crowd.

THE SLEEPER

At last he finished.

“Olson,” said his friend, “that would make the greatest book in the world—if it was only lies.”

Gee, how the storm rages!

I’m relieved to-night; Rockwell, who seems to have a felon on his finger, is improving under the heroic treatment he submits to. I’ve had visions of operating on it myself—a deep incision to the bone being the method. It is no fun having such ailments to handle—unless you’re of the type Olson seems to be who, if his eye troubled him seriously, would stick in his finger and pull the eye out,—and then doubtless fill the socket with tobacco juice.

We have reached Wednesday, September the eighteenth.

That day the sun did shine. We rowed to Seward, Rockwell and I; stopped for the motor that on our last trip we had left by the way, but found the surf too high. At Seward the beach was strewn with damaged and demolished boats from a recent storm. Moreover, in the town the glacial stream was swollen to a torrent; the barriers had, some of them, been swept away; a bridge was gone, the railroad tracks were flooded, the hospital was surrounded and almost floated from its foundations. And we saw the next day, when it again poured rain, the black-robed sisters of charity, booted to the thighs, fleeing through the water to a safer place. It stormed incessantly for four days more. Although I had taken what seemed ample precaution for the safety of my dory, she was caught at the height of the storm by the exceptional tide of that season and carried against a stranded boat high up on the shore, and pinioned there by a heavy pile torn from the wharf. But our boat escaped undamaged.

Seward was dull for Rockwell and me. We’ve not come this long way from our home for the life of a small town. America offers nothing to the tourist but the wonders of its natural scenery. All towns are of one mold or inspired, as it were, with one ideal. And I cannot see in considering the buildings of a single period in the East and in the West any indication of diversity of character, of ideals, of special tradition; any susceptibility to the influence of local conditions, nothing in any typical American house or town where I have been that does not say “made in one mill.” There’s a God forsaken hideousness and commonplaceness about Alaskan architecture that almost amounts to character—but it is not quite bad enough to redeem itself. Somewhere in the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies there’s a little town of one street backed up against the towering mountains. Dominating the town is the two-or three-story “Queen Hotel,” the last word in flamboyant, gimcrack hideousness. Hotel and Mountain! it is sublime, that bald and crashing contrast.

On September third, I wrote to a friend: “They strike me as needlessly timid about the sea here, continually talking of frightful currents and winds in a way that seems incredible to me and would, I think, to a New England fisherman. However, I must be cautious. Olson says that in the winter for weeks at a time it has been impossible to make the trip to Seward. Well, I’ll believe it when I try it and get stuck.”

Three weeks later,—Tuesday, September twenty-fourth, we were in Seward. The morning was calm varying between sun and rain, but it seemed a good day to return to Fox Island. Rockwell and I had some difficulty launching our boat down the long beach at low water; but at last we managed it, loaded our goods aboard,—viz., two large boxes of groceries, fifty-nine pounds turnips, a stove, five lengths of stovepipe, a box of wood panels, two hundred feet one inch by two inch strips, suit case, snowshoes, and a few odd parcels.

THE WINDLASS

At ten forty-five we pushed off. At just about that moment the sun retired for the day and a fine and persistent rain began to fall. After about three miles we were overtaken by a fisherman in a motor sloop bound to his camp three miles further down the shore. He took us in tow and, finally arriving at his camp, begged us to stay “for a cup of tea”—he was an Englishman. I yielded to the delay there against my own better judgment. After a hearty meal we left his cove at two fifteen.

Still it drizzled rain and the breeze blew faintly from the northeast. We had a seven-mile row before us. Near Caines Head we encountered squalls from the south and were for sometime in doubt as to the wind’s true direction. We headed straight for Fox Island only to find the wind easterly, compelling us to head up into it. I fortunately anticipated a heavier blow and determined to get as far to windward and as near the shelter of the lea shore as possible, and without any loss of time. Our propulsion toward the island I left to the tide which was about due to ebb. We made good headway for a little time until the wind bore upon us in heavy squalls.

The aspect of the day had become ominous. Heavy clouds raced through the sky precipitating rain. The mountainous land appeared blue black, the sea a light but brilliant yellow green. Over the water the wind blew in furious squalls raising a surge of white caps and a dangerous chop. I was now rowing with all my strength, foreseeing clearly the possibility of disaster for us, scanning with concern the terrible leeward shore with its line of breakers and steep cliffs. Rockwell, rowing always manfully, had great difficulty in the rising sea and wind. Fortunately he realized only at rare moments the dangers of our situation.

We were now rowing continually at right angles to our true course. I had but one hope, to get to windward before the rising sea and gale overpowered us and carried us onto the dreaded coast that offered absolutely no hope. Once to windward I had the choice of making a landing in some cove or continuing for Fox Island by running with the wind astern. At last the surface of the water was fairly seething under the advancing squalls; the spray was whipped into vapor and the caldron boiled. I bent my back to the oars and put every ounce of strength into holding my own with the gale. It was a terrible moment for I saw clearly the alternative of continuing and winning our fight.

“Father,” pipes up Rockwell from behind me at this tragic instant “when I wake up in the morning sometimes I pretend my toes are asleep, and I make my big toe sit up first because he’s the father toe.” At another time Rockwell, who had shown a little panic—a very little—said: “You know I want to be a sailor so I’ll learn not to be afraid.”

At last we turned and made for the island. We had reached the point where with good chances of success we could turn,—and where we had to. We reached the shelter of the island incredibly fast, it seemed, with the sea boiling in our wake, racing furiously as if to engulf us,—and then bearing us so smoothly and swiftly upon its crest that if it had not been so terrible it would have been the most soothing and delightful motion in the world. In rounding the headland of our cove a last furious effort of the eluded storm careened us sailless as we were far on one side and carried us broadside toward the rocks. It was a minute before we could straighten our boat into the wind and pull away from the shore, then twenty feet away. Olson awaited us on the beach with tackle in readiness to haul our boat out of the surf. We landed in safety. Looking at my watch I found it to be a quarter to six. (The last four miles had taken us three hours!)

Olson’s dory had been hauled up onto the grass and tied down securely. Mine was soon beside it. The tides and heavy seas of this time of year make every precaution necessary.

THE SNOW QUEEN

The wind that night continued rising ’til it blew a gale. And that night in their bed Rockwell and his father put their arms tight about each other without telling why they did it.

Wednesday, September twenty-fifth.

It stormed from the northeast throughout the day. After putting the cabin in order and hanging out our bedding to dry by the stove—for we had found it very damp—I set about cutting a large spruce tree whose high top shut out the light from our main windows. A few more still stand in the way. The removal of all of them should give us a fair amount of light even in the winter when the sun is hid. It occurs to me that it may be rather fortunate that my studio window looks to the south. I’ll certainly not be troubled with sunlight while I may yet borrow some of the near-sun brilliancy from above our mountain’s top. Rockwell and I worked some time with the cross-cut saw. I’m constantly surprised by his strength and stamina. Rockwell read nine pages in his book of the cave dwellers. So nine of “Robinson Crusoe” were due him after supper. He undresses and jumps into bed and cuddles close to me as I sit there beside him reading. And “Robinson Crusoe” is a story to grip his young fancy and make this very island a place for adventure.

Thursday, September twenty-sixth.

These are typical days, I begin to feel sure, of prevailing Alaska weather. It rains, not hard but almost constantly. Nothing is dry but the stove and the wall behind it; the vegetation is saturated, the deep moss floor of the woods is full as a sponge can be. We took the moss that weeks ago we’d gathered and spread along the shore to dry and commenced with this sopping stuff the calking of our cabin. It went rapidly and the two gable ends are nearly done. What a difference it makes; to-night when my fire roared for the biscuit baking the heat was almost unbearable. The usual chores of wood and water; a little work at manufacturing stationery; supper of farina, corn bread, peanut butter, and tea; six pages for Rockwell; and the day, but for this diary, is done.

Friday, September twenty-seventh.

At last it’s fair after a clear moonlit night. I worked all day about the cabin calking it and almost finishing that job, splitting wood, and working with the cross-cut saw. Added stops to the frame of our door, made a miter box, and cut my long strips brought from Seward last trip into pieces for my stretcher frames. And Rockwell all this time helped cheerfully when he was called upon, played boat on the beach, hunted imaginary wild animals with his bow and arrow of stone-age design, and was as always so contented, so happy that the day was not half long enough.

Ah, the evenings are beautiful here and the early mornings, when the days are fair! No sudden springing of the sun into the sky and out again at night; but so gradual, so circuitous a coming and a going that nearly the whole day is twilight and the quiet rose color of morning and evening seems almost to meet at noon. We glance through our tiny western window at sunrise and see beyond the bay the many ranges of mountains, from the somber ones at the water’s edge to the distant glacier and snow-capped peaks, lit by the far-off sun with the loveliest light imaginable.

To-night for supper a dish of Olson’s goat’s milk “Klabber” (phonetic spelling), simply sour milk with all its cream upon it, thick to a jelly. It was, in the favorite expression of Rockwell, “delicious.”

FOX ISLAND, RESURRECTION BAY, KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA

Saturday, September twenty-eighth.

Beginning fresh but overcast the day soon brought us rain,—and it is now raining gently as I write. And yet we accomplished a great deal, clearing of undergrowth a part of the woods between us and the shore, felling three more trees, and cutting up a monster tree with the cross-cut saw. At dinner time Olson ran in with the greatest excitement. On the path in the woods near the outlet of the lake he had seen at one time five otters. They came from the water and advanced to within twenty feet of where he and Nanny—the milk goat—stood. And there they played long enough for him to have taken a dozen pictures. In the afternoon we saw a number of otters at another place, on the rocks at one end of the beach. They were in and out of the water, going at times for little excursion swims far out into the harbor, then chasing each other back and playing hide-and-go-seek among the rocks. This afternoon I prepared all my wood panels to begin my work, painting them on both sides.

Sunday, September twenty-ninth.

The Lord must have been pleased with us to-day for the grand clearing up we gave this place of His. Olson has begun to work toward me in clearing the still wild part of the intervening space between our cabins. It begins to look parklike with trees stripped of limbs ten or twelve feet from the ground and the mossy floor beneath swept clean. With the cross-cut saw I finished up the giant tree we felled a few days ago; and then, the ground being clear, I cut the large tree that kept so much light from our windows. The difference it has made is wonderful; our room is flooded with light.

There is a fascination in cutting trees. Once I have gripped my axe, or even the tedious saw, I find it hard to relinquish it, returning to it again and again for one more cut. I believe that the clearing of homesteads gave the pioneer a compelling interest in life that was in wonderful contrast to the ordinary humdrum labor to which at first he must have been bred. It is easy to understand the rapid conquest of the wilderness; begin it—and you cannot stop.

Rockwell has set his heart upon trapping, in the kindest and most considerate way known, some wild thing—and having it for a pet. I rather discouraged his taming the sea urchin and persuaded him out of consideration for the intelligent creature’s feelings to restore him to the salt water—and let me have back the bread pan. But now one of Olson’s box traps is set for a magpie. They’re plentiful here. I built myself a fine easel to-day, the best one I’ve ever had; and put a shelf under my drawing table. The room is clean and neat to-night; it is in every way a congenial place. I don’t see why people need better homes than this. It was cloudy most of to-day and rained a very little from time to time. Soon I can no longer keep from painting.

Monday, September thirtieth.

The morning brilliant, clear, and cold with the wind in the north. I promised Rockwell an excursion when we had cut six sections from a tree with the cross-cut saw. It went like the wind. Then with cheese, chocolate, and Swedish hard bread in my pocket for a lunch we started for the lowest ridge of the island that overlooks the east. We had always believed this to be a short and easy ascent until one day just before supper we tried it in a forced march and found, after the greatest exertions in climbing, that the ridge lay still the good part of an hour’s climb above us.

So to-day, though we chose our path more wisely, it proved hard climbing along rough stream beds, across innumerable fallen trees, through alder, bramble, and blueberry thickets, and always with the soft, oozy moss underfoot. But we reached the top-steep to the very edge. Suddenly the trees ended, the land ended,—falling sheer away four hundred feet below us; and we stood in wonder looking down and out over a smooth green floor of sea and a fairyland of mountains, peaks and gorges, and headlands that cast long purple shadows on the green water. Clouds wreathed the mountains, snow was on their tops, and in the clear atmosphere both the land and the sea were marvelous for the beauty of their infinite detail. Tiny white crested wavelets patterned the water’s surface with the utmost precision and regularity; and the land invited one to its smooth and mossy slopes, its dark enchanted forests, its still coves and sheltered valleys, its nobly proportioned peaks. It was a rare hour for us two.

RAIN TORRENTS

We then followed the ridge toward the south walking in the smoothly trodden paths of the porcupines. It led us up the lofty hill on the east side of the island between its two coves. But the steepness of the ascent and the matted thickets of storm-dwarfed alders that were in our way were too much, I thought, for Rockwell, and after going some distance farther alone I returned to him and we started homewards.

Once on the mountain side we sat down in the moss and mountain cranberry to rest. And all at once we saw a great old porcupine come clambering up the hill a short way from us. I spoke to him in his own whiny-moany language and he was much pleased; he sat up, listened, and then came almost straight toward us. I continued talking to him until after several corrections of his course—determined upon by sitting up and listening—he arrived within four or five feet of Rockwell, and sat up again.

We could hardly keep from laughing, he looked so foolish. But he sensed things to be wrong, dropped down, elevated his quills, then turned and started off. Somehow I couldn’t let him go without annoying him; so, grabbing a stick I pursued him poking at him to collect a few quills. But at this Rockwell set up such a shrieking and wailing that I had to stop,—and finally apologized profusely and explained that I meant no harm to the sweet creature. Rockwell madly loves wild animals, has not the slightest fear of them, and would really, I believe, try out his theory of calming the anger of a bear by kissing him.

Then we came home and had a good dinner. I cut more wood and at last, after one month here on the island, I PAINTED. It was a stupid sketch, but no matter, I’ve begun! A weasel came out and looked at me as I worked, then whisked off. The magpies look into our trap, squint at the food, and then at once leave that neighborhood. It is cloudy and rainlike to-night. Is it too much to hope for more than one fair day?

CHAPTER III
CHORES

Tuesday, October first.

To-day it rained! We attended first to our fascinating chores, plying the cross-cut saw as the drizzle fell. Then we went to work as artists, Rockwell with his water colors and I with my oils. Rockwell has a number of good drawings of the country here and of the things that have thrilled him.

Pop! The cork of my jug of new made yeast has just struck the ceiling. That brew has been a part of this day’s work. Hops, potatoes, flour, sugar, raisins, and yeast; stewed and strained and bottled. To-day also was completed and served the first.

Fox Island Corn Souffle

“Take two cups of samp (whole hominy) and stew for an indefinite time in salted water (it should cook at least three or four hours). It should boil almost dry. Make of the remainder of the water and some milk two cups of cream sauce dissolving in it some cheese. Mix with the corn and pour into a baking dish. Spread cheese over the top and put into oven to brown.”

We offer this delicious discovery to the world on the condition only that “Fox Island Corn Souffle” shall be printed on the menu wherever it is used.

I made to-day a grandfather’s chair for myself. It is as comfortable as it is beautiful.

Every day I read in the “History of Irish Literature.” The Deirdre Saga I read to-day. It must be one of the most beautiful and the most perfect stories in all the world. So little do we feel ourselves related, here in this place, to any one time or to any civilization that at a thought we and our world become whom and what we please. Rockwell has been a cave dweller hunting the primeval forest with a stone hatchet and a bow of alder strung with a root. To me it is the heroic age in Ireland.

Wednesday, October second.

Incessant, hard rain. The two artists at their work a good part of the day, Rockwell making several new drawings in his book of wonderful animals. We bathed and I washed the accumulated clothes of several weeks. And to-night Olson came for a long call. He’s a good story teller and his experiences are without end. And so closes this day—with the rain still pouring monotonously on the roof.

Thursday, October third.

To-day was fair at sunrise, cloudy at nine o’clock, and showery all the rest. We worked again with the beloved cross-cut saw, setting ourselves an almost unattainable task—and then surpassing it. And I cleared the thicket for a better view of the mountain to the south; and in the afternoon felled another large tree. Stretched canvass for a while; and painted and drew, and felt the goddess Inspiration returning to me.

DAY

Olson, Rockwell, and I, with levers and blocks, turned and emptied the three boats that the recent rains had almost filled. Already we fear the frost. The mountains have been capped with snow, all green has gone from their sides; the dark season is near at hand.

Rockwell is ever sweet, industrious, and happy. He is beautiful after his bath.

Friday, October fourth.

A gloriously lovely day, a cloudless sky and the wind in the north. That puts life into men! Up at sunrise, we two. Before breakfast the axe was going, and afterwards we brought down two mighty trees. (The trees of this part of Alaska are not to be compared with the giants of the Western States. Two feet is a large diameter.) Then I painted for a while futilely, the green and wind blown sea, the pink mountains, snowy peaks, and golden morning sky.

Rockwell and I couldn’t restrain our spirits and had to clamber up the steep mountain side; up, up we went straight above our clearings; and soon, in looking back, the bay, the lake, and our neck of land lay like a map below us. Cliffs and the steep slopes baffled us at times but we found a way at last to reach the peak of the spur above us. There it was like a pavilion, a round knoll carpeted with moss, a ring of slender, clean-trunked trees; and beyond that nothing nearer than the sea nine hundred feet below. Coming down we ran across a porcupine toiling up the slope. We played with him a bit and finally let him climb a tree. Olson would have had us bring him home for dinner. They’re said to taste good.

We cut with the saw a while in the afternoon. Rockwell drew and I made two more sketches—one a good one. The evening at sundown was more brilliant even than the day. For such days as this we have come to Alaska!

Saturday, October fifth.

A hard day full of little bits of work. Sawed up a tree alone,—to punish Rockwell! for not studying. Caulking the east side of the cabin—the last side. Painted, baked, and built myself an arrangement out-of-doors to sketch in comfort. I sit on the board with my palette—a box end—secured before me and my picture above it. Rockwell took his punishment so to heart that in the afternoon he read ten pages in his book. All of to-day has been overcast, but with a clean, refreshing atmosphere. In the account of Anson’s voyage around the Horn it is remarked that fair weather in those latitudes rarely lasts. It may be true of the same latitudes north.

Monday, October seventh.

Yesterday I wrote nothing in the diary—there was nothing to write, but that it rained. “Rain like Hell” Olson’s journal doubtless reads,—and ditto for to-day.

The storm is even harder now. The wind strikes our cabin first from the west, then north, east, and south. The surface of the cove is seething under the cross squalls; that is called the “wullys.” A boat not strongly managed would be whipped round and round. Olson has been much in to see us, lonely old man! I drop my drawing while he is here and take to stretching canvass, all the while yarning with him. Rockwell likes the calls as a diversion. Rockwell’s good humor and contentment is without limit. He draws with the deepest interest hours a day, reads for a time, and plays—talking to himself.

NIGHT

We have good hearty fights together in which Rockwell attacks me with all his strength and I hit back with force in self-defense. We have a good time washing dishes, racing,—the washer, myself, to beat the dryer. Rockwell falls down onto the floor in the midst of the race in a fit of laughter. Rockwell’s happiness is not complete until I spank him. I grab the struggling creature and throw him down, trying to hold both his hands and feet to have free play in beating him. This I do with some strength sometimes using a stick of kindling wood. The more it hurts the better Rockwell likes it—up to a limit that we never reach.

So much for the day’s play. Of our work mine is mostly over the drawing table. Both yesterday and to-day I made good drawings; and my ideas come crowding along fast. Cooking, somehow, is the least troublesome of all the daily chores. We live, as may be imagined, with a simplicity that would send a Hoover delegate flying from the door in dismay. This is our daily fare:

BREAKFAST
(invariably the same)
Oatmeal
Cocoa
Bread and Peanut Butter
DINNER
Beans (one of several kinds and several ways)
or
Fox Island Corn Souffle
or
Spaghetti
or
Peas
or
Vegetable stew (barley, carrots, onions, potatoes)
and
Potatoes or rice
and (often)
Prunes or apricots or apples (dried)
SUPPER
(invariably the same)
Farina
Corn bread with peanut butter or marmalade
Tea for father, milk for son
And sometimes dessert—stewed fruit, chocolate, or, when Olson
gives it, goat milk junket.

Let us here record that to this date we have had not the least little sickness,—only glowing health and good spirits.

Tuesday, October eighth.

RAIN! But what difference does it make to us. Everyone is in a good humor. The house is warm and dry; we’ve lots to eat and lots to do.

Olson’s dory was again half full of water so we turned her and the skiff over. I stretched canvass and primed it and finished Anson’s “Voyage Around the World” a thrilling book. Late this afternoon it began to clear; the sun shone and we were presently at work with the saw—only to be driven in again by the shower. I expect fair weather to-morrow. But——

WILDERNESS

Wednesday, October ninth

Fair weather is still as far away as ever, unless a sharp but cloudy afternoon and sundown with brilliant light in the western sky spell change. Olson says the foxes will not eat to-night and that this is invariably a sign of change to good days—that in bad weather they eat and in fair they abstain. It poured in the morning and we worked indoors. After dinner we all moved a lumber pile that stood on the shore abreast of our cabin to a place nearer Olson’s—this only to better our view of the water. We sawed wood for a while and piled all that we have so far cut ready for winter use. There are in all fifty sections of short stove wood. That is a month and a half’s supply. I painted towards evening, and made two good sketches.

The nights have grown colder. For the past two days the mountains across from us, the nearest ones, have been covered with snow downwards to half their height. The farther ranges have for weeks been white. They’re beautiful and invite one to go climbing and sliding over their smooth white snowfields. Close to, one would find impassable crags and crevasses, a howling wind and bitter cold. Rockwell to-day finished his second book, “The Cave Dwellers.”

Midnight Bulletin: the stars are out, brilliant in a cloudless sky!

Thursday, October tenth.

It’s raining! All day has been overcast, but sharp and clear. It was for us all a day of hard work. We cleared up the woods between Olson’s cabin and ours carrying one large pile of brush from our door yard to the beach and burning another huge one. That was a wild sight as night came. It had become a great fire of logs burning steadily and lighting up all the woods around. It is still burning in the pouring rain. We sawed a little—always more than keeping pace with our consumption of wood. Rockwell worked almost the whole day and went to bed tired. I read to him an hour. He loves to hear poetry.

We set an elaborate contrivance to catch a magpie; and were humiliated by the bird who walked round and round the snare eying it wisely, then suddenly rushed in only far enough to secure a piece of decoy bait—and fled. Painted to-day making a good little sketch, but, on my first trial of the home-made canvas, finding it to need more priming. Work! work!

ONE OF ROCKWELL’S DRAWINGS

Friday, October eleventh.

This day we should have been in Seward. It was calm although it rained from time to time. Olson offered to tow us across to Caine’s Head; but, the rain coming up as we were about to start in the morning, we waited till afternoon, started, proceeded half a mile, encountered engine trouble, and finally ignominiously rowed home, I pulling Olson and his motor and Rockwell bringing in our own dory. If it had not been so late we would have kept on.

We have a magpie. I saw one hop into Olson’s shed, quickly ran and closed the door, and there he was. Now he’s in a box-trap cage set on a specially constructed shelf on our front gable. He’s a garrulous creature and bites angrily; but he’s a youngster and we hope to teach him to say all sorts of pretty things; Olson says they take naturally to swearing. So Rockwell has at last a pet.

If only it will hold calm! To-night it is fair and starlight—but we can never be sure of the weather’s constancy. We hold everything in readiness to start in the morning.

Saturday, October twelfth.

A mild and lovely day on our island but in the bay a breeze from the north that would have made our rowing to Seward difficult. Still we wait with our things assembled for the trip. We shall go at the very first good chance. This morning Olson cleared the limbs from the trees about us to ten or twelve feet from the ground. Only the tall, clean trunks are now between us and our mountains across the bay. I painted most of the afternoon. My canvas is still quite impossible—rough and absorbent. We built a large cage for the magpie he was so restless in his small one. And now he’s quite contented.

Rockwell said to-day that he would like to live here always. That when he was grown he’d come here with his many children and me, if I was not dead, and stay. It is hard to write, it is hard to work, with the trip to Seward at hand. Olson says it is Sunday. I think he’s right. Somehow I’ve missed a day.

Sunday, October thirteenth.

(I still keep to my chronology until we find out from Seward where we stand.) A wonderfully beautiful day with a raging northwest wind. I must sometime honor the northwest wind in a great picture as the embodiment of clean, strong, exuberant life, the joy of every young thing, bearing energy on its wings and the will to triumph. How I remember at Monhegan on such a day, when it seemed that every living thing must emerge from its house or its hole or its nest to breathe the clean air and exult in it; when men could stand on the hilltops and look far over the green sea and the distant land and delight in the infinite detail of the view, discerning distant ships at sea and remote blue islands, and, over the land, sparkling cities and such enchanting forests and pastures that the spirit leaped the intervening miles and with a new delight claimed the whole earth to the farthest mountains—and beyond; on such a day there crept from his hole an artist, and, shading his squinting eyes with his hand, saluted the day with a groan. “How can one paint?” he said, “such sharpness! Here is no mystery, no beauty.” And he crept back, this fog lover, to wait for earth’s sick spell to return.

This morning the magpie sang—or recited poetry; he made strange glad noises in his throat—and that in a cage! We worked, the rest of us, like mad. At five-thirty Olson, resting at last, said: “Well, you’ve done a great day’s work.” And after that I painted a sketch, cut and trimmed three small spruce trees; and then, it being dark, prepared supper.

But when do we go to Seward? My bag is packed. Olson begins each day by testing his motor. The wind must moderate in time. We see it pass our cove driving the water as in a mill-race. To-day it swept the cove itself.

Rockwell went for a walk in the woods; he has a delightful time on his rambles, discovering goats’ wool on the bushes, following the paths of the porcupines to their holes, and to-day finding the porcupine himself. He always returns with some marvelous discovery or new enthusiasm over his explorations. He has been practicing writing to-day. He says that if he could only write he would put down the wonderful stories of his dreams. These stories would run into volumes.

SUNRISE

Tuesday, October fifteenth.

Yesterday we left the island. The day was calm though cloudy, and at times it rained. Olson towed us to Caine’s Head. From there we made good time Rockwell rowing like a seasoned oarsman, as indeed he has now a right to be called. We stopped at the camp where we had in August left our broken-down engine, and brought that away with us, as well as some turnips and half a dozen heads of beautiful lettuce grown on that spot.

By night it was raining hard and blowing from the southeast. We spent the evening at the postmaster’s house, playing, I, on the flute to Miss Postmaster’s accompaniment. It went splendidly and until midnight we played Beethoven, Bach, Hayden, Gluck, Tchaikowsky, till it seemed like old times at home. Then Rockwell with his eyes shut in sleep, consumed a piece of apricot pie and a glass of milk, and we came home bringing along two glasses of wild currant preserve. I read my letters over and then went to bed. But the storm raged by that time and I couldn’t sleep for worry about my boat. At last I rose and dressed and went down to the shore. The dory was safely stranded but too low down. So with great toil I worked her higher up the beach beyond high water.

To-day it has rained incessantly. I have bought a few odd supplies and registered for the draft.

Above all to-day the engine has resumed its running and we’ll return to Fox Island under power. I know nothing about an engine but I have eight miles to learn in before the only hazardous part of the voyage begins. To-night Rockwell and I spent the evening at the house of a young man whom we’ve found congenial and who above all is a friend of a young German mechanic for whom I’ve a liking. So the four of us sang the evening through, seated before a great open fire. The house is of logs and stands out of the town on the border of the wilderness. There are spots like this little house and its hospitable hearth that show even the commercial desert of Seward to have its oases. And now we’re in our room. Rockwell is asleep in bed. It is past midnight. I am thinking of dear friends at home, and I bid them affectionately good-night.

Thursday, October seventeenth.

Yesterday in Seward was about as every other day. We spent it between letter-writing in our hotel room and visiting from store to store. It poured rain and blew from the southeast. We spent our evening with the German. We have planned with him to signal back and forth from Seward, particularly to send me the news of peace. If I can distinguish, with glasses a high-powered electric light that he will show from a house on the highest point in the town, then, by means of the Morse code with which I am furnished and which he knows, I’ll receive messages on appointed days.

To-night Rockwell and I went a quarter of a mile down our beach to a point that commands a view up the bay to Seward and lighted a bonfire there. Boehm, the German, was regarding us, we presume, through a telescope. On Sunday night, if it is clear, we are to look for his light. The difficulty will be to distinguish it from others.

We left Seward this morning at 9.45, our dory laden with about one thousand pounds of freight—including ourselves. The little three and one half horse-power motor worked splendidly and carried us to the island in a little over two and a quarter hours. The day was calm, to begin with, with a rising north wind as we crossed from Caine’s Head. On the island we found a visitor. There had been two other men but they were gone to Seward the night before. All had been on Monday forced by the rough sea to turn back from attempting to go around the westward cape. The old fellow who is still here told me to-night that in the twenty years that he had been in Alaska he had never seen such weather. That’s good news. At Seward the mountains are covered with snow to within a few hundred feet of the town’s level. I’m tired. This ends to-day. Incidentally my dates proved to be correct when I reached Seward.

ADVENTURE

Oh, I’ve almost forgotten our loss. The poor magpie lay dead on the floor of his cage. So we found him, killed, I believe, by the storm, for Olson neglected to cover him. Rockwell, who straight on landing had run there, wept bitterly but finally found much consolation in giving him a very decent burial and marking the spot with a wooden cross.

Friday, October eighteenth.

The night is beautiful beyond thought. All the bay is flooded with moonlight and in that pale glow the snowy mountains appear whiter than snow itself. The full moon is almost straight above us, and shining through the tree tops into our clearing makes the old stumps quite lovely with its quiet light. And the forest around is as black as the abyss. Although it is nearly ten o’clock Rockwell is still awake. It is his birthday—by our choice. His one present, a cheap child’s edition of Wood’s “Natural History,” illustrated, has filled his head with dreams of his beloved wild animals. I began to-night to teach him to sing. We tried Brahms’s “Wiegenlied,” with little success, and then “Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf,” which went better. These songs and many other German songs, all with English words, are in the song book I bought him. I hope I shall have the patience and the time to succeed with Rockwell in this.

Three men are now with Olson in his cabin, for the two who were gone to Seward returned to-day. They are younger men, one of them Emsweiler a well-known guide of this country. I spent an interesting hour with them this evening. Olson told me to-day that his age is seventy-one. The smell of fresh bread is in our cabin, for I baked to-day. Baking, wood-cutting, darning of socks, putting the cabin in order, and the building of a shelf, these, with the other usual chores, were the whole day’s work; a profitless day lies on my conscience. I shall draw a little and then go to bed.

Saturday, October nineteenth.

To-day was raw and cloudy, mild and sunny; in the morning windy, in the afternoon dead calm so that the hills were reflected in the bay. The men have left, I am glad to say, not that they were in themselves at all objectionable, but it somehow did violence to the quiet of this place to have others about. Emsweiler slaughtered one of the goats for Olson, so there’s now one less of us here. I felled a large tree to-day and later sharpened the cross-cut saw preparatory to cutting it up. To-night the sun set in the utmost splendor and left in its wake blazing, fire-red clouds in a sky of luminous green. Not many more days shall we see the sun; it sets now close to the southern headland of our cove.

Rockwell works every day on his wild animal book. To obtain absolutely new and original names for his strange creatures he has devised an interesting method. With eyes closed he prints a name or rather a group of miscellaneous letters. Naturally the result he perceives on opening his eyes is astonishing.

Sunday, October twentieth.

It has been a beautiful, clear, cold, violent northwest day. I’ve painted on and off all day with wood cutting between. One can’t stop going in such weather, and out-of-doors you can’t stand still for it is too icy cold and windy.

Rockwell and I have just now, eight o’clock, returned from down the beach where we went to look for lights from Seward. But we could distinguish nothing meant for us. The moon has risen and illuminates the mountain tops—but we and all our cove are still in the deep shadow of the night. It is most dramatic; the spruces about us deepen the shadow to black while above them the stone faces of the mountain glisten and the sky has the brightness of a kind of day. Olson brought us goat chops for dinner. We could not have told them from lamb.

This afternoon late a small power boat appeared in the bay attempting to make its way toward Seward. After some progress the wind forced her steadily and swiftly back. When we last saw her she seemed to be trying to make the shelter of our island or one of the outer islands, the while driving steadily seaward. It’s a wild night to be out in the bay though doubtless calm at sea. It is such an adventure that we must be on our guard against. As we look across the bay toward Bear Glacier, which is hidden by a point of land, we can see the effect of the north wind sweeping down the glacier, a mist driving seaward. It is nothing less than the fine spray of that wind-swept water.

Monday, October twenty-first.

It is so late that I shall write only a little. To-day was again wonderful, a true golden and blue northwest day. I have painted and sawed wood, and built myself a splendid six-legged saw horse. Olson thinks I have already cut my winter’s supply of wood—but it seems to me far from it. Rockwell has been most of the day at his own animal book, making some strange and beautiful birds. This morning the ground was frozen with a hard crust. It did not thaw throughout the day, and again to-night it is very cold. Winter is at last upon us, the long, long winter. And the sun retreats day by day farther toward the mountain. I look to the sun’s going with a kind of dread. We have seen nothing of the boat that last night was driven to shelter. We believe the men to be in the other cove of our island.

CHAPTER IV
WINTER

Endlessly, day after day, the journal goes on recording a dreary monotony of rain and cloud. Who has ever dwelt so entirely alone that the most living things in all the universe about are wind and rain and snow? Where the elements dominate and control your life, where at getting up and bedtime and many an hour of night and day between you question helplessly, as a poor slave his master, the will of the mighty forces of the sky? Dawn breaks, you jump from bed, stand barefoot on the threshold of the door, look through the straight trunked spruces at the brightening world, and read at sight God’s will for one more whole, long day of life. “Ah God! it rains again.” And sitting on the bed you wearily draw on your heavy boots, and rainy-spirited begin the special labors of a rainy day. Or maybe, at the sight of clouds again, you laugh at the dull-minded weather man or curse at him good naturedly. Still you must do those rainy-weather chores and all the other daily chores in hot wet-weather garments. That is destiny.

Most of the time, to do ourselves real justice, we met the worst of weather with a battle cry, worked hard,—and then made up for outdoor dreariness and wet by heaping on the comforts of indoors,—dry, cozy warmth, good things to eat, and lots to do.

We have reached late fall—for northern latitudes. The sky is brooding ominously, heavy, dull, and raw. Winter seems to be closing in upon us. We’re driven to work as if in fear. Hurry, hurry! Saw the great drums of spruce, roll them over the ground and stack them high. Calk tight with hemp the cabin’s windward eaves so that no breath of wind can enter there and freeze the food inside upon the shelf. Set up the far-famed air-tight stove where it will keep you warm,—warm feet in bed and a warm back while painting. Patch up the poor, storm-battered paper roof,—two or three holes we find and we are sure it leaks from twenty. About the cabin pile the hemlock boughs, dense-leafed and warm, making a green slope almost to the eaves. Now it looks cozy! Outside and in the last is done to make us ready for the winter’s worst, and just in time! It is the evening of October twenty-second and the feathery snow has just begun to fall. Olson comes stamping in. “Well, well,” he cries, “how’s this! How does our winter suit you?” It suits us perfectly. The house is warm, Rockwell’s in bed, and I am reading “Treasure Island” to him.

“What are you going to make of him?” asked Olson that night speaking of Rockwell. I was at that moment pouring beans into the pot for baking. I slowed the stream and dropped them one by one:

“‘Rich-man, poor-man, beggar-man, thief,

Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.’

How in the world can anyone lay plans for a youngster’s life?”

ON THE HEIGHT

Rockwell lay in his bed dreaming, maybe, of an existence lovelier far than anything the poor, discouraged imagination of a man could reach. A child could make a paradise of earth. Life is so simple! Unerringly he follows his desires making the greatest choices first, then onward into a narrowing pathway until the true goal is reached. How can one preach of beauty or teach another wisdom. These things are of an infinite nature, and in every one of us in just proportion. There is no priesthood of the truth.

We live in many worlds, Rockwell and I,—the world of the books we read,—an always changing one, “Robinson Crusoe,” “Treasure Island,” the visionary world of William Blake, the Saga Age, “Water Babies,” and the glorious Celtic past,—Rockwell’s own world of fancy, kingdom of beasts, the world he dreams about and draws,—and my created land of striding heroes and poor fate-bound men—real as I have painted them or to me nothing is,—and then all round about our common, daily, island-world, itself more wonderful than we have half a notion of. Is it to be believed that we are here alone, this boy and I, far north out on an island wilderness, seagirt on a terrific coast! It’s as we pictured it and wanted it a year and more ago,—yes, dreams come true.

And now the snow falls softly. Winter, to meet our challenge, has begun.

Short notes in the journal mark “Treasure Island’s” swift passage. Then enter “Water Babies!” “Just after Rockwell’s heart and mine,” I have recorded it. But Kingsley must lose his friends,—a warning to the snob in literature. How it did weary us and madden us, his English-gentry pride,—unless we outright laughed. “At last it’s finished. That’s an event. When Kingsley isn’t showing off he’s moralizing, and between his religious cant and his English snobbery he is, in spite of his occasional sweet sentiment, quite unendurable. So to-night we read from ‘Andersen’s Fairy Tales’—forever lovely and true.”

Children have their own fine literary taste that we know quite too little about. They love all real, authentic happenings, and they love pure fairy tale. But to them fiction in the guise of truth is wrong, and fairy romance, unconvincing in its details, is ridiculous. Action they like, the deed—not thoughts about it. Doubtless the simple saga form is best of all,—life as it happens, neither right nor wrong, words that they can understand, things they can comprehend, interesting facts or thrilling fancy. Such simple things delight the child that half of “Robinson Crusoe” and three quarters of the smug family from Switzerland are forgiven for the sweet kernel of pure adventure that is there.

As for adventure,—that is relative. Where little happens and the gamut of expression is narrow life is still full of joy and sorrow. You’re stirred by simple happenings in a quiet world.

The killer-whales that early in September played in the shoal water of our cove not thirty feet from land, rolled their huge, shining bodies into view, plunged, raced where we still could follow their gleaming, white patch under water,—there’s a thrill!

The battles that occurred that month between huge fish out in the bay, their terrible, mysterious, black arms that beat the water with a sound like cannon, the plunge into the depths of the poor, frantic, wounded whale, and his return again for air; again the thunder sound and flying foam and spray as the dread black arm is beating on the sea; then calm. You shudder at that huge death. That was a drama for Fox Islanders.

And later the poor magpie’s death. Real tears were shed from a poor boy’s half-broken heart.

Two strangers come these days and stop with Olson. They’re on the search of that small craft that we saw driving seaward in a tempest.

THE DAY’S WORK

There is mystery! Was she adrift unmanned, broke from her moorings, or was there life aboard as we had thought? In that case she’d been stolen, and who were the men and where? Wrecked safely on some island, drowned, or driven out to sea? No man shall ever know.

A porcupine is captured wandering near our house. We build for him a cozy home—he doesn’t like it much but still he should. We care for him day after day, he twines himself, about our hearts. Then at last one day when we’d pastured him in freedom out in the new fallen snow, trusting his tracks to lead us to him, the goats cut in and spoiled the trail and he was lost to us.

Olson has gone to Seward: days of waiting, days of waiting! How many times do we travel down the cove to the point from whence Caine’s Head is seen, going in hope, returning gloomily.

The goats beset us yearning for their missing master. Billy, that maddening beast, eats up one corner of our broom. I throw a heavy armful of kindling wood into his face—and he just sneezes. But Rockwell plays with the goats as if they’re human, or rather, as if he were goat. They half believe it, he has told me,—and, Rockwell, so do I.

Sunday, November third.

To-day was gloriously bright and clear with a strong northwest wind. The mountains are covered with snow, beautiful beyond description. I painted in-and out-of-doors continuously all the day except when Rockwell and I plied the saw. It is no little thing to have one’s work on a day like this out under such a blue sky, by the foaming green sea and the fairy mountains.

Three days go by. It rains and hails and snows, and then is quiet. Over the dead, still air comes the roar of pounding seas. Immense and white they pile on the black cliffs of Caine’s Head, the wash of a storm at sea. Still over the heaving, glassy water we look in vain for Olson. Dark days, and the short hours are long with waiting. How many times we traveled down the cove to look toward Seward, how many score of times we peered through the little panes of our west window never to find the thing we sought for.

I’ve loaded my arms with firewood from the pile. I turn my head and there in our cove before my very eyes at last is Olson! This is November sixth,—nine days away!

“The war is over,” cried Olson as he landed. By all that’s holy in life may the world have found through its mad war at least some fragrance of the peace and freedom that we discovered growing like a flower, wild on the borders of the wilderness....

Long into night I read the mail, count sweaters, caps, and woolen stockings, all that the mail has brought. It is late, Rockwell is asleep, the room is cold, it snows out-of-doors.... And now instead of bed I’ll stir the fire and begin my work.

Thursday, November seventh.

A true winter’s day with the snow deep on the ground and the profound and characteristic winter silence of the out-of-doors to be sensed even in this ever silent place. At earliest daylight began a heavy thunderstorm with lightning all about and a downpour of hail. It occurred intermittently throughout the morning.... I did the washing, using Olson’s washboard and getting the clothes nearly white.

Olson is full of amusing gossip. To the curious in Seward who asked him why I chose to be in this God-forsaken spot he replied: “You damn fools, you don’t understand an artist at all. Do you suppose Shakespeare wrote his plays with a silly crowd of men and women hanging around him? No, sir, an artist has to be left alone.”