Things Are Piled Up To The Ceiling In Both Rooms, And The Shed
Is Full Also.
All of the vegetables were brought up from the cellar,
of course, and as the weather has been very cold, the celery and other
tender things were frozen.
General and Mrs. Bourke have returned, and
at once insisted upon our going to their house, but as there was
nothing definite about the time when we will get our house, we said
"No." We are taking our meals with them, however, and Hang is there
also, teaching their new Chinaman. But I can assure you that I am more
than cross. If Major Bagley had selected the house the first time he
came, or even if he had said nothing at all about the quarters, much
discomfort and unpleasantness would have been avoided. They will get
our nice clean house, and we will get one that will require the same
renovating we have just been struggling with. I have made up my mind
unalterably to one thing - the nice little dinner I had expected to
give Major and Mrs. Bagley later on, will be for other people, friends
who have had less honey to dispose of.
The splendid hunting was interrupted by the move, too. Every October
in this country we have a snowstorm that lasts usually three or four
days; then the snow disappears and there is a second fall, with clear
sunny days until the holidays. This year the weather remained warm and
the storm was later than usual, but more severe when it did come,
driving thousands of water-fowl down with a rush from the mountain
streams and lakes. There is a slough around a little plateau near the
post, and for a week or more this was teeming with all kinds of ducks,
until it was frozen over. Sometimes we would see several species
quietly feeding together in the most friendly way. Faye and I would
drive the horses down in the cutter, and I would hold them while he
walked on ahead hunting.
One day, when the snow was falling in big moist flakes that were so
thick that the world had been narrowed down to a few yards around us,
we drove to some tall bushes growing on the bank of the slough. Faye
was hunting, and about to make some ducks rise when he heard a great
whir over his head, and although the snow was so thick he could not
see just what was there, he quickly raised his gun and fired at
something he saw moving up there. To his great amazement and my
horror, an immense swan dropped down and went crashing through the
bushes. It was quite as white as the snow on the ground, and coming
from the dense cloud of snow above, where no warning of its presence
had been given, no call sounded, one felt that there was something
queer about it all. With its enormous wings spread, it looked like an
angel coming to the earth.
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