"I hope so, John," she answered, soberly; "but your father must decide
himself. He will not tell us until he has thought it all out alone."




CHAPTER II

THE CALL OF DUTY

It was upon my mind all through that long afternoon, as I swung the
scythe in the meadow grass. I saw Burns ride away up the river trail
soon after I returned to work, and wondered if he bore with him any
message from my father. It was like a romance to me, to whom so few
important things had ever happened. In some way, the coming of this
letter out of the great unknown had lifted me above the narrow life of
the clearing. My world had always been so small, such a petty and
restricted circle, that this new interest coming within its horizon had
widened it wonderfully.

I had grown up on the border, isolated from what men term civilization;
and I could justly claim to know chiefly those secrets which the
frontier teaches its children. My only remembrance of a different mode
of life centred about the ragged streets of a small New England
village, where I had lived in earlier childhood. Ever since, we had
been in the depths of the backwoods; and after my father's accident I
became the one upon whom the heavier part of the work fell. I had
truly thrived upon it. In my hunting-trips, during the dull seasons, I
learned many a trick of the forest, and had already borne rifle twice