"Waiting's precious poor fun, mother," replied Bruno ruefully, yet in a tone that re-assured his mother, who, indeed, was always dreading lest her son's longing for the stir and bustle of city life should lead him to run away from the farm he so cordially disliked, leaving her to bear the double burden of unshared troubles and anxiety for her darling's welfare.
Bruno Perry was not a common country boy, rough, rude, and uncultivated. His mother had enjoyed a good education in her youth, and possessed besides a refined, gentle spirit that fitted her far better for the cultured life of the city than the rough-and-tumble existence to which the eccentricity of her husband had doomed her. Bruno had inherited much of her fine spirit, together with no small share of his father's deep, strong nature; and, thanks to his mother's faithful teaching and the wise use of the few books they had brought with them into the wilderness, was a fairly well educated lad. Every Saturday his father drove all alone to the nearest settlement and brought back with him a newspaper, which Bruno awaited with hungry eyes and eagerly devoured when at last it fell into his hands. By this means he knew a little, at all events, of the great world beyond the forest, and this knowledge maintained at fever-heat his desire to be in the midst of it. Only his deep affection for his mother kept him at home.
The summer just past had been an especially restless, uneasy time for Bruno. His blood seemed fairly on fire with impatience at his lot, and even the cool dark days of autumn brought no chill to his ardour. If anything, they made the matter worse; for the summer, with its bright sunny mornings, its delicious afternoon baths in the clear deep pool beyond the barn, and its long serene evenings, was not so hard to bear, even in the wilderness. Neither was the autumn, with its nutting forays, its partridge and woodcock shooting, and its fruit and berry expeditions, by any means intolerable. But the winter the long, dreary, monotonous Canadian winter, when for week after week the mercury sank down below zero and rarely rose above it, when the cattle had to be fed and watered though the hands stiffened and the feet stung with bitter biting cold, while ears and cheek and nose were constantly being nipped by pitiless Jack Frost! well, the long and short of it was that one night after
Mr. Perry had gone off grimly to bed, looking much as if he were going to his tomb, leaving his wife and son sitting beside the big wood fire in the kitchen, Bruno drew his chair close to Mrs. Perry's, and, slipping his hand into hers, looked up into her sweet face with a determined expression she had never observed in him before.
"Mother," said Bruno, in low, earnest tones, "it's no use. This is the last winter I shall ever spend in this place. I can't and won't stand it any longer. Father may say what he likes, but he'll never make a farmer of me."
"What will you do, Bruno dear?" asked his mother gently, seeing clearly enough that it was no time for argument or opposition.
"Why, I'll go right into town and do something. I don't care what it is, so long as it's honest and it brings me bread and butter. I'd rather be a bootblack in town than stay out in this hateful place."
"But you hope to be something better than a bootblack, don't you, dearest?" questioned Mrs. Perry, with a sad smile, for she felt that the crisis in her boy's life had come, and that his whole future might depend upon the way she dealt with him now.
"Of course I do, mother," he answered, smiling in his turn. "But that will be better than nothing for a beginning, and something better will turn up after a while."
"Very well, Bruno, so be it. Of course it's no use beginning business as a bootblack in winter-time, when everybody is wearing overshoes. But when the spring mud comes then will be your chance, and perhaps before spring-time a better opening may present itself."
Bruno felt the force of his mother's clever reasoning, and with a quiet laugh replied,
"All right, mother: I'll wait until spring as patiently as I can."
The afternoon following this conversation Bruno thought he would go into the forest and see if he could not get a shot at something, he hardly knew what. The snow lay deep upon the ground, so he strapped on his snow-shoes, and, with gun on shoulder and hatchet at belt, strode off into the woods. He was in rather an unhappy frame of mind, and hoped that a good long walk and the excitement of hunting would do him good. His father's clearing was not very large, and beyond its edge the great forest stretched away unbroken for uncounted leagues. Close at Bruno's heels ran the faithful Steeltrap, full of joy at the prospect of an afternoon's outing. The air was very cold, but not a breath of wind broke its stillness, and the only interruptions of the perfect silence were the crushing of the crisp snow beneath Bruno's broad shoes and the occasional impatient barks of his canine companion.