"Have you swallowed it, Mr. Cory?"

"I have, and you needn't try to make me puke."

"A puppy. She was carrying young--six. I had one whole, when you was still in the fever."

"Ow-ooh!"

"Oh, ay, your ears'll turn furry any day now. I say, Ben, when we're dirty-rich and famous, let's keep a few wolves on hand--you know, so to have roasted pups for guests of distinction."

"Now you sound like yourself."

"Do I?... Ben, I--something happened that night, Friday night."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know whether I can tell it.... When I dragged the carca.s.s to the fire I was crying like a fool, I don't know why. Sat there crying with her b.l.o.o.d.y head on my knees, some-way I couldn't make it seem she was only a piece of meat. Later I could, later it didn't matter. And then--well...."

"What is it, Ru?"

"I found my britches were wet. Nay, not what you think, and not her blood neither, though that's dried all over 'em and I declare we both smell like the Devil's own. Remember you told me how some time soon, whenever it happened, I'd be spending the seed?"

"Oh--of course."

"Ben, I didn't know it when it happened. It must have been the moment when I was killing her. I didn't know it could happen that way."

"I didn't neither."

"Is something wrong with me?"

"No, no."

"You see, I already knew how it feels. I did confess to you about that--long ago, remember? That was the time when you told me, about the change, and the seed."

"Yes. Well, they say it's a sin to bring it on, but I think it must be venial, Ru, for Jesse said once that every man's vessels are alway in need of it. The dreams don't help. Nothing's wrong with you."

"But why didn't I know it when it happened?"

"Oh, the excitement--why, you must have been white-hot, to stand up to a wolf with nothing but a little stick. I didn't know it could happen that way, but I think it's not so strange."

"Jesse Plum.... Why did Father never speak of those things?"

"I don't know, Ru."

"Did he to you?"

"No, he never.... Look: I remember I spent once, merely from lifting a big rock. And--oh, tree-climbing, things like that. So you see--anyway there's nothing wrong with you, brother, nothing."

"Do you have those dreams much, Ben?"

"Not too often. You?"

"Oh, they...."

"You will. You'll be dreaming about girls, and----"

"I ... You'll be strong enough to go on tomorrow, Ben. One thing: we needn't fret now about anyone following from Springfield. That snow will have covered everything. I hope they found the turkey blood before it began a-falling. We can go slowly, rest as soon as we come to another fair shelter. This morning might be the start of another thaw, even an early spring--only look at the tears of that spruce, how they fall in the sun! We'll find more food some-way, now that you're well. There must be towns between here and Roxbury, where we could work for a few meals, a few nights' rest."

"Why, sure, we'll make it.... What happened to your jacket?"

"My--oh, the wolf."

"But the wolf did not reach you, brother."

"I dragged her."

"And so got your jacket torn and muddy on the inside? But I found it wrapped around my legs yesterday when I woke with a clear head, and you slipped it away, but I knew. Last night when it turned a little colder you put it around me again, thinking I was asleep, and I was silent, wishing to speak but too stupid."

"No need. You'd have done the same. Don't speak of it now."

"Very well. But----"

"Thou owest me nothing. I've been forced to think of these things--so many hours, Ben, when I--nay, but how could there be any owing or standing beholden between thee and me?"

"I think I owe thee everything."

"No! Pray understand, Ben. It's not a thing to be measured--why, it's not a thing at all, but--oh, like a region one travels through, an area of light."

"Love, a region?"

"What else? Can you own it or give it or take it? It came to me, Ben, that we only dwell in it, as in the sun, or this morning air."

PART TWO

_Chapter One_

Ben Cory searched the bay, his eyes ardent for greater distances. Here at the wharf the ships relinquished wakefulness and power, becoming boxes of cargo for the calculations of landsmen: the harbor is not the sea.

"Watch, Ben--he'll take in sail presently." John Kenny was holding his dwarfish body erect to make the most of it, ancient head slanted so that he might look down his nose even at Boston Bay. He thrust his gold-headed cane against a crack in the wharf--his wharf, and smiled at the boy--his boy. "Luck of the Artemis, this breeze. When she nears the wharf Jenks will haul his tops'l to set her aback. You'll see her reach the piling a-tiptoe, a lady, all whisper and dignity. Didn't I say she'd be the lucky thing, when I took thee and Reuben up the Mystic to watch her a-building on the ways?"

"Yes, Uncle John." The mild westerly breeze fluttered Mr. Kenny's gray coat and the gray owl-tufts above his ears. It woke the dance of whitecaps under April sky, and seventeen is a kind of April. "She's a fair ship, sir."