He watched the rising and the forming of the texture and the gray color of the cake. He loosened it from the pan with a fresh clean chip and flipped it and caught it, the beautiful browned side up, the other sizzling. He could feel its weight but see it growing in buoyancy in the skillet.
“Good morning,” his sister said. “Did I sleep awfully late?”
“No, devil.”
She stood up with her shirt hanging down over her brown legs.
“You’ve done everything.”
“No. I just started the cakes.”
“Doesn’t that one smell wonderful? I’ll go to the spring and wash and come and help.”
“Don’t wash in the spring.”
“I’m not white man,” she said. She was gone behind the lean-to.
“Where did you leave the soap?” she asked.
“It’s by the spring. There’s an empty lard bucket. Bring the butter, will you. It’s in the spring.”
“I’ll be right back.”
There was a half a pound of butter and she brought it wrapped in the oiled paper in the empty lard bucket.
They ate the buckwheat cakes with butter and Log Cabin syrup out of a tin Log Cabin can. The top of the chimney unscrewed and the syrup poured from the chimney. They were both very hungry and the cakes were delicious with the butter melting on them and running down into the cut places with the syrup. They ate the prunes out of the tin cups and drank the juice. Then they drank tea from the same cups.
“Prunes taste like a celebration,” Littless said. “Think of that. How did you sleep, Nickie?”
“Good.”
“Thank you for putting the Mackinaw on me. Wasn’t it a lovely night, though?”
“Yes. Did you sleep all night?”
“I’m still asleep. Nickie, can we stay here always?”
“I don’t think so. You’d grow up and have to get married.”
“I’m going to get married to you anyway. I want to be your common-law wife. I read about it in the paper.”
“That’s where you read about the Unwritten Law.”
“Sure. I’m going to be your common-law wife under the Unwritten Law. Can’t I, Nickie?”
“No.”
“I will. I’ll surprise you. All you have to do is live a certain time as man and wife. I’ll get them to count this time now. It’s just like homesteading.”
“I won’t let you file.”
“You can’t help yourself. That’s the Unwritten Law. I’ve thought it out lots of times. I’ll get cards printed Mrs. Nick Adams, Cross Village, Michigan—common-law wife. I’ll hand these out to a few people openly each year until the time’s up.”
“I don’t think it would work.”
“I’ve got another scheme. We’ll have a couple of children while I’m a minor. Then you have to marry me under the Unwritten Law.”
“That’s not the Unwritten Law.”
“I get mixed up on it.”
“Anyway, nobody knows yet if it works.”
“It must,” she said. “Mr. Thaw is counting on it.”
“Mr. Thaw might make a mistake.”
“Why Nickie, Mr. Thaw practically invented the Unwritten Law.”
“I thought it was his lawyer.”
“Well, Mr. Thaw put in the action anyway.”
“I don’t like Mr. Thaw,” Nick Adams said.
“That’s good. There’s things about him I don’t like either. But he certainly made the paper more interesting reading, didn’t he?”
“He gives the others something new to hate.”
“They hate Mr. Stanford White, too.”
“I think they’re jealous of both of them.”
“I believe that’s true, Nickie. Just like they’re jealous of us.”
“Think anybody is jealous of us now?”
“Not right now maybe. Our mother will think we’re fugitives from justice steeped in sin and iniquity. It’s a good thing she doesn’t know I got you that whiskey.”
“I tried it last night. It’s very good.”
“Oh, I’m glad. That’s the first whiskey I ever stole anywhere. Isn’t it wonderful that it’s good? I didn’t think anything about those people could be good.”
“I’ve got to think about them too much. Let’s not talk about them,” Nick said.
“All right. What are we going to do today?”
“What would you like to do?”
“I’d like to go to Mr. John’s store and get everything we need.”
“We can’t do that.”
“I know it. What do you plan to really do?”
“We ought to get some berries and I ought to get a partridge or some partridges. We’ve always got trout. But I don’t want you to get tired of trout.”
“Were you ever tired of trout?”
“No. But they say people get tired of them.”
“I wouldn’t get tired of them,” Littless said. “You get tired of pike right away. But you never get tired of trout nor of perch. I know, Nickie. True.”
“You don’t get tired of walleyed pike either,” Nick said. “Only of shovelnose. Boy, you sure get tired of them.”
“I don’t like the pitchfork bones,” his sister said. “It’s a fish that surfeits you.”
“We’ll clean up here and I’ll find a place to cache the shells and we’ll make a trip for berries and try to get some birds.”
“I’ll bring two lard pails and a couple of the sacks,” his sister said.
“Littless,” Nick said. “You remember about going to the bathroom, will you please?”
“Of course.”
“That’s important.”
“I know it. You remember, too.”
“I will.”
Nick went back into the timber and buried the carton of .22 long-rifles and the loose boxes of .22 shorts under the brown-needled floor at the base of a big hemlock. He put back the packed needles he had cut with his knife and made a small cut as far up as he could reach on the heavy bark of the tree. He took a bearing on the tree and then came out onto the hillside and walked down to the lean-to.
It was a lovely morning now. The sky was high and clear blue and no clouds had come yet. Nick was happy with his sister and he thought, no matter how this thing comes out we might as well have a good happy time. He had already learned there was only one day at a time and that it was always the day you were in. It would be today until it was tonight and tomorrow would be today again. This was the main thing he had learned so far.
Today was a good day and coming down to the camp with his rifle he was happy although their trouble was like a fishhook caught in his pocket that pricked him occasionally as he walked. They left the pack inside the lean-to. There were great odds against a bear bothering it in the daytime because any bear would be down below feeding on berries around the swamp. But Nick buried the bottle of whiskey up behind the spring. Littless was not back yet and Nick sat down on the log of the fallen tree they were using for firewood and checked his rifle.
They were going after partridges so he pulled out the tube of the magazine and poured the long-rifle cartridges into his hand and then put them into a chamois pouch and filled the magazine with .22 shorts. They made less noise and would not tear the meat up if he could not get head shots.
He was all ready now and wanted to start. Where’s that girl anyway, he thought. Then he thought, don’t get excited. You told her to take her time. Don’t get nervous. But he was nervous and it made him angry at himself.
“Here I am,” his sister said. “I’m sorry that I took so long. I went too far away, I guess.”
“You’re fine,” Nick said. “Let’s go. You have the pails?”
“Uh huh, and covers, too.”
They started down across the hill to the creek. Nick looked carefully up the stream and along the hillside. His sister watched him. She had the pails in one of the sacks and carried it slung over her shoulder by the other sack.
“Aren’t you taking a pole, Nickie?” she asked him.
“No. I’ll cut one if we fish.”
He moved ahead of his sister, holding the rifle in one hand, keeping a little way away from the stream. He was hunting now.
“It’s a strange creek,” his sister said.
“It’s the biggest small stream I’ve ever known,” Nick told her.
“It’s deep and scary for a little stream.”
“It keeps having new springs,” Nick said. “And it digs under the bank and it digs down. It’s awful cold water, Littless. Feel it.”
“Gee,” she said. It was numbing cold.
“The sun warms it a little,” Nick said. “But not much. We’ll hunt along easy. There’s a berry patch down below.”
They went along down the creek. Nick was studying the banks. He had seen a mink’s track and shown it to his sister and they had seen tiny rubycrowned kinglets that were hunting insects and let the boy and girl come close as they moved sharply and delicately in the cedars. They had seen cedar waxwings so calm and gentle and distinguished moving in their lovely elegance with the magic wax touches on their wing coverts and their tails, and Littless had said, “They’re the most beautiful, Nickie. There couldn’t be more simply beautiful birds.”
“They’re built like your face,” he said.
“No, Nickie. Don’t make fun. Cedar waxwings make me so proud and happy that I cry.”
“When they wheel and light and then move so proud and friendly and gently,” Nick said.
They had gone on and suddenly Nick had raised the rifle and shot before his sister could see what he was looking at. Then she heard the sound of a big bird tossing and beating its wings on the ground. She saw Nick pumping the gun and shoot twice more and each time she heard another pounding of wings in the willow brush.
Then there was the whirring noise of wings as large brown birds burst out of the willows and one bird
