He met the others, however, with a serene face, showing no trace of
the emotion which welled up strongly from his heart. Nell glanced
shyly at him; Kate playfully voiced her admiration; Jim met him with
a brotherly ridicule which bespoke his affection as well as his
amusement; but Colonel Zane, having once yielded to the same
burning, riotous craving for freedom which now stirred in the boy's
heart, understood, and felt warmly drawn toward the lad. He said
nothing, though as he watched Joe his eyes were grave and kind. In
his long frontier life, where many a day measured the life and fire
of ordinary years, he had seen lad after lad go down before this
forest fever. It was well, he thought, because the freedom of the
soil depended on these wild, light-footed boys; yet it always made
him sad. How many youths, his brother among them, lay under the
fragrant pine-needle carpet of the forest, in their last earthly
sleep!
The "raising" brought out all the settlement--the women to look on
and gossip, while the children played; the men to bend their backs
in the moving of the heavy timbers. They celebrated the erection of
a new cabin as a noteworthy event. As a social function it had a
prominent place in the settlers' short list of pleasures.
Joe watched the proceeding with the same pleasure and surprise he
had felt in everything pertaining to border life.
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