the center of the room stood a big
walnut table, on the top of which rested a nest of wooden trays,
flanked, on one side, by a nicely folded tablecloth, and on the other by
a butcher knife and a Bible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a
set of shelves set into the logs, and on these shelves were the
blue-edged plates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs.
Ware had received long ago from her mother. The furniture in the
remainder of the house followed this pattern.

The heaviest labor of all was to extend the "clearing"; that is, to cut
down trees and get the ground ready for planting the crops next spring,
and in this Henry helped, for he was able to wield an ax blow for blow
with a grown man. When he did not have to work he went often to the
river, which was within sight of Wareville, and caught fish. Nobody
except the men, who were always armed, and who knew how to take care of
themselves, was allowed to go more than a mile from the palisade, but
Henry was trusted as far as the river; then the watchman in the lookout
on top of the highest blockhouse could see him or any who might come,
and there, too, he often lingered.

He did not hate his work, yet he could not say that he liked it, and,
although he did not know it, the love of the wild man's ways was
creeping into his blood. The influence of the great forests, of the vast
unknown spaces, was upon him. He could lie peacefully in the shade of a
tree for an hour at a time, dreaming of rivers and mountains farther on
in the depths of the wilderness. He felt a kinship with the wild things,
and once as he lay perfectly still with his eyes almost closed, a stag,
perhaps the brother to the one that he had killed, came and looked at
him out of great soft eyes. It did not seem odd at the time to Henry
that the stag should do so; he took it then as a friendly act, and lest
he should alarm this new comrade of the woods he did not stir or even
raise his eyelids. The stag gazed at him a few moments, and then,
tossing his great antlers, turned and walked off in a graceful and
dignified way through the woods. Henry wondered where the deer would go,
and if it would be far. He wished that he, too, could roam the
wilderness so lightly, wandering where he wished, having no cares and
beholding new scenes every day. That would be a life worth living.

The next morning his mother said to his father:

"John, the boy is growing wild."

"Yes," replied the father.