One might be tempted to say it was an exceptionally grand spring day in the year 1947, but spring days in northern Vermont are habitually grand. They are exceptional only for the urban visitor who ventures that far off the beaten path. It is more than just the fresh breeze bearing aloft the dank odor of the decomposing litter on the forest floor, more than just the crystalline sky drawing the souls of men and women, the young and the old, upward. It is also the breed of people who make this place their home, a folk whose steady slow pace of work is the natural result of their imperturbable temperament and the tranquil assurance with which they get things done. Watching these people patiently withdraw oozing sap from the maple trees and more patiently still let it simmer down into syrup and sugar can have a most calming effect on the harried city-dweller.
At any rate, the day we have in mind was just such a day. On it, a black 1933 Ford panel truck lumbered into Ciel des Montagnes from the direction of Montpelier, plastered with the mud and dust of a long trip. Its single license plate had been issued in the State of Pennsylvania. Although it hesitated several times while moving through the six or eight blocks that constitute the length of the town, it did not stop but continued on down the highway for about a mile, past the schoolhouse and out into the country. There it turned off onto a gravel side road that twisted northward up a small drainage and around some fields for another mile before disappearing into the woods and upper meadows. At the far edge of the woods, the truck stopped and turned in towards a small cabin tucked under the trees. Here, apparently, was its destination.
The unimposing man who got out of the truck and unlocked the cabin would have passed for around fifty years of age. He might well have been a migrant worker returning for another season’s labor. His hair was a thick metallic gray except for a few dark strands across the crown of his head, and the skin of his not unhandsome face was drawn together in deepening wrinkles over his small features. A partial stoop marked his bearing as he walked, and a chronic squint pinched at his eyes. It was obvious that he had worked hard in his life, but some of his appearance of fatigue could probably have been written off to the long trip he had just completed.
Later that same day, Farmer Collins drove into the yard. He had been expecting the lone man’s arrival and left some twenty minutes later with a fatter wallet and a broader smile.
The next morning, the visitor drove to town and came home with enough basic provisions for at least a month or two. For the first week he seemed quite content to stay in or near the cabin. He pulled a large wicker rocking chair out onto the veranda and spent long hours absently surveying the peaceful countryside from his comfortable vantage point and puffing on his old briar pipe. Now and then he puttered around a little in the wild yard under the trees, collecting dead logs and sawing them into usable chunks to be split for firewood. He seemed deep in thought most of the time, almost melancholy. There was also a mild agitation visible in whatever he was doing. He was definitely not a man at peace with himself.
By the second week he began to take two strolls each day, one in the morning and one in the evening. These gradually lengthened until they took on a definite pattern. Each morning he emerged from the cabin at around 6:00 a.m. and walked briskly up the road for a couple of miles to a point where it swung around the side of a low mountain and afforded a commanding view of the valley below. It was usually 7:30 before he took a last cold drink from the spring that spewed its contents out from the rocks above the road. Then he proceeded laterally on a path around the front of the mountain for another mile and a half until it intersected a trail which happily terminated in his own backyard after traversing stony meadows, leafy woods, and grassy glades.
The evening stroll usually began at about 4:30 and took him in a rectangle in the opposite direction. First he ambled down the road in front of his cabin to the main highway which consisted of a narrow, sparsely traveled strip of blacktop. Then he turned right and went past the schoolhouse into town. Usually he walked on through and headed out the other side, greeting anyone who greeted him. About a mile outside town, he crossed a gravel road that ran roughly parallel to the road running by his cabin. This he followed up the gentle incline of the mountain’s lower slope before cutting across about two miles of open countryside back to his cabin.
These two daily hikes were distinct from one another in more respects than time and place. The one in the morning was invariably more buoyant. The hiker seemed positively eager to embrace the freshening day, to breathe in deep draughts of the cool clear air. The evening hike, by contrast, was slower. The hiker seemed weighed down by heavy thoughts and unresolved sorrows. No matter how splendid the sunset or cheery the birds’ songs, he greeted them with a sigh. He seemed simply unable to get up and out of himself on his evening hike.
No doubt, many people’s days begin and end like that.
Once his routine was established, the solitary man lived one day much like the next for several weeks. Every morning was a new beginning for him. Every evening saw him fall back into the same discouraging rut.
Then one day his routine evening pattern was upset by an unexpected intrusion, never to fall back into its old rut again.