“And after the settlers come the road will follow?” said Hugh.
“I have thought many times of how it will be,” answered Oscar, leaning forward to point. “The road will come winding down that hillside, white and smooth and dusty with much travel. There by that group of pines will be Linda’s house, with a space for children to play in the meadow below. Nels Larson’s place will be there just north of it by that knoll, and Ole Peterson’s across the stream. And by the bend of the river there will be a little town with a school and white houses with gardens and a church with a square spire, just as it used to be in Sweden. I have pictured it a hundred times as I sit here by the door. I know every house and field and meadow, just how it will all be. Sometimes I think I can almost hear the church bells ring already or the children calling to each other as they go across the fields to school.”
“It looks homelike, somehow, even without any houses in it,” observed Hugh after a long survey of the quiet landscape. “Oh, Oscar, how like home it looked the day that I was lost and came over that hill at last!”
He hesitated a moment, for very little had been said of his adventure in the wood. He had not even let himself think of it often and, half defiant, half ashamed, had avoided the subject, but now let his spoken remorse come with a rush.
“I am so sorry that I did not do just as you told me. You looked for me for hours, I know, and I have never owned that it was all my fault. And I lost your rifle, too; I feel so dreadfully about that. I thought that I could save time and that you were too careful.”
He sat thinking for a second, then added in a sudden burst of illumination:
“Perhaps that was why my father wouldn’t let me go to France, because he knew I hadn’t sense enough to obey orders. I understand now what he meant by my not having enough judgment. Oh, Oscar, I am so ashamed!”
“It iss all right.” The Swedish accent in Oscar’s voice sounded very distinctly as it was apt to do when he was moved. “It was my fault as much as yours; I should have warned you that you would be tempted to do just such a thing. When I waited for you and you did not come—well, I am not so often frightened, but I was afraid then. It is no little thing to be lost in these woods. I wish—I wish—”