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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Busy Year at the Old Squire's, by Charles
+Asbury Stephens
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Busy Year at the Old Squire's
+
+
+Author: Charles Asbury Stephens
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 29, 2006  [eBook #19968]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUSY YEAR AT THE OLD SQUIRE'S***
+
+
+E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
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+
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+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+
+
+
+
+
+A BUSY YEAR AT THE OLD SQUIRE'S
+
+by
+
+C. A. STEPHENS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Published by
+The Old Squire's Bookstore
+Norway, Maine
+Copyright, 1922
+By C. A. Stephens
+All rights reserved
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by
+The Colonial Press
+Clinton, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED WITH CORDIAL BEST WISHES TO THE THOUSANDS OF READERS WHO HAVE
+REQUESTED THIS Memorial Edition OF THE C. A. STEPHENS BOOKS
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER
+
+        I. Master Pierson Comes Back
+
+       II. Cutting Ice at 14 Degrees Below Zero
+
+      III. A Bear's "Pipe" in Winter
+
+       IV. White Monkey Week
+
+        V. When Old Zack Went to School
+
+       VI. The Sad Abuse of Old Mehitable
+
+      VII. Bear-Tone
+
+     VIII. When We Hunted the Striped Catamount
+
+       IX. The Lost Oxen
+
+        X. Bethesda
+
+       XI. When We Walked the Town Lines
+
+      XII. The Rose-Quartz Spring
+
+     XIII. Fox Pills
+
+      XIV. The Unpardonable Sin
+
+       XV. The Cantaloupe Coaxer
+
+      XVI. The Strange Disappearance of Grandpa Edwards
+
+     XVII. Our Fourth of July at the Den
+
+    XVIII. Jim Doane's Bank Book
+
+      XIX. Grandmother Ruth's Last Load of Hay
+
+       XX. When Uncle Hannibal Spoke at the Chapel
+
+      XXI. That Mysterious Daguerreotype Saloon
+
+     XXII. "Rainbow in the Morning"
+
+     XIII. When I Went After the Eyestone
+
+     XXIV. Borrowed for a Bee Hunt
+
+      XXV. When the Lion Roared
+
+     XXVI. Uncle Solon Chase Comes Along
+
+     XVII. On the Dark of the Moon
+
+   XXVIII. Halstead's Gobbler
+
+     XXIX. Mitchella Jars
+
+      XXX. When Bears Were Denning Up
+
+     XXXI. Czar Brench
+
+     XXII. When Old Peg Led the Flock
+
+   XXXIII. Witches' Brooms
+
+    XXXIV. The Little Image Peddlers
+
+     XXXV. A January Thaw
+
+    XXXVI. Uncle Billy Murch's Hair-Raiser
+
+   XXXVII. Addison's Pocketful of Auger Chips
+
+
+
+
+A Busy Year at the Old Squire's
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MASTER PIERSON COMES BACK
+
+
+Master Joel Pierson arrived the following Sunday afternoon, as he had
+promised in his letter of Thanksgiving Day eve, and took up his abode
+with us at the old Squire's for the winter term of school.
+
+Cousin Addison drove to the village with horse and pung to fetch him;
+and the pung, I remember, was filled with the master's belongings,
+including his school melodeon, books and seven large wall maps for
+teaching geography. For Master Pierson brought a complete outfit, even
+to the stack of school song-books which later were piled on the top of
+the melodeon that stood in front of the teacher's desk at the
+schoolhouse. Every space between the windows was covered by those wall
+maps. No other teacher had ever made the old schoolhouse so attractive.
+No other teacher had ever entered on the task of giving us instruction
+with such zeal and such enthusiasm. It was a zeal, too, and an
+enthusiasm which embraced every pupil in the room and stopped at nothing
+short of enlisting that pupil's best efforts to learn.
+
+Master Pierson put life and hard work into everything that went on at
+school--even into the old schoolhouse itself. Every morning he would be
+off from the old Squire's at eight o'clock, to see that the schoolhouse
+was well warmed and ready to begin lessons at nine; and if there had
+been any neglect in sweeping or dusting, he would do it himself, and
+have every desk and bench clean and tidy before school time.
+
+What was more, Master Pierson possessed the rare faculty of
+communicating his own zeal for learning to his pupils. We became so
+interested, as weeks passed, that of our own accord we brought our
+school books home with us at night, in order to study evenings; and we
+asked for longer lessons that we might progress faster.
+
+My cousin Halstead was one of those boys (and their name is Legion) who
+dislike study and complain of their lessons that they are too long and
+too hard. But strange to say, Master Joel Pierson somehow led Halse to
+really like geography that winter. Those large wall maps in color were
+of great assistance to us all. In class we took turns going to them with
+a long pointer, to recite the lesson of the day. I remember just how the
+different countries looked and how they were bounded--though many of
+these boundaries are now, of course, considerably changed.
+
+When lessons dragged and dullness settled on the room, Master Joel was
+wont to cry, "Halt!" then sit down at the melodeon and play some school
+song as lively as the instrument admitted of, and set us all singing for
+five or ten minutes, chanting the multiplication tables, the names of
+the states, the largest cities of the country, or even the Books of the
+Bible. At other times he would throw open the windows and set us
+shouting Patrick Henry's speech, or Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean. In
+short, "old Joel" was what now would be called a "live wire." He was
+twenty-two then and a student working his own way through Bates College.
+After graduating he migrated to a far western state where he taught for
+a year or two, became supervisor of schools, then State Superintendent,
+and afterwards a Representative to Congress. He is an aged man now and
+no word of mine can add much to the honors which have worthily crowned
+his life. None the less I want to pay this tribute to him--even if he
+did rub my ears at times and cry, "Wake up, Round-head! Wake up and find
+out what you are in this world for." (More rubs!) "You don't seem to
+know yet. Wake up and find out about it. We have all come into the world
+to do something. Wake up and find out what you are here for!"--and then
+more rubs!
+
+It wasn't his fault if I never fairly waked up to my vocation--if I
+really had one. For the life of me I could never feel sure what I was
+for! Cousin Addison seemed to know just what he was going to do, from
+earliest boyhood, and went straight to it. Much the same way, cousin
+Theodora's warm, generous heart led her directly to that labor of love
+which she has so faithfully performed. As for Halstead, he was perfectly
+sure, cock-sure, more than twenty times, what he was going to do in
+life; but always in the course of a few weeks or months, he discovered
+he was on the wrong trail. What can be said of us who either have no
+vocation at all, or too many? What are we here for?
+
+In addition to our daily studies at the schoolhouse, we resumed Latin,
+in the old sitting-room, evenings, Thomas and Catherine Edwards coming
+over across the field to join us. To save her carpet, grandmother Ruth
+put down burlap to bear the brunt of our many restless feet--for there
+was a great deal of trampling and sometimes outbreaks of scuffling
+there.
+
+Thomas and I, who had forgotten much we had learned the previous winter,
+were still delving in _AEsop's Fables_. But Addison, Theodora and
+Catherine were going on with the first book of Caesar's _Gallic War_.
+Ellen, two years younger, was still occupied wholly by her English
+studies. Study hours were from seven till ten, with interludes for
+apples and pop-corn.
+
+Halstead, who had now definitely abandoned Latin as something which
+would never do him any good, took up Comstock's _Natural Philosophy_, or
+made a feint of doing so, in order to have something of his own that was
+different from the rest of us. Natural philosophy, he declared, was far
+and away more important than Latin.
+
+Memory goes back very fondly to those evenings in the old sitting-room,
+they were so illumined by great hopes ahead. Thomas and I, at a
+light-stand apart from the others, were usually puzzling out a
+Fable--_The Lion, The Oxen, The Kid and the Wolf, The Fox and the Lion_,
+or some one of a dozen others--holding noisy arguments over it till
+Master Pierson from the large center table, called out, "Less noise over
+there among those Latin infants! Caesar is building his bridge over the
+Rhine. You are disturbing him."
+
+Addison, always very quiet when engrossed in study, scarcely noticed or
+looked up, unless perhaps to aid Catherine and Theodora for a moment,
+with some hard passage. It was Tom and I who made Latin noisy,
+aggravated at times by pranks from Halstead, whose studies in natural
+philosophy were by no means diligent. At intervals of assisting us with
+our translations of Caesar and the Fables, Master Pierson himself was
+translating the Greek of Demosthenes' Orations, and also reviewing his
+Livy--to keep up with his Class at College. But, night or day, he was
+always ready to help or advise us, and push us on. "Go ahead!" was "old
+Joel's" motto, and "That's what we're here for." He appeared to be
+possessed by a profound conviction that the human race has a great
+destiny before it, and that we ought all to work hard to hurry it up and
+realize it.
+
+It is quite wonderful what an influence for good a wide-awake teacher,
+like Master Pierson, can exert in a school of forty or fifty boys and
+girls like ours in the old Squire's district, particularly where many of
+them "don't know what they are in the world for," and have difficulty in
+deciding on a vocation in life.
+
+At that time there was much being said about a Universal Language. As
+there are fifty or more diverse languages, spoken by mankind, to say
+nothing of hundreds of different dialects, and as people now travel
+freely to all parts of the earth, the advantages of one common language
+for all nations are apparent to all who reflect on the subject. At
+present, months and years of our short lives are spent learning foreign
+languages. A complete education demands that the American whose mother
+tongue is the English, must learn French, German, Spanish and Italian,
+to say nothing of the more difficult languages of eastern Europe and the
+Orient. Otherwise the traveler, without an interpreter, cannot make
+himself understood, and do business outside his own country.
+
+The want of a common means of communication therefore has long been
+recognized; and about that time some one had invented a somewhat
+imperfect method of universal speech, with the idea of having everybody
+learn it, and so be able to converse with the inhabitants of all lands
+without the well-nigh impossible task of learning five, or ten, or fifty
+different languages.
+
+The idea impressed everybody as a good one, and enjoyed a considerable
+popularity for a time. But practically this was soon found to be a
+clumsy and inadequate form of speech, also that many other drawbacks
+attended its adoption.
+
+But the main idea held good; and since that time Volapuk, Bolak,
+Esperanto and Ido have appeared, but without meeting with great success.
+The same disadvantages attend them, each and all.
+
+In thinking the matter over and talking of it, one night at the old
+Squire's, that winter, Master Pierson hit on the best, most practical
+plan for a universal language which I have ever heard put forward.
+"Latin is the foundation of all the modern languages of Christendom," he
+said. "Or if not the foundation, it enters largely into all of them.
+Law, theology, medicine and philosophy are dependent on Latin for their
+descriptive terms. Without Latin words, modern science would be a jargon
+which couldn't be taught at all. Without Latin, the English language,
+itself, would relapse to the crude, primitive Saxon speech of our
+ancestors. No one can claim to be well educated till he has studied
+Latin.
+
+"Now as we have need to learn Latin anyway, why not kill two birds with
+one stone, and make Latin our universal language? Why not have a
+colloquial, every-day Latin, such as the Romans used to speak in Italy?
+In point of fact, Latin was the universal language with travelers and
+educated people all through the Middle Ages. We need to learn it anyhow,
+so why not make it our needed form of common speech?"
+
+I remember just how earnest old Joel became as he set forth this new idea
+of his. He jumped up and tore round the old sitting-room. He rubbed my
+ears again, rumpled Tom's hair, caught Catherine by both her hands and
+went ring-round-the-rosy with her, nearly knocking down the table, lamp
+and all! "The greatest idea yet!" he shouted. "Just what's wanted for a
+Universal Language!" He went and drew in the old Squire to hear about
+it; and the old Squire admitted that it sounded reasonable. "For I can
+see," he said, "that it would keep Latin, and the derivation of words
+from it, fresh in our minds. It would prove a constant review of the
+words from which our language has been formed.
+
+"But Latin always looked to me rather heavy and perhaps too clumsy for
+every-day talk," the old gentleman remarked. "Think you could talk it?"
+
+"Sure!" Master Pierson cried. "The old Romans spoke it. So can we. And
+that's just what I will do. I will get up a book of conversational
+Latin--enough to make a Common Language for every-day use." And in point
+of fact that was what old Joel was doing, for four or five weeks
+afterwards. He had Theodora and Catherine copy out page after page of
+it--as many as twenty pages. He wanted us each to have a copy of it; and
+for a time at least, he intended to have it printed.
+
+A few days ago I came upon some of those faded, yellow pages, folded up
+in an old text book of AEsop's Latin Fables--the one Tom and I were then
+using; and I will set down a few of the sentences here, to illustrate
+what Master Pierson thought might be done with Latin as a universal
+language.
+
+     Master Pierson's Universal Language in Latin, which he named _Dic_
+     from _dico_, meaning to speak.
+
+    1 It is time to get up.            = Surgendi tempus est.
+    2 The sun is up already.           = Sol jamdudum ortus.
+    3 Put on your shoes.               = Indue tibi ocreas.
+    4 Comb your head.                  = Pecte caput tuum.
+    5 Light a candle and build a fire. = Accende lucernum, et fac ut
+                                         luceat faculus.
+    6 Carry the lantern. We must water = Vulcanum in cornu geras.
+      the horses.                        Equi aquatum agenda sunt.
+    7 It is a very hot day.            = Dies est ingens aestus.
+    8 Let's go to the barn.            = Jam imus horreum.
+    9 Grind the axes.                  = Acuste ascias.
+    10 It is near twelve o'clock.      = Instat hora duodecima.
+    11 It is time for dinner.          = Prandenti tempus adest.
+    12 Please take dinner with us.     = Quesso nobiscum hodie sumas
+                                         prandiolum.
+    13 Make a good fire.               = Instruas optimum focum.
+    14 This chimney smokes.            = Male fumat hic caminus.
+    15 The wood is green.              = Viride est hoc lignum.
+    16 Fetch kindling wood.            = Affer fomitem.
+    17 Lay the table cloth.            = Sterne mappam.
+    18 Dinner is ready.                = Cibus est appositus.
+    19 Don't spoil it by delay.        = Ne corrumpatur mora vestra.
+    20 Sit down.                       = Accumbe.
+    21 This is my place.               = Hic mihi locus.
+    22 Let him sit next me.            = Assideat mihi.
+    23 Say grace, or ask a blessing.   = Recita consecrationem.
+    24 Give me brown bread.            = Da mihi panem atrum.
+    25 I am going to school.           = Eo ad scholam.
+    26 What time is it?                = Quota est hora?
+    27 It is past seven.               = Praeteriit hora septima.
+    28 The bell has rung.              = Sonuit tintinnabulum.
+    29 Go with me.                     = Vade mecum.
+    30 The master will soon be here.   = Brevi praeceptor aderit.
+    31 I am very cold.                 = Valde frigeo.
+    32 My hands are numb.              = Obtorpent manus.
+    33 Mend the fire.                  = Apta ignem.
+
+I have copied out only a few of the shorter sentences. There were, as I
+have said, fully twenty pages of it, enough for quite a respectable
+"Universal Language," or at least the beginnings of one. Perhaps some
+ambitious linguist will yet take it up in earnest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CUTTING ICE AT 14 DEGREES BELOW ZERO
+
+
+Generally speaking, young folks are glad when school is done. But it
+wasn't so with us that winter in the old Squire's district, when Master
+Pierson was teacher. We were really sad, in fact quite melancholy, and
+some of the girls shed tears, when the last day of school came and "old
+Joel" tied up the melodeon, took down the wall maps, packed up his books
+and went back to his Class in College. He was sad himself--he had taken
+such interest in our progress.
+
+"Now don't forget what you have learned!" he exclaimed. "Hang on to it.
+Knowledge is your best friend. You must go on with your Latin,
+evenings."
+
+"You will surely come back next winter!" we shouted after him as he
+drove away.
+
+"Maybe," he said, and would not trust himself to look back.
+
+The old sitting-room seemed wholly deserted that Friday night after he
+went away. "We are like sheep without a shepherd," Theodora said.
+Catherine and Tom came over. We opened our Latin books and tried to
+study awhile; but 'twas dreary without "old Joel."
+
+Other things, however, other duties and other work at the farm
+immediately occupied our attention. It was now mid-January and there was
+ice to be cut on the lake for our new creamery.
+
+For three years the old Squire had been breeding a herd of Jerseys.
+There were sixteen of them: Jersey First, Canary, Jersey Second, Little
+Queen, Beauty, Buttercup, and all the rest. Each one had her own little
+book that hung from its nail on a beam of the tie-up behind her stall.
+In it were recorded her pedigree, dates, and the number of pounds of
+milk she gave at each milking. The scales for weighing the milk hung
+from the same beam. We weighed each milking, and jotted down the weight
+with the pencil tied to each little book. All this was to show which of
+the herd was most profitable, and which calves had better be kept for
+increase.
+
+This was a new departure in Maine farming. Cream-separators were as yet
+undreamed of. A water-creamery with long cans and ice was then used for
+raising the cream; and that meant an ice-house and the cutting and
+hauling home of a year's stock of ice from the lake, nearly two miles
+distant.
+
+We built a new ice-house near the east barn in November; and in December
+the old Squire drove to Portland and brought home a complete kit of
+tools--three ice-saws, an ice-plow or groover, ice-tongs, hooks,
+chisels, tackle and block.
+
+Everything had to be bought new, but the old Squire had visions of great
+profits ahead from his growing herd of Jerseys. Grandmother, however,
+was less sanguine.
+
+It was unusually cold in December that year, frequently ten degrees
+below zero, and there were many high winds. Consequently, the ice on the
+lake thickened early to twelve inches, and bade fair to go to two feet.
+For use in a water-creamery, ice is most conveniently cut and handled
+when not more than fifteen or sixteen inches thick. That thickness, too,
+when the cakes are cut twenty-six inches square, as usual, makes them
+quite heavy enough for hoisting and packing in an ice-house.
+
+Half a mile from the head of the lake, over deep, clear water, we had
+been scraping and sweeping a large surface after every snow, in order to
+have clear ice. Two or three times a week Addison ran down and tested
+the thickness; and when it reached fifteen inches, we bestirred
+ourselves at our new work.
+
+None of us knew much about cutting ice; but we laid off a straight
+base-line of a hundred feet, hitched old Sol to the new groover, and
+marked off five hundred cakes. Addison and I then set to work with two
+of our new ice-saws, and hauled out the cakes with the ice-tongs, while
+Halstead and the old Squire loaded them on the long horse-sled,--sixteen
+cakes to the load,--drew the ice home, and packed it away in the new
+ice-house.
+
+Although at first the sawing seemed easy, we soon found it tiresome, and
+learned that two hundred cakes a day meant a hard day's work,
+particularly after the saws lost their keen edge--for even ice will dull
+a saw in a day or two. We had also to be pretty careful, for it was over
+deep black water, and a cake when nearly sawed across is likely to break
+off suddenly underfoot.
+
+Hauling out the cakes with tongs, too, is somewhat hazardous on a
+slippery ice margin. We beveled off a kind of inclined "slip" at one end
+of the open water, and cut heel holes in the ice beside it, so that we
+might stand more securely as we pulled the cakes out of the water.
+
+For those first few days we had bright, calm weather, not very cold; we
+got out five hundred cakes and drew them home to the ice-house without
+accident.
+
+The hardship came the next week, when several of our neighbors--who
+always kept an eye on the old Squire's farming, and liked to follow his
+lead--were beset by an ambition to start ice-houses. None of them had
+either experience or tools. They wanted us to cut the ice for them.
+
+We thought that was asking rather too much. Thereupon fourteen or
+fifteen of them offered us two cents a cake to cut a year's supply for
+each of them.
+
+Now no one will ever get very rich cutting ice, sixteen inches thick, at
+two cents a cake. But Addison and I thought it over, and asked the old
+Squire's opinion. He said that we might take the new kit, and have all
+we could make.
+
+On that, we notified them all to come and begin drawing home their cakes
+the following Monday morning, for the ice was growing thicker all the
+while; and the thicker it got, the harder our work would be.
+
+They wanted about four thousand cakes; and as we would need help, we
+took in Thomas Edwards and Willis Murch as partners. Both were good
+workers, and we anticipated having a rather fine time at the lake.
+
+In the woods on the west shore, nearly opposite where the ice was to be
+cut, there was an old "shook" camp, where we kept our food and slept at
+night, in order to avoid the long walk home to meals.
+
+On Sunday it snowed, and cleared off cold and windy again. It was eight
+degrees below zero on Monday morning, when we took our outfit and went
+to work. Everything was frozen hard as a rock. The wind, sweeping down
+the lake, drove the fine, loose snow before it like smoke from a forest
+fire. There was no shelter. We had to stand out and saw ice in the
+bitter wind, which seemed to pierce to the very marrow of our bones. It
+was impossible to keep a fire; and it always seems colder when you are
+standing on ice.
+
+It makes me shiver now to think of that week, for it grew colder instead
+of warmer. A veritable "cold snap" set in, and never for an hour, night
+or day, did that bitter wind let up.
+
+We would have quit work and waited for calmer weather,--the old Squire
+advised us to do so,--but the ice was getting thicker every day. Every
+inch added to the thickness made the work of sawing harder--at two cents
+a cake. So we stuck to it, and worked away in that cruel wind.
+
+On Thursday it got so cold that if we stopped the saws even for two
+seconds, they froze in hard and fast, and had to be cut out with an ax;
+thus two cakes would be spoiled. It was not easy to keep the saws going
+fast enough not to catch and freeze in; and the cakes had to be hauled
+out the moment they were sawed, or they would freeze on again. Moreover,
+the patch of open water that we uncovered froze over in a few minutes,
+and had to be cleared a dozen times a day. During those nights it froze
+five inches thick, and filled with snowdrift, all of which had to be
+cleared out every morning.
+
+Although we had our caps pulled down over our ears and heavy mittens on,
+and wore all the clothes we could possibly work in, it yet seemed at
+times that freeze we must--especially toward night, when we grew tired
+from the hard work of sawing so long and so fast. We became so chilled
+that we could hardly speak; and at sunset, when we stopped work, we
+could hardly get across to the camp. The farmers, who were coming twice
+a day with their teams for ice, complained constantly of the cold;
+several of them stopped drawing altogether for the time. Willis also
+stopped work on Thursday at noon.
+
+The people at home knew that we were having a hard time. Grandmother and
+the girls did all they could for us; and every day at noon and again at
+night the old Squire, bundled up in his buffalo-skin coat, drove down to
+the lake with horse and pung, and brought us a warm meal, packed in a
+large box with half a dozen hot bricks.
+
+Only one who has been chilled through all day can imagine how glad we
+were to reach that warm camp at night. Indeed, except for the camp, we
+could never have worked there as we did. It was a log camp, or rather
+two camps, placed end to end, and you went through the first in order to
+get into the second, which had no outside door. The second camp had been
+built especially for cold weather. It was low, and the chinks between
+the logs were tamped with moss. At this time, too, snow lay on it, and
+had banked up against the walls. Inside the camp, across one end, there
+was a long bunk; at the opposite end stood an old cooking-stove, that
+seemed much too large for so small a camp.
+
+At dusk we dropped work, made for the camp, shut all the doors, built
+the hottest fire we could make, and thawed ourselves out. It seemed as
+though we could never get warmed through. For an hour or more we hovered
+about the stove. The camp was as hot as an oven; I have no doubt that we
+kept the temperature at 110 deg.; and yet we were not warm.
+
+"Put in more wood!" Addison or Thomas would exclaim. "Cram that stove
+full again! Let's get warm!"
+
+We thought so little of ventilation that we shut the camp door tight and
+stopped every aperture that we could find. We needed heat to counteract
+the effect of those long hours of cold and wind.
+
+By the time we had eaten our supper and thawed out, we grew sleepy, and
+under all our bedclothing, curled up in the bunk. So fearful were we
+lest the fire should go out in the night that we gathered a huge heap of
+fuel, and we all agreed to get up and stuff the stove whenever we waked
+and found the fire abating.
+
+Among the neighbors for whom we were cutting ice was Rufus Sylvester. He
+was not a very careful or prosperous farmer, and not likely to be
+successful at dairying. But because the old Squire and others were
+embarking in that business, Rufus wished to do so, too. He had no
+ice-house, but thought he could keep ice buried in sawdust, in the shade
+of a large apple-tree near his barn; and I may add here that he tried it
+with indifferent success for three years, and that it killed the
+apple-tree.
+
+On Saturday of that cold week he came to the lake with his lame old
+horse and a rickety sled, and wanted us to cut a hundred cakes of ice
+for him. The prospect of our getting our pay was poor. Saturday,
+moreover, was the coldest, windiest day of the whole week; the
+temperature was down to fourteen degrees below.
+
+Halse and Thomas said no; but he hung round, and teased us, while his
+half-starved old horse shivered in the wind; and we finally decided to
+oblige him, if he would take the tongs and haul out the cakes himself,
+as we sawed them. It would not do to stop the saws that day, even for a
+moment.
+
+Rufus had on an old blue army overcoat, the cape of which was turned up
+over his head and ears, and a red woolen "comforter" round his neck. He
+wore long-legged, stiff cowhide boots, with his trousers tucked into the
+tops.
+
+Addison, Thomas and I were sawing, with our backs turned to Rufus and to
+the wind, and Rufus was trying to haul out a cake of ice, when we heard
+a clatter and a muffled shout. Rufus had slipped in! We looked round
+just in time to see him go down into that black, icy water.
+
+Addison let go the saw and sprang for one of the ice-hooks. I did the
+same. The hook I grabbed was frozen down; but Addison got his free, and
+stuck it into Rufus's blue overcoat. It tore out, and down Rufus went
+again, head and ears under. His head, in fact, slid beneath the edge of
+the ice, but his back popped up.
+
+Addison struck again with the hook--struck harder. He hooked it through
+all Rufus's clothes, and took a piece of his skin. It held that time,
+and we hauled him out.
+
+He lay quite inert on the ice, choking and coughing.
+
+"Get up! Get up!" we shouted to him. "Get up and run, or you'll freeze!"
+
+He tried to rise, but failed to regain his feet, and collapsed.
+Thereupon Addison and Thomas laid hold of him, and lifted him to his
+feet by main strength.
+
+"Now run!" they cried. "Run before your clothes freeze stiff!" The man
+seemed lethargic--I suppose from the deadly chill. He made an effort to
+move his feet, as they bade him, but fell flat again; and by that time
+his clothes were stiffening.
+
+"He will freeze to death!" Addison cried. "We must put him on his sled
+and get him home!"
+
+Thereupon we picked him up like a log of wood, and laid him on his
+horse-sled.
+
+"But he will freeze before we can get this old lame horse home with
+him!" exclaimed Thomas. "Better take him to our camp over there."
+
+Addison thought so, too, and seizing the reins and whip, started for the
+shore. The old horse was so chilled that we could hardly get him to
+hobble; but we did not spare the whip.
+
+From the shore we had still fifteen or twenty rods to go, in order to
+reach the camp back in the woods. Rufus's clothes were frozen as stiff
+as boards; apparently he could not move. We feared that the man would
+die on our hands.
+
+We snatched off one of the side boards of his sled, laid him on it, and,
+taking it up like a stretcher, started to carry him up through the woods
+to the camp.
+
+By that time his long overcoat and all the rest of his clothes were
+frozen so stiff and hard that he rolled round more like a log than a
+human body.
+
+The path was rough and snowy. In our haste we stumbled, and dropped him
+several times, but we rolled him on the board again, rushed on, and at
+last got him inside the camp. Our morning fire had gone out. Halse
+kindled it again, while Addison, Thomas and I tried to get off the
+frozen overcoat and long cowhide boots.
+
+The coat was simply a sheet of ice; we could do nothing with it. At last
+we took our knives and cut it down the back, and after cutting open both
+sleeves, managed to peel it off. We had to cut open his boots in the
+same way. His under-coat and all his clothes were frozen. There appeared
+to be little warmth left in him; he was speechless.
+
+But just then we heard some one coming in through the outside camp. It
+was the old Squire.
+
+Our farmhouse, on the higher ground to the northwest, afforded a view of
+the lake; and the old gentleman had been keeping an eye on what went on
+down there, for he was quite far-sighted. He saw Sylvester arrive with
+his team, and a few minutes later saw us start for the shore, lashing
+the horse. He knew that something had gone wrong, and hitching up old
+Sol, he had driven down in haste.
+
+"Hot water, quick!" he said. "Make some hot coffee!" And seizing a
+towel, he gave Sylvester such a rubbing as it is safe to say he had
+never undergone before.
+
+Gradually signs of life and color appeared. The man began to speak,
+although rather thickly.
+
+By this time the little camp was like an oven; but the old Squire kept
+up the friction. We gave Rufus two or three cups of hot coffee, and in
+the course of an hour he was quite himself again.
+
+We kept him at the camp until the afternoon, however, and then started
+him home, wrapped in a horse-blanket instead of his army overcoat. He
+was none the worse for his misadventure, although he declared we tore
+off two inches of his skin!
+
+On Sunday the weather began to moderate, and the last four days of our
+ice-cutting were much more comfortable. It had been a severe ordeal,
+however; the eighty-one dollars that we collected for it were but scanty
+recompense for the misery we had endured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A BEAR'S "PIPE" IN WINTER
+
+
+After ice-cutting came wood-cutting. It was now the latter part of
+January with weather still unusually cold. There were about three feet
+of snow on the ground, crusted over from a thaw which had occurred
+during the first of the month. In those days we burned from forty to
+fifty cords of wood in a year.
+
+There was a wood-lot of a hundred acres along the brook on the east side
+of the farm, and other forest lots to the north of it. Only the best
+old-growth maple, birch and beech were cut for fuel--great trees two and
+three feet in diameter.
+
+The trunks were cut into eight-foot lengths, rolled on the ox-sleds with
+levers, and then hauled home to the yard in front of the wood-house,
+where they lay in four huge piles till March, when all hands turned to,
+with axes and saws, and worked it up.
+
+It was zero weather that week, but bright and clear, with spicules of
+frost glistening on every twig; and I recollect how sharply the tree
+trunks snapped--those frost snaps which make "shaky" lumber in Maine.
+
+Addison, Halstead and I, with one of the old Squire's hired men, Asa
+Doane, went to the wood-lot at eight o'clock that morning and chopped
+smartly till near eleven. Indeed, we were obliged to work fast to keep
+warm.
+
+Addison and I then stuck our axes in a log and went on the snow crust up
+to the foot of a mountain, about half a mile distant, where the hardwood
+growth gave place to spruce. We wanted to dig a pocketful of spruce gum.
+For several days Ellen and Theodora had been asking us to get them some
+nice "purple" gum.
+
+As we were going from one spruce to another, Addison stopped suddenly
+and pointed to a little round hole with hard ice about it, near a large,
+overhanging rock across which a tree had fallen. "Sh!" he exclaimed. "I
+believe that's a bear's breath-hole!"
+
+We reconnoitered the place at a safe distance. "That may be Old Three
+Paws himself," Addison said. "If it is, we must put an end to him." For
+"Old Three Paws" was a bear that had given trouble in the sheep pastures
+for years.
+
+After a good look all round, we went home to dinner, and at table talked
+it over. The old Squire was a little incredulous, but admitted that
+there might be a bear there. "I will tell you how you can find out," he
+said. "Take a small looking-glass with you and hold it to the hole. If
+there is a bear down there, you will see just a little film of moisture
+on the glass from his breath."
+
+We loaded two guns with buckshot. Our plan was to wake the bear up, and
+shoot him when he broke out through the snow. Bears killed a good many
+sheep at that time; the farmers did not regard them as desirable
+neighbors.
+
+The ruse which Addison hit on for waking the bear was to blow black
+pepper down the hole through a hollow sunflower stalk. He had an idea
+that this would set the bear sneezing. In view of what happened, I laugh
+now when I remember our plans for waking that bear.
+
+Directly after dinner we set off for the wood-lot with our guns and
+pepper. Cold as it was, Ellen and Theodora went with us, intending to
+stand at a very safe distance. Even grandmother Ruth would have gone, if
+it had not been quite so cold and snowy. Although minus one foot, Old
+Three Paws was known to be a savage bear, that had had more than one
+encounter with mankind.
+
+While the rest stood back, Addison approached on tiptoe with the
+looking-glass, and held it to the hole for some moments. Then he
+examined it and looked back at us, nodding. There was moisture on it.
+
+The girls climbed upon a large rock among the spruces. The old Squire,
+with one of the guns, took up a position beside a tree about fifty feet
+from the "hole." He posted Asa, who was a pretty good shot, beside
+another tree not far away. Halstead and I had to content ourselves with
+axes for weapons, and kept pretty well to the rear.
+
+Addison was now getting his pepper ready. Expectancy ran high when at
+last he blew it down the hole and rushed back. We had little doubt that
+an angry bear would break out, sneezing and growling.
+
+But nothing of the sort occurred. Some minutes passed. Addison could not
+even hear the faintest sneeze from below. He tiptoed up and blew in more
+pepper.
+
+No response.
+
+Cutting a pole, Addison then belabored the snow crust about the hole
+with resounding whacks--still with no result.
+
+After this we approached less cautiously. Asa broke up the snow about
+the hole and cleared it away, uncovering a considerable cavity which
+extended back under the partially raised root of the fallen tree.
+Halstead brought a shovel from the wood-piles; and Addison and Asa cut
+away the roots of the old tree, and cleared out the frozen turf and
+leaves to a depth of four or five feet, gradually working down where
+they could look back beneath the root. We had begun to doubt whether we
+would find anything there larger than a woodchuck.
+
+At last Addison got down on hands and knees, crept in under the root,
+and lighted several matches.
+
+"There's something back in there," he said. "Looks black, but I cannot
+see that it moves."
+
+Asa crawled in and struck a match or two, then backed out. "I believe
+it's a bear!" he exclaimed, and he wanted to creep in with a gun and
+fire; but the old Squire advised against that on account of the heavy
+charge in so confined a space.
+
+Addison had been peeling dry bark from a birch, and crawling in again,
+lighted a roll of it. The smoke drove him out, but he emerged in
+excitement. "Bears!" he cried. "Two bears in there! I saw them!"
+
+Asa took a pole and poked the bears cautiously. "Dead, I guess," said
+he, at last. "They don't move."
+
+Addison crept in again, and actually passed his hand over the bears,
+then backed out, laughing. "No, they are not dead!" he exclaimed. "They
+are warm. But they are awfully sound asleep."
+
+"Let's haul them out!" cried Asa; and they now sent me to the wood-sled
+for two or three small trace-chains. Asa then crawled in and slipped a
+chain about the body of one of the bears. The other two chains were
+hooked on; and then they slowly hauled the bear out, the old Squire
+standing by with gun cocked--for we expected every moment that the
+animal would wake.
+
+But even when out on the snow crust the creature lay as inert as a dead
+bear. It was small. "Only a yearling," the old Squire said. None of us
+were now much afraid of them, and the other one was drawn out in the
+same way. Their hair was glossy and as black as jet. Possibly they would
+have weighed seventy-five pounds each. Evidently they were young bears
+that had never been separated, and that accounted for their denning up
+together; old bears rarely do this.
+
+We put them on the wood-sled and hauled them home. They lay in a pile of
+hay on the stable floor all night, without a sign of waking up; and the
+next morning we hauled them to the cellar of the west barn. Under this
+barn, which was used mainly for sheep and young cattle, there were
+several pigsties, now empty. The dormant young bears were rolled into
+one of these sties and the sty filled with dry leaves, such as we used
+for bedding in the barns.
+
+About a fortnight afterward a young doctor named Truman, from the
+village, desired very much to see the bears in their winter sleep. He
+got into the sty, uncovered them, and repeatedly pricked one of them
+with a needle, or penknife, without fairly waking it. But salts of
+ammonia, held to the nostrils of the other one, produced an unexpected
+result. The creature struck out spasmodically with one paw and rolled
+suddenly over. Doctor Truman jumped out of the sty quite as suddenly.
+"He's alive, all right," said the doctor.
+
+The bears were not disturbed again, and remained there so quietly that
+we nearly forgot them. It was now the second week of March, and up to
+this time the weather had continued cold; but a thaw set in, with rain
+for two or three days, the temperature rising to sixty degrees, and even
+higher.
+
+On the third night of the thaw, or rather, in the early morning, a great
+commotion broke out at the west barn. It waked the girls first, their
+room being on that side of the farmhouse. At about two o'clock in the
+morning Ellen came to our door to rouse Addison and me.
+
+"There's a fearful racket up at the west barn," she said, in low tones.
+"You had better see what's wrong."
+
+Addison and I threw on our clothes, went down quietly, so as not to
+disturb the old Squire, and were getting our lanterns ready, when he
+came from his room; for he, too, had heard the disturbance. We then
+sallied forth and approached the end door of the barn. Inside, the young
+cattle were bellowing and bawling. Below, in the barn cellar, sheep were
+bleating, and a shoat was adding its raucous voice to the uproar. Above
+it all, however, we could hear eight old turkeys and a peacock that were
+wintering in the west barn, "quitting" and "quuttering" aloft, where
+they roosted on the high beams.
+
+The young cattle, seventeen head, were tied facing the barn floor. All
+of them were on their feet, pulling back at their stanchions in a great
+state of alarm. But the real trouble seemed now to be aloft in the dark
+roof of the barn, among the turkeys. Addison held up the lantern.
+Nothing could be seen so far up there in the dark, but feathers came
+fluttering down, and the old peacock was squalling, "Tap-pee-yaw!" over
+and over.
+
+We fixed a lantern on the end of a long bean-pole and thrust it high up.
+Its light revealed those two young bears on one of the high beams of the
+barn!
+
+One of them had the head of a turkey in his mouth, and was apparently
+trying to bolt it; and we discovered later that they had had trouble
+with the shoat down in the cellar. The shoat was somewhat scratched, but
+had stood them off.
+
+Several of the sheep had their fleeces torn, particularly one old
+Cotswold ram, which also had a bleeding nose. Evidently the barn had
+been the scene of a protracted fracas. The bears must have climbed for
+the turkeys as a last resort. How they reached the beam we did not know,
+unless by swarming up one of the bare posts of the barn.
+
+To drive them down, Addison climbed on a scaffold and thrust the lantern
+close up to the one with the turkey's head in its mouth. The bear struck
+at the lantern with one paw, started back, but lost its claw-hold on the
+beam and fell, turkey and all, eighteen or twenty feet to the barn
+floor.
+
+The old Squire and I sprang aside in great haste; but so far as we could
+see, the bear never stirred after it struck the floor. Either the fall
+broke its neck, or else the turkey's head choked it to death.
+
+When menaced with the lantern, the other bear slid down one of the barn
+posts, tail first, and was driven into a horse stall at the far end of
+the barn. There we succeeded in shutting it up, and in the morning gave
+it a breakfast of corn-meal dough and apples, which it devoured with
+great avidity.
+
+We had no particular use for a bear, and a week later sold this
+youngster to Doctor Truman. He soon tired of his new pet, however, and
+parted with it to a friend who kept a summer hotel in the White
+Mountains.
+
+The other bear--the one that fell from the high beam--had the handsomest
+black, glossy pelt I have ever seen. Grandmother Ruth insisted on having
+it tanned and made into a rug. She declared jocosely that it should be
+given to the first one of our girls who married. Ellen finally fell heir
+to it, and carried it with her to Dakota.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHITE MONKEY WEEK
+
+
+Cutting and drawing the year's supply of firewood to the door occupied
+us for a week; and following this we boys had planned to take matters
+easy awhile, for the old Squire was to be away from home. Asa Doane had
+left us, too, for a visit to his folks. As it chanced, however, a
+strenuous emergency arose.
+
+A year previously the old Squire had made an agreement with a New York
+factory, to furnish dowels and strips of clear white birch wood, for
+piano keys and _passementerie_.
+
+At that time _passementerie_ was coming into use for ladies' dresses.
+The fine white-birch dowels were first turned round on small lathes and
+afterwards into little bugle and bottle-shaped ornaments, then dyed a
+glistening black and strung on linen threads.
+
+On our own forest lots we had no birch which quite met the requirements.
+But another lumberman, an acquaintance of the old Squire's, named John
+Lurvey (a brother of old Zachary Lurvey), who owned lots north of ours,
+had just what we needed to fill the order.
+
+Lumbermen are often "neighborly" with each other in such matters, and
+with John Lurvey the old Squire made a kind of running contract for
+three hundred cords of white-birch "bolts" from a lakeside lot. Each one
+made a memorandum of the agreement in his pocket note-book; and as each
+trusted the other, nothing more exact or formal was thought necessary.
+
+The white birch was known to be valuable lumber. We were to pay two
+thousand dollars for it on the stump,--one thousand down,--and have two
+"winters" in which to get it off and pay the balance of the money. And
+here it may be said that in the Maine woods a winter is supposed to mean
+the snowy season from November till April.
+
+Meanwhile other ventures were pressing. In company with a Canadian
+partner, the old Squire was then getting spruce lumber down the St.
+Maurice River at Three Rivers, in the Province of Quebec. This New York
+birch contract was deferred a year, the plan being finally to get off
+the birch in March of the second winter, when the crews and teams from
+two other lumber-camps could conveniently be sent to the lake, and make
+a quick job of it.
+
+But in December of that second winter John Lurvey died suddenly of
+pneumonia. His property passed into the hands of his wife, who was by no
+means easy-going. She overhauled this note-book agreement, took legal
+advice of a sharp lawyer, and on February 21st sent us legal
+notification that the agreement would expire on February 28th, the last
+day of winter, according to the calendar. The notification also demanded
+payment of the second thousand dollars. Her scheme, of course, was to
+get the money in full and cut us off, in default, from removing the
+birch lumber from the lot. The old Squire himself had gone to Canada.
+
+The notification came by letter, and as usual when the old Squire was
+away, grandmother Ruth opened his mail to see what demanded our
+attention. We were all in the sitting-room, except Halstead, who was
+away that evening.
+
+"What can this mean?" grandmother suddenly exclaimed, and handed the
+letter to Addison. He saw through it instantly, and jumped up in
+excitement.
+
+"We're trapped!" he cried. "If we don't get that birch off next week we
+shall lose two thousand dollars!"
+
+Grandmother was dismayed. "Oh, that wicked woman!" she cried. "Why,
+winter always means through sledding!"
+
+"I'm afraid not, in law," said Addison, looking puzzled. "Winter ends
+either the first or the twenty-first of March. I think a good argument
+could be made in court for the twenty-first. But she may be right, and
+it's too late to take chances. The only thing to do is to get that
+lumber off right away."
+
+Addison and I went out to the stable to talk the matter over; we did not
+want to excite grandmother any further. At best, she had a good deal to
+worry her that winter.
+
+"Now what can we do?" Addison exclaimed. Five or six days would be
+required to get the old Squire home from Canada.
+
+"And what could he do after he got here?" Addison asked. "The teams and
+the choppers are all off at the lumber-camps."
+
+"Let's take our axes and go up there and cut what birch we can next
+week," said I, in desperation.
+
+"Oh, we boys couldn't do much alone in so short a time," replied
+Addison.
+
+Still, we could think of nothing else; and with the loss of two thousand
+dollars staring us in the face, we began planning desperately how much
+of that birch we could save in a week's time. In fact, we scarcely slept
+at all that night, and early the next morning started out to rally what
+help we could.
+
+Willis Murch and Thomas Edwards volunteered to work for us, and take
+each a yoke of oxen. After much persuasion our neighbor Sylvester
+promised to go with a team, and to take his son Rufus, Jr. Going on to
+the post-office at the Corners, we succeeded in hiring two other young
+men.
+
+But even with the help of these men we could account for scarcely a
+seventh part of the contract, since one chopper could cut not more than
+a cord and a half of birch bolts in a day; and moreover, the bolts had
+to be removed from the lot.
+
+But as we rushed round that forenoon, it occurred to Addison to hire a
+horse-power and circular saw that was owned by a man named Morefield,
+who lived near the wood-sheds of the railway-station, six miles from the
+old Squire's. It was a rig used for sawing wood for the locomotives.
+
+Hurrying home, we hitched up, drove to the station, and succeeded in
+engaging Morefield and his saw, with two spans of heavy horses.
+
+But other cares had now loomed up, not the least among them being the
+problem of feeding our hastily collected crew of helpers and their teams
+sixteen miles off in the woods. Just across the lake from the lot where
+the birch grew there was a lumber-camp where we could set up a stove and
+do our cooking; and during the afternoon we packed up supplies of pork,
+beans and corned beef, while in the house grandmother and the girls were
+baking bread. I had also to go to the mill, to get corn ground for the
+teams.
+
+Theodora and Ellen were eager to go and do the cooking at the camp; but
+grandmother knew that an older woman of greater experience was needed in
+such an emergency, and had that morning sent urgent word to Olive
+Witham,--"Aunt Olive," as we called her,--who was always our mainstay in
+times of trouble at the old farm.
+
+She was about fifty-five years old, tall, austere, not wholly
+attractive, but of upright character and undaunted courage.
+
+By nine that evening everything was ready for a start; and sunrise the
+next morning saw us on the way up to the birch lot, Aunt Olive riding in
+the "horse-power" on a sled, which bore also a firkin of butter, a
+cheese, a four-gallon can of milk, a bag of bread and a large basket of
+eggs.
+
+One team did not get off so early, neighbor Sylvester's. He was to start
+two hours later and draw up to camp the heaviest part of our supplies,
+consisting of half a barrel of pork, two bushels of potatoes, a peck of
+dry beans, a hundredweight of corned beef and two gallons of molasses.
+
+Twelve miles of our way that morning was by a trodden winter road, but
+the last four miles, after crossing Lurvey's Stream, had to be broken
+through three feet of snow in the woods, giving us four hours of
+tiresome tramping.
+
+We reached the lot at one o'clock, and during the afternoon set up the
+horse-power on the lake shore, at the foot of the slope where the white
+birch grew. We also contrived a log slide, or slip, down which the long
+birch trunks could be slid to the saw and cut up into four-foot bolts.
+For our plan now was to fell the trees and "twitch" them down-hill with
+teams to the head of this slip. By rolling the bolts, as they fell from
+the saw, down an incline and out on the ice of the lake, we would remove
+them from Mrs. Lurvey's land, and thereby comply with the letter of the
+law, by aid of which she was endeavoring to rob us and escheat our
+rights to the birch.
+
+There were ten of us. Each knew what was at stake, and all worked with
+such good-will that by five o'clock we had the saw running. The white
+birches there were from a foot up to twenty-two inches in diameter,
+having long, straight trunks, clear of limbs from thirty to forty feet
+in length. These clear trunks only were used for bolts.
+
+Plying their axes, Halstead, Addison, Thomas and Willis felled upward of
+forty trees that night, and these were all sawn by dark. On an average,
+five trees were required for a cord of bolts; but with sharp axes such
+white-birch trees can be felled fast. Morefield tended the saw and drove
+the horses in the horse-power; the rest of us were kept busy sliding the
+birch trunks down the slip to the saw, and rolling away the bolts.
+
+By dark we had made a beginning of our hard week's task, and in the
+gathering dusk plodded across the lake to the old lumber-camp, expecting
+to find Aunt Olive smiling and supper ready.
+
+But here disappointment awaited us. Sylvester, with the sled-load of
+supplies, had not come, did not arrive, in fact, till half an hour
+later, and then with his oxen only. Disaster had befallen him on the
+way. While crossing Lurvey's Stream, the team had broken through the ice
+where the current beneath was swift. He had saved the oxen; but the
+sled, with our beef pork, beans and potatoes, had been drawn under and
+carried away, he knew not how far, under the ice.
+
+A stare of dismay from the entire hungry party followed this
+announcement. It looked like no supper--after a hard day's work! Worse
+still, to Addison and myself it looked like the crippling of our whole
+program for the next five days; for a lumber crew is much like an army;
+it lives and works only by virtue of its commissariat.
+
+But now Aunt Olive rose to the emergency. "Don't you be discouraged,
+boys!" she exclaimed. "Give me twenty minutes, and you shall have a
+supper fit for a king. You shall have _white monkey_ on toast! Toast
+thirty or forty slices of this bread, boys," she added, laughing
+cheerily. "Toast it good and brown, while I dress the monkey!"
+
+Addison, Thomas and I began toasting bread over the hot stove, but kept
+a curious eye out for that "white monkey."
+
+Of course it was figurative monkey. Aunt Olive put six quarts of milk in
+a kettle on the stove, and as it warmed, thickened it slightly with
+about a pint of corn-meal.
+
+As it grew hotter, she melted into it a square of butter about half the
+size of a brick, then chipped up fine as much as a pound of cheese, and
+added that slowly, so as to dissolve it.
+
+Last, she rapidly broke, beat and added a dozen eggs, then finished off
+with salt and a tiny bit of Cayenne pepper, well stirred in.
+
+For five minutes longer she allowed the kettleful to simmer on the
+stove, while we buttered three huge stacks of toast.
+
+The monkey was then ready. All hands gathered round with their plates,
+and in turn had four slices of toast, one after another, each slice with
+a generous ladleful of white monkey poured over it.
+
+It was delicious, very satisfying, too, and gave one the sense of being
+well fed, since it contained all the ingredients of substantial food. As
+made by Aunt Olive, this white monkey had the consistency of moderately
+thick cream. It slightly resembled Welsh rabbit, but we found it was
+much more palatable and whole-some, having more milk and egg in it, and
+far less cheese.
+
+We liked it so well that we all wanted it for breakfast the next
+morning--and that was fortunate, since we had little else, and were
+exceedingly loath to lose a day's time sending teams down home, or
+elsewhere, for more meat, beans and potatoes.
+
+There were several families of French-Canadians living at clearings on
+Lurvey's Stream, three miles below the lake; and since I was the
+youngest and least efficient axman of the party, they sent me down there
+every afternoon to buy milk and eggs, for more white monkey. Of cheese
+and butter we had a sufficient supply; and the yellow corn-meal which we
+had brought for the teams furnished sheetful after sheetful of
+johnny-cake, which Aunt Olive split, toasted, and buttered well, as a
+groundwork for the white monkey.
+
+And for five days we ate it as we toiled twelve hours to the day,
+chopping, hauling and sawing birch!
+
+We had a slight change of diet on the fourth day, when Aunt Olive cooked
+two old roosters and a chicken, which I had coaxed away from the
+reluctant French settlers down the stream.
+
+But it was chiefly white monkey every day; and the amount of work which
+we did on it was a tribute to Aunt Olive's resourcefulness. The older
+men of the party declared that they had never slept so well as after
+those evening meals of white monkey on johnny-cake toast. Beyond doubt,
+it was much better for us than heavier meals of meat and beans after
+days of hard labor.
+
+From half an hour before sunrise till an hour after sunset, during those
+entire five days, the tall white birches fell fast, the saw hummed, and
+the bolts went rolling out on the ice-clad lake.
+
+I never saw a crew work with such good-will or felt such enthusiasm
+myself as during those five days. We had the exhilarating sensation that
+we were beating a malicious enemy. Every little while a long, cheery
+whoop of exultation would be raised and go echoing across the lake; and
+that last day of February we worked by the light of little bonfires of
+birch bark till near midnight.
+
+Then we stopped--to clear the law. And I may state here, although it
+must sound like a large story, that during those five working days the
+ten of us felled, sawed and rolled out on the ice two hundred and
+eighty-six cords of white-birch bolts. Of course it was the saw and the
+two relieving spans of horses which did the greater part of the work,
+the four axmen doing little more than fell the tall birch-trees.
+
+The next day, after a final breakfast of white monkey, we went home
+triumphant, leaving the bolts on the ice for the time being. All were
+tired, but in high spirits, for victory was ours.
+
+Two days later the old Squire came home from Three Rivers, entirely
+unaware of what had occurred, having it now in mind to organize and
+begin what he supposed would be a month's work up at the birch lot for
+the choppers and teams from the two logging-camps farther north.
+
+Neither grandmother Ruth nor the rest of us could resist having a little
+fun with him. After supper, when we had gathered in the sitting-room,
+grandmother quietly handed him Mrs. Lurvey's letter, with the
+notification about the birch.
+
+"This came while you were away, Joseph," she said to him, while the rest
+of us, sitting very still, looked on, keenly interested to see how he
+would take it.
+
+The old Squire unfolded the letter and began reading it, then started
+suddenly, and for some moments sat very still, pondering the
+notification. "This bids fair to be a serious matter for us," he said,
+at last. "We have lost that birch contract, I fear, and the money that
+went into it.
+
+"And I have only my own carelessness to thank for it," he added, looking
+distressed.
+
+Theodora could not stand that another minute. She stole round behind the
+old Squire's chair, put her arms about his neck, and whispered something
+in his ear.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, incredulously.
+
+"Yes!" she cried to him.
+
+"Impossible, child!" said he.
+
+"No, it isn't!" shouted Addison. "We've got that birch off, sir. It is
+all sawn up in bolts and out on the lake!"
+
+"What, in a week?" exclaimed the old Squire.
+
+"All in five days, sir!" cried Addison and I.
+
+The old gentleman sat looking at us in blank surprise. He was an
+experienced lumberman, and knew exactly what such a statement as ours
+implied.
+
+"Not three hundred cords?" said he, gravely.
+
+"Close on to that, sir!" cried Addison.
+
+Thereupon we all began to tell him about it at once. None of us could
+remain quiet. But it was not till we had related the whole story, and
+told him who had helped us, along with Addison's scheme of hiring the
+horse-power and saw, that he really believed it. He sprang up, walked
+twice across the sitting-room, then stopped short and looked at us.
+
+"Boys, I'm proud of you!" he exclaimed. "Proud of you! I couldn't have
+done as well myself."
+
+"Yes, Joseph, they're chips off the old block!" grandmother chimed in.
+"And we've beaten that wicked woman!"
+
+Mrs. Lurvey, as I may add here, was far from sharing in our exultation.
+She was a person of violent temper. It was said that she shook with rage
+when she heard what we boys had done. But her lawyer advised her to keep
+quiet.
+
+During the next two weeks the birch bolts were drawn to our mill, four
+miles down Lurvey's Stream, and sawn into thin strips and dowels, then
+shipped in bundles, by rail and schooner from Portland, to New York; and
+the contract netted the old Squire about twenty-five hundred dollars
+above the cost of the birch.
+
+But as I look back on it, I am inclined to think that Aunt Olive was the
+real heroine of that strenuous week.
+
+     NOTE. The following recipe will make a sufficient quantity
+     of "white monkey" for three persons. Put over the fire one pint of
+     new milk in a double boiler. As soon as the milk is warm, stir in
+     one teaspoonful of flour mixed with two tablespoonfuls of cold
+     water. As the milk gets hotter, add slowly, so as to dissolve it,
+     two ounces of cheese, grated or chipped fine. Then add one ounce of
+     butter, a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of Cayenne pepper, and one
+     egg, well beaten and mixed with two tablespoonfuls of cold milk or
+     water. Let the mixture simmer five minutes, then serve hot on wheat
+     bread or brown-bread toast, well browned and buttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WHEN OLD ZACK WENT TO SCHOOL
+
+
+This same week, I think, there was a commotion throughout the town on
+account of exciting incidents in what was known as the "Mills" school
+district, four miles from the old Squire's, where a "pupil" nearly sixty
+years old was bent on attending school--contrary to law!
+
+For ten or fifteen years Zachary Lurvey had been the old Squire's rival
+in the lumber business. We had had more than one distracting contention
+with him. Yet we could not but feel a certain sympathy for him when, at
+the age of fifty-eight, he set out to get an education.
+
+Old Zack would never tell any one where he came from, though there was a
+rumor that he hailed originally from Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. When,
+as a boy of about twenty, he had first appeared in our vicinity, he
+could neither read nor write; apparently he had never seen a
+schoolhouse. He did not even know there was such a place as Boston, or
+New York, and had never heard of George Washington!
+
+But he had settled and gone to work at the place that was afterwards
+known as Lurvey's Mills; and he soon began to prosper, for he was
+possessed of keen mother wit and had energy and resolution enough for
+half a dozen ordinary men.
+
+For years and years in all his many business transactions he had to make
+a mark for his signature; and he kept all his accounts on the attic
+floor of his house with beans and kernels of corn, even after they
+represented thousands of dollars. Then at last a disaster befell him;
+his house burned while he was away; and from the confusion that resulted
+the disadvantages of bookkeeping in cereals was so forcibly borne in
+upon him that he suddenly resolved to learn to read, write and reckon.
+
+On the first day of the following winter term he appeared at the
+district schoolhouse with a primer, a spelling book, a Greenleaf's
+Arithmetic, a copy book, a pen and an ink bottle.
+
+The schoolmaster was a young sophomore from Colby College named Marcus
+Cobb, a stranger in the place. When he entered the schoolhouse that
+morning he was visibly astonished to see a large, bony,
+formidable-looking old man sitting there among the children.
+
+"Don't ye be scairt of me, young feller," old Zack said to him. "I guess
+ye can teach me, for I don't know my letters yit!"
+
+Master Cobb called the school to order and proceeded to ask the names
+and ages of his pupils. When Zack's turn came, the old fellow replied
+promptly:
+
+"Zack Lurvey, fifty-eight years, five months and eighteen days."
+
+"Zack?" the master queried in some perplexity. "Does that stand for
+Zachary? How do you spell it?"
+
+"I never spelled it," old Zack replied with a grin. "I'm here to larn
+how. Fact is, I'm jest a leetle backward."
+
+The young master began to realize that he was in for something
+extraordinary. In truth, he had the time of his life there that winter.
+Not that old Zack misbehaved; on the contrary, he was a model of
+studiousness and was very anxious to learn. But education went hard with
+him at first; he was more than a week in learning his letters and sat by
+the hour, making them on a slate, muttering them aloud, sometimes
+vehemently, with painful groans. M and W gave him constant trouble; and
+so did B and R. He grew so wrathful over his mistakes at times that he
+thumped the desk with his fist, and once he hurled his primer at the
+stove.
+
+"Why did they make the measly little things look so much alike!" he
+cried.
+
+He wished to skip the letters altogether and to learn to read by the
+looks of the words; but the master assured him that he must learn the
+alphabet first if he wished to learn to write later, and finally he
+prevailed with the stubborn old man.
+
+"Well, I do want to larn," old Zack replied. "I'm goin' the whole hog,
+ef it kills me!"
+
+And apparently it did pretty near kill him; at any rate he perspired
+over his work and at times was near shedding tears.
+
+Certain of the letters he drew on paper with a lead pencil and pasted on
+the back of his hands, so as to keep them in sight. One day he tore the
+alphabet out of his primer and put it into the crown of his cap--"to see
+ef it wouldn't soak in," he said. When, after a hard struggle, he was
+able to get three letters together and spell cat, c-a-t, he was so much
+pleased that he clapped his hands and shouted, "Scat!" at the top of his
+voice.
+
+The effect of such performances on a roomful of small boys and girls was
+not conducive to good order. It was only with difficulty that the young
+master could hear lessons or induce his pupils to study. Old Zack was
+the center of attraction for every juvenile eye.
+
+It was when the old fellow first began to write his name, or try to, in
+his copy book, that he caused the greatest commotion. Only with the most
+painful efforts did his wholly untrained fingers trace the copy that the
+master had set. His mouth, too, followed the struggles of his fingers;
+and the facial grimaces that resulted set the school into a gale of
+laughter. In fact, the master--a good deal amused himself--was wholly
+unable to calm the room so long as old Zack continued his exercise in
+writing.
+
+The children of course carried home accounts of what went on at school;
+and certain of the parents complained to the school agent that their
+children were not learning properly. The complaints continued, and
+finally the agent--his name was Moss--visited the schoolroom and
+informed old Zack that he must leave.
+
+"I don't think you have any right to be here," Moss said to him. "And
+you're giving trouble; you raise such a disturbance that the children
+can't attend to their studies."
+
+Old Zack appealed to Master Cobb, "Have I broken any of your rules?" he
+asked. The master could not say that he had, intentionally.
+
+"Haven't I studied?" old Zack asked.
+
+"You certainly have," the master admitted, laughing.
+
+But the school agent was firm. "You'll have to leave!" he exclaimed.
+"You're too old and too big to come here!"
+
+"All the same, I'm comin' here," said old Zack.
+
+"We'll see about that!" cried Moss angrily. "The law is on my side!"
+
+That was the beginning of what is still remembered as "the war at the
+Mills schoolhouse." The agent appealed to the school board of the town,
+which consisted of three members,--two clergymen and a lawyer,--and the
+following day the board appeared at the schoolhouse. After conferring
+with the master, they proceeded formally to expel old Zack Lurvey from
+school.
+
+Old Zack, however, hotly defended his right to get an education, and a
+wordy combat ensued.
+
+"You're too old to draw school money," the lawyer informed him. "No
+money comes to you for schooling after you are twenty-one, and you look
+to be three times as old as that!"
+
+Thereupon old Zack drew out his pocketbook and laid down twenty dollars.
+"There is your money," said he. "I can pay my way."
+
+"But you are too old to attend a district school," the lawyer insisted.
+"You can't go after you are twenty-one."
+
+"But I have never been," old Zack argued. "I never used up my right to
+go. I oughter have it now!"
+
+"That isn't the point," declared the lawyer. "You're too old to go.
+Besides, we are informed that you are keeping the lawful pupils from
+properly attending to their studies. You must pick up your books and
+leave the schoolhouse."
+
+Old Zack eyed him in silence. "I'm goin' to school, and I'm goin' here,"
+he said at last.
+
+That was defiance of the board's authority, and the lawyer--a young
+man--threw off his coat and tried to eject the unruly pupil from the
+room; but to his chagrin he was himself ejected, with considerable
+damage to his legal raiment. Returning from the door, old Zack offered
+opportunity for battle to the reverend gentlemen--which they prudently
+declined. The lawyer re-entered, covered with snow, for old Zack had
+dropped him into a drift outside.
+
+Summoning his two colleagues and the schoolmaster to assist him in
+sustaining the constituted authority, the lawyer once more advanced upon
+old Zack, who retreated to the far corner of the room and bade them come
+on.
+
+Many of the smaller pupils were now crying from fright; and the two
+clergymen, probably feeling that the proceedings had become scandalous,
+persuaded their colleague to cease hostilities; and in the end the board
+contented itself with putting a formal order of expulsion into writing.
+School was then dismissed for that afternoon, and they all went away,
+leaving old Zack backed into the corner of the room. But, regardless of
+his "expulsion," the next morning he came to school again and resumed
+his arduous studies.
+
+The story had gone abroad, and the whole community was waiting to see
+what would follow. The school board appealed to the sheriff, who offered
+to arrest old Zack if the board would provide him with a warrant. It
+seemed simple enough, at first, to draw a warrant for old Zack's arrest,
+but legal difficulties arose. He could not well be taken for assault,
+for it was the lawyer that had attacked him; or for wanton mischief, for
+his intent in going to school was not mischievous; or yet for trespass,
+for he had offered to pay for his schooling.
+
+There was no doubt that on account of his age he had no business in the
+school and that the board had the right to refuse him schooling; yet it
+was not easy to word his offense in such a way that it constituted a
+misdemeanor that could properly be stated in a warrant for his arrest.
+Several warrants were drawn, all of which, on the ground that they were
+legally dubious, the resident justice of the peace refused to sign.
+
+"I am not going to get the town mixed up in a lawsuit for damages," said
+the justice. "Lurvey is a doughty fighter at law, as well as physically,
+and he has got the money to fight with."
+
+The proceedings hung fire for a week or more. The school board sent an
+order to the master not to hear old Zack's lessons or to give him any
+instructions whatever. But the old fellow came to school just the same,
+and poor Cobb had to get along with him as best he could. The school
+board was not eager again to try putting him out by force, and it seemed
+that nothing less than the state militia could oust him from the
+schoolhouse; and that would need an order from the governor of the
+state! On the whole, public opinion rather favored his being allowed to
+pay his tuition and to go to school if he felt the need of it.
+
+At any rate, he went to school there all winter and made remarkable
+progress. In the course of ten weeks he could read slowly, and he knew
+most of the short words in his primer and second reader by sight. Longer
+words he would not try to pronounce, but called them, each and all,
+"jackass" as fast as he came to them.
+
+In consequence his reading aloud was highly ambiguous. He could write
+his name slowly and with many grimaces.
+
+Figures, for some reason, came much easier to him than the alphabet. He
+learned the numerals in a few days, and by the fifth or sixth week of
+school he could add and subtract on his slate. But the multiplication
+table gave him serious trouble. The only way he succeeded in learning it
+at all was by singing it. After he began to do sums in multiplication on
+his slate, he was likely to burst forth singing in school hours:
+
+    "Seven times eight are fifty-six
+      --and carry five.
+    Seven times nine are sixty-three
+      --and carry seven.
+      No, no, no, no, carry six!"
+
+"But, Mr. Lurvey, you must keep quiet in school!" the afflicted master
+remonstrated for the hundredth time. "No one else can study."
+
+"But I can't!" old Zack would reply. "'Twouldn't come to me 'less I sung
+it!"
+
+Toward the last weeks of the term he was able to multiply with
+considerable accuracy and to divide in short division. Long division he
+did not attempt, but he rapidly learned to cast interest at six per
+cent. He had had a way of arriving at that with beans, before he came to
+school; and no one had ever succeeded in cheating him. He knew about
+interest money, he said, by "sense of feeling."
+
+Grammar he saw no use for, and did not bother himself with it; but,
+curiously enough, he was delighted with geography and toward the end of
+the term bought a copy of Cornell's text-book, which was then used in
+Maine schools.
+
+What most interested him was to trace rivers on the maps and to learn
+their names. Cities he cared nothing for; but he loved to learn about
+the mountain ranges where pine and spruce grew.
+
+"What places them would be for sawmills!" he exclaimed.
+
+Much as he liked his new geography, however, he had grown violently
+angry over the first lesson and declared with strong language that it
+was all a lie! The master had read aloud to him the first lesson, which
+describes the earth as one of the planets that revolve round the sun,
+and which says that it is a globe or sphere, turning on its axis once in
+twenty-four hours and so causing day and night.
+
+Old Zack listened incredulously. "I don't believe a word of that!" he
+declared flatly.
+
+The master labored with him for some time, trying to convince him that
+the earth is round and moves, but it was quite in vain.
+
+"No such thing!" old Zack exclaimed. "I know better! That's the biggest
+lie that ever was told!"
+
+He quite took it to heart and continued talking about it after school.
+He really seemed to believe that a great and dangerous delusion had gone
+abroad.
+
+"It's wrong," he said, "puttin' sich stuff as that into young ones'
+heads. It didn't oughter be 'lowed!"
+
+What old Zack was saying about the earth spread abroad and caused a
+great deal of amusement. Certain waggish persons began to "josh" him and
+others tried to argue with him, but all such attempts merely roused his
+native obstinacy. One Sunday evening he gave a somewhat wrong direction
+to the weekly prayer meeting by rising to warn the people that their
+children were being taught a pack of lies; and such was his vehemence
+that the regular Sabbath service resolved itself into a heated debate on
+the contour of the earth.
+
+Perhaps old Zack believed that, as a recently educated man, it had
+become his duty to set things right in the public mind.
+
+The day before school closed he went to his late antagonist, the lawyer
+on the school board, and again offered to pay the twenty dollars for his
+tuition. After formally expelling him from school, however, the board
+did not dare to accept the money, and old Zack gave it to the
+long-suffering Master Cobb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SAD ABUSE OF OLD MEHITABLE
+
+
+About this time there occurred a domestic episode with which Halstead
+was imperishably connected in the family annals.
+
+In those days the family butter was churned in the kitchen by hand
+power, and often laboriously, in an upright dasher churn which Addison
+and Theodora had christened Old Mehitable. The butter had been a long
+time coming one morning; but finally the cream which for an hour or more
+had been thick, white and mute beneath the dasher strokes began to swash
+in a peculiar way, giving forth after each stroke a sound that they
+thought resembled, _Mehitable--Mehitable--Mehitable_.
+
+That old churn was said to be sixty-six years old even then. There was
+little to wear out in the old-fashioned dasher churns, made as they were
+of well-seasoned pine or spruce, with a "butter cup" turned from a solid
+block of birch or maple, and the dasher staff of strong white ash. One
+of them sometimes outlasted two generations of housewives; they were
+simple, durable and easily kept clean, but hard to operate.
+
+Our acquaintance with Mehitable had begun very soon after our arrival at
+the old farm. I remember that one of the first things the old Squire
+said to us was, "Boys, now that our family is so largely increased, I
+think that you will have to assist your grandmother with the dairy work,
+particularly the churning, which comes twice a week."
+
+Tuesdays and Fridays were the churning days, and on those mornings I
+remember that we were wont to peer into the kitchen as we came to
+breakfast and mutter the unwelcome tidings to one another that old
+Mehitable was out there waiting--tidings followed immediately by two
+gleeful shouts of, "It isn't my turn!"--and glum looks from the one of
+us whose unfortunate lot it was to ply the dasher.
+
+Addison, I recollect, used to take his turn without much demur or
+complaint, and he had a knack of getting through with it quickly as a
+rule, especially in summer. None of us had much trouble during the warm
+season. It was in November, December and January, when cold cream did
+not properly "ripen" and the cows were long past their freshening, that
+those protracted, wearying sessions at the churn began. Then, indeed,
+our annual grievance against grandmother Ruth burst forth afresh. For,
+like many another veteran housewife, the dear old lady was very "set" on
+having her butter come hard, and hence averse to raising the temperature
+of the cream above fifty-six degrees. Often that meant two or three
+hours of hard, up-and-down work at the churn.
+
+In cold weather, too, the cream sometimes "swelled" in the churn,
+becoming so stiff as to render it nearly impossible to force the dasher
+through it; and we would lift the entire churn from the floor in our
+efforts to work it up and down. At such times our toes suffered, and we
+were wont to call loudly for Theodora and Ellen to come and hold the
+churn down, a task that they undertook with misgivings.
+
+What exasperated us always was the superb calmness with which
+grandmother Ruth viewed those struggles, going placidly on with her
+other duties as if our woes were all in the natural order of the
+universe. The butter, eggs and poultry were her perquisites in the
+matter of farm products, and we were apt to accuse her of
+hard-heartedness in her desire to make them yield income.
+
+Addison, I remember, had a prop that he inserted and drove tight with a
+mallet between a beam overhead and the top of the churn when the cream
+"swelled"; but neither Halstead nor I was ever able to adjust the prop
+skillfully enough to keep it from falling down on our heads.
+
+And we suspected Addison of pouring warm water into the churn when
+grandmother's back was turned, though we never actually caught him at
+it. Sometimes when he churned, the butter "came" suspiciously soft, to
+grandmother's great dissatisfaction, since she had special customers for
+her butter at the village and was proud of its uniform quality.
+
+With the kindly aid of the girls, especially Ellen, I usually got
+through my turn after a fashion. I was crafty enough to keep their
+sympathy and good offices enlisted on my side.
+
+But poor Halstead! There was pretty sure to be a rumpus every time his
+turn came. Nature, indeed, had but poorly fitted him for churning, or,
+in fact, for any form of domestic labor that required sustained effort
+and patience. He had a kind heart; but his temper was stormy. When
+informed that his turn had come to churn, he almost always disputed it
+hotly. Afterwards he was likely to fume a while and finally go about the
+task in so sullen a mood that the girls were much inclined to leave him
+to his own devices. Looking back at our youthful days, I see plainly now
+that we were often uncharitable toward Halstead. He was, I must admit, a
+rather difficult boy to get on with, hasty of temper and inclined to act
+recklessly. There were no doubt physical causes for those defects; but
+Addison and I thought he might do better if he pleased. He and Addison
+were about the same age, and I was two and a half years younger.
+Halstead, in fact, was slightly taller than Addison, but not so strong.
+His complexion was darker and not so clear; and I imagine that he was
+not so healthy. Once, I remember, when Dr. Green from the village was at
+the house, he cast a professional eye on us three boys and remarked,
+"That dark boy's blood isn't so good as that of the other two," a remark
+that Halstead appears to have overheard.
+
+None the less, he was strong enough to work when he chose, though he
+complained constantly and shirked when he could.
+
+On the Friday morning referred to, it had come Halstead's turn "to stand
+up with old Mehitable," as Ellen used to say; and after the usual heated
+argument he had set about it out in the kitchen in a particularly wrathy
+mood. It was snowing outside. The old Squire had driven to the village;
+and, after doing the barn chores, Addison had retired to the
+sitting-room to cipher out two or three hard sums in complex fractions
+while I had seized the opportunity to read a book of Indian stories that
+Tom Edwards had lent me. After starting the churning, grandmother Ruth,
+assisted by the girls, was putting in order the bedrooms upstairs.
+
+Through a crack of the unlatched door that led to the kitchen, we heard
+Halstead churning casually, muttering to himself and plumping the old
+churn about the kitchen floor. Several times he had shouted for the
+girls to come and help him hold it down; and presently we heard him
+ordering Nell to bid grandmother Ruth pour hot milk into the churn.
+
+"It's as cold as ice!" he cried. "It never will come in the world till
+it is warmed up! Here I have churned for two hours, steady, and no signs
+of the butter's coming--and it isn't my turn either!"
+
+We had heard Halstead run on so much in that same strain, however, that
+neither Addison nor I paid much attention to it.
+
+Every few moments, however, he continued shouting for some one to come
+and help; and presently, when grandma Ruth came downstairs for a moment
+to see how matters were going on, we heard him pleading angrily with her
+to pour in hot milk.
+
+"Make the other boys come and help!" he cried after her as she was
+calmly returning upstairs. "Make them come and churn a spell. Their
+blood is better'n mine!"
+
+"Oh, I guess your blood is good enough," the old lady replied, laughing.
+
+Silence for a time followed that last appeal. Halstead seemed to have
+resigned himself to his task. Addison's pencil ciphered away; and I grew
+absorbed in Colter's flight from the Indians.
+
+Before long, however, a pungent odor, as of fat on a hot stove, began to
+pervade the house. Addison looked up and sniffed. Just then we heard
+Theodora race suddenly down the hall stairs, speed to the other door of
+the kitchen, then cry out and go flying back upstairs. An instant later
+she and Ellen rushed down, with grandmother Ruth hard after them.
+Evidently something was going wrong. Addison and I made for the kitchen
+door, for we heard grandmother exclaim in tones of deepest indignation,
+"O you Halstead! What have you done!"
+
+Halstead had set the old churn on top of the hot stove, placed a chair
+close against it, and was standing on the chair, churning with might and
+main.
+
+His head, as he plied the dasher, was almost touching the ceiling; his
+face was as red as a beet. He had filled the stove with dry wood, and
+the bottom of the churn was smoking; the chimes were warping out of
+their grooves, and cream was leaking on the stove. The kitchen reeked
+with the smoke and odor.
+
+After one horrified glance, grandmother rushed in, snatched the churn
+off the stove and bore it to the sink. Her indignation was too great for
+"Christian words," as the old lady sometimes expressed it in moments of
+great domestic provocation. "Get the slop pails," she said in low tones
+to Ellen and Theodora. "'Tis spoiled. The whole churning is smoked and
+spoiled--and the churn, too!"
+
+Halstead, meantime, was getting down from the chair, still very hot and
+red. "Well, I warmed the old thing up once!" he muttered defiantly.
+"'Twas coming, too. 'Twould have come in one minute more!"
+
+But neither grandmother nor the girls vouchsafed him another look. After
+a glance round, Addison drew back, shutting the kitchen door, and
+resumed his pencil. He shook his head sapiently to me, but seemed to be
+rocked by internal mirth. "Now, wasn't that just like Halse?" he
+muttered at length.
+
+"What do you think the old Squire will say to this?" I hazarded.
+
+"Oh, not much, I guess," Addison replied, going on with his problem.
+"The old gentleman doesn't think it is of much use to talk to him.
+Halse, you know, flies all to pieces if he is reproved."
+
+In point of fact I do not believe the old Squire took the matter up with
+Halstead at all. He did not come home until afternoon, and no one said
+much to him about what had happened during the morning.
+
+But we had to procure a new churn immediately for the following Tuesday.
+Old Mehitable was totally ruined. The bottom and the lower ends of the
+chimes were warped and charred beyond repair.
+
+Largely influenced by Addison's advice, grandmother Ruth consented to
+the purchase of one of the new crank churns. For a year or more he had
+been secretly cogitating a scheme to avoid so much tiresome work when
+churning; and a crank churn, he foresaw, would lend itself to such a
+project much more readily than a churn with an upright dasher. It was a
+plan that finally took the form of a revolving shaft overhead along the
+walk from the kitchen to the stable, where it was actuated by a light
+horse-power. Little belts descending from this shaft operated not only
+the churn but a washing machine, a wringer, a corn shelter, a lathe and
+several other machines with so much success and saving of labor that
+even grandmother herself smiled approvingly.
+
+"And that's all due to me!" Halstead used to exclaim once in a while.
+"If I hadn't burnt up that old churn, we would be tugging away at it to
+this day!"
+
+"Yes, Halse, you are a wonderful boy in the kitchen!" Ellen would remark
+roguishly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BEAR-TONE
+
+
+One day about the first of February, Catherine Edwards made the rounds
+of the neighborhood with a subscription paper to get singers for a
+singing school. A veteran "singing master"--Seth Clark, well known
+throughout the country--had offered to give the young people of the
+place a course of twelve evening lessons or sessions in vocal music, at
+four dollars per evening; and Catherine was endeavoring to raise the sum
+of forty-eight dollars for this purpose.
+
+Master Clark was to meet us at the district schoolhouse for song
+sessions of two hours, twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday evenings at
+seven o'clock. Among us at the old Squire's we signed eight dollars.
+
+The singing school did not much interest me personally, for the reason
+that I did not expect to attend. As the Frenchman said when invited to
+join a fox hunt, I had been. Two winters previously there had been a
+singing school in an adjoining school district, known as "Bagdad," where
+along with others I had presented myself as a candidate for vocal
+culture, and had been rejected on the grounds that I lacked both "time"
+and "ear." What was even less to my credit, I had been censured as being
+concerned in a disturbance outside the schoolhouse. That was my first
+winter in Maine, and the teacher at that singing school was not Seth
+Clark, but an itinerant singing master widely known as "Bear-Tone."
+
+As opportunities for musical instruction thereabouts were limited, the
+old Squire, who loved music and who was himself a fair singer, had
+advised us to go. Five of us, together with our two young neighbors,
+Kate and Thomas Edwards, drove over to Bagdad in a three-seated pung
+sleigh.
+
+The old schoolhouse was crowded with young people when we arrived, and a
+babel of voices burst on us as we drew rein at the door. After helping
+the girls from the pung, Addison and I put up the horses at a farmer's
+barn near by. When we again reached the schoolhouse, a gigantic man in
+an immense, shaggy buffalo coat was just coming up. He entered the
+building a step behind us.
+
+It was Bear-Tone; and a great hush fell on the young people as he
+appeared in the doorway. Squeezing hurriedly into seats with the others,
+Addison and I faced round. Bear-Tone stood in front of the teacher's
+desk, near the stovepipe, rubbing his huge hands together, for the night
+was cold. He was smiling, too--a friendly, genial smile that seemed
+actually to brighten the room.
+
+If he had looked gigantic to us in the dim doorway, he now looked
+colossal. In fact, he was six feet five inches tall and three feet
+across the shoulders. He had legs like mill-posts and arms to match; he
+wore big mittens, because he could not buy gloves large enough for his
+hands. He was lean and bony rather than fat, and weighed three hundred
+and twenty pounds, it was said.
+
+His face was big and broad, simple and yet strong; it was ringed round
+from ear to ear with a short but very thick sandy beard. His eyes were
+blue, his hair, like his beard, was sandy. He was almost forty years old
+and was still a bachelor.
+
+"Wal, young ones," he said at last, "reckonin' trundle-bed trash,
+there's a lot of ye, ain't there?"
+
+His voice surprised me. From such a massive man I had expected to hear a
+profound bass. Yet his voice was not distinctly bass, it was clear and
+flexible. He could sing bass, it is true, but he loved best to sing
+tenor, and in that part his voice was wonderfully sweet.
+
+As his speech at once indicated, he was an ignorant man. He had never
+had musical instruction; he spoke of soprano as "tribble," of alto as
+"counter," and of baritone as "bear-tone"--a mispronunciation that had
+given him his nickname.
+
+But he could sing! Melody was born in him, so to speak, full-fledged,
+ready to sing. Musical training would have done him no good, and it
+might have done him harm. He could not have sung a false note if he had
+tried; discord really pained him.
+
+"Wal, we may's well begin," he said when he had thoroughly warmed his
+hands. "What ye got for singin' books here? Dulcimers, or Harps of
+Judah? All with Harps raise yer right hands. So. Now all with Dulcimers,
+left hands. So. Harps have it. Them with Dulcimers better get Harps, if
+ye can, 'cause we want to sing together. But to-night we'll try voices.
+I wouldn't wonder if there might be some of ye who might just as well go
+home and shell corn as try to sing." And he laughed. "So in the first
+place we'll see if you can sing, and then what part you can sing,
+whether it's tribble, or counter, or bass, or tenor. The best way for us
+to find out is to have you sing the scale--the notes of music. Now these
+are the notes of music." And without recourse to tuning fork he sang:
+
+"Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do."
+
+The old schoolhouse seemed to swell to the mellow harmony from his big
+throat. To me those eight notes, as Bear-Tone sang them, were a sudden
+revelation of what music may be.
+
+"I'll try you first, my boy," he then said, pointing to Newman Darnley,
+a young fellow about twenty years old who sat at the end of the front
+row of seats. "Step right out here."
+
+Greatly embarrassed, Newman shambled forth and, turning, faced us.
+
+"Now, sir," said the master, "catch the key-note from me. Do! Now
+re--mi," and so forth.
+
+Bear-Tone had great difficulty in getting Newman through the scale.
+"'Fraid you never'll make a great singer, my boy," he said, "but you may
+be able to grumble bass a little, if you prove to have an ear that can
+follow. Next on that seat."
+
+The pupil so designated was a Bagdad boy named Freeman Knights. He
+hoarsely rattled off, "Do, re, mi, fa, sol," all on the same tone. When
+Bear-Tone had spent some moments in trying to make him rise and fall on
+the notes, he exclaimed:
+
+"My dear boy, you may be able to drive oxen, but you'll never sing. It
+wouldn't do you any good to stay here, and as the room is crowded the
+best thing you can do is to run home."
+
+Opening the door, he gave Freeman a friendly pat on the shoulder and a
+push into better air outside.
+
+Afterwards came Freeman's sister, Nellie Knights; she could discern no
+difference between do and la--at which Bear-Tone heaved a sigh.
+
+"Wai, sis, you'll be able to call chickens, I guess, because that's all
+on one note, but 'twouldn't be worth while for you to try to sing, or
+torment a pianner. There are plenty of girls tormentin' pianners now. I
+guess you'd better go home, too; it may come on to snow."
+
+Nellie departed angrily and slammed the door. Bear-Tone looked after
+her. "Yes," he said, "'tis kind of hard to say that to a girl. Don't
+wonder she's a little mad. And yet, that's the kindest thing I can do.
+Even in Scripter there was the sheep and the goats; the goats couldn't
+sing, and the sheep could; they had to be separated."
+
+He went on testing voices and sending the "goats" home. Some of the
+"goats," however, lingered round outside, made remarks and peeped in at
+the windows. In an hour their number had grown to eighteen or twenty.
+
+Dreading the ordeal, I slunk into a back seat. I saw my cousin, Addison,
+who had a fairly good voice, join the "sheep," and then Theodora, Ellen,
+Kate and Thomas; but I could not escape the ordeal forever, and at last
+my turn came. When Bear-Tone bade me sing the scale, fear so constricted
+my vocal cords that I squealed rather than sang.
+
+"Sonny, there's lots of things a boy can do besides sing," Bear-Tone
+said as he laughingly consigned me to the outer darkness. "It's no great
+blessing, after all." He patted my shoulder. "I can sing a little, but
+I've never been good for much else. So don't you feel bad about it."
+
+But I did feel bad, and, joining the "goats" outside, I helped to
+organize a hostile demonstration. We began to march round the
+schoolhouse, howling Yankee Doodle. Our discordant noise drew a prompt
+response. The door opened and Bear-Tone's huge form appeared.
+
+"In about one harf of one minute more I'll be out there and give ye a
+lesson in Yankee Doodle!" he cried, laughing. His tone sounded
+good-natured; yet for some reason none of us thought it best to renew
+the disturbance.
+
+Most of the "goats" dispersed, but, not wishing to walk home alone, I
+hung round waiting for the others. One window of the schoolroom had been
+raised, and through that I watched proceedings. Bear-Tone had now tested
+all the voices except one, and his face showed that he had not been
+having a very pleasant time. Up in the back seat there still remained
+one girl, Helen Thomas, who had, according to common report, a rather
+good voice; yet she was so modest that few had ever heard her either
+sing or recite.
+
+I saw her come forward, when the master beckoned, and sing her do, re,
+mi. Bear-Tone, who had stood waiting somewhat apathetically, came
+suddenly to attention. "Sing that again, little girl," he said.
+
+Encouraged by his kind glance, Helen again sang the scale in her clear
+voice. A radiant look overspread Bear-Tone's big face.
+
+"Wal, wal!" he cried. "But you've a voice, little one! Sing that with
+me."
+
+Big voice and girl's voice blended and chorded.
+
+"Ah, but you will make a singer, little one!" Bear-Tone exclaimed. "Now
+sing Woodland with me. Never mind notes, sing by ear."
+
+A really beautiful volume of sound came through the window at which I
+listened. Bear-Tone and his new-found treasure sang The Star-Spangled
+Banner and several of the songs of the Civil War, then just
+ended--ballads still popular with us and fraught with touching memories:
+Tenting To-night on the Old Camp Ground, Dearest Love, Do You Remember?
+and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching. Bear-Tone's rich voice
+chorded beautifully with Helen's sweet, high notes.
+
+As we were getting into the pung to go home after the meeting, and Helen
+and her older sister, Elizabeth, were setting off, Bear-Tone dashed out,
+bareheaded, with his big face beaming.
+
+"Be sure you come again," he said to her, in a tone that was almost
+imploring. "You can sing! Oh, you can sing! I'll teach you! I'll teach
+you!"
+
+The singing school that winter served chiefly as a pretty background for
+Bear-Tone's delight in Helen Thomas's voice, the interest he took in it,
+and the untiring efforts he made to teach her.
+
+"One of the rarest of voices!" he said to the old Squire one night when
+he had come to the farmhouse on one of his frequent visits. "Not once
+will you find one in fifty years. It's a deep tribble. Why, Squire, that
+girl's voice is a discovery! And it will grow in her, Squire! It is just
+starting now, but by the time she's twenty-five it will come out
+wonderful."
+
+The soprano of the particular quality that Bear-Tone called "deep
+tribble" is that sometimes called a "falcon" soprano, or dramatic
+soprano, in distinction from light soprano. It is better known and more
+enthusiastically appreciated by those proficient in music than by the
+general public. Bear-Tone, however, recognized it in his new pupil, as
+if from instinct.
+
+The other pupils were somewhat neglected that winter; but no one
+complained, for it was such a pleasure to hear Bear-Tone and Helen sing.
+Many visitors came; and once the old Squire attended a meeting, in order
+to hear Bear-Tone's remarkable pupil. In Days of Old when Knights were
+Bold, dear old Juanita, and Roll on, Silver Moon, were some of their
+favorite songs, Still a "goat," and always a "goat," I am not capable of
+describing music; but school and visitors sat enchanted when Helen and
+Bear-Tone sang.
+
+Helen's parents were opposed to having their daughter become a
+professional singer. They were willing that she should sing in church
+and at funerals, but not in opera. For a long time Bear-Tone labored to
+convince them that a voice like Helen's has a divine mission in the
+world, to please, to touch and to ennoble the hearts of the people.
+
+At last he induced them to let him take Helen to Portland, in order that
+a well-known teacher there might hear her sing and give an opinion.
+Bear-Tone was to pay the expenses of the trip himself.
+
+The city teacher was enthusiastic over the girl and urged that she be
+given opportunity for further study; but in view of the opposition at
+home that was not easily managed. But Bear-Tone would not be denied. He
+sacrificed the scanty earnings of a whole winter's round of singing
+schools in country school districts to send her to the city for a course
+of lessons.
+
+The next year the question of her studying abroad came up. If Helen were
+to make the most of her voice, she must have it trained by masters in
+Italy and Paris. Her parents were unwilling to assist her to cross the
+ocean.
+
+Bear-Tone was a poor man; his singing schools never brought him more
+than a few hundred dollars a year. He owned a little house in a
+neighboring village, where he kept "bachelor's hall"; he had a piano, a
+cabinet organ, a bugle, a guitar and several other musical instruments,
+including one fairly valuable old violin from which he was wont of an
+evening to produce wonderfully sweet, sad strains.
+
+No one except the officials of the local savings bank knew how Bear-Tone
+raised the money for Helen Thomas's first trip abroad, but he did it.
+Long afterwards people learned that he had mortgaged everything he
+possessed, even the old violin, in order to provide the necessary money.
+
+Helen went to Europe and studied for two years. She made her debut at
+Milan, sang in several of the great cities on the Continent, and at
+last, with a reputation as a great singer fully established, returned
+home four years later to sing in New York.
+
+Bear-Tone meanwhile was teaching his singing schools, as usual, in the
+rural districts of Maine. Once or twice during those two years of study
+he had managed to send a little money to Helen, to help out with the
+expenses. Now he postponed his three bi-weekly schools for one week and
+made his first and only trip to New York--the journey of a lifetime.
+Perhaps he had at first hoped that he might meet her and be welcomed. If
+so, he changed his mind on reaching the metropolis. Aware of his
+uncouthness, he resolved not to shame her by claiming recognition. But
+he went three times to hear her sing, first in Aida, then in Faust, and
+afterwards in Les Huguenots; heard her magic notes, saw her in all her
+queenly beauty--but saw her from the shelter of a pillar in the rear of
+the great opera house. On the fifth day he returned home as quietly as
+he had gone.
+
+Perhaps a month after he came back, while driving to one of his singing
+schools on a bitter night in February, he took a severe cold. For lack
+of any proper care at his little lonesome, chilly house, his cold a day
+or two later turned into pneumonia, and from that he died.
+
+The savings bank took the house and the musical instruments. The piano,
+the organ, the old violin and other things were sold at auction. And
+probably Helen Thomas, whose brilliant career he had made possible,
+never heard anything about the circumstances of his death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEN WE HUNTED THE STRIPED CATAMOUNT
+
+
+The following week Tom Edwards and I had a somewhat exciting adventure
+which, however, by no means covered us with glory. During the previous
+winter and, indeed, for several winters before that, there had been
+rumors current of a strange, fierce animal which came down, from the
+"great woods" to devour dead lambs that were cast forth from the
+farmers' barns in February and March.
+
+At that time nearly every farmer in the vicinity kept a flock of from
+fifty to a hundred sheep. During the warm season the animals got their
+own living in the back pastures; in winter they were fed on nothing
+better than hay. The animals usually came out in the spring thin and
+weak, with the ewes in poor condition to raise their lambs. In
+consequence, many of the lambs died soon after birth, and were thrown
+out on the snow for the crows and wild animals to dispose of.
+
+The old Squire had begun to feed corn to his flock during the latter
+part of the winter, and urged his neighbors to do so; but many of them
+did not have the corn and preferred to let nature take its course.
+
+The mysterious animal that the boys were talking about seemed to have
+formed the habit of visiting that region every spring. Not even the
+older people knew to what species it belonged. It came round the barns
+at night, and no one had ever seen it distinctly. Some believed it to be
+a catamount or panther; others who had caught glimpses of it said that
+it was a black creature with white stripes.
+
+Traps had been set for it, but always without success. Mr. Wilbur, one
+of the neighbors, had watched from his barn and fired a charge of
+buckshot at it; but immediately the creature had disappeared in the
+darkness, carrying off a lamb. It visited one place or another nearly
+every night for a month or more--as long, indeed, as the supply of lambs
+held out. Then it would vanish until the following spring.
+
+On the day above referred to I saw Tom coming across the snowy fields
+that lay between the Edwards' farm and the old Squire's. Guessing that
+he had something to tell me, I hastened forth to meet him.
+
+"That old striped catamount has come round again!" Tom exclaimed. "He
+was at Batchelder's last night and got two dead lambs. And night before
+last he was at Wilbur's. I've got four dead lambs saved up. And old
+Hughy Glinds has told me a way to watch for him and shoot him."
+
+Hughy Glinds was a rheumatic old man who lived in a small log house up
+in the edge of the great woods and made baskets for a living. In his
+younger days he had been a trapper and was therefore a high authority in
+such matters among the boys.
+
+"We shall have to have a sleigh or a pung to watch from," Tom explained.
+"Old Hughy says to carry out a dead lamb and leave it near the bushes
+below our barn, and to haul a sleigh there and leave it a little way
+off, and do this for three or four nights till old Striped gets used to
+seeing the sleigh. Then, after he has come four nights, we're to go
+there early in the evening and hide in the sleigh, with a loaded gun.
+Old Striped will be used to seeing the sleigh there, and won't be
+suspicious.
+
+"Pa don't want me to take our sleigh so long," Tom went on. "He wants to
+use it before we'd be through with it. But"--and I now began to see why
+Tom had been so willing to share with me the glory of killing the
+marauder--"there's an old sleigh out here behind your barn. Nobody uses
+it now. Couldn't we take that?"
+
+I felt sure that the old Squire would not care, but I proposed to ask
+the opinion of Addison. Tom opposed our taking Addison into our
+confidence.
+
+"He's older, and he'd get all the credit for it," he objected.
+
+Addison, moreover, had driven to the village that morning; and after
+some discussion we decided to take the sleigh on our own responsibility.
+It was partly buried in a snowdrift; but we dug it out, and then drew it
+across the fields on the snow crust--lifting it over three stone
+walls--to a little knoll below the Edwards barn.
+
+We concluded to lay the dead lamb on the top of the knoll at a little
+distance from the woods; the sleigh we left on the southeast side about
+fifteen paces away. Tom thought that he could shoot accurately at that
+distance, even at night.
+
+For my own part I thought fifteen paces much too near. Misgivings had
+begun to beset me.
+
+"What if you miss him, Tom?" I said.
+
+"I shan't miss him," he declared firmly.
+
+"But, Tom, what if you only wounded him and he came rushing straight at
+us?"
+
+"Oh, I'll fix him!" Tom exclaimed. But I had become very apprehensive;
+and at last, Tom helped me to bring cedar rails and posts from a fence
+near by to construct a kind of fortress round the sleigh. We set the
+posts in the hard snow and made a fence, six rails high--to protect
+ourselves. Even then I was afraid it might jump the fence.
+
+"He won't jump much with seven buckshot and a ball in him!" said Tom.
+
+We left the empty sleigh there for three nights in succession; and every
+morning Tom came over to tell me that the lamb had been taken.
+
+"The plan works just as old Hughy told me it would," he said; "but I've
+got only one lamb more, so we'll have to watch to-night. Don't tell
+anybody, but about bedtime you come over." Tom was full of eagerness.
+
+I was in a feverish state of mind all day, especially as night drew on.
+If I had not been ashamed to fail Tom, I think I should have backed out.
+At eight o'clock I pretended to start for bed; then, stealing out at the
+back door, I hurried across the fields to the Edwards place. A new moon
+was shining faintly over the woods in the west.
+
+Tom was in the wood-house, loading the gun, an old army rifle, bored out
+for shot. "I've got in six fingers of powder," he whispered.
+
+We took a buffalo skin and a horse blanket from the stable, and armed
+with the gun, and an axe besides, proceeded cautiously out to the
+sleigh. Tom had laid the dead lamb on the knoll.
+
+Climbing over the fence, we ensconced ourselves in the old sleigh. It
+was a chilly night, with gusts of wind from the northwest. We laid the
+axe where it would be at hand in case of need; and Tom trained the gun
+across the fence rail in the direction of the knoll.
+
+"Like's not he won't come till toward morning," he whispered; "but we
+must stay awake and keep listening for him. Don't you go to sleep."
+
+I thought that sleep was the last thing I was likely to be guilty of. I
+wished myself at home. The tales I had heard of the voracity and
+fierceness of the striped catamount were made much more terrible by the
+darkness. My position was so cramped and the old sleigh so hard that I
+had to squirm occasionally; but every time I did so, Tom whispered:
+
+"Sh! Don't rattle round. He may hear us."
+
+An hour or two, which seemed ages long, dragged by; the crescent moon
+sank behind the tree-tops and the night darkened. At last, in spite of
+myself, I grew drowsy, but every few moments I started broad awake and
+clutched the handle of the axe. Several times Tom whispered:
+
+"I believe you're asleep."
+
+"I'm not!" I protested.
+
+"Well, you jump as if you were," he retorted.
+
+By and by Tom himself started spasmodically, and I accused him of having
+slept; but he denied it in a most positive whisper. Suddenly, in an
+interval between two naps, I heard a sound different from the soughing
+of the wind, a sound like claws or toenails scratching on the snow
+crust. It came from the direction of the knoll, or beyond it.
+
+"Tom, Tom, he's coming!" I whispered.
+
+Tom, starting up from a nap, gripped the gunstock. "Yes, siree," he
+said. "He is." He cocked the gun, and the barrel squeaked faintly on the
+rail. "By jinks, I see him!"
+
+I, too, discerned a shadowy, dark object at the top of the snow-crusted
+knoll. Tom was twisting round to get aim across the rail--and the next
+instant both of us were nearly kicked out of the sleigh by the recoil of
+the greatly overloaded gun. We both scrambled to our feet, for we heard
+an ugly snarl. I think the animal leaped upward; I was sure I saw
+something big and black rise six feet in the air, as if it were coming
+straight for the sleigh!
+
+The instinct of self-preservation is a strong one. The first thing I
+realized I was over the fence rails, on the side toward the Edwards
+barn, running for dear life on the snow crust--and Tom was close behind
+me! We never stopped, even to look back, till we were at the barn and
+round the farther corner of it. There we pulled up to catch our breath.
+Nothing was pursuing us, nor could we hear anything.
+
+After we had listened a while, Tom ran into the house and waked his
+father. Mr. Edwards, however, was slow to believe that we had hit the
+animal, and refused to dress and go out. It was now about two o'clock. I
+did not like to go home alone, and so went to bed with Tom. In
+consequence of our vigils we slept till sunrise. Meanwhile, on going out
+to milk, Tom's father had had the curiosity to visit the scene of our
+adventure. A trail of blood spots leading from the knoll into the woods
+convinced him that we had really damaged the prowler; and picking up the
+axe that I had dropped, he followed the trail. Large red stains at
+intervals showed that the animal had stopped frequently to grovel on the
+snow. About half a mile from the knoll, Mr. Edwards came upon the beast,
+in a fir thicket, making distressful sounds, and quite helpless to
+defend itself. A blow on the head from the poll of the axe finished the
+creature; and, taking it by the tail, Mr. Edwards dragged it to the
+house. The carcass was lying in the dooryard when Tom's mother waked us.
+
+"Get up and see your striped catamount!" she called up the chamber
+stairs.
+
+Hastily donning our clothes we rushed down. Truth to say, the "monster"
+of so many startling stories was somewhat disappointing to contemplate.
+It was far from being so big as we had thought it in the night--indeed,
+it was no larger than a medium-sized dog. It had coarse black hair with
+two indistinct, yellowish-white stripes, or bands, along its sides. Its
+legs were short, but strong, its claws white, hooked and about an inch
+and a quarter long. The head was broad and flat, and the ears were low
+and wide apart. It was not in the least like a catamount. In short, it
+was, as the reader may have guessed, a wolverene, or glutton, an animal
+rarely seen in Maine even by the early settlers, for its habitat is much
+farther north.
+
+As Tom and I stood looking the creature over, my cousin Theodora
+appeared, coming from the old Squire's to make inquiries for me. They
+had missed me and were uneasy about me.
+
+During the day every boy in the neighborhood came to see the animal, and
+many of the older people, too. In fact, several people came from a
+considerable distance to look at the beast. The "glory" was Tom's for
+making so good a shot in the night, yet, in a way, I shared it with him.
+
+"Don't you ever say a word about our running from the sleigh," Tom
+cautioned me many times that day, and added that he would never have run
+except for my bad example.
+
+I was obliged to put up in silence with that reflection on my bravery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LOST OXEN
+
+
+It was now approaching time to tap the maples again; but owing to the
+disaster which had befallen our effort to make maple syrup for profit
+the previous spring, neither Addison nor myself felt much inclination to
+undertake it. The matter was talked over at the breakfast table one
+morning and noting our lukewarmness on the subject, the old Squire
+remarked that as the sugar lot had been tapped steadily every spring for
+twenty years or more, it would be quite as well perhaps to give the
+maples a rest for one season.
+
+That same morning, too, Tom Edwards came over in haste to tell us, with
+a very sober face, that their oxen had disappeared mysteriously, and ask
+us to join in the search to find them. They were a yoke of "sparked"
+oxen--red and white in contrasting patches. Each had wide-spread horns
+and a "star" in his face. Bright and Broad were their names, and they
+were eight years old.
+
+Neighbor Jotham Edwards was one of those simpleminded, hard-working
+farmers who ought to prosper but who never do. It is not easy to say
+just what the reason was for much of his ill fortune. Born under an
+unlucky planet, some people said; but that, of course, is childish. The
+real reason doubtless was lack of good judgment in his business
+enterprises.
+
+Whatever he undertook nearly always turned out badly. His carts and
+ploughs broke unaccountably, his horses were strangely prone to run away
+and smash things, and something was frequently the matter with his
+crops. Twice, I remember, he broke a leg, and each time he had to lie
+six weeks on his back for the bone to knit. Felons on his fingers
+tormented him; and it was a notable season that he did not have a big,
+painful boil or a bad cut from a scythe or from an axe. One mishap
+seemed to lead to another.
+
+Jotham's constant ill fortune was the more noticeable among his
+neighbors because his father, Jonathan, had been a careful, prosperous
+farmer who kept his place in excellent order, raised good crops and had
+the best cattle of any one thereabouts. Within a few years after the
+place had passed under Jotham's control it was mortgaged, the buildings
+and the fences were in bad repair, and the fields were weedy. Yet that
+man worked summer and winter as hard and as steadily as ever a man did
+or could.
+
+Two winters before he had contracted with old Zack Lurvey to cut three
+hundred thousand feet of hemlock logs and draw them to the bank of a
+small river where in the spring they could be floated down to Lurvey's
+Mills. For hauling the logs he had two yokes of oxen, the yoke of large
+eight-year-olds that I have already described, and another yoke of
+small, white-faced cattle. During the first winter the off ox of the
+smaller pair stepped into a hole between two roots, broke its leg and
+had to be killed. Afterwards Jotham worked the nigh ox in a crooked yoke
+in front of his larger oxen and went on with the job from December until
+March.
+
+But, as all teamsters know, oxen that are worked hard all day in winter
+weather require corn meal or other equally nourishing provender in
+addition to hay. Now, Jotham had nothing for his team except hay of
+inferior quality. In consequence, as the winter advanced the cattle lost
+flesh and became very weak. By March they could scarcely walk with their
+loads, and at last there came a morning when Jotham could not get the
+older oxen even to rise to their feet. He was obliged to give up work
+with them, and finally came home after turning them loose to help
+themselves to what hay was left at the camp.
+
+The old Squire did not often concern himself with the affairs of his
+neighbors, but he went up to the logging camp with Jotham; and when he
+saw the pitiful condition the cattle were in he remonstrated with him.
+
+"This is too bad," he said. "You have worked these oxen nearly to death,
+and you haven't half fed them!"
+
+"Wal, my oxen don't have to work any harder than I do!" Jotham replied
+angrily. "I ain't able to buy corn for them. They must work without it."
+
+"You only lose by such a foolish course," the old Squire said to him.
+
+But Jotham was not a man who could easily be convinced of his errors.
+All his affairs were going badly; arguing with him only made him
+impatient.
+
+The snow was now so soft that the oxen in their emaciated and weakened
+condition could not be driven home, and again Jotham left them at the
+camp to help themselves to fodder. He promised, however, to send better
+hay and some potatoes up to them the next day. But during the following
+night a great storm set in that carried off nearly all the snow and
+caused such a freshet in the streams and the brooks that it was
+impracticable to reach the camp for a week or longer. Then one night the
+small, white-faced ox made his appearance at the Edwards barn, having
+come home of his own accord.
+
+The next morning Jotham went up on foot to see how his other cattle were
+faring. The flood had now largely subsided; but it was plain that during
+the storm the water had flowed back round the camp to a depth of several
+feet. The oxen were nowhere to be seen, nor could he discern their
+tracks round the camp or in the woods that surrounded it. He tried to
+track them with a dog, but without success.
+
+Several of Jotham's neighbors assisted him in the search. Where the oxen
+had gone or what had become of them was a mystery; the party searched
+the forest in vain for a distance of five or six miles on all sides.
+Some of the men thought that the oxen had fallen into the stream and had
+drowned; it was not likely that they had been stolen. Jotham was at last
+obliged to buy another yoke of cattle in order to do his spring work on
+the farm.
+
+Two years passed, and Jotham's oxen were almost forgotten. During the
+second winter, after school had closed in the old Squire's district,
+Willis Murch, a young friend of mine who lived near us, went on a
+trapping trip to the headwaters of Lurvey's Stream, where the oxen had
+disappeared and where he had a camp. One Saturday he came home for
+supplies and invited me to go back with him and spend Sunday. The
+distance was perhaps fourteen miles; and we had to travel on snowshoes,
+for at the time--it was February--the snow was nearly four feet deep in
+the woods. We had a fine time there in camp that night and the next
+morning went to look at Willis's traps.
+
+That afternoon, after we had got back to camp and cooked our dinner,
+Willis said to me, "Now, if you will promise not to tell, I'll show you
+something that will make you laugh."
+
+I promised readily enough, without thinking much about the matter.
+
+"Come on, then," said he; and we put on our snowshoes again and prepared
+to start. But, though I questioned him with growing curiosity, he would
+not tell me what we were to see. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough," he
+said.
+
+Willis led off, and I followed. I should think we went as much as five
+miles through the black growth to the north of Willis's camp and came
+finally to a frozen brook, which we followed for a mile round to the
+northeast.
+
+"I was prospecting up this way a week ago," Willis said. "I had an idea
+of setting traps on this brook. It flows into a large pond a little way
+ahead of us, but just before we get to the pond it winds through a swamp
+of little spotted maple, moose bush and alder."
+
+"I guess it's beaver you're going to show me," I remarked.
+
+"Guess again," said Willis, "But keep still. Step in my tracks and don't
+make the brush crack."
+
+The small growth was so thick that we could see only a little way ahead.
+Willis pushed slowly through it for some time; then, stopping short, he
+motioned to me over his shoulder to come forward. Not twenty yards away
+I distinguished the red-and-white hair of a large animal that was
+browsing on a clump of bushes. It stood in a pathway trodden so deep
+into the snow that its legs were completely hidden. In surprise I saw
+that it had broad horns.
+
+"Why, that's an ox!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," said Willis, laughing. "His mate is round here, too."
+
+"Willis," I almost shouted, "they must be the oxen Jotham lost two years
+ago!"
+
+"Sure!" said Willis. "But don't make such a noise. There are moose
+here."
+
+"Moose!" I whispered.
+
+"There's a cow moose with two moose calves. When I was here last
+Thursday afternoon there were three deer with them. The snow's got so
+deep they are yarding here together. They get water at the brook, and I
+saw where they had dug down through the snow to get to the dry swamp
+grass underneath. They won't leave their yard if we don't scare them;
+they couldn't run in the deep snow."
+
+We thought that probably the oxen had grown wild from being off in the
+woods so long. However, Willis advanced slowly, calling, "Co-boss!"
+Seeing us coming and hearing human voices, the old ox lifted his muzzle
+toward us and snuffed genially. He did not appear to be afraid, but
+behaved as if he were glad to see us. The other one--old Broad--had been
+lying down near by out of sight in the deep pathway, but now he suddenly
+rose and stood staring at us. We approached to within ten feet of them.
+They appeared to be in fairly good flesh, and their hair seemed very
+thick. Evidently they had wandered off from the logging camp and had
+been living a free, wild life ever since. In the small open meadows
+along the upper course of the stream there was plenty of wild grass.
+And, like deer, cattle will subsist in winter on the twigs of freshly
+grown bushes. Even such food as that, with freedom, was better than the
+cruel servitude of Jotham!
+
+On going round to the far side of the yard we spied the three deer, the
+cow moose and her two yearling calves. They appeared unwilling to run
+away in the deep snow, but would not let us approach near enough to see
+them clearly through the bushes.
+
+"You could shoot one of those deer," I said to Willis; but he declared
+that he would never shoot a deer or a moose when it was snow-bound in a
+yard.
+
+We lingered near the yard for an hour or more. By speaking kindly to the
+oxen I found that I could go very close to them; they had by no means
+forgotten human beings. On our way back to Willis's camp he reminded me
+of my promise. "Now, don't you tell where those oxen are; don't tell
+anybody!"
+
+"But, Willis, don't you think Jotham ought to know?" I asked.
+
+"No, I don't!" Willis exclaimed. "He has abused those oxen enough!
+They've got away from him, and I'm glad of it! I'll never tell him where
+they are!"
+
+We argued the question all the way to camp, and at last Willis said
+bluntly that he should not have taken me to see them if he had thought
+that I would tell. "You promised not to," said he. That was true, and
+there the matter rested overnight.
+
+When I started home the next morning Willis walked with me for two miles
+or more. We had not mentioned Jotham's oxen since the previous
+afternoon; but I plainly saw that Willis had been thinking the matter
+over, for, after we separated and had each gone a few steps on his way,
+he called after me:
+
+"Are you going to tell about that?"
+
+"No," said I, and walked on.
+
+"Well, if you're not going to feel right about it, ask the old Squire
+what he thinks. If he says that Jotham ought to be told, perhaps you had
+better tell him." And Willis hastened away.
+
+But on reaching home I found that the old Squire had set off for
+Portland early that morning to see about selling his lumber and was not
+to return for a week. So I said nothing to any one. The night after he
+got back I watched for a chance to speak with him alone. After supper he
+went into the sitting-room to look over his lumber accounts, and I stole
+in after him.
+
+"You remember Jotham's oxen, gramp?" I began.
+
+"Why, yes," said he, looking up.
+
+"Well, I know where they are," I continued.
+
+"Where?" he exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+I then told him where Willis had found them and about the yard and the
+moose and deer we had seen with the oxen. "Willis doesn't want Jotham
+told," I added. "He says Jotham has abused those oxen enough, and that
+he is glad they got away from him. He made me promise not to tell any
+one at first, but finally he said that I might tell you, and that we
+should do as you think best."
+
+The old Squire gave me an odd look. Then he laughed and resumed his
+accounts for what seemed to me a long while. I had the feeling that he
+wished I had not told him.
+
+At last he looked up. "I suppose, now that we have found this out,
+Jotham will have to be told. They are his oxen, of course, and we should
+not feel right if we were to keep this from him. It wouldn't be quite
+the neighborly thing to do--to conceal it. So you had better go over and
+tell him."
+
+Almost every one likes to carry news, whether good or bad; and within
+fifteen minutes I had reached the Edwards farmhouse. Jotham, who was
+taking a late supper, came to the door.
+
+"What will you give to know where your lost oxen are?" I cried.
+
+"Where are they? Do you know?" he exclaimed. Then I told him where
+Willis and I had seen them. "Wal, I vum!" said Jotham. "Left me and took
+to the woods! And I've lost two years' work from 'em!"
+
+For a moment I was sorry I had told him.
+
+The next day he journeyed up to Willis's camp with several neighbors;
+and from there they all snowshoed to the yard to see the oxen and the
+moose. The strangely assorted little herd was still there, and, so far
+as could be judged, no one else had discovered them.
+
+Jotham had intended to drive the oxen home; but the party found the snow
+so deep that they thought it best to leave them where they were for a
+while. Since it was now the first week of March, the snow could be
+expected to settle considerably within a fortnight.
+
+I think it was the eighteenth of the month when Jotham and four other
+men finally went to get the oxen. They took a gun, with the intention of
+shooting one or more of the deer. A disagreeable surprise awaited them
+at the yard.
+
+At that time--it was before the days of game wardens--what were known as
+"meat-and-hide hunters" often came down over the boundary from Canada
+and slaughtered moose and deer while the animals were snow-bound. The
+lawless poachers frequently came in parties and sometimes searched the
+woods for twenty or thirty miles below the Line in quest of yards.
+
+Apparently such a raiding party had found Willis's yard and had shot not
+only the six deer and moose but Jotham's oxen as well. Blood on the snow
+and refuse where the animals had been hung up for skinning and dressing,
+made what had happened only too plain.
+
+Poor Jotham came home much cast down. "That's just my luck!" he
+lamented. "Everything always goes just that way with me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BETHESDA
+
+
+If anything was missing at the old farmhouse--clothes-brush, soap, comb
+or other articles of daily use--some one almost always would exclaim,
+"Look in Bethesda!" or "I left it in Bethesda!" Bethesda was one of
+those household words that you use without thought of its original
+significance or of the amused query that it raises in the minds of
+strangers.
+
+Like most New England houses built seventy-five years ago, the farmhouse
+at the old Squire's had been planned without thought of bathing
+facilities. The family washtub, brought to the kitchen of a Saturday
+night, and filled with well water tempered slightly by a few quarts from
+the teakettle, served the purpose. We were not so badly off as our
+ancestors had been, however, for in 1865, when we young folks went home
+to live at the old Squire's, stoves were fully in vogue and farmhouses
+were comfortably warmed. Bathing on winter nights was uncomfortable
+enough, we thought, but it was not the desperately chilly business that
+it must have been when farmhouses were heated by a single fireplace.
+
+In the sitting-room we had both a fireplace and an "air-tight" for the
+coldest weather. In grandmother Ruth's room there was a "fireside
+companion," and in the front room a "soapstone comfort," with sides and
+top of a certain kind of variegated limestone that held heat through the
+winter nights.
+
+So much heat rose from the lower rooms that the bedrooms on the floor
+above, where we young folks slept, were by no means uncomfortably cold,
+even in zero weather. Grandmother Ruth would open the hall doors an hour
+before it was time for us to go to bed, to let the superfluous heat rise
+for our benefit.
+
+In the matter of bathing, however, a great deal was left to be desired
+at the old house. There were six of us to take turns at that one tub.
+Grandmother Ruth took charge: she saw to it that we did not take too
+long, and listened to the tearful complaints about the coldness of the
+water. On Saturday nights her lot was not a happy one. She used to sit
+just outside the kitchen door and call our names when our turns came;
+and as each of us went by she would hand us our change of underclothing.
+
+Although the brass kettle was kept heating on the stove all the while,
+we had trouble in getting enough warm water to "take the chill off."
+More than once--unbeknown to grandmother Ruth--I followed Addison in the
+tub without changing the water. He had appreciably warmed it up. One
+night Halstead twitted me about it at the supper table, and I recollect
+that the lack of proper sensibility that I had shown scandalized the
+entire family.
+
+"Oh, Joseph!" grandmother often exclaimed to the old Squire. "We must
+have some better way for these children to bathe. They are getting older
+and larger, and I certainly cannot manage it much longer."
+
+Things went on in that way for the first two years of our sojourn at the
+old place--until after the old Squire had installed a hydraulic ram down
+at the brook, which forced plenty of water up to the house and the
+barns. Then, in October of the third year, the old gentleman bestirred
+himself.
+
+He had been as anxious as any one to improve our bathing facilities, but
+it is not an easy job to add a bathroom to a farmhouse. He walked about
+at the back of the house for hours, and made several excursions to a
+hollow at a distance in the rear of the place, and also climbed to the
+attic, all the while whistling softly:
+
+    "Roll on, Silver Moon,
+    Guide the traveler on his way."
+
+That was always a sure sign that he was getting interested in some
+scheme.
+
+Then things began to move in earnest. Two carpenters appeared and laid
+the sills for an addition to the house, twenty feet long by eighteen
+feet wide, just behind the kitchen, which was in the L. The room that
+they built had a door opening directly into the kitchen. The floor, I
+remember, was of maple and the walls of matched spruce.
+
+Meanwhile the old Squire had had a sewer dug about three hundred feet
+long; and to hold the water supply he built a tank of about a thousand
+gallons' capacity, made of pine planks; the tank was in the attic
+directly over the kitchen stove, so that in winter heat would rise under
+it through a little scuttle in the floor and prevent the water from
+freezing.
+
+From the tank the pipes that led to the new bathroom ran down close to
+the chimney and the stove pipe. Those bathroom pipes gave the old Squire
+much anxiety; there was not a plumber in town; the old gentleman had to
+do the work himself, with the help of a hardware dealer from the
+village, six miles away.
+
+But if the pipe gave him anxiety, the bathtub gave him more. When he
+inquired at Portland about their cost, he was somewhat staggered to
+learn that the price of a regular tub was fifty-eight dollars.
+
+But the old Squire had an inventive brain. He drove up to the mill,
+selected a large, sound pine log about four feet in diameter and set old
+Davy Glinds, a brother of Hughy Glinds, to excavate a tub from it with
+an adze. In his younger days Davy Glinds had been a ship carpenter, and
+was skilled in the use of the broadaxe and the adze. He fashioned a
+good-looking tub, five feet long by two and a half wide, smooth hewn
+within and without. When painted white the tub presented a very
+creditable appearance.
+
+The old Squire was so pleased with it that he had Glinds make another;
+and then, discovering how cheaply pine bathtubs could be made, he hit
+upon a new notion. The more he studied on a thing like that, the more
+the subject unfolded in his dear old head. Why, the old Squire asked
+himself, need the Saturday-night bath occupy a whole evening because the
+eight or ten members of the family had to take turns in one tub, when we
+could just as well have more tubs?
+
+Before grandmother Ruth fairly realized what he was about, the old
+gentleman had five of these pine tubs ranged there in the new lean-to.
+He had the carpenters inclose each tub within a sealed partition of
+spruce boards. There was thus formed a little hall five feet wide in the
+center of the new bathroom, from which small doors opened to each tub.
+
+"What do you mean, Joseph, by so many tubs?" grandmother cried in
+astonishment, when she discovered what he was doing.
+
+"Well, Ruth," he said, "I thought we'd have a tub for the boys, a tub
+for the girls, then tubs for you and me, mother, and one for our hired
+help."
+
+"Sakes alive, Joe! All those tubs to keep clean!"
+
+"But didn't you want a large bathroom?" the old Squire rejoined, with
+twinkling eyes.
+
+"Yes, yes," cried grandmother, "but I had no idea you were going to make
+a regular Bethesda!"
+
+Bethesda! Sure enough, like the pool in Jerusalem, it had five porches!
+And that name, born of grandmother Ruth's indignant surprise, stuck to
+it ever afterwards.
+
+When the old Squire began work on that bathroom he expected to have
+it finished in a month. But one difficulty after another arose: the
+tank leaked; the sewer clogged; nothing would work. If the hardware
+dealer from the village came once to help, he came fifty times!
+His own experience in bathrooms was limited. Then, to have hot
+water in abundance, it was necessary to send to Portland for a
+seventy-five-gallon copper heater; and six weeks passed before that
+order was filled.
+
+November, December and January passed before Bethesda was ready to turn
+on the water; and then we found that the kitchen stove would not heat so
+large a heater, or at least would not do it and serve as a cook-stove at
+the same time. Nor would it sufficiently warm the bathroom in very cold
+weather even with the kitchen door open. Then one night in February the
+pipes at the far end froze and burst, and the hardware man had to make
+us another hasty visit.
+
+To ward off such accidents in the future the old Squire now had recourse
+to what is known as the Granger furnace--a convenience that was then
+just coming into general favor among farmers. They are cosy,
+heat-holding contrivances, made of brick and lined either with fire
+brick or iron; they have an iron top with pot holes in which you can set
+kettles. The old Squire connected ours with the heater, and he placed it
+so that half of it projected into the new bathroom, through the
+partition wall of the kitchen. It served its purpose effectively and on
+winter nights diffused a genial glow both in the kitchen and in the
+bathroom.
+
+But it was the middle of April before the bathroom was completed; and
+the cost was actually between eight and nine hundred dollars!
+
+"My sakes, Joseph!" grandmother exclaimed. "Another bathroom like that
+would put us in the poor-house. And the neighbors all think we're
+crazy!"
+
+The old Squire, however, rubbed his hands with a smile of satisfaction.
+"I call it rather fine. I guess we are going to like it," he said.
+
+Like it we did, certainly. Bathing was no longer an ordeal, but a
+delight. There was plenty of warm water; you had only to pick your tub,
+enter your cubicle and shut the door. Bethesda, with its Granger furnace
+and big water heater, was a veritable household joy.
+
+"Ruth," the old Squire said, "all I'm sorry for is that I didn't do this
+thirty years ago. When I reflect on the cold, miserable baths we have
+taken and the other privations you and I have endured all these years it
+makes me heartsick to think what I've neglected."
+
+"But nine hundred dollars, Joseph!" grandmother interposed with a
+scandalized expression. "That's an awful bill!"
+
+"Yes," the old Squire admitted, "but we shall survive it."
+
+Grandmother was right about our neighbors. What they said among
+themselves would no doubt have been illuminating if we had heard it; but
+they maintained complete silence when we were present. But we noticed
+that when they called at the farmhouse they cast curious and perhaps
+envious glances at the new lean-to.
+
+Then an amusing thing happened. We had been enjoying Bethesda for a few
+weeks, but had not yet got past our daily pride in it, when one hot
+evening in the latter part of June who should come driving into the yard
+but David Barker, "the Burns of Maine," a poet and humorist of
+state-wide renown.
+
+The old Squire had met him several times; but his visit that night was
+accidental. He had come into our part of the state to visit a kinsman,
+but had got off his proper route and had called at our house to ask how
+far away this relative lived.
+
+"It is nine or ten miles up there," the old Squire said when they had
+shaken hands. "You are off your route. Better take out your horse and
+spend the night with us. You can find your way better by daylight."
+
+After some further conversation Mr. Barker decided to accept the old
+Squire's invitation. While grandmother and Ellen got supper for our
+guest, the old Squire escorted him to the hand bowl that he had put in
+at the end of the bathroom hall. I imagine that the old Squire was just
+a little proud of our recent accommodations.
+
+"And, David, if you would like a bath before retiring to-night, just
+step in here and make yourself at home," he said and opened several of
+the doors to the little cubicles.
+
+David looked the tubs over, first one and then another.
+
+"Wal, Squire," he said at last, in that peculiar voice of his, "I've
+sometimes wondered why our Maine folks had so few bathtubs, and
+sometimes been a little ashamed on't. But now I see how 'tis. You've got
+all the bathtubs there are cornered up here at your place!"
+
+He continued joking about our bathrooms while he was eating supper; and
+later, before retiring, he said, "I know you are a neat woman, Aunt
+Ruth, and I guess before I go to bed I'll take a turn in your bathroom."
+
+Ellen gave him a lamp; and he went in and shut the door. Fifteen
+minutes--half an hour--nearly an hour--passed, and still he was in
+there; and we heard him turning on and letting off water, apparently
+barrels of it! Occasionally, too, we heard a door open and shut.
+
+At last, when nearly an hour and a half had elapsed, the old Squire,
+wondering whether anything were wrong, went to the bathroom door. He
+knocked, and on getting a response inquired whether there was any
+trouble.
+
+"Doesn't the water run, David?" he asked. "Is it too cold for you? How
+are you getting on in there?"
+
+"Getting on beautifully," came the muffled voice of the humorist above
+the splashing within. "Doing a great job. Only one tub more! Four off
+and one to come."
+
+"But, David!" the old Squire began in considerable astonishment.
+
+"Yes. Sure. It takes time. But I know Aunt Ruth is an awful neat woman,
+and I determined to do a full job!"
+
+He had been taking a bath in each of the five tubs in succession. That
+was Barker humor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHEN WE WALKED THE TOWN LINES
+
+
+It was some time the following week, I think, that the old Squire looked
+across to us at the breakfast table and said, "Boys, don't you want to
+walk the town lines for me? I think I shall let you do it this time--and
+have the fee," he added, smiling.
+
+The old gentleman was one of the selectmen of the town that year; and an
+old law, or municipal regulation, required that one or more of the
+selectmen should walk the town lines--follow round the town boundaries
+on foot--once a year, to see that the people of adjoining towns, or
+others, were not trespassing. The practice of walking the town lines is
+now almost or quite obsolete, but it was a needed precaution when
+inhabitants were few and when the thirty-six square miles of a township
+consisted mostly of forest. At this time the southern half of our town
+was already taken up in farms, but the northern part was still in forest
+lots. The selectmen usually walked the north lines only.
+
+When the state domain, almost all dense forest, was first surveyed, the
+land was laid off in ranges, so-called, and tiers of lots. The various
+grants of land to persons for public services were also surveyed in a
+similar manner and the corners and lines established by means of stakes
+and stones, and of blazed trees. If a large rock happened to lie at the
+corner of a range or lot, the surveyor sometimes marked it with a drill.
+Such rocks made the best corners.
+
+Usually the four corners of the town were established by means of low,
+square granite posts, set in the earth and with the initial letter of
+the township cut in it with a drill.
+
+As if it were yesterday I remember that sharp, cold morning. Hard-frozen
+snow a foot deep still covered the cleared land, and in the woods it was
+much deeper. The first heavy rainstorm of spring had come two days
+before, but it had cleared off cold and windy the preceding evening,
+with snow squalls and zero weather again. Nevertheless, Addison and I
+were delighted at the old Squire's proposal, especially since the old
+gentleman had hinted that we could have the fee, which was usually four
+dollars when two of the selectmen walked the lines and were out all day.
+
+"Go to the northeast corner of the town first," the old Squire said.
+"The corner post is three miles and a half from here; you will find it
+in the cleared land a hundred rods northeast of the barn on the Jotham
+Silver place. Start from there and go due west till you reach the
+wood-lot on the Silver farm. There the blazed trees begin, and you will
+have to go from one to another. It is forest nearly all the way after
+that for six miles, till you come to the northwest town corner.
+
+"You can take my compass if you like," the old Squire added. "But it
+will not be of much use to you, for it will be easier to follow the
+blazed trees or corner stakes. Take our lightest axe with you and renew
+the old blazes on the trees." He apparently felt some misgivings that we
+might get lost, for he added, "If you want to ask Thomas to go with you,
+you may."
+
+Tom was more accustomed to being in the woods than either of us; but
+Addison hesitated about inviting him, for of course if he went we should
+have to divide the fee with him. However, the old Squire seemed to wish
+to have him go with us, and at last, while Theodora was putting up a
+substantial luncheon for us, Ellen ran over to carry the invitation to
+Tom. He was willing enough to go and came back with her, carrying his
+shotgun.
+
+"It will be a long jaunt," the old gentleman said as we started off.
+"But if you move on briskly and don't stop by the way, you can get back
+before dark."
+
+The snow crust was so hard and the walking so good that we struck
+directly across the fields and pastures to the northeast and within an
+hour reached the town corner on the Silver farm. At that point our tramp
+along the north line of the town began, and we went from one blazed tree
+to another and freshened the blazes.
+
+We went on rapidly, crossed Hedgehog Ridge and descended to Stoss Pond,
+which the town line crossed obliquely. We had expected to cross the pond
+on the ice; but the recent great rainstorm and thaw had flooded the ice
+to a depth of six or eight inches. New ice was already forming, but it
+would not quite bear our weight, and we had to make a detour of a mile
+through swamps round the south end of the pond and pick up the line
+again on the opposite shore.
+
+Stoss Pond Mountain then confronted us, and it was almost noon when we
+neared Wild Brook; we heard it roaring as we approached and feared that
+we should find it very high.
+
+"We may have to fell a tree over it to get across," Addison said.
+
+So it seemed, for upon emerging on the bank we saw a yellow torrent
+twenty feet or more wide and four or five feet deep rushing tumultuously
+down the rocky channel.
+
+Tom, however, who had come out on the bank a little way below, shouted
+to us, above the roar, to come that way, and we rejoined him at a bend
+where the opposite bank was high. He was in the act of crossing
+cautiously on a snow bridge. During the winter a great snowdrift, seven
+or eight feet deep, had lodged in the brook; and the recent freshet had
+merely cut a channel beneath it, leaving a frozen arch that spanned the
+torrent.
+
+"Don't do it!" Addison shouted to him. "It will fall with you!"
+
+But, extending one foot slowly ahead of the other, Tom safely crossed to
+the other side.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted. "It will hold."
+
+Addison, however, held back. The bridge looked dangerous; if it broke
+down, whoever was on it would be thrown into the water and carried
+downstream in the icy torrent.
+
+"Oh, it's strong enough!" Tom exclaimed. "That will hold all right." And
+to show how firm it was, he came part way back across the frozen arch
+and stood still.
+
+It was an unlucky action. The whole bridge suddenly collapsed under him,
+and down went Tom with it into the rushing water, which whirled him
+along toward a jam of ice and drift stuff twenty or thirty yards below.
+By flinging his arms across one of those great cakes of hard-frozen snow
+he managed to keep his head up; and he shouted lustily for us to help
+him. He bumped against the jam and hung there, fighting with both arms
+to keep from being carried under it.
+
+Addison, who had the axe, ran down the bank and with a few strokes cut a
+moosewood sapling, which we thrust out to Tom. He caught hold of it, and
+then, by pulling hard, we hauled him to the bank and helped him out.
+
+Oh, but wasn't he a wet boy, and didn't his teeth chatter! In fact, all
+three of us were wet, for, in our excitement, Addison and I had gone in
+knee-deep, and the water had splashed over us. In that bitter cold wind
+we felt it keenly. Tom was nearly torpid; he seemed unable to speak, and
+we could hardly make him take a step. His face and hands were blue.
+
+"What shall we do with him?" Addison whispered to me in alarm. "It's
+five miles home. I'm afraid he'll freeze."
+
+We then thought of the old Squire's logging camp on Papoose Pond, the
+outlet of which entered Wild Brook about half a mile above where we had
+tried to cross it. We knew that there was a cooking stove in the camp
+and decided that our best plan was to take Tom there and dry his
+clothes. Getting him between us, we tried to make him run, but he seemed
+unable to move his feet.
+
+"Run, run, Tom!" we shouted to him. "Run, or you'll freeze!"
+
+He seemed not to hear or care. In our desperation we slapped him and
+dragged him along between us. Finally his legs moved a little, and he
+began to step.
+
+"Run, run with us!" Addison kept urging.
+
+At last we got him going, although he shook so hard that he shook us
+with him. The exertion did him good. We hustled him along and, following
+the brook, came presently to a disused lumber road that led to the
+logging camp in the woods a few hundred yards from the shore of the
+pond. All three of us were panting hard when we reached it, but our wet
+clothes were frozen stiff.
+
+We rushed Tom into the camp and, finding matches on a shelf behind the
+stovepipe, kindled a fire of such dry stuff as we found at hand. Then,
+as the place warmed up, we pulled off Tom's frozen outer coat and
+waistcoat, got the water out of his boots, and set him behind the stove.
+
+Still he shook and could speak only with difficulty. We kept a hot fire
+and finally boiled water in a kettle and, gathering wintergreen leaves
+from a knoll outside the camp, made a hot tea for him.
+
+At last we put him into the bunk and covered him as best we could with
+our own coats, which we did not miss, since the camp was now as hot as
+an oven. For more than an hour longer, however, his tremors continued in
+spite of the heat. Addison and I took turns rushing outside to cut wood
+from dry spruces to keep the stove hot. A little later, as I came in
+with an armful, I found Addison watching Tom.
+
+"Sh!" he said. "He's asleep."
+
+The afternoon was waning; a cold, windy night was coming on.
+
+"What shall we do?" Addison whispered in perplexity. "I don't believe we
+ought to take him out; his clothes aren't dry yet. We shall have to stay
+here all night with him."
+
+"But what will the folks at home think?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Of course they will worry about us," Addison replied gloomily. "But I'm
+afraid Tom will get his death o' cold if we take him out. We ought to
+keep him warm."
+
+Our own wet clothes had dried by that time, and, feeling hungry, we ate
+a part of our luncheon. Night came on with snow squalls; the wind roared
+in the forest. It was so bleak that we gave up all idea of going home;
+and, after bringing in ten or a dozen armfuls of wood, we settled down
+to spend the night there. Still Tom slept, but he breathed easier and
+had ceased to shiver. Suddenly he sat up and cried, "Help!"
+
+"Don't you know where you are?" Addison asked. "Still dreaming?"
+
+He stared round in the feeble light. "Oh, yes!" he said and laughed.
+"It's the old camp. I tumbled into the brook. But what makes it so
+dark?"
+
+"It's night. You have been asleep two or three hours. We shall have to
+stay here till morning."
+
+"With nothing to eat?" Tom exclaimed. "I'm hungry!"
+
+In his haste to set off from home with Ellen he had neglected to take
+any luncheon. We divided with him what we had left; and he ate hungrily.
+
+While he was eating, we heard a sound of squalling, indistinct above the
+roar of the wind in the woods.
+
+"Bobcat!" Tom exclaimed. Then he added, "But it sounds more like an old
+gander."
+
+"May be a flock of wild geese passing over," Addison said. "They
+sometimes fly by night."
+
+"Not on such a cold night in such a wind," Tom replied.
+
+Soon we heard the same sounds again.
+
+"That's an old gander, sure," Tom admitted.
+
+"Seems to come from the same place," Addison remarked. "Out on Papoose
+Pond, I guess."
+
+"Yes, siree!" Tom exclaimed. "A flock of geese has come down on that
+pond. If I had my gun, I could get a goose. But my gun is in Wild
+Brook," he added regretfully. "I let go of it when I fell in."
+
+The squalling continued at intervals. The night was so boisterous,
+however, that we did not leave the camp and after a time fell asleep in
+the old bunk.
+
+The cold waked me soon after daybreak. Tom and Addison were still
+asleep, with their coats pulled snugly about their shoulders and their
+feet drawn up. I rekindled the fire and clattered round the stove. Still
+they snoozed on; and soon afterwards, hearing the same squalling sounds
+again, I stole forth in the bleak dawn to see what I could discover.
+
+When I had pushed through the swamp of thick cedar that lay between the
+camp and the pond, I beheld a goose flapping its wings and squalling
+scarcely more than a stone's throw away. A second glance, in the
+increasing light, showed me the forms of other geese, great numbers of
+them on the newly formed ice. On this pond, as on the other, water had
+gathered over the winter ice and then frozen again.
+
+With the exception of this one gander, the flock was sitting there very
+still and quiet. The gander waddled among the others, plucking at them
+with his pink beak, as if to stir them up. Now and then he straightened
+up, flapped his wings and squalled dolorously. None of the others I
+noticed flapped, stirred or made any movement whatever. They looked as
+if they were asleep, and many of them had their heads under their wings.
+
+At last I went out toward them on the new ice, which had now frozen
+solid enough to bear me. The gander rose in the air and circled
+overhead, squalling fearfully. On going nearer, I saw that all those
+geese were frozen in, and that they were dead; the entire flock, except
+that one powerful old gander, had perished there. They were frozen in
+the ice so firmly that I could not pull them out; in fact, I could
+scarcely bend the necks of those that had tucked them under their wings.
+I counted forty-one of them besides the gander.
+
+While I was looking them over, Tom and Addison appeared on the shore.
+They had waked and missed me, but, hearing the gander, had guessed that
+I had gone to the pond. Both were astonished and could hardly believe
+their eyes till they came out where I stood and tried to lift the geese.
+
+"We shall have to chop them out with the axe!" Tom exclaimed. "By jingo,
+boys, here's goose feathers enough to make two feather beds and pillows
+to boot."
+
+The gander, still squalling, circled over us again.
+
+"The old fellow feels bad," Addison remarked. "He has lost his whole big
+family."
+
+We decided that the geese on their way north had been out in the
+rainstorm, and that when the weather cleared and turned cold so
+suddenly, with snow squalls, they had become bewildered, perhaps, and
+had descended on the pond. The cold wave was so sharp that, being quite
+without food, they had frozen into the ice and perished there.
+
+"Well, old boy," Tom said, addressing the gander that now stood flapping
+his wings at us a few hundred feet away, "you've lost your women-folks.
+We may as well have them as the bobcats."
+
+He fetched the axe, and we cut away the ice round the geese and then
+carried six loads of them down to camp.
+
+If we had had any proper means of preparing a goose we should certainly
+have put one to bake in the stove oven; for all three of us were hungry.
+As it was, Addison said we had better make a scoot, load the geese on
+it, and take the nearest way home. We had only the axe and our
+jackknives to work with, and it was nine o'clock before we had built a
+rude sled and loaded the geese on it.
+
+As we were about to start we heard a familiar voice cry, "Well, well;
+there they are!" And who should come through the cedars but the old
+Squire! A little behind him was Tom's father.
+
+On account of the severity of the weather both families had been much
+alarmed when we failed to come home the night before. Making an early
+start that morning, Mr. Edwards and the old Squire had driven to the
+Silver farm and, leaving their team there, had followed the town line in
+search of us. On reaching Wild Brook they had seen that the snow bridge
+had fallen, and at first they had been badly frightened. On looking
+round, however, they had found the marks of our boot heels on the frozen
+snow, heading up-stream, and had immediately guessed that we had gone to
+the old camp. So we had their company on the way home; and much
+astonished both of them were at the sight of so many geese.
+
+The two households shared the goose feathers. The meat was in excellent
+condition for cooking, and our two families had many a good meal of
+roast goose. We sent six of the birds to the town farm, and we heard
+afterwards that the seventeen paupers there partook of a grand goose
+dinner, garnished with apple sauce. But I have often thought of that old
+gander flying north to the breeding grounds alone.
+
+The following week we walked the remaining part of the town line and
+received the fee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ROSE-QUARTZ SPRING
+
+
+Throughout that entire season the old Squire was much interested in a
+project for making a fortune from the sale of spring water. The water of
+the celebrated Poland Spring, twenty miles from our place--where the
+Poland Spring Hotel now stands--was already enjoying an enviable
+popularity; and up in our north pasture on the side of Nubble Hill,
+there was, and still is, a fine spring, the water of which did not
+differ in analysis from that of the Poland Spring. It is the "boiling"
+type of spring, and the water, which is stone-cold, bubbles up through
+white quartzose sand at the foot of a low granite ledge. It flows
+throughout the year at the rate of about eight gallons a minute.
+
+It had always been called the Nubble Spring, but when the old Squire and
+Addison made their plans for selling the spring water they rechristened
+it the Rose-Quartz Spring on account of an outcrop of rose quartz in the
+ledges near by.
+
+They had the water analyzed by a chemist in Boston, who pronounced it as
+pure as Poland water, and, indeed, so like it that he could detect no
+difference. All of us were soon enthusiastic about the project.
+
+First we set to work to make the spring more attractive. We cleared up
+the site and formed a granite basin for the water, sheltered by a little
+kiosk with seats where visitors could sit as they drank. We also cleared
+up the slope round it and set out borders of young pine and
+balm-of-Gilead trees.
+
+We sent samples of the water in bottles and kegs to dealers in spring
+waters, along with a descriptive circular--which Addison composed--and
+the statement of analysis. Addison embellished the circular with several
+pictures of the spring and its surroundings, and cited medical opinions
+on the value of pure waters of this class. We also invited our neighbors
+and fellow townsmen to come and drink at our spring.
+
+Very soon orders began to come in. The name itself, the Rose-Quartz
+Spring, was fortunate, for it conveyed a suggestion of crystal purity;
+that with the analysis induced numbers of people in the great cities,
+especially in Chicago, to try it.
+
+Less was known in 1868 than now of the precautions that it is necessary
+to take in sending spring water to distant places, in order to insure
+its keeping pure. Little was known of microbes or antisepsis.
+
+The old Squire and Addison decided that they would have to send the
+water to their customers in kegs of various sizes and in barrels; but as
+kegs made of oak staves, or of spruce, would impart a woody taste to the
+water, they hit upon the expedient of making the staves of sugar-maple
+wood. The old Squire had a great quantity of staves sawed at his
+hardwood flooring mill, and at the cooper shop had them made into kegs
+and barrels of all sizes from five gallons' capacity up to fifty
+gallons'. After the kegs were set up we filled them with water and
+allowed them to soak for a week to take out all taste of the wood before
+we filled them from the spring and sent them away.
+
+We believed that that precaution was sufficient, but now it is known
+that spring water can be kept safe only by putting it in glass bottles
+and glass carboys. No water will keep sweet in barrels for any great
+length of time, particularly when exported to hot climates.
+
+The spring was nearly a mile from the farmhouse; and at a little
+distance below it we built a shed and set up a large kettle for boiling
+water to scald out the kegs and barrels that came back from customers
+and dealers to be refilled. We were careful not only to rinse them but
+also to soak them before we cleaned them with scalding water. As the
+business of sending off the water grew, the old Squire kept a hired man
+at the spring and the shed to look after the kegs and to draw the water.
+His name was James Doane. He had been with the old Squire six years and
+as a rule was a trustworthy man and a good worker. He had one failing:
+occasionally, although not very often, he would get drunk.
+
+So firm was the old Squire's faith in the water that we drew a supply of
+it to the house every second morning. Addison fitted up a little "water
+room" in the farmhouse, and we kept water there in large bottles,
+cooled, for drinking. The water seemed to do us good, for we were all
+unusually healthy that summer. "Here's the true elixir of health," the
+old Squire often said as he drew a glass of it and sat down in the
+pleasant, cool "water room" to enjoy it.
+
+Addison and he had fixed the price of the water at twenty-five cents a
+gallon, although we made our neighbors and fellow townsmen welcome to
+all they cared to come and get. We first advertised the water in June,
+and sales increased slowly throughout the summer and fall. Apparently
+the water gave good satisfaction, for the kegs came back to be refilled.
+By the following May the success of the venture seemed assured. Those
+who were using the water spoke well of it, and the demand was growing.
+In April we received orders for more than nine hundred gallons, and in
+May for more than thirteen hundred gallons.
+
+The old Squire was very happy over the success of the enterprise. "It's
+a fine, clean business," he said. "That water has done us good, and it
+will do others good; and if they drink that, they will drink less
+whiskey."
+
+Addison spent the evenings in making out bills and attending to the
+correspondence; for there were other matters that had to be attended to
+besides the Rose-Quartz Spring. Besides the farm work we had to look
+after the hardwood flooring mill that summer and the white-birch dowel
+mill. For several days toward the end of June we did not even have time
+to go up to the spring for our usual supply of water. But we kept Jim
+Doane there under instructions to attend carefully to the putting up of
+the water. It was his sole business, and he seemed to be attending to it
+properly. He was at the spring every day and boarded at the house of a
+neighbor, named Murch, who lived nearer to Nubble Hill than we did.
+Every day, too, we noticed the smoke of the fire under the kettle in
+which he heated water for scalding out the casks.
+
+The first hint we had that things were going wrong was when Willis Murch
+told Addison that Doane had been on a spree, and that for several days
+he had been so badly under the influence of liquor that he did not know
+what he was about.
+
+On hearing that news Addison and the old Squire hastened to the spring.
+Jim was there, sober enough now, and working industriously. But he
+looked bad, and his account of how he had done his work for the last
+week was far from clear. The old Squire gave him another job at the
+dowel mill and stationed his brother, Asa Doane, a strictly temperate
+man, at the spring. We could not learn just what had happened during the
+past ten days, but we hoped that no serious neglect had occurred.
+
+But there had.
+
+Toward the middle of July a letter of complaint came--the first we had
+ever received. "This barrel of water from your spring is not keeping
+good," were the exact words of it. I remember them well, for we read
+them over and over again. Addison replied at once, and sent another
+barrel in its place.
+
+Before another week had passed a second complaint came. "This last
+barrel of water from your spring is turning 'ropy,'" it said. Another
+customer sent his barrel back when half full, with a letter saying, "It
+isn't fit to drink. The barrel is slimy inside."
+
+Addison examined the barrel carefully, and found that there was, indeed,
+an appreciable film of vegetable growth on the staves inside. The taste
+of the water also was quite different.
+
+Within a fortnight four more barrels and kegs were returned to us, in at
+least two cases accompanied by sharp words of condemnation. "No better
+than pond water," one customer wrote.
+
+We carefully examined the inside of all these barrels and kegs as soon
+as they came back. Besides invisible impurities in the water, there was
+in every one more or less visible dirt, even bits of grass and slivers
+of wood.
+
+There was only one conclusion to reach: Jim Doane had not been careful
+in filling the kegs and had not properly cleansed and scalded them. As
+nearly as we could discover from bits of information that came out
+subsequently, there were days and days when he was too "hazy" to know
+whether he had cleansed the barrels or not. He had filled them and sent
+them off in foul condition.
+
+Addison wrote more than fifty letters to customers, defending the purity
+of Rose-Quartz Spring water, relating the facts of this recent
+"accident" and asking for a continued trial of it. I suppose that people
+at a distance thought that if there had been carelessness once there
+might be again. Very likely, too, they suspected that the water had
+never been so pure as we had declared it to be. Owners of other springs
+who had put water on the market improved the opportunity to circulate
+reports that Rose-Quartz water would not "keep." We got possession of
+three circulars in which that damaging statement had been sent
+broadcast.
+
+There is probably no commodity in the world that depends so much on a
+reputation for purity as spring water. By September the orders for water
+had fallen off to a most disheartening extent. Scarcely three hundred
+gallons were called for.
+
+In the hope that this was merely a temporary set-back, and knowing that
+there was no fault in the water itself, the old Squire spent a thousand
+dollars in advertisements to stem the tide of adverse criticism. So far
+as we could discover, the effort produced little or no effect on sales.
+The opinion had gone abroad that the water would not keep pure for any
+great length of time. By the following spring sales had dwindled to such
+an extent that it was hardly worth while to continue the business.
+Considered as a commercial asset, the Rose-Quartz Spring was dead.
+
+Regretfully we gave up the enterprise and let the spring fall into
+disuse. It was then, I remember, that the old Squire said, "It takes us
+one lifetime to learn how to do things."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FOX PILLS
+
+
+ABOUT this time an affair which had long been worrying Addison and
+myself came to a final settlement.
+
+Up in the great woods, three or four miles from the old Squire's farm,
+there was a clearing of thirty or forty acres in which stood an old
+house and barn, long unoccupied. A lonelier place can hardly be
+imagined. Sombre spruce and fir woods inclosed the clearing on all
+sides; and over the tree-tops on the east side loomed the three rugged
+dark peaks of the Stoss Pond mountains.
+
+Thirty years before, Lumen Bartlett, a young man about twenty years old,
+had cleared the land with his own labor, built the house and barn, and a
+little later gone to live there with his wife, Althea, who was younger
+even than he.
+
+Life in so remote a place must have been somewhat solitary; but they
+were very happy, it is said, for a year and a half. Then one morning
+they fell to quarreling bitterly over so trifling a thing as a cedar
+broom. In the anger of the moment Althea made a bundle of her clothing
+and without a word of farewell set off on foot to go home to her
+parents, who lived ten miles away.
+
+Lumen, equally stubborn, took his axe and went out to his work of
+clearing land for a new field. No one saw him alive afterwards; but two
+weeks later some hunters found his body in the woods. Apparently the
+tops of several of the trees he had been trying to cut down had lodged
+together, and to bring them down he had cut another large tree on which
+they hung. This last tree must have started to fall suddenly. Lumen ran
+the wrong way and was caught under the top of one of the lodged trees as
+it came crashing down. The marks showed that he had tried, probably for
+hours, to cut off with his pocket knife one large branch that lay across
+his body. They found the knife with the blade broken. He had also tried
+to free himself by digging with his bare fingers into the hard, rocky
+earth. If Lumen had been to blame for the quarrel, he paid a fearful
+penalty.
+
+Afterwards, however, Althea declared that she had been to blame; and if
+that were true, she also paid a sad penalty. During the few remaining
+years of her life she was never in her right mind. She used to imagine
+that she heard Lumen calling to her for help, and several times, eluding
+her parents, she made her way back to the clearing. Every time when they
+found her she was wandering about the place, stopping now and then as if
+to listen, then flitting on again, saying in a sad singsong, "I'm
+coming, Lumen! Oh, I'll come back!"
+
+Naturally, persons of a superstitious nature began to imagine that they,
+too, heard strange cries at the deserted farm, for no one ever lived
+there subsequently. Very likely they did hear cries--the cries of wild
+animals; that old clearing in the woods was a great place for bears,
+foxes, raccoons and "lucivees."
+
+A year or two before we young folks went home to live on the old farm
+the town sold this deserted lot at auction for unpaid taxes. Some years
+before, vagrant woodsmen had accidentally burned the old house; but the
+barn, a weathered, gray structure, was still intact. Since the land
+adjoined other timber lots that the old Squire owned, he bid it off and
+let it lie unoccupied except as a pasture where sheep, or young stock
+that needed little care, could be put away for the summer. The soil was
+good, and the grass was excellent in quality.
+
+One year, in May, after we had repaired the brush fence, we turned into
+it our three Morgan colts along with two Percherons from a stock farm
+near the village, a Morgan three-year-old belonging to our neighbors,
+the Edwardses, three colts owned by other neighbors, and a beautiful
+sorrel three-year-old mare, the pet of young Mrs. Kennard, wife of the
+principal at the village academy. Her father, who had recently died, had
+given her the colt.
+
+All four Morgans were dark-chestnut colts, lithe but strong and
+clear-eyed. And what chests and loins they had for their size! They were
+not so showy as the larger, dappled Percherons, perhaps, but they were
+better all-round horses. Lib, Brown and Joe were the names of our
+Morgans; Chet was the name that the Edwards young folks gave theirs. Yet
+none of them was so pretty as Mrs. Kennard's Sylph. She was, indeed, a
+blonde fairy of a mare, as graceful as a deer.
+
+On the afternoon that we took Sylph up to the clearing, Mrs. Kennard
+walked all the way with us, because she wished to see for herself what
+the place was like. When she saw what a remote, wild region it was, she
+was loath to leave her pet there, and Mr. Kennard had some ado to
+reassure her. At last, after giving the colt many farewell pats and
+caresses, she came away with us. On the way home she said over and over
+to Addison and me, "Be sure to go up often and see that Sylph is all
+right." And, laughing a little, we promised that we would, and that we
+would also give the colt sugar lumps as well as her weekly salt.
+
+"Salting" the sheep and young cattle that were out at pasture for the
+season was one of our weekly duties. When we were very busy we sometimes
+put it off until Sunday morning. Sometimes it slipped our minds
+altogether for a few days, or even for a week; but Mrs. Kennard's
+solicitude for her pet had touched our hearts, and we resolved that we
+should always be prompt in performing the task.
+
+The colts had been turned out on Tuesday; and the following Sunday
+morning after breakfast Addison and I, with the girls accompanying us,
+set off with the salt and the sugar lumps. It was a long walk for the
+girls, but an inspiring one on such a bright morning. The songs of birds
+and the chatter of squirrels filled the woodland. Fresh green heads of
+bosky ferns and wake-robin were pushing up through the old mats of last
+year's foliage.
+
+"How jealous the rest of them will be of Sylph!" said Ellen, who had the
+sugar lumps. "I believe I shall give each of them a lump, so that they
+won't be spiteful and kick her."
+
+As we neared the bars in the brush fence we saw several of the colts at
+the upper side of the clearing beyond the old barn. At the first call
+from us, up went their pretty heads; there was a general whinny, and
+then they came racing to the bars to greet us. Perhaps they had been a
+little homesick so far from stables and barns.
+
+"One--two--three--four--why, they are not all here!" Theodora said.
+"Here are only seven. Lib isn't here, or Mrs. Kennard's Sylph."
+
+"Oh, I guess they're not far off," Addison said, and began calling, "Co'
+jack, co' jack!" He wanted them all there before he dropped the salt in
+little piles on the grassy greensward.
+
+But the absent ones did not come. Ellen ventured the opinion that they
+might have jumped the fence and wandered off.
+
+"Oh, they wouldn't separate up here in the woods," Addison said. "Colts
+keep together when off in a back pasture like this."
+
+But when he went on calling and they still did not come, we began really
+to fear that they had got out and strayed.
+
+"Let's go round the fence," Addison said at last, "and see if we find a
+gap, or hoofprints on the outside, where they have jumped over."
+
+He and Theodora went one way, Ellen and I the other. We met halfway
+round the clearing without having discovered either gaps in the fence or
+tracks outside. Remembering that horses, when rolling, sometimes get
+cast in hollows between knolls, we searched the entire clearing, and
+even looked into the old barn, the door of which stood slightly ajar;
+but we found no trace of the missing animals and began to believe that
+they really had jumped out.
+
+We gave the seven colts their salt and were about to start home to
+report to the old Squire when Ellen remarked that we had not actually
+looked among the alders down by the brook, where the colts went for
+water.
+
+"Oh, but those colts would not stay down there by themselves all this
+time with us calling them!" Addison exclaimed.
+
+"But let's just take a look, to be certain," Ellen replied, and she and
+I ran down there.
+
+We had no more than pushed our way through the alder clumps when two
+crows rose silently and went flapping away; and then I caught sight of
+something that made me stop short: the body of one of the Morgan
+colts--our Lib--lying close to the brook!
+
+"Oh!" gasped Ellen. "It's dead!"
+
+Pushing on through the alders, we saw one of the Percherons near the
+Morgan. The sight affected Ellen so much that she turned back; but I
+went on and a little farther up the brook found the sorrel lying stark
+and stiff.
+
+A moment later Ellen returned, with Addison and Theodora. Both girls
+were moved to tears as they gazed at poor Sylph; they felt even worse
+about her than about our own Morgan.
+
+"Oh, what will Mrs. Kennard say?" Ellen cried. "How dreadfully she will
+feel!"
+
+Addison closely examined the bodies of the colts. "I cannot understand
+what did it!" he exclaimed. "No marks. No blood. It wasn't wild animals.
+It couldn't have been lightning, for there hasn't been a thundershower
+this season. Must be something they've eaten."
+
+We looked all along the brook, but could see no Indian poke, the fresh
+growths of which will poison stock. Nor had we ever seen ground hemlock
+or poisonous ivy there. The clearing was nearly all good, grassy upland
+such as farmers consider a safe pasturage. Truly the shadow of tragedy
+seemed to hover there.
+
+We bore our sorrowful tidings home, and the old Squire was as much
+astonished and mystified as every one else. None of us had the heart
+either to carry the sad news or even to send word of it to Mrs. Kennard;
+but we notified the owner of the Percherons at once. He came to look
+into the matter the next morning.
+
+The affair made an unusual stir, and all that Monday a considerable
+number of persons walked up to the clearing to see if they could
+determine the cause of the colts' mysterious death. Many and various
+were the conjectures. Some professed to believe that the colts had been
+wantonly poisoned. "It's a state-prison offense to lay poison for
+domestic animals," we overheard several of them say; but no one could
+find any motive for such a deed.
+
+The owner of the Percheron brought a horse doctor, who made a careful
+examination, but he was unable to determine anything more than that the
+horses had died of a virulent poison. We buried them that afternoon.
+
+Before night the news had reached Mrs. Kennard. In her grief she not
+only reproached herself bitterly for allowing Sylph to be turned out in
+so wild a place but held the old Squire and all of us as somehow to
+blame for her pet's death. The owner of the Percherons also intimated
+that he should hold us liable for his loss, although when a man turns
+his stock out in a neighbor's pasture it is generally on the
+understanding that it is at his own risk. He took away his other
+Percheron colt; and during the day all the other persons who had colts
+up there took their animals home. In all respects the occurrence was
+most disagreeable--a truly black Monday with us. The old Squire said
+little, except that he wanted the right thing done.
+
+For an hour or more after we went to bed that night Addison and I lay
+talking about the affair, but we could think of no explanation of the
+strange occurrence and at last fell asleep. The next morning, however,
+the solution of the mystery flashed into Addison's mind. As we were
+dressing at five o'clock, he suddenly turned to me and exclaimed in a
+queer voice:
+
+"I know what killed those colts!"
+
+"What?" I asked.
+
+"That fox bed!"
+
+For a whole minute we stood there, half dressed, looking at each other
+in consternation. Without doubt, the blame for the loss of the colts was
+on us. What the consequences might be we hardly dared to think.
+
+"What shall we do?" I exclaimed.
+
+Addison looked alarmed as he answered in a low tone, "Keep quiet--till
+we think it over."
+
+"We must tell the old Squire," I said.
+
+"But there's Willis," Addison reminded me. "It was Willis who made the
+bed, you know."
+
+The old clearing was, as I have said, a great place for foxes; and the
+preceding fall Addison and I, wishing to add to the fund we were
+accumulating for our expenses when we should go away to college, had
+entered into a kind of partnership with Willis Murch to do a little
+trapping up there. Addison and I were little more than silent partners,
+however; Willis actually tended the traps.
+
+But there are years, as every trapper knows, when you cannot get a fox
+into a steel trap by any amount of artfulness. What the reason is, I do
+not know, unless some fox that has been trapped and that has escaped
+passes the word round among all the other foxes. There were plenty of
+foxes coming to the clearing; we never went up there without seeing
+fresh signs about the old barn. Yet Willis got no fox.
+
+What is more strange, it was so all over New England that fall; foxes
+kept clear of steel traps. As the fur market was quick, certain city
+dealers began sending out offers of "fox pills" to trappers whom they
+had on their lists. Willis received one of those letters and showed it
+to us. The fox pills were, of course, poison and were to be inclosed in
+little balls of tallow and laid where foxes were known to come.
+
+Trappers were advised to use them but were properly cautioned how and
+where to expose them. After picking up one of the pills, a fox would
+make for the nearest running water as fast as he could go; and that was
+the place for the trapper to look for him, for, after drinking, the fox
+soon expired. It has been argued that poison is more humane than the
+steel trap, since it brings a quick death; but both are cruel. There are
+also other considerations that weigh against the use of poison; but at
+that time there was no law against it.
+
+The furrier who wrote to Willis offered to send him a box of those pills
+for seventy-five cents. We talked it over and agreed to try it, and
+Addison and I contributed the money.
+
+A few days later Willis received the pills and proceeded to lay them out
+after a plan of his own. He cut several tallow candles into pieces about
+an inch long, and embedded a pill in each. When he had prepared twenty
+or more of those pieces of poisoned tallow, he put them in what he
+called a fox bed, of oat chaff, behind that old barn. The bed was about
+as large as the floor of a small room. At that time of year farmers were
+killing poultry, and Willis collected a basketful of chickens' and
+turkeys' heads to put into the bed along with the pieces of tallow. He
+thought that the foxes would smell the heads and dig the bed over.
+
+We had said nothing to any one about it. The old Squire was away from
+home; but we knew pretty well that he would not approve of that method
+of getting foxes. Indeed, he had little sympathy with the use of traps.
+Willis was the only one who looked after the bed, or, indeed, who went
+up to the clearing at all.
+
+During the next three or four weeks Willis gathered in not less than ten
+pelts, I think. They were mostly red foxes, but one was a large "crossed
+gray," the skin of which brought twenty-two dollars. After every few
+days Willis "doctored" the bed with more pills; he probably used more
+than a hundred.
+
+What had happened to the colts was now clear. They had nuzzled that
+chaff for the oat grains that were left in it and had picked up some of
+those little balls of tallow. We wondered now that we had not at once
+guessed the cause of their death, and we wondered, too, that we had not
+thought of the fox bed and the danger from it when we first turned the
+colts into the pasture. The fact remains, however, that it had never
+occurred to us that fox pills would poison colts as well as foxes.
+
+All that day as we worked we brooded over it; and that evening, when we
+had done the chores, we stole off to the Murches' and, calling Willis
+out, told him about it and asked him what he thought we had better do.
+At first he was incredulous, then thoroughly alarmed. It was not so much
+the thought of having to settle for the loss of the horses that
+terrified him as it was the dread that he might be imprisoned for
+exposing poison to domestic animals.
+
+"Don't say a word!" he exclaimed. "Nobody knows about that fox bed. If
+we keep still, it will never come out."
+
+Addison and I both felt that such secrecy would leave us with a mighty
+mean feeling in our hearts; but Willis begged us never to say a word
+about it to any one. He was as penitent as we were, I think; but the
+thought that he might have to go to jail filled him with panic.
+
+We went home in a very uncomfortable frame of mind, without having
+reached any decision.
+
+"We've got to square this somehow," Addison said. "If I had the money,
+I'd settle for the colts and say nothing more to Willis about it."
+
+"Money wouldn't make Mrs. Kennard feel much better," I said.
+
+"That's so; but we might find a pretty sorrel colt somewhere, and make
+her a present of it in place, of Sylph--if we only had the money."
+
+If it had not been for Willis, I rather think that we should have gone
+to the old Squire that very evening and told him the whole story; but
+the legal consequences of the affair troubled us, and since they
+affected Willis more than they affected us we did not like to say
+anything.
+
+Week after week went by without our being able to bring ourselves to
+confess. The concealment was a source of daily uneasiness to us;
+although we rarely spoke of the affair to each other, it was always on
+our minds. Whenever we did speak of it together, Addison would say,
+"We've got to straighten that out," or, "I hate to have that colt scrape
+hanging on us in this way." We tried several times to get Willis's
+consent to our telling the old Squire; but he had brooded over the thing
+so long that he had convinced himself that if his act became known he
+would surely be sent to the penitentiary.
+
+So there the matter lay covered up all summer until one afternoon in
+September, when the old Squire drove to the village to contract for his
+apple barrels, and I went with him to get a pair of boots. Just as we
+were starting for home we met Mrs. Kennard. Previously she had often
+visited us at the farm, but since the death of Sylph she had not come
+near us. The old Squire tried to-day to be more cordial than ever, but
+Mrs. Kennard answered him rather coldly. She started on, but turned
+suddenly and asked whether we had learned anything more about the death
+of those colts.
+
+"And, oh, do you think that poor Sylph lay there, suffering, a long
+time?" she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes. "I keep thinking of it."
+
+"No, we have learned nothing more," the old Squire said gently. "It was
+a mysterious affair; but I think all three of the colts died suddenly,
+within a few minutes."
+
+That was all he could say to comfort her, and Mrs. Kennard walked slowly
+away with her handkerchief at her eyes. It was painful, and I sat there
+in the wagon feeling like a mean little malefactor.
+
+"Very singular about those colts," the old Squire remarked partly to me,
+partly to himself, as we drove on. "A strange thing."
+
+Sudden resolution nerved me. I was sick of skulking. "Sir," said I,
+swallowing hard several times, "I know what killed those colts!"
+
+The old Squire glanced quickly at me, started to speak, but, seeing how
+greatly agitated I was, kindly refrained from questioning me.
+
+"It was fox pills!" I blurted out. "Willis Murch and Ad and I had a fox
+bed up there last winter. We never thought of it when the colts were put
+in. They ate the poison pills."
+
+The old Squire made no comment, and I plunged into further details.
+
+"That accounts for it, then," he said at last.
+
+I had expected him to speak plainly to me about those fox pills, but he
+merely asked me what I thought of using poison in trapping.
+
+"I never would use it again!" I exclaimed hotly. "I've had enough of
+it!"
+
+"I am glad you see it so," he remarked. "It is a bad method. You never
+know what may come of it. Hounds or deer may get it, or sheep, or young
+cattle, or even children."
+
+We drove on in silence for some minutes. Clearly the old Squire was
+having me do my own thinking; for he now asked me what I thought should
+be done next.
+
+"Ad thinks we ought to square it up somehow," I replied.
+
+The old Squire nodded. "I am glad to hear that," he said. "What does
+Addison think we ought to do?"
+
+"Pay Mr. Cutter for that Percheron colt."
+
+"Yes, and Mrs. Kennard?"
+
+"He thinks we could find another sorrel colt somewhere and make her a
+present of it."
+
+The old Squire nodded again. "I see. Perhaps we can." Then, after a
+minute, "And what about letting this be known?"
+
+"Willis is scared," I said. "Addison thinks it would be about as well
+now to settle up if we can and say nothing."
+
+The old Squire did not reply to that for some moments. I thought he was
+not so well pleased. "I do not believe that, in the circumstances,
+Willis need fear being imprisoned," he said finally, "and I see no
+reason for further concealment. True, several months have passed and
+people have mostly forgotten it; perhaps not much good would come from
+publishing the facts abroad. We'll think it over."
+
+After a minute he said, "I'm glad you told me this," and, turning, shook
+hands with me gravely.
+
+"Ad and I don't want you to think that we expect you to square this up
+for us!" I exclaimed. "We want to do something to pay the bill
+ourselves, and to pay you for Lib, too."
+
+The old Squire laughed. "Yes, I see how you feel," he said. "Would you
+like me to give you and Addison a job on shares this fall or winter, so
+that you could straighten this out?"
+
+"Yes, sir, we would," said I earnestly. "And make Willis help, too!"
+
+"Yes, yes," the old Squire said and laughed again. "I agree with you
+that Willis should do his part. Nothing like square dealing, is there,
+my son?" he went on. "It makes us all feel better, doesn't it?"
+
+And he gave me a brisk little pat on the shoulder that made me feel
+quite like a man.
+
+How much better I felt after that talk with the old Squire! I felt as
+blithe as a bird; and when we got home I ran and frisked and whistled
+all the way to the pasture, where I went to drive home the Jersey herd.
+The only qualm I felt was that I had acted without Addison's consent;
+but his first words when I had told him relieved me on that score.
+
+"I'm glad of it!" he said. "We've been in that fox bed long enough. Now
+let Willis squirm." And when I told him of the old Squire's arrangement
+for our paying off the debt, he said, "That suits me. But we'll make
+Willis work!"
+
+We went over to tell Willis that evening. He was, I think, even more
+relieved than we were; in the weeks of anxiety that he had passed he had
+determined that nothing would ever induce him to use poison again for
+trapping animals.
+
+At that time many new telegraph lines were being put up in Maine; and
+the old Squire had recently accepted a contract for three thousand cedar
+poles, twenty feet long, at the rate of twenty-five cents a pole. Up in
+lot "No. 5," near Lurvey's Stream, there was plenty of cedar suitable
+for the purpose; the poles could be floated down to the point of
+delivery. The old Squire let us furnish a thousand of those poles,
+putting in our own labor at cutting and hauling. And in that way we
+earned the money to pay for the damage done by our fox pills.
+
+Mr. Cutter, the owner of the Percheron, was willing to settle his loss
+for one hundred dollars; and during the winter, by dint of many
+inquiries, we heard of another sorrel, a three-year-old, which we
+purchased for a hundred and fifteen dollars. We took Mr. Kennard into
+our confidence and with his connivance planned a pleasant surprise for
+his wife. While Theodora and Ellen, who had accompanied us to the
+village, were entertaining Mrs. Kennard indoors, the old Squire and
+Addison and I smuggled the colt into the little stable and put her in
+the same stall where Sylph had once stood. When all was ready, Mr.
+Kennard went in and said:
+
+"Louise, Sylph's got back! Come out to the stable!"
+
+Wonderingly Mrs. Kennard followed him out to the stable. For a moment
+she gazed, astonished; then, of course, she guessed the ruse. "Oh, but
+it isn't Sylph!" she cried. "It isn't half so pretty!" And out came her
+pocket handkerchief again.
+
+The old Squire took her gently by the hand. "It's the best we could do,"
+he said. "We hope you will accept her with our best wishes."
+
+Truth to say, Mrs. Kennard's tears were soon dried; and before long the
+new colt became almost as great a pet as the lost Sylph.
+
+"Don't you ever forget, and don't you ever let me forget, how the old
+Squire has helped us out of this scrape," Ad said to me that night after
+we had gone upstairs. "He's an old Christian. If he ever needs a friend
+in his old age and I fail him, let my name be Ichabod!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
+
+
+During the first week in May the old Squire and grandmother Ruth made a
+trip to Portland, and when they came back, they brought, among other
+presents to us young folks at home, a glass jar of goldfish for Ellen.
+
+In Ellen's early home, before the Civil War and before she came to the
+old Squire's to live, there had always been a jar of goldfish in the
+window, and afterwards at the old farm the girl had often remarked that
+she missed it. Well I remember the cry of joy she gave that day when
+grandmother stepped down from the wagon at the farmhouse door and,
+turning, took a glass jar of goldfish from under the seat.
+
+"O grandmother!" she cried and fairly flew to take it from the old
+lady's hands.
+
+Ellen had eyes for nothing else that evening, and as it grew dark she
+went time and again with a lamp to look at the fish and to drop in
+crumbs of cracker.
+
+During the four days the old folks were away we had run free; games and
+jokes had been in full swing. There was still mischief in us, for the
+next morning when we came down to do the chores before any one else was
+up, Addison said:
+
+"Let's have some fun with Nell; she'll be down here pretty quick. Get
+some fish poles and strings and bend up some pins for hooks and we'll
+pretend to be fishing in the jar!"
+
+In a few minutes we each had rigged up a semblance of fishing tackle and
+were ready. When Ellen opened the sitting-room door a little later the
+sight that met her astonished eyes took her breath away. Addison was
+calmly fishing in the jar!
+
+"What are you doing?" she cried. "My goldfish!"
+
+Addison fled out of the room with Ellen in hot pursuit; she finally
+caught him, seized the rod and broke it. But when she turned back to see
+what damages her adored fish had suffered, she beheld Halstead, perched
+over the jar, also fishing in it.
+
+"My senses! You here, too!" she cried. "Can't a boy see a fish without
+wanting to catch it?"
+
+When she hurried back in a flurry of anxiety after chasing him to the
+carriage house, she found me there, too, pretending to yank one out. But
+by this time she saw that it was a joke, and the box on the ear that she
+gave me was not a very hard one.
+
+"Seems to me, young folks, I heard quite too much noise down here for
+Sunday morning," grandmother said severely when she appeared a little
+later. "Such racing and running! You really must have better regard for
+the day."
+
+Preparations for breakfast went on in a subdued manner, and we were
+sitting at table rather quietly when a caller appeared at the door--Mrs.
+Rufus Sylvester, who lived about a mile from us. Her face wore a look of
+anxiety.
+
+"Squire," she exclaimed, "I implore you to come over and say something
+to Rufus! He's terrible downcast this morning. He went out to the barn,
+but he hasn't milked, nor done his chores. He's settin' out there with
+his face in his hands, groanin'. I'm afraid, Squire, he may try to take
+his own life!"
+
+The old Squire rose from the table and led Mrs. Sylvester into the
+sitting-room; grandmother followed them and carefully shut the door
+behind her. We heard them speaking in low tones for some moments; then
+they came out, and both the old Squire and grandmother Ruth set off with
+Mrs. Sylvester.
+
+"Is he ill?" Theodora whispered to grandmother as the old lady passed
+her.
+
+"No, child; he is melancholy this spring," the old lady replied. "He is
+afraid he has committed the unpardonable sin."
+
+The old folks and our caller left us finishing our breakfast, and I
+recollect that for some time none of us spoke. Our recent unseemly
+hilarity had vanished.
+
+"What do you suppose Sylvester's done?" Halstead asked at last, with a
+glance at Theodora; then, as she did not seem inclined to hazard
+conjectures on that subject, he addressed himself to Addison, who was
+trying to extract a second cup of coffee from the big coffeepot.
+
+"You know everything, Addison, or think you do. What is this
+unpardonable sin?"
+
+"Cousin Halstead," Addison replied, not relishing the manner in which he
+had put the question, "you are likely enough to find that out for
+yourself if you don't mend some of your bad ways here."
+
+Halstead flamed up and muttered something about the self-righteousness
+of a certain member of the family; but Theodora then remarked tactfully
+that, as nearly as she could understand it, the unpardonable sin is
+something we do that can never be forgiven.
+
+Some months before Elder Witham had preached a sermon in which he had
+set forth the doctrine of predestination and the unpardonable sin, but I
+have to confess that none of us could remember what he had said.
+
+"I think it's in the Bible," Theodora added, and, going into the
+sitting-room, she fetched forth grandmother Ruth's concordance Bible and
+asked Addison to help her find the references. Turning first to one
+text, then to another, for some minutes they read the passages aloud,
+but did not find anything conclusive. The discussion had put me in a
+rather disturbed state of mind in regard to several things I had done at
+one time and another, and I suppose I looked sober, for I saw Addison
+regarding me curiously. He continued to glance at me, clearly with
+intention, and shook his head gloomily several times until Ellen noticed
+it and exclaimed in my behalf, "Well, I guess he stands as good a chance
+as you do!"
+
+Two hours or so later the old Squire and grandmother returned,
+thoughtfully silent; they did not tell us what had occurred, and it was
+not until a good many years later, when Theodora, Halstead and Addison
+had left the old farm, that I learned what had happened that morning at
+the Sylvester place. The old Squire and I were driving home from the
+village when something brought the incident to his mind, and, since I
+was now old enough to understand, he related what had occurred.
+
+When they reached the Sylvester farm that morning grandmother went
+indoors with Mrs. Sylvester, and the old Squire proceeded to the barn.
+All was very dark and still there, and it was some moments before he
+discovered Rufus; the man was sitting on a heckling block at the far
+dark end of the barn, huddled down, with his head bowed in his hands.
+
+"Good morning, neighbor!" the old Squire said cheerily. "A fine Sabbath
+morning. Spring never looked more promising for us."
+
+Rufus neither stirred nor answered. The old Squire drew near and laid
+his hand gently on his shoulder.
+
+"Is it something you could tell me about?" he asked.
+
+Rufus groaned and raised two dreary eyes from his hands. "Oh, I can't!
+I'm 'shamed. It's nothin' I can tell!" he cried out miserably and then
+burst into fearful sobs.
+
+"Don't let me ask, then, unless you think it might do you good," the old
+Squire said.
+
+"Nothin'll ever do me any good again!" Rufus cried. "I'm beyond it,
+Squire. I'm a lost soul. The door of mercy is closed on me, Squire. I've
+committed the unpardonable sin!"
+
+The old Squire saw that no effort to cheer Rufus that did not go to the
+root of his misery would avail. Sitting down beside him, he said:
+
+"A great many of us sometimes fear that we have committed the
+unpardonable sin. But there is one sure way of knowing whether a person
+has committed it or not. I once knew a man who in a drunken brawl had
+killed another. He was convicted of manslaughter, served his term in
+prison, then went back to his farm and worked hard and well for ten
+years. One spring that former crime began to weigh on his mind. He
+brooded on it and finally became convinced that he had committed the sin
+for which there can be no forgiveness. He wanted desperately to atone
+for what he had done, and the idea got possession of his mind that since
+he had taken a human life the only way for him was to take his own
+life--a life for a life. The next morning they found that he had hanged
+himself in his barn.
+
+"The young minister who was asked to officiate at the funeral declined
+to do so on doctrinal grounds; and the burial was about to take place
+without even a prayer at the grave when a stranger hurriedly approached.
+He was a celebrated divine who had heard the circumstances of the man's
+death and who had journeyed a hundred miles to offer his services at the
+burial.
+
+"'My good friends,' the stranger began, 'I have come to rectify a great
+mistake. This poor fellow mortal whose body you are committing to its
+last resting place mistook the full measure of God's compassion. He
+believed that he had committed that sin for which there is no
+forgiveness. In his extreme anxiety to atone for his former crime, he
+was led to commit another, for God requires no man to commit suicide,
+and his Word expressly forbids it. My friends, I am here to-day to tell
+you that there is _only one sin for which there is no forgiveness, and
+that is the sin which we do not repent. That alone is the unpardonable
+sin._ This man was sincerely sorry for his sin, and I am as certain that
+God has forgiven him as I am that I am standing here by his grave.'"
+
+As the old Squire spoke, Rufus raised his head, and a ray of hope broke
+across his woebegone face.
+
+"Now the question is," the old Squire continued, "are you sorry for what
+you did?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Squire, yes! I'm terribly sorry!" he cried eagerly. "I do
+repent of it! I never in the world would do such a thing again!"
+
+"Then what you have done was not the unpardonable sin at all!" the old
+Squire exclaimed confidently.
+
+"Do you think so?" Rufus cried imploringly.
+
+"I know so!" the old Squire declared authoritatively. "Now let's feed
+those cows and your horse. Then we will go out and take a look at the
+fields where you are going to put in a crop this spring."
+
+When the old Squire and grandmother Ruth came away the shadows at the
+Sylvester farm had visibly lifted, and life was resuming its normal
+course there. They had proceeded only a short distance on their homeward
+way, however, when they heard footsteps behind, and saw Rufus hastening
+after them bareheaded.
+
+"Tell me, Squire, what d'ye think I ought to do about that--what I done
+once?" he cried.
+
+"Well, Rufus," the old Squire replied, "that is a matter you must settle
+with your own conscience. Since you ask me, I should say that, if the
+wrong you did can be righted in any way, you had better try to right
+it."
+
+"I will. I can. That's what I will do!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I feel sure you will," the old Squire said; and Rufus went back,
+looking much relieved.
+
+"Did you ever find out just what it was that Sylvester had done?" I
+asked.
+
+"Well, never exactly," the old Squire replied, smiling. "But I made
+certain surmises. Less than a fortnight after my talk with Rufus our
+neighbors, the Wilburs, were astonished one morning to find that during
+the night a full barrel of salt pork had been set on their porch by the
+kitchen door. Every mark had been carefully scraped off the barrel, but
+on the top head were the words, printed with a lead pencil, 'This is
+yourn and I am sorry.'
+
+"Fourteen years before, the Wilburs had lost a large hog very
+mysteriously. At that time domestic animals were allowed to run about
+much more freely than at present, and they often strayed along the
+highway. Sylvester was always in poor circumstances; and I believe that
+Wilbur's hog came along the road by night and that Rufus was tempted to
+make way with it privately and to conceal all traces of the theft.
+
+"In spite of the words on the head of the barrel, Mr. Wilbur was in some
+doubt what to do with the pork and asked my advice. I told him that if I
+were in his place I should keep it and say nothing. But I didn't tell
+him of my talk with Sylvester about the unpardonable sin," the old
+gentleman added, smiling. "That was hardly a proper subject for gossip."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE CANTALOUPE COAXER
+
+
+Every spring at the old farm we used to put in a row of hills for
+cantaloupes and another for watermelons. But, truth to say, our planting
+melons, like our efforts to raise peaches and grapes, was always more or
+less of a joke, for frosts usually killed the vines before the melons
+were half grown. Nevertheless, spring always filled us with fresh hope
+that the summer would prove warm, and that frosts would hold off until
+October. But we never really raised a melon fit for the table until the
+old Squire and Addison invented the "haymaker."
+
+To make hay properly we thought we needed two successive days of sun.
+When rain falls nearly every day haying comes to a standstill, for if
+the mown grass is left in the field it blackens and rots; if it is drawn
+to the barn, it turns musty in the mow. Usually the sun does its duty,
+but once in a while there comes a summer in Maine when there is so much
+wet weather that it is nearly impossible to harvest the hay crop. Such a
+summer was that of 1868.
+
+At the old farm our rule was to begin haying the day after the Fourth of
+July and to push the work as fast as possible, so as to get in most of
+the crop before dog-days. That summer I remember we had mowed four acres
+of grass on the morning of the fifth. But in the afternoon the sky
+clouded, the night turned wet, and the sun scarcely showed again for a
+week. A day and a half of clear weather followed; but showers came
+before the sodden swaths could be shaken up and the moisture dried out,
+and then dull or wet days followed for a week longer; that is, to the
+twenty-first of the month. Not a hundredweight of hay had we put into
+the barn, and the first hay we had mown had spoiled in the field.
+
+At such times the northeastern farmer must keep his patience--if he can.
+The old Squire had seen Maine weather for many years and had learned the
+uselessness of fretting. He looked depressed, but merely said that
+Halstead and I might as well begin going to the district school with the
+girls.
+
+In the summer we usually had to work on the farm during good weather, as
+boys of our age usually did in those days; but it was now too wet to hoe
+corn or to do other work in the field. We could do little except to wait
+for fair weather. Addison, who was older than I, did not go back to
+school and spent much of the time poring over a pile of old magazines up
+in the attic.
+
+Halstead and I had been going to school for four or five days when on
+coming home one afternoon we found a great stir of activity round the
+west barn. Timbers and boards had been fetched from an old shed on the
+"Aunt Hannah lot"--a family appurtenance of the home farm--and lay
+heaped on the ground. Two of the hired men were laying foundation stones
+along the side of the barn. Addison, who had just driven in with a load
+of long rafters from the old Squire's mill on Lurvey's Stream, called to
+us to help him unload them.
+
+"Why, what's going to be built?" we exclaimed.
+
+"Haymaker," he replied shortly.
+
+The answer did not enlighten us.
+
+"'Haymaker'?" repeated Halstead wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, haymaker," said Addison. "So bear a hand here. We've got to hurry,
+too, if we are to make any hay this year." He then told us that the old
+Squire had driven to the village six miles away, to get a load of
+hothouse glass. While we stood pondering that bit of puzzling
+information, a third hired man drove into the yard on a heavy wagon
+drawn by a span of work horses. On the wagon was the old fire box and
+the boiler of a stationary steam engine that we had had for some time in
+the shook shop a mile down the road.
+
+We learned at supper that Addison and the old Squire, having little to
+do that day except watch the weather, had put their heads together and
+hatched a plan to make hay from freshly mown grass without the aid of
+the sun. I have always understood that the plan originated in something
+that Addison had read, or in some picture that he had seen in one of the
+magazines in the garret. But the old Squire, who had a spice of Yankee
+inventiveness in him, had improved on Addison's first notion by
+suggesting a glass roof, set aslant to a south exposure, so as to
+utilize the rays of the sun when it did shine.
+
+The haymaker was simply a long shed built against the south side of the
+barn. The front and the ends were boarded up to a height of eight feet
+from the ground. At that height strong cedar cross poles were laid, six
+inches apart, so as to form a kind of rack, on which the freshly mown
+grass could be pitched from a cart.
+
+The glass roof was put on as soon as the glass arrived; it slanted at an
+angle of perhaps forty degrees from the front of the shed up to the
+eaves of the barn. The rafters, which were twenty-six feet in length,
+were hemlock scantlings eight inches wide and two inches thick, set
+edgewise; the panes of glass, which were eighteen inches wide by
+twenty-four inches long, were laid in rows upon the rafters like
+shingles. The space between the rack of poles and the glass roof was of
+course pervious to the sun rays and often became very warm. Three
+scuttles, four feet square, set low in the glass roof and guarded by a
+framework, enabled us to pitch the grass from the cart directly into the
+loft; and I may add here that the dried hay could be pitched into the
+haymow through apertures in the side of the barn.
+
+That season the sun scarcely shone at all. The old fire box and boiler
+were needed most of the time. We installed the antiquated apparatus
+under the open floor virtually in the middle of the long space beneath,
+where it served as a hot-air furnace. The tall smoke pipe rose to a
+considerable height above the roof of the barn; and to guard against
+fire we carefully protected with sheet iron everything round it and
+round the fire box. As the boiler was already worn out and unsafe for
+steam, we put no water into it and made no effort to prevent the tubes
+from shrinking. For fuel we used slabs from the sawmill. The fire box
+and boiler gave forth a great deal of heat, which rose through the layer
+of grass on the poles.
+
+The entire length of the loft was seventy-four feet, and the width was
+nineteen feet. We threw the grass in at the scuttles and spread it round
+in a layer about eighteen inches thick. As thus charged, the loft would
+hold about as much hay as grew on an acre. From four to seven hours were
+needed to make the grass into hay, but the time varied according as the
+grass was dry or green and damp when mown. Once in the haymaker it dried
+so fast that you could often see a cloud of steam rising from the
+scuttles in the glass roof, which had to be left partly open to make a
+draft from below.
+
+Of course, we used artificial heat only in wet or cloudy weather. When
+the sun came out brightly we depended on solar heat. Perhaps half a day
+served to make a "charge" of grass into hay, if we turned it and shook
+it well in the loft. Passing the grass through the haymaker required no
+more work than making hay in the field in good weather.
+
+In subsequent seasons when the sun shone nearly every day during haying
+time we used it less. But when thundershowers or occasional fogs or
+heavy dew came it was always open to us to put the grass through the
+haymaker. In a wet season it gave us a delightful feeling of
+independence. "Let it rain," the old Squire used to say with a smile.
+"We've got the haymaker."
+
+Late in September the first fall after we built the haymaker, there came
+a heavy gale that blew off fully one half the apple crop--Baldwins,
+Greenings, Blue Pearmains and Spitzenburgs. Since we could barrel none
+of the windfalls as number one fruit, that part of our harvest, more
+than a thousand bushels, seemed likely to prove a loss. The old Squire
+would never make cider to sell; and we young folks at the farm,
+particularly Theodora and Ellen, disliked exceedingly to dry apples by
+hand.
+
+But there lay all those fair apples. It seemed such a shame to let them
+go to waste that the matter was on all our minds. At the breakfast table
+one morning Ellen remarked that we might use the haymaker for drying
+apples if we only had some one to pare and slice them.
+
+"But I cannot think of any one," she added hastily, fearful lest she be
+asked to do the work evenings.
+
+"Nor can I," Theodora added with equal haste, "unless some of those
+paupers at the town farm could be set about it."
+
+"Poor paupers!" Addison exclaimed, laughing. "Too bad!"
+
+"Lazy things, I say!" grandmother exclaimed. "There's seventeen on the
+farm, and eight of them are abundantly able to work and earn their
+keep."
+
+"Yes, if they only had the wit," the old Squire said; he was one of the
+selectmen that year, and he felt much solicitude for the town poor.
+
+"Perhaps they've wit enough to pare apples," Theodora remarked
+hopefully.
+
+"Maybe," the old Squire said in doubt. "So far as they are able they
+ought to work, just as those who have to support them must work."
+
+The old Squire, after consulting with the two other selectmen, finally
+offered five of the paupers fifty cents a day and their board if they
+would come to our place and dry apples. Three of the five were women,
+one was an elderly man, and the fifth was a not over-bright youngster of
+eighteen. So far from disliking the project all five hailed it with
+delight.
+
+Having paupers round the place was by no means an unmixed pleasure. We
+equipped them with apple parers, corers and slicers and set them to work
+in the basement of the haymaker. Large trays of woven wire were prepared
+to be set in rows on the rack overhead. It was then October; the fire
+necessary to keep the workers warm was enough to dry the trays of sliced
+apples almost as fast as they could be filled.
+
+For more than a month the five paupers worked there, sometimes well,
+sometimes badly. They dried nearly two tons of apples, which, if I
+remember right, brought six cents a pound that year. The profit from
+that venture alone nearly paid for the haymaker.
+
+The weather was bright the next haying time, so bright indeed that it
+was scarcely worth while to dry grass in the haymaker; and the next
+summer was just as sunny. It was in the spring of that second year that
+Theodora and Ellen asked whether they might not put their boxes of
+flower seeds and tomato seeds into the haymaker to give them an earlier
+start, for the spring suns warmed the ground under the glass roof while
+the snow still lay on the ground outside. In Maine it is never safe to
+plant a garden much before the middle of May; but we sometimes tried to
+get an earlier start by means of hotbeds on the south side of the farm
+buildings. In that way we used to start tomatoes, radishes, lettuce and
+even sweet corn, early potatoes, carrots and other vegetables, and then
+transplanted them to the open garden when settled warm weather came.
+
+The girls' suggestion gave us the idea of using the haymaker as a big
+hothouse. The large area under glass made the scheme attractive. On the
+2d of April we prepared the ground and planted enough garden seeds of
+all kinds to produce plants enough for an acre of land. The plants came
+up quickly and thrived and were successfully transplanted. A great
+victory was thus won over adverse nature and climate. We had sweet corn,
+green peas and everything else that a large garden yields a fortnight or
+three weeks earlier than we ever had had them before, and in such
+abundance that we were able to sell the surplus profitably at the
+neighboring village.
+
+The sweet corn, tomatoes and other vegetables were transplanted to the
+outer garden early in June. Addison then suggested that we plant the
+ground under the haymaker to cantaloupes, and on the 4th of June we
+planted forty-five hills with seed.
+
+The venture proved the most successful of all. The melon plants came up
+as well as they could have done in Colorado or Arizona. It is
+astonishing how many cantaloupes will grow on a plot of ground
+seventy-four feet long by nineteen feet wide. On the 16th of September
+we counted nine hundred and fifty-four melons, many of them large and
+nearly all of them yellow and finely ripened! They had matured in ninety
+days.
+
+In fact, the crop proved an "embarrassment of riches." We feasted on
+them ourselves and gave to our neighbors, and yet our store did not
+visibly diminish. The county fair occurred on September 22 that fall;
+and Addison suggested loading a farm wagon--one with a body fifteen feet
+long--with about eight hundred of the cantaloupes and tempting the
+public appetite--at ten cents a melon. The girls helped us to decorate
+the wagon attractively with asters, dahlias, goldenrod and other autumn
+flowers, and they lined the wagon body with paper. It really did look
+fine, with all those yellow melons in it. We hired our neighbor, Tom
+Edwards, who had a remarkably resonant voice, to act as a "barker" for
+us.
+
+The second day of the fair--the day on which the greatest crowd usually
+attends--we arrived with our load at eight o'clock in the morning, took
+up a favorable position on the grounds and cut a couple of melons in
+halves to show how yellow and luscious they were.
+
+"All ready, now, Tom!" Addison exclaimed when our preparations were
+made. "Let's hear you earn that two dollars we've got to pay you."
+
+Walking round in circles, Tom began:
+
+"Muskmelons! Muskmelons grown under glass! Home-grown muskmelons! Maine
+muskmelons grown under a glass roof! Sweet and luscious! Only ten cents!
+Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and see what your old native state can
+do--under glass! Walk up, young fellows, and treat your girls! Don't be
+stingy! Only ten cents apiece--and one of these luscious melons will
+treat three big girls or five little ones! A paper napkin with every
+melon! Don't wait! They are going fast! All be gone before ten o'clock!
+Try one and see what the old Pine Tree State will do--under glass!"
+
+That is far from being the whole of Tom's "ballyhoo." Walking round and
+round in ever larger circles, he constantly varied his praises and his
+jokes. But the melons were their own best advertisement. All who bought
+them pronounced them delicious; and frequently they bought one or two
+more to prove to their friends how good they were.
+
+At ten o'clock we still had a good many melons; but toward noon business
+became very brisk, and at one o'clock only six melons were left.
+
+In honor of this crop we rechristened the old haymaker the "cantaloupe
+coaxer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF GRANDPA EDWARDS
+
+
+There was so much to do at the old farm that we rarely found time to
+play games. But we had a croquet set that Theodora, Ellen and their girl
+neighbor, Catherine Edwards, occasionally carried out to a little
+wicketed court just east of the apple house in the rear of the farm
+buildings.
+
+Halstead rather disdained the game as too tame for boys and Addison so
+easily outplayed the rest of us that there was not much fun in it for
+him, unless, as Theodora used to say, he played with one hand in his
+pocket. But as we were knocking the balls about one evening while we
+decided which of us should play, we saw Catherine crossing the west
+field. She had heard our voices and was making haste to reach us. As she
+approached, we saw that she looked anxious.
+
+"Has grandpa been over here to-day?" her first words were. "He's gone.
+He went out right after breakfast this morning, and he hasn't come back.
+
+"After he went out, Tom saw him down by the line wall," she continued
+hurriedly. "We thought perhaps he had gone to the Corners by the
+meadow-brook path. But he didn't come to dinner. We are beginning to
+wonder where he is. Tom's just gone to the Corners to see if he is
+there."
+
+"Why, no," we said. "He hasn't been here to-day."
+
+The two back windows at the rear of the kitchen were down, and Ellen,
+who was washing dishes there, overheard what Catherine had said, and
+spoke to grandmother Ruth, who called the old Squire.
+
+"That's a little strange," he said when Catherine had repeated her
+tidings to him. "But I rather think it is nothing serious. He may have
+gone on from the Corners to the village. I shouldn't worry."
+
+Grandpa Jonathan Edwards--distantly related to the stern New England
+divine of that name--was a sturdy, strong old man sixty-seven years of
+age, two years older than our old Squire, and a friend and neighbor of
+his from boyhood. With this youthful friend, Jock, the old Squire--who
+then of course was young--had journeyed to Connecticut to buy merino
+sheep: that memorable trip when they met with Anice and Ruth Pepperill,
+the two girls whom they subsequently married and brought home.
+
+For the last seventeen years matters had not been going prosperously or
+happily at the Edwards farm. Jonathan's only son, Jotham (Catherine and
+Tom's father), had married at the age of twenty and come home to live.
+The old folks gave him the deed of the farm and accepted only a
+"maintenance" on it--not an uncommon mode of procedure. Quite naturally,
+no doubt, after taking the farm off his father's hands, marrying and
+having a family of his own, this son, Jotham, wished to manage the farm
+as he saw fit. He was a fairly kind, well-meaning man, but he had a
+hasty temper and was a poor manager. His plans seemed never to prosper,
+and the farm ran down, to the great sorrow and dissatisfaction of his
+father, Jonathan, whose good advice was wholly disregarded. The farm
+lapsed under a mortgage; the buildings went unrepaired, unpainted; and
+the older man experienced the constant grief of seeing the place that
+had been so dear to him going wrong and getting into worse condition
+every year.
+
+Of course we young folks did not at that time know or understand much
+about all this; but I have learned since that Jonathan often unbosomed
+his troubles to the old Squire, who sympathized with him, but who could
+do little to improve matters.
+
+Jotham's wife was a worthy woman, and I never heard that she did not
+treat the old folks well. It was the bad management and the constantly
+growing stress of straitened circumstances that so worried Jonathan.
+
+Then, two years before we young folks came home to live at the old
+Squire's, Aunt Anice, as the neighbors called her, died suddenly of a
+sharp attack of pleurisy. That left Jonathan alone in the household of
+his son and family. He seemed, so the old Squire told me later, to lose
+heart entirely after that, and sat about or wandered over the farm in a
+state of constant discontent.
+
+I fear, too, that his grandson, Tom, was not an unmixed comfort to him.
+Tom did not mean to hurt his grandfather's feelings. He was a
+good-hearted boy, but impetuous and somewhat hasty. More than once we
+heard him go on to tell what great things he meant to do at home, "after
+grandpa dies." Grandpa, indeed, may sometimes have heard him say that;
+and it is the saddest, most hopeless thing in life for elderly people to
+come to see that the younger generation is only waiting for them to die.
+If Grandpa Edwards had been very infirm, he might not have cared
+greatly; but, as I have said, at sixty-seven he was still hale and,
+except for a little rheumatism, apparently well.
+
+Tom came home from the Corners that night without having learned
+anything of Grandpa Edwards's whereabouts. In the course of the evening
+his disappearance became known throughout the vicinity. The first
+conjectures were that he had set off on a visit somewhere and would soon
+return. Paying visits was not much after his manner of life; yet his
+family half believed that he had gone off to cheer himself up a bit.
+Jotham and his wife, and Catherine, too, now remembered that he had been
+unusually silent for a week. A search of the room he occupied showed
+that he had gone away wearing his every-day clothes. I remember that the
+old Squire and grandmother Ruth looked grave but said very little.
+Grandpa Edwards was not the kind of man to get lost. Of course he might
+have had a fall while tramping about and injured himself seriously or
+even fatally; but neither was that likely.
+
+For several days, therefore, his family and his neighbors waited for him
+to return of his own accord. But when a week or more passed and he did
+not come anxiety deepened; and his son and the neighbors bestirred
+themselves to make wider inquiries. Tardily, at last, a considerable
+party searched the woods and the lake shores; and finally as many as
+fifty persons turned out and spent a day and a night looking for him.
+
+"They will not find him," the old Squire remarked with a kind of sad
+certainty; and he did not join the searchers himself or encourage us
+boys to do so. I think that both he and grandmother Ruth partly feared
+that, as the old lady quaintly expressed it, "Jonathan had been left to
+take his own life," in a fit of despondency.
+
+The disappearance was so mysterious, indeed, and some people thought so
+suspicious, that the town authorities took it up. The selectmen came to
+the Edwards farm and made careful inquiries into all the circumstances
+in order to make sure there had been nothing like wrongdoing. There was
+not, however, the least circumstance to indicate anything of that kind.
+Grandfather Jonathan had walked away no one knew where; Jotham and his
+wife knew no more than their neighbors. They did not know what to think.
+Perhaps they feared they had not treated their father well. They said
+little, but Catherine and Tom talked of it in all innocence. Supposed
+clues were reported, but they led to nothing and were soon abandoned.
+The baffling mystery of it remained and throughout that entire season
+cast its shadow on the community. It passed from the minds of us young
+people much sooner than from the minds of our elders. In the rush of
+life we largely ceased to think of it; but I am sure it was often in the
+thoughts of the old Squire and grandmother. With them months and even
+years made little difference in their sense of loss, for no tidings
+came--none at least that were ever made public; but thereby hangs the
+strangest part of this story.
+
+The old Squire, as I have often said, was a lumberman as well as a
+farmer. For a number of years he was in company with a Canadian at Three
+Rivers in the Province of Quebec, and had lumber camps on the St.
+Maurice River as well as nearer home in Maine. After the age of
+seventy-three he gave up active participation in the Quebec branch of
+the business, but still retained an interest in it; and this went on for
+ten years or more. The former partner in Canada then died, and the
+business had to be wound up.
+
+Long before that time Theodora, Halstead and finally Ellen had left home
+and gone out into the world for themselves, and as the old Squire was
+now past eighty we did not quite like to have him journey to Canada. He
+was still alert, but after an attack of rheumatic fever in the winter of
+1869 his heart had disclosed slight defects; it was safer for him not to
+exert himself so vigorously as formerly; and as the partnership had to
+be terminated legally he gave me the power of attorney to go to Three
+Rivers and act for him.
+
+I was at a sawmill fifteen miles out of Three Rivers for a week or more;
+but the day I left I came back to that place on a buckboard driven by a
+French _habitant_ of the locality. On our way we passed a little stumpy
+clearing where there was a small, new, very tidy house, neatly shingled
+and clapboarded, with plots of bright asters and marigolds about the
+door. Adjoining was an equally tidy barn, and in front one of the
+best-kept, most luxuriant gardens I had ever seen in Canada. Farther
+away was an acre of ripening oats and another of potatoes. A Jersey cow
+with her tinkling bell was feeding at the borders of the clearing. Such
+evidences of care and thrift were so unusual in that northerly region
+that I spoke of it to my driver.
+
+"Ah, heem ole Yarnkee man," the _habitant_ said. "Heem work all time."
+
+As if in confirmation of this remark an aged man, hearing our wheels,
+rose suddenly in the garden where he was weeding, with his face toward
+us. Something strangely familiar in his looks at once riveted my
+attention. I bade the driver stop and, jumping out, climbed the log
+fence inclosing the garden and approached the old man.
+
+"Isn't your name Edwards--Jonathan Edwards?" I exclaimed.
+
+He stood for some moments regarding me without speaking. "Wal, they
+don't call me that here," he said at last, still regarding me fixedly.
+
+I told him then who I was and how I had come to be there. I was not
+absolutely certain that it was Grandpa Edwards, yet I felt pretty sure.
+His hair was a little whiter and his face somewhat more wrinkled; yet he
+had changed surprisingly little. His hearing, too, did not appear to be
+much impaired, and he was doing a pretty good job of weeding without
+glasses.
+
+I could see that he was in doubt about admitting his identity to me. "It
+is only by accident I saw you," I said. "I did not come to find you."
+
+Still he did not speak and seemed disinclined to do so, or to admit
+anything about himself. I was sorry that I had stopped to accost him,
+but now that I had done so I went on quite as a matter of course to give
+him tidings of the old Squire and of grandmother Ruth. "They are both
+living and well; they speak of you at times," I said. "Your
+disappearance grieved them. I don't think they ever blamed you."
+
+His face worked strangely; his hands, grasping the hoe handle, shook;
+but still he said nothing.
+
+"Have you ever had word from your folks at the old farm?" I asked him at
+length. "Have you had any news of them at all?"
+
+He shook his head. I then informed him that his son Jotham had died four
+years before; that Tom had gone abroad as an engineer; that Catherine
+was living at home, managing the old place and doing it well; that she
+had paid off the mortgage and was prospering.
+
+He listened in silence; but his face worked painfully at times.
+
+As I was speaking an elderly woman came to the door of the house and
+stood looking toward us.
+
+"That is my wife," he said, noticing that I saw her. "She is a good
+woman. She takes good care of me."
+
+I felt that it would be unkind to press him further and turned to go.
+
+"Would you like to send any word to your folks or to grandmother and the
+old Squire?" I asked.
+
+"Better not," said he with a kind of solemn sullenness. "I am out of all
+that. I'm the same's dead."
+
+I could see that he wished it so. He had not really and in so many words
+acknowledged his identity; but when I turned to go he followed me to the
+log fence round the garden and as I got over grasped my hand and held on
+for the longest time! I thought he would never let go. His hand felt
+rather cold. I suppose the sight of me and the home speech brought his
+early life vividly back to him. He swallowed hard several times without
+speaking, and again I saw his wrinkled face working. He let go at last,
+went heavily back and picked up his hoe; and as we drove on I saw him
+hoeing stolidly.
+
+The driver said that he had cleared up the little farm and built the log
+house and barn all by his own labor. For five years he had lived alone,
+but later he had married the widow of a Scotch immigrant. I noticed that
+this French-Canadian driver called him "M'sieur Andrews." It would seem
+that he had changed his name and begun anew in the world--or had tried
+to. How far he had succeeded I am unable to say.
+
+I could not help feeling puzzled as well as depressed. The proper course
+under such circumstances is not wholly clear. Had his former friends a
+right to know what I had discovered? Right or wrong, what I decided on
+was to say nothing so long as the old man lived. Three years afterwards
+I wrote to a person whose acquaintance I had made at Three Rivers,
+asking him whether an old American, residing at a place I described,
+were still living, and received a reply saying that he was and
+apparently in good health. But two years later this same Canadian
+acquaintance, remembering my inquiry, wrote to say that the old man I
+had once asked about had just died, but that his widow was still living
+at their little farm and getting along as well as could be expected.
+
+Then one day as the old Squire and I were driving home from a grange
+meeting I told him what I had learned five years before concerning the
+fate of his old friend. It was news to him, and yet he did not appear to
+be wholly surprised.
+
+"I don't know, sir, whether I have done right or not, keeping this from
+you so long," I said after a moment of silence.
+
+"I think you did perfectly right," the old Squire said after a pause.
+"You did what I myself, I am sure, would have done under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Shall you tell grandmother Ruth?" I asked.
+
+The old Squire considered it for several moments before he ventured to
+speak again. At last he lifted his head.
+
+"On the whole I think it will be better if we do not," he replied. "It
+will give her a great shock, particularly Jonathan's second marriage up
+there in Canada. His disappearance has now largely faded from her mind.
+It is best so.
+
+"Not that I justify it," he continued. "I think really that he did a
+shocking thing. But I understand it and overlook it in him. He bore his
+life there with Jotham just as long as he could. Jock had that kind of
+temperament. After Anice died there was nothing to keep him there.
+
+"The fault was not all with Jotham," the old Squire continued
+reflectively. "Jotham was just what he was, hasty, willful and a poor
+head for management. No, the real fault was in the mistake in giving up
+the farm and all the rest of the property to Jotham when he came home to
+live. Jonathan should have kept his farm in his own hands and managed it
+himself as long as he was well and retained his faculties. True, Jotham
+was an only child and very likely would have left home if he couldn't
+have had his own way; but that would have been better, a thousand times
+better, than all the unhappiness that followed.
+
+"No," the old Squire said again with conviction, "I don't much believe
+in elderly people's deeding away their farms or other businesses to
+their sons as long as they are able to manage them for themselves. It is
+a very bad method and has led to a world of trouble."
+
+The old gentleman stopped suddenly and glanced at me.
+
+"My boy, I quite forgot that you are still living at home with me and
+perhaps are beginning to think that it is time you had a deed of the old
+farm," he said in an apologetic voice.
+
+"No, sir!" I exclaimed vehemently, for I had learned my lesson from what
+I had seen up in Canada. "You keep your property in your own hands as
+long as you live. If you ever see symptoms in me of wanting to play the
+Jotham, I hope that you will put me outside the house door and shut it
+on me!"
+
+The old Squire laughed and patted my shoulder affectionately.
+
+"Well, I'm eighty-three now, you know," he said slowly. "It can hardly
+be such a very great while."
+
+I shook my head by way of protest, for the thought was an exceedingly
+unpleasant one.
+
+However, the old gentleman only laughed again.
+
+"No, it can hardly be such a very great while," he repeated.
+
+But he lived to be ninety-eight, and I can truly say that those last
+years with him at the old farm, going about or driving round together,
+were the happiest of my life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+OUR FOURTH OF JULY AT THE DEN
+
+
+Farm work as usual occupied us quite closely during May and June that
+year; and ere long we began to think of what we would do on the
+approaching Fourth of July. So far as we could hear, no public
+celebration was being planned either at the village in our own town, or
+in any of the towns immediately adjoining. Apparently we would have to
+organize our own celebration, if we had one; and after talking the
+matter over with the other young folks of the school district, we
+decided to celebrate the day by making a picnic excursion to the "Den,"
+and carrying out a long contemplated plan for exploring it.
+
+The Den was a pokerish cavern near Overset Pond, nine or ten miles to
+the northeast of the old Squire's place, about which clung many legends.
+
+In the spring of 1839 a large female panther is said to have been
+trapped there, and an end made of her young family. Several bears, too,
+had been surprised inside the Den, for the place presented great
+attractions as a secure retreat from winter cold. But the story that
+most interested us was a tradition that somewhere in the recesses of the
+cave the notorious Androscoggin Indian Adwanko had hidden a bag of
+silver money that he had received from the French for the scalps of
+white settlers.
+
+The entrance to the cave fronts the pond near the foot of a precipitous
+mountain, called the Fall-off. A wilder locality, or one of more
+sinister aspect, can hardly be imagined. The cave is not spacious
+within; it is merely a dark hole among great granite rocks. By means of
+a lantern or torch you can penetrate to a distance of seventy feet or
+more.
+
+One day when three of us boys had gone to Overset Pond to fish for trout
+we plucked up our courage and crawled into it. We crept along for what
+seemed to us a great distance till we found the passage obstructed by a
+rock that had apparently fallen from overhead. We could move the stone a
+little, but we did not dare to tamper with it much, for fear that other
+stones from above would fall. We believed that Adwanko's bag of silver
+was surely in some recess beyond the rock and at once began to lay plans
+for blasting out the stone with powder. By using a long fuse, the person
+that fired the charge would have time to get out before the explosion.
+
+Our party drove there in five double-seated wagons as far as Moose-Yard
+Brook, where we left the teams and walked the remaining two miles
+through the woods to Overset Pond. Besides five of us from the old
+Squire's, there were our two young neighbors, Thomas and Catherine
+Edwards, Willis Murch and his older brother, Ben, the two Darnley boys,
+Newman and Rufus, their sister, Adriana, and ten or twelve other young
+people.
+
+Besides luncheon baskets and materials to make lemonade, we had taken
+along axes, two crowbars, two lanterns, four pounds of blasting powder
+and three feet of safety fuse. My cousin Addison had also brought a
+hammer, drill and "spoon." The girls were chiefly interested in the
+picnic; but we boys were resolved to see what was in the depths of the
+cave, and immediately on reaching the place several of us lighted the
+lanterns and went in.
+
+At no place could we stand upright. Apparently some animal had wintered
+there, for the interior had a rank odor; but we crawled on over rocks
+until we came to the obstructing stone sixty or seventy feet from the
+entrance.
+
+We had planned to drill a hole in the rock, blast it into pieces, and
+thus clear a passage to what lay beyond it. On closer inspection,
+however, we found that it was almost impossible to set the drill and
+deal blows with the hammer. But the stone rested on another rock, and we
+believed that we could push powder in beneath it and so get an upward
+blast that would heave the stone either forward or backward, or perhaps
+even break it in halves. We therefore set to work, thrusting the powder
+far under the stone with a blunt stick, until we had a charge of about
+four pounds. When we had connected the fuse we heaped sand about the
+base of the stone, to confine the powder.
+
+The blast was finally ready; and then the question who should fire it
+arose. The three feet of fuse would, we believed, give two full minutes
+for whoever lighted it to get out of the Den; but fuse sometimes burns
+faster than is expected, and the safety fuse made in those days was not
+so uniform in quality as that of present times. At first no one seemed
+greatly to desire the honor of touching it off. The boys stood and joked
+one another about it, while the girls looked on from a safe distance.
+
+"I shan't feel offended if any one gets ahead of me," Addison remarked
+carelessly.
+
+"I'd just as soon have some one else do it," Ben said, smiling.
+
+I had no idea of claiming the honor myself. Finally, after more
+bantering, Rufus Darnley cried, "Who's afraid? I'll light it. Two
+minutes is time enough to get out."
+
+Rufus was not largely endowed with mother wit, or prudence. His brother
+Newman and his sister Adriana did not like the idea of his setting off
+the blast--in fact, none of us did; but Rufus wanted to show off a bit,
+and he insisted upon going in. Thereupon Ben, the oldest of the young
+fellows present, said quietly that he would go in with Rufus and light
+the fuse himself while Rufus held the lantern.
+
+"I'll shout when I touch the match to the fuse," he said, "so that you
+can get away from the mouth of the cave."
+
+They crept in, and the rest of us stood round, listening for the signal.
+Several minutes passed, and we wondered what could be taking them so
+long. At last there came a muffled shout, and all of us, retreating
+twenty or thirty yards, watched for Ben and Rufus to emerge. Some of us
+were counting off the seconds. We could hear Ben and Rufus coming,
+climbing over the rocks. Then suddenly there was an outcry and the sound
+of tinkling glass. At the same instant Ben emerged, but immediately
+turned and went back into the cave.
+
+"Hurry, Rufe!" we heard him call out. "What's the matter? Hurry, or it
+will go off!"
+
+Consternation fell on us, and some of us started for the mouth of the
+cave; but before we had gone more than five paces Ben sprang forth. He
+had not dared to remain an instant longer--and, indeed, he was scarcely
+outside when the explosion came. It sounded like a heavy jolt deep
+inside the mountain.
+
+To our horror a huge slab of rock, thirty or forty feet up the side of
+the Fall-off, started to slide with a great crunching and grinding;
+then, gathering momentum, it plunged down between us and the mouth of
+the cave and completely shut the opening from view. Powder smoke floated
+up from behind the slab.
+
+There was something so terrible in the suddenness of the catastrophe
+that the whole party seemed crazed. The boys, shouting wildly, swarmed
+about the fallen rock; the girls ran round, imploring us to get Rufus
+out. Rufus's sister Adriana, beside herself with terror, was screaming;
+and we could hardly keep Newman Darnley from attacking Ben Murch, who,
+he declared, should have brought Rufus out!
+
+At first we were afraid that the explosion had killed Rufus; but almost
+immediately we heard muffled cries for help from the cave. He was still
+alive, but we had no way of knowing how badly he was hurt. Adriana
+fairly flew from one to another, beseeching us to save him.
+
+"He's dying! He's under the rocks!" she screamed. "Oh, why don't you get
+him out?"
+
+With grave faces Willis, Ben, Addison and Thomas peered round the fallen
+rock and cast about for some means of moving it.
+
+"We must pry it away!" Thomas exclaimed. "Let's get a big pry!"
+
+"We can't move that rock!" Ben declared. "We shall have to drill it and
+blast it."
+
+But we had used all the powder and fuse, and it would take several hours
+to get more. Ben insisted, however, on sending Alfred Batchelder for the
+powder, and then, seizing the hammer and drill, he began to drill a hole
+in the side of the rock.
+
+Thomas, however, still believed that we could move the rock by throwing
+our united weight on a long pry; and many of the boys agreed with him.
+We felled a spruce tree seven inches in diameter, trimmed it and cut a
+pry twenty feet long from it. Carrying it to the rock, we set a stone
+for a fulcrum, and then threw our weight repeatedly on the long end. The
+rock, which must have weighed ten tons or more, scarcely stirred. Ben
+laughed at us scornfully and went on drilling.
+
+All the while Adriana stood weeping, and the other girls were shedding
+tears in sympathy. Rufus's distressed cries came to our ears, entreating
+us to help him and saying something that we could not understand about
+his leg.
+
+As Addison stood racking his brain for some quicker way of moving the
+rock he remembered a contrivance, called a "giant purchase," that he had
+heard of lumbermen's using to break jams of logs on the Androscoggin
+River. He had never seen one and had only the vaguest idea how it
+worked. All he knew was that it consisted of an immense lever, forty
+feet long, laid on a log support and hauled laterally to and fro by
+horses. He knew that you could thus get a titanic application of power,
+for if the long arm of the lever were forty feet long and the short arm
+four feet, the strength of three horses pulling on the long arm would be
+increased tenfold--that is, the power of thirty horses would be applied
+against the object to be moved.
+
+Addison explained his plan to the rest of us. He sent Thomas and me to
+lead several of our horses up through the woods to the pond. We ran all
+the way; and we took the whippletrees off the double wagons, and brought
+all the spare rope halters. Within an hour we were back there with four
+of the strongest horses.
+
+Meanwhile the others had been busy; even Ben had been persuaded to drop
+his drilling and to help the other boys cut the great lever--a straight
+spruce tree forty or forty-five feet tall. The girls, too, had worked;
+they had even helped us drag the two spruce logs for the lever to slide
+on. In fact, every one had worked with might and main in a kind of
+breathless anxiety, for Rufus's very life seemed to be hanging on the
+success of our exertions.
+
+A few feet to the left of the fallen rock was another boulder that
+served admirably for a fulcrum, and before long we had the big lever in
+place with the end of the short arm bearing against the fallen slab.
+When we had attached the horses to the farther end, Addison gave the
+word to start. As the horses gathered themselves for the pull we watched
+anxiously. The great log lever, which was more than a foot in diameter,
+bent visibly as they lunged forward.
+
+Every eye was now on the rock, and when it moved,--for move it
+did,--such a cry of joy rose as the shores of that little pond had never
+echoed before! The great slab ground heavily against the other rocks,
+but moved for three or four feet, exposing in part the mouth of the
+cave--the same little dark chink that affords entrance to the Den
+to-day.
+
+Other boulders prevented the rock from moving farther, and, although the
+horses surged at the lever, and we boys added our strength, the slab
+stuck fast; but an aperture twenty inches wide had been uncovered, wide
+enough to enable any one to enter the Den.
+
+Ben, Willis and Edgar Wilbur crept in, followed by Thomas with a
+lantern; and after a time they brought Rufus out. We learned then that
+in his haste after the fuse was lighted he had fallen over one of the
+large rocks and, striking his leg on another stone, had broken the bone
+above the knee. He suffered not a little when the boys were drawing him
+out at the narrow chink beside the rock; but he was alive, and that was
+a matter for thankfulness.
+
+Thomas went back to get the lantern that Rufus had dropped. It had
+fallen into a crevice between two large rocks, and while searching for
+it Thomas found another lantern there, of antique pattern. It was made
+of tin and was perforated with holes to emit the light; it seemed very
+old. Underneath where it lay Thomas also discovered a man's waistcoat,
+caked and sodden by the damp. In one pocket was a pipe, a rusted
+jackknife and what had once been a piece of tobacco. In the other pocket
+were sixteen large, old, red copper cents, one of which was a
+"boobyhead" cent.
+
+We never discovered to whom that treasure-trove belonged. It could
+hardly have been Adwanko's, for one of the copper cents bore the date of
+1830. Perhaps the owner of it had been searching for Adwanko's money;
+but why he left his lantern and waistcoat behind him remains a mystery.
+Our chief care was now for Rufus. We made a litter of poles and spruce
+boughs, and as gently as we could carried the sufferer through the woods
+down to the wagons, and slowly drove him home. Seven or eight weeks
+passed before he was able to walk again, even with the aid of a crutch.
+
+Our plan of exploring the Den had been wholly overshadowed. We even
+forgot the luncheon baskets; and no one thought of ascertaining what the
+blast had accomplished. When we went up to the cave some months later we
+found that the blast had done very little; it had moved the rock
+slightly, but not enough to open the passage; and so it remains to this
+day. Old Adwanko's scalp money is still there--if it ever was there; but
+it is my surmise that the cruel redskin is much more likely to have
+spent his blood money for rum than to have left it behind him in the
+Den.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+JIM DOANE'S BANK BOOK
+
+
+During the month of June that summer there was a very ambiguous affair
+at our old place.
+
+Nowadays, if you lose your savings-bank book all you have to do is to
+notify the bank to stop payment on it. In many other ways, too,
+depositors are now safeguarded from loss. Forty years ago, however, when
+savings banks were newer and more autocratic, it was different. The bank
+book was then something tremendously important, or at least depositors
+thought so.
+
+When the savings bank at the village, six miles from the old home farm
+in Maine, first opened for business, Mr. Burns, the treasurer, gave each
+new depositor a sharp lecture. He was a large man with a heavy black
+beard; as he handed the new bank book to the depositor, he would say in
+a dictatorial tone:
+
+"Now here is your _bank book_." What emphasis he put on those words! "It
+shows you what you have at the bank. Don't fold it. Don't crumple it.
+Don't get it dirty. But above all things don't lose it, or let it be
+stolen from you. If you do, you may lose your entire deposit. We cannot
+remember you all. Whoever brings your book here may draw out your money.
+So put this book in a safe place, and keep a sharp eye on it. Remember
+every word I have told you, or we will not be responsible."
+
+The old Squire encouraged us to have a nest egg at the bank, and by the
+end of the year there were seven bank books at the farm, all carefully
+put away under lock and key, in fact there were nine, counting the two
+that belonged to our hired men, Asa and Jim Doane. Acting on the old
+Squire's exhortation to practise thrift, they vowed that they would lay
+up a hundred dollars a year from their wages. The Doanes had worked for
+us for three or four years. Asa was a sturdy fellow of good habits; but
+Jim, his younger brother, had a besetting sin. About once a month,
+sometimes oftener, he wanted a playday; we always knew that he would
+come home from it drunk, and that we should have to put him away in some
+sequestered place and give him a day in which to recover.
+
+For two or three days afterwards Jim would be the meekest, saddest, most
+shamefaced of human beings. At table he would scarcely look up; and
+there is not the least doubt that his grief and shame were genuine. Yet
+as surely as the months passed the same feverish restlessness would
+again show itself in him.
+
+We came to recognize Jim's symptoms only too well, and knew, when we saw
+them, that he would soon have to have another playday. In fact, if the
+old Squire refused to let him off on such occasions, Jim would get more
+and more restless and two or three nights afterwards would steal away
+surreptitiously.
+
+"Jim's a fool!" his brother, Asa, often said impatiently. "He isn't fit
+to be round here."
+
+But the Squire steadily refused to turn Jim off. Many a time the old
+gentleman sat up half the night with the returned and noisy prodigal. A
+word from the Squire would calm Jim for the time and would occasionally
+call forth a burst of repentant tears. Jim's case, indeed, was one of
+the causes that led us at the old farm so bitterly to hate intoxicants.
+
+That, however, is the dark side of Jim's infirmity; one of its more
+amusing sides was his bank book. When Jim was himself, as we used to say
+of him, he wanted to do well and to thrive like Asa, and he asked the
+old Squire to hold back ten dollars from his wages every month and to
+deposit it for him in the new savings bank. Mindful of his infirmity,
+Jim gave his bank book to grandmother to keep for him.
+
+"Hide it," he used to say to her. "Even if I come and want it, don't you
+let me have it."
+
+That was when Jim was himself; but when he had gone for a playday, he
+came rip-roariously home, time and again, and demanded his book, to get
+more money for drink. The scrimmages that grandmother had with him about
+that book would have been highly ludicrous if a vein of tragedy had not
+run underneath them.
+
+One cause of Jim's inconsistent behavior about his bank account was the
+bad company he fell into on his playdays. After he had imbibed somewhat,
+those boon companions would urge him to go home and get his bank book;
+for under the influence of drink Jim was a noisy talker and likely to
+boast of his savings.
+
+None of us, except grandmother, knew where Jim's bank book was, and
+after one memorable experience with him the old lady always disappeared
+when she saw him drive in. The second time, Jim actually searched the
+house for his book; but grandmother had taken it and stolen away to a
+neighbor's house. Once or twice afterwards Jim came and searched for his
+book; and I remember that the old Squire had doubts whether it was best
+for us to withhold it from him. Grandmother, however, had no such
+scruples.
+
+"He shan't have it! Those rum sellers shan't get it from him!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+When he had recovered from the effects of his playday Jim was always
+fervently glad that he had not spent his savings.
+
+But his bad habits rapidly grew on him, and we fully expected that his
+savings, which, thanks to grandmother's resolute efforts, now amounted
+to nearly four hundred dollars, would eventually be squandered on drink.
+
+"It's no use," Addison often said. "It will all go that way in the end,
+and the more there is of it the worse will be the final crash."
+
+Others thought so, too--among them Miss Wilma Emmons, who taught the
+district school that summer. Miss Emmons was tall, slight and pale, with
+dark hair and large light-blue eyes. She would have been very pretty
+except for her very high, narrow forehead that not even her hair, combed
+low, could prevent from being noticeable. She made you feel that she was
+constantly intent on something that worried her.
+
+As time passed, we came to learn the cause of her anxiety. She had two
+brothers, younger than herself, bright, promising boys whom she was
+trying to help through college. The three were orphans, without means;
+and Wilma was working hard, summer and winter, at anything and
+everything that offered profit, in an effort to give those boys a
+liberal education; besides teaching school, she went round the
+countryside in all weathers selling books, maps and sewing machines. Her
+devotion to those brothers was of course splendid, yet I now think that
+Wilma, temperamental and overworked, had let it become a kind of
+monomania with her.
+
+A few days after she came to board at the old Squire's--all the
+school-teachers boarded there--Addison said to me that he wondered what
+that girl had on her mind.
+
+As the summer passed, Wilma Emmons came to know our affairs at the old
+farm very well, and of course heard about Jim and his bank book. Jim, in
+fact, had taken one of his playdays soon after she came; and grandmother
+asked Wilma to lock the book up in the drawer of her desk at the
+schoolhouse for a few days.
+
+It was quite like Jim Doane's impulsive nature, already somewhat
+unbalanced by intoxicants, to be greatly attracted to the reserved Miss
+Emmons. Out by the garden gate one morning he rather foolishly made his
+admiration known to her. Addison and I were weeding a strawberry bed
+just inside the fence and could not avoid overhearing something of what
+passed.
+
+Astonished and a little indignant, too, perhaps, Miss Emmons told Jim
+that a young man of his habits had no right to address himself in such a
+manner to any young woman.
+
+"But I can reform!" Jim said.
+
+"Let folks see that you have done so, then," Miss Emmons replied, and
+added that a young man who could not be trusted with his own bank book
+could hardly be depended on to make a home.
+
+It is quite likely that Jim brooded over the rebuff; he was surly for a
+week afterwards. Then, like the weakling that he had become, he stole
+away for another playday; and again grandmother, with Theodora's and
+Miss Emmons's connivance, hid the book, this time somewhere in the
+wagon-house cellar.
+
+Jim did not come home to demand his book, however; in fact, he did not
+come back at all. Shame perhaps restrained him. When on the third day
+the old Squire drove down to the village to get him, he found that Jim
+had gone to Bangor with two disreputable cronies.
+
+A week or two passed, and then came a somewhat curt letter from Jim,
+asking grandmother to send his bank book to him at Oldtown, Maine. The
+letter put grandmother in a great state of mind, and she declared
+indignantly that she would not send it. In truth, we were all certain
+that now Jim would squander his savings in the worst possible way; but
+when another letter came, again demanding the book, the old Squire
+decided that we must send it.
+
+"The poor fellow needs a guardian," he said. "But he hasn't one; he is
+his own man and has a right to his property."
+
+With hot tears of resentment grandmother, accompanied by Theodora, went
+to the wagon-house cellar to get the book. After some minutes they
+returned, exclaiming that they could not find it!
+
+No little stir ensued; what had become of it? For the moment Addison and
+I actually suspected that grandmother and Theodora had hidden the book
+again, in order to avoid sending it; but a few words with Theodora,
+aside, convinced us that the book had really disappeared from the
+cellar.
+
+The old Squire was greatly disturbed. "Ruth," he said to grandmother,
+"are you sure you have not put it somewhere else?"
+
+Grandmother declared that she had not. None the less, they searched in
+all the previous hiding places of the book and continued looking for it
+until after ten o'clock that night. We were in a very uncomfortable
+position.
+
+Long after we had gone to bed Addison and I lay awake, talking of it in
+low tones; we tried to recollect everything that had gone on at home
+since the book was last seen. I dropped asleep at last, and probably
+slept for two hours or more, when Addison shook me gently.
+
+"Sh!" he whispered. "Don't speak. Some one is going downstairs."
+
+Listening, I heard a stair creak, as if under a stealthy tread. Addison
+slipped softly out of bed, and I followed him. Hastily donning some
+clothes, we went into the hall on tiptoe and descended the stairs. The
+door from the hall to the sitting-room was open, and also the door to
+the kitchen. It was not a dark night; and without striking a light we
+went out through the wood-house to the wagon-house, for we felt sure
+that some one was astir out there. Just then we heard the outer door of
+the wagon-house move very slowly and, stealing forward, discovered that
+it was open about a foot. Still on tiptoe we drew near and were just in
+time to see a person go out of sight down the lane that led to the road.
+
+"Now who can that be?" Addison whispered. "Looks like a woman,
+bareheaded."
+
+We followed cautiously, and at the gate caught another glimpse of the
+mysterious pedestrian some distance down the road. We were quite sure
+now that it was a woman. We kept her in sight as far as the schoolhouse;
+there she opened the door--the schoolhouse was rarely locked by night or
+day--and disappeared inside.
+
+Opposite the schoolhouse was a little copse of chokecherry bushes, and
+we stepped in among them to watch. Some moments passed. Twice we heard
+slight sounds inside. Then the dim figure in long clothes came slowly
+out and returned up the road toward the old Squire's.
+
+"Who was it?" Addison said to me.
+
+"Miss Emmons," I replied.
+
+"Yes," Addison assented reluctantly.
+
+We went into the schoolhouse, struck matches, and at last lighted a pine
+splint. The drawer to the teacher's desk was locked, but it was a worn
+old lock, and by inserting the little blade of his knife Addison at last
+pushed the bolt back.
+
+Inside were the teacher's books and records. A Fifth Reader that we took
+up opened readily to Jim Doane's bank book.
+
+"She brought that here to hide it!" I exclaimed.
+
+Addison did not reply for a moment. "Perhaps she did," he admitted. "She
+was walking in her sleep."
+
+"I don't believe it!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, she was," said Addison. "She was walking in her sleep. She must
+have been."
+
+I was far from convinced, but, seeing that Addison was determined to
+have it so, I said no more. Taking the book, we returned home. The house
+was all quiet.
+
+The next morning at the breakfast table Ellen, Theodora and grandmother
+began to speak of the lost bank book again. I think that Addison had
+already said something in private to the old Squire, and that they had
+come to an agreement as to the best course to pursue.
+
+"Don't fret, grandmother!" Addison cried, laughing. "The book's found!
+We found it late last night, after all the rest were in bed."
+
+There was a general exclamation of surprise. I stole a glance at Miss
+Emmons. She looked amazed, and I thought that she turned pale; but she
+was always pale.
+
+"Yes," Addison continued, "'twas great fun. Wilma," he cried familiarly,
+"did you know that you walk in your sleep?"
+
+Miss Emmons uttered some sort of protest.
+
+"Well, but you do!" Addison exclaimed. "Of course you don't remember it.
+Somnambulists never do. You walked as if you were walking a chalk line.
+'Twas the fuss we made, searching for Jim's book last night, that set
+you off, I suppose."
+
+Grandmother and the girls burst in with a hundred questions; but the old
+Squire said in a matter-of-fact tone:
+
+"I used to walk in my sleep myself, when anything had excited me the
+previous evening. Sometimes, too, when I was a little ill of a cold."
+
+Then the old gentleman went on to relate odd stories of persons who had
+walked in their sleep and hidden articles, particularly money, and of
+the efforts that had been made to find the misplaced articles
+afterwards. In fact, before we rose from the table he had more than half
+convinced us that Addison's view of the matter--if it were his view--was
+the right one.
+
+Miss Emmons said very little and did not afterwards speak of the matter,
+although Addison, to keep up the illusion, sometimes asked her jocosely
+whether she had rested well, adding:
+
+"I thought I heard you up walking again last night."
+
+The incident was thus charitably passed over. I should not wish to say
+positively that it was not a case of sleepwalking, but I think every one
+of us feared that this devoted sister had made herself believe that,
+since Jim would squander his money in drink, it was right for her to use
+it for educating her brothers. She probably supposed that she could draw
+the money herself.
+
+And what became of the hapless bank book? It was sent to Jim as he had
+demanded; and we may suppose that he drew the money and spent it. At any
+rate, when he next made his appearance at the old Squire's, two years
+later, he had neither book nor money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+GRANDMOTHER RUTH'S LAST LOAD OF HAY
+
+
+Haying time at the old farm generally began on the Monday after the
+Fourth of July and lasted from four to six weeks, according to the
+weather, which is often fitful in Maine. We usually harvested from
+seventy to seventy-five tons, and in the days of scythes and hand rakes
+that meant that we had to do a good deal of hard, hot, sweaty work.
+
+Besides Addison, Halstead and me, the old Squire had the two hired men,
+Jim and Asa Doane, to help him; and sometimes Elder Witham, who was
+quite as good with a scythe as with a sermon, worked for us a few days.
+
+First we would cut the grass in the upland fields nearest the farm
+buildings, then the grass in the "Aunt Hannah lot" out beyond the
+sugar-maple orchard and last the grass in the south field, which, since
+it was on low, wet ground where there were several long swales, was the
+slowest to ripen. Often there were jolly times when we cut the south
+field. Our enjoyment was owing partly to the fact that we were getting
+toward the end of the hard work, and partly to the bumblebees' nests we
+found in the swales. Moreover, when we reached that field grandmother
+Ruth was wont to come out to lay the last load of hay and ride to the
+barn on it.
+
+In former days when she and the old Squire were young she had helped him
+a great deal with the haying. Nearly every day she finished her own work
+early--the cooking, the butter making, the cheese making--and came out
+to the field to help rake and load the hay. The old Squire has often
+told me that, except at scythe work, grandmother Ruth was the best
+helper he had ever had, for at that time she was quick, lithe and strong
+and understood the work as well as any man. Later when they were in
+prosperous circumstances she gave up doing so much work out of doors;
+but still she enjoyed going to the hayfield, and even after we young
+folks had gone home to live she made it her custom to lay the last load
+of hay and ride to the barn on it just to show that she could do it
+still. She was now sixty-four years old, however, and had grown stout,
+so stout indeed that to us youngsters she looked rather venturesome on a
+load of hay. On the day of my narrative, we had the last of the grass in
+the south field "mown and making" on the ground. There were four or five
+tons of it, all of which we wanted to put into the barn before night,
+for, though the forenoon was bright and clear, we could hear distant
+rumblings; and there were other signs that foul weather was coming. The
+old Squire sent Ellen over to summon Elder Witham to help us; if the
+rain held off until nightfall, we hoped to have the hay inside the barn.
+
+At noon, while we were having luncheon, grandmother Ruth asked at what
+time we expected to have the last load ready to go in.
+
+"Not before five o'clock," Asa replied. "It has all to be raked yet."
+
+"Well, I shall be down there by that time," she said in a very
+matter-of-fact tone. "I'll bring the girls with me."
+
+"Don't you think, Ruth, that perhaps you had better give it up this
+year?" the old Squire said persuasively.
+
+"But why?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed, not at all pleased.
+
+"Well, you know, Ruth, that neither of us is quite so young as we once
+were--" the old Squire began apologetically.
+
+"Speak for yourself, Joseph, not for me!" she interrupted. "I'm young
+enough to lay a load of hay yet!"
+
+"Yes, yes," the old Squire said soothingly, "I know you are, but the
+loads are rather high, and you know that you are getting quite heavy--"
+
+"Then I can tread down hay all the better!" grandmother Ruth cried,
+turning visibly pink with vexation.
+
+"All right, all right, Ruth!" the old Squire said with a smile,
+prudently abandoning the argument.
+
+Then Elder Witham put in his word. "The Lord has appointed to each of us
+our three-score years and ten, and it behooves us to be mindful that the
+end of all things is drawing nigh," he remarked soberly.
+
+"Look here, Elder Witham," the old lady exclaimed with growing
+impatience, "you are here haying to-day, not preaching! I'm going to lay
+that load of hay if there are men enough here to pitch it on the cart to
+me."
+
+Jim and Asa snorted; Theodora's efforts to keep a grave face were
+amusing; and with queer little wrinkles gathering round the corners of
+his mouth the old Squire, who had finished his luncheon, rose hastily to
+go out.
+
+We went back to the south field and plied our seven rakes vigorously for
+an hour and a half. Then Asa went to get the horses and the long rack
+cart. That day, I remember, Jim laid the loads. Halstead helped him to
+tread down the hay, and Elder Witham and Asa pitched it on the cart. The
+old Squire had mounted the driver's seat and taken the reins; and
+Addison and I raked up the scatterings from the "tumbles."
+
+In the course of two hours four loads of the hay had gone into the barn,
+and we thought that the thirty-three tumbles that remained could be
+drawn at the fifth and last load. It was then that grandmother Ruth
+appeared. She had been watching proceedings from the house and followed
+the cart down from the barn to the south field, resolutely bent on
+laying the last load. Theodora and Ellen came with her to help tread
+down the hay on the cart.
+
+"Here I am!" she cried cheerily. She tossed her hayfork into the empty
+rack and climbed in after it. Her sun hat was tied under her chin, and
+she had donned a white waist and a blue denim skirt. "Come on now with
+your hay!"
+
+Elder Witham moistened his hands, but made no comment. Jim was grinning.
+The old Squire drove the cart between two tumbles, and the work of
+pitching on and laying the load began. No one knew better than
+grandmother Ruth how a load should be laid. She first filled the
+opposite ends of the rack and kept the middle low; then when the load
+was high as the rails of the rack she began prudently to lay the hay out
+on and over them, so as to have room to build a large, wide load.
+
+But in this instance there was a hindrance to good loading that even
+grandmother's skill could not wholly overcome. Much of the hay for that
+last load was from the swales at the lower side of the field, where the
+grass was wild and short and sedgy, a kind that when dry is difficult to
+pitch with forks and that, since the forkfuls have little cohesion and
+tend to drop apart, does not lie well on the rails of the rack. Such hay
+farmers sometimes call "podgum."
+
+Fully aware of the fact, the old Squire now said in an undertone to the
+elder and to Jim that they had better make two loads of the thirty-three
+tumbles. But grandmother Ruth overheard the remark and mistook it to
+mean that the old Squire did not believe she could lay the load. It
+mortified her.
+
+"No, sir-ee!" she shouted down to the old Squire. "I hear your talk
+about two loads, and it's because I'm on the cart! I won't have it so!
+You give me that hay! I'll load it; see if I don't!"
+
+"Bully for you, Gram!" shouted Halstead.
+
+It was no use to try to dissuade her now, as the old Squire well knew
+from long experience. When her pride was touched no arguments would move
+her.
+
+With the elder heaving up great forkfuls and grandmother Ruth valiantly
+laying them at the front and at the back of the rack, they continued
+loading the hay. Jim tried to place his forkfuls where they need not be
+moved and where the girls could tread them down.
+
+The load grew higher, for now that we were in the swales the hay could
+not be laid out widely. It would be a big load, or at least a lofty one.
+Grandmother Ruth began to fear lest the girls should fall off, and,
+calling on Elder Witham to catch them, she bade them slide down
+cautiously to the ground at the rear end of the cart. She then went on
+laying the load alone. As a consequence it was not so firmly trodden and
+became higher and higher until Jim and the elder could hardly heave
+their forkfuls high enough for her to take them. But they got the last
+tumble up to her and shouted, "All on!" to the old Squire, who now was
+nearly invisible on his seat in front. Grandmother Ruth settled herself
+midway on the load to ride it to the barn, thrusting her fork deep into
+the hay so as to have something to hold on by. We could just see her sun
+hat and her face over the hay; she looked very pink and triumphant.
+
+Carefully avoiding stones and all the inequalities in the field, the old
+Squire drove at a slow walk. I surmise that he had his fears. It was
+certainly the highest load we had hauled to the barn that summer.
+
+The rest of us followed after, glad indeed that the long task of haying
+was now done, and that the last load would soon be in the barn. Halfway
+to the farm buildings the cart road led through a gap in the stone wall
+where two posts with bars separated the south field from the middle
+field. There was scanty space for the load to pass through, and in his
+anxiety not to foul either of the posts the old Squire, who could not
+see well because of the overhanging hay, drove a few inches too close to
+one of them, and a wheel passed over a small stone beside the wheel
+track. The jolt was slight, but it proved sufficient to loosen the
+unstable "podgum." The load had barely cleared the posts when the entire
+side of it came sliding down--and grandmother Ruth with it! We heard her
+cry out as she fell, and then all of us who were behind scaled the wall
+and rushed to her rescue. The old Squire stopped the horses, jumped from
+his seat over the off horse's back and was ahead of us all, crying,
+"Ruth, Ruth!"
+
+There was a huge heap of loose hay on the ground, fully ten feet high,
+but she was nowhere to be seen in it. Nor did she speak or stir.
+
+"Great Lord, I'm afraid it's killed her!" Elder Witham exclaimed. Jim
+and Asa stood horrified, and the girls burst out crying.
+
+The old Squire had turned white. "Ruth! Ruth!" he cried. "Are you badly
+hurt? Do you hear? Can't you answer?" Not a sound came from the hay, not
+a movement; and, falling on his knees, he began digging it away with his
+hands. None of us dared use our hay-forks, and now, following his
+example, we began tearing away armfuls of hay. A moment later, Addison,
+who was burrowing nearly out of sight, got hold of one of her hands. It
+frightened him, and he cried out; but he pulled at it. Instantly there
+was a laugh from somewhere underneath, then a scramble that continued
+until at last grandmother Ruth emerged without aid of any sort and stood
+up, a good deal rumpled and covered with hay but laughing.
+
+"It didn't hurt me a mite!" she protested. "I came down light as a
+feather!"
+
+"But why didn't you answer when we called to you?" the elder exclaimed
+reprovingly. "You kept so still we were scared half to death about you!"
+
+"Oh, I just wanted to see what you would all do," she replied airily and
+still laughing. "I was a little afraid you would stick your forks into
+the hay, but I was watching for that."
+
+The old Squire was so relieved, so overjoyed, to see her on her feet
+unhurt that he had not a word of reproach for her. All he said was,
+"Ruth Ann, I'm afraid you are growing too young for your age!"
+
+The truth is that grandmother Ruth was dreadfully chagrined that the
+load she had laid had not held together as far as the barn; and it was
+partly mortification, I think, that led her to lie so still under the
+hay.
+
+She wanted to remount the cart and have the hay pitched up to her; but
+as it was getting late in the afternoon, and as there was no ladder at
+hand, Jim and Asa hoisted Addison up, and he succeeded in rebuilding the
+load so that we were able to take it into the barn without further
+incident.
+
+We could hardly believe that the fall had not injured grandmother Ruth,
+and as a matter of fact Theodora afterwards told us that she had several
+large black-and-blue spots as a result of her adventure. The old lady
+herself, however, scouted the idea that she had been in the least
+injured and did not like to have us show any solicitude about her.
+
+The following year, as haying drew to a close, we young folks waited
+curiously to see whether she would speak of going out to lay the last
+load. Not a word came from her; but I think it was less because she felt
+unable to go than it was that she feared we would refer to her mishap of
+the previous summer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WHEN UNCLE HANNIBAL SPOKE AT THE CHAPEL
+
+
+For a month or more the old Squire had looked perplexed. Two of his
+lifelong friends were rival candidates for the senatorship from Maine,
+and each had expressed the hope that the old Squire would aid him in his
+canvass. Both candidates knew that many of the old Squire's friends and
+neighbors looked to him for guidance in political matters. Without
+seeming to express personal preference, the old Squire could not choose
+between them, for both were statesmen of wide experience and in every
+way good men for the office.
+
+The first was Hannibal Hamlin, who had been Vice-President with Abraham
+Lincoln in 1861-1865: "Uncle Hannibal," as we young people at the farm
+always called him after that memorable visit of his, when we ate "fried
+pies" together. He had been Senator before the Civil War, and also
+Governor of Maine; now, after the war, in 1868, he had again been
+nominated for the senatorship under the auspices of the Republican
+party.
+
+The other candidate, the Hon. Lot M. Morrill, had been Governor of Maine
+in 1858, and had also been United States Senator. I cherished a warm
+feeling for him, for he was the man who had so opportunely helped me to
+capture the runaway calf, Little Dagon.
+
+Politically, we young folks were much divided in our sympathies that
+fall. My cousins Addison and Theodora were ardent supporters of Uncle
+Hannibal, whereas I, thinking of that calf, could not help feeling loyal
+to Senator Morrill. Hot debates we had! Halstead alone was indifferent.
+At last Ellen declared herself on my side and thus made a tie at table.
+I never knew whom the old Squire favored; he never told us and was
+always reluctant to speak of the matter.
+
+It was a very close contest, and in the legislature was finally decided
+by a plurality of one in favor of Mr. Hamlin. Seventy-five votes were
+cast for him, seventy-four for Mr. Morrill, and there was one blank
+vote, over which a dispute later arose.
+
+Earlier in the season, when the legislators who were to decide the
+matter at Augusta were being elected, both candidates made personal
+efforts to win popular support. Thus it happened that Uncle Hannibal on
+one of his visits to his native town that year, promised to give us a
+little talk. Since there was no public hall in the neighborhood, the
+gathering was to be held at the capacious old Methodist chapel.
+
+There had been no regular preaching there of late, and the house had
+fallen into lamentable disrepair. The roof was getting leaky; the wind
+had blown off several of the clapboards; and a large patch of the
+plaster, directly over the pulpit, had fallen from the ceiling.
+
+Fall was now drawing on, with colder weather, and so, on the day of
+Uncle Hannibal's talk, the old Squire sent Addison and me over to the
+chapel to kindle a fire in the big box stove and also to sweep out the
+place.
+
+We drove over in the morning--the meeting was to begin at two
+o'clock--and set to work at once. While we were sweeping up the debris
+we noticed insects flying round overhead. For a while, however, we gave
+them little heed; Addison merely remarked that there was probably a
+hornets' nest up in the loft, but that hornets would not molest any one
+if they were left alone. But after we had kindled a fire in the stove
+and the long funnel had begun to heat the upper part of the room, they
+began to fly in still greater numbers. Soon one of them darted down at
+us, and Addison pulled off his hat to drive it away.
+
+"I say!" he cried, as his eyes followed the insect where it alighted on
+the ceiling. "That's no hornet! That's a honeybee--and an Egyptian,
+too!"
+
+We quickly made sure that they were indeed Egyptian bees. They were
+coming down through the cracks between the laths at the place where the
+plaster had fallen from the ceiling.
+
+"Do you suppose there's a swarm of bees up there in the loft?" Addison
+exclaimed. "I'll bet there is," he added, "a runaway swarm that's gone
+in at the gable end outside, where the clapboards are off."
+
+He climbed up on the high pulpit and with the handle of the broom rapped
+on the ceiling. We immediately heard a deep humming sound overhead, and
+so many bees flew down through the cracks that Addison descended in
+haste. We retreated toward the door.
+
+"What are we going to do when Senator Hamlin and all the people come?" I
+asked.
+
+"I don't know!" Addison muttered, perplexed. "That old loft is roaring
+full of bees. We've got to do something with them, or there won't be any
+speaking here to-day."
+
+We thought of stopping up the cracks, but there were too many of them to
+make that practicable. To dislodge the swarm from the loft, too, would
+be equally difficult, for the more we disturbed the bees the more
+furious they would become.
+
+At last we thought of the old Squire's bee smoker with which he had
+sometimes subdued angry swarms that were bent on stinging.
+
+"You drive home as fast as you can and get the smoker and a ladder,"
+Addison said, "and I'll stay here to watch the fire in the stove."
+
+So I drove old Nance home at her best pace. When I got there I looked
+for the old Squire to tell him of our trouble, but found that he had
+already driven to the village to meet Senator Hamlin and the other
+speakers of the afternoon. Grandmother and the girls were too busy
+getting ready for the distinguished guests, who were to have supper with
+us, to give much heed to my story of the bees. So I got the smoker, the
+box of elm-wood punk and a ladder about fourteen feet long, and with
+this load drove back at top speed to the meetinghouse.
+
+Addison had eaten his share of the luncheon that we had brought, and
+while I devoured mine he pottered with the smoker; neither of us
+understood very well how it worked. There are now several kinds of bee
+smokers on the market; but the old Squire had contrived this one by
+making use of an old-fashioned bellows to puff the smoke from out of a
+two-quart tin can in which the punk wood was fired by means of a live
+coal. The nose of the bellows was inserted at one end of the can; and
+into a hole at the other end the old gentleman had soldered a short tin
+tube through which he could blow the smoke in any direction he desired.
+In order not to burn his fingers he had inclosed both bellows and can in
+supporting strips of wood; thus he could hold the contrivance in one
+hand and squeeze the bellows with the other.
+
+As we were unfamiliar with the contrivance, we both had to climb the
+ladder--one to hold the can and the other to pump the bellows. We lost
+so much time in getting started that when at last we were ready to begin
+operations people had already begun to arrive. They asked us all sorts
+of questions and bothered us a good deal, but we kept right on at our
+task. The smoker was working well, and we felt greatly encouraged. Those
+rings of black vapor drove the bees back and, as the smoke rose through
+the cracks, prevented them from coming down again.
+
+We were still up that ladder by the pulpit, puffing smoke at those
+cracks, when the old Squire and Uncle Hannibal arrived, with Judge
+Peters and the Hon. Hiram Bliss. The house was now full of people, and
+they cheered the newcomers; there was not a little laughter and joking
+when some one told the visiting statesmen that a swarm of bees was
+overhead.
+
+"Boys," Uncle Hannibal cried, "do you suppose there's much honey up
+there?"
+
+He asked the Squire whether Egyptian bees were good honey gatherers, and
+laughed heartily when the old gentleman told him what robbers they were
+and how savagely they stung.
+
+"Judge!" Uncle Hannibal cried to Judge Peters. "That's what's the matter
+with our Maine politics. The Egyptians are robbing us of our liberties!"
+
+That idea seemed to stick in his mind, for later, when he began his
+address, he referred humorously to several prominent leaders of the
+opposing party as bold, bad Egyptians. "We shall have to smoke them
+out," he said, laughing. "And I guess that the voters of this district
+are going to do it, and the boys, too," he continued, pointing up to us
+on the ladder.
+
+He had refused to speak from the pulpit, and so stood on the floor of
+the house--in what he described as his proper place; the pulpit, he
+said, was no place for politics.
+
+After so many years I cannot pretend to remember all that Uncle Hannibal
+said; besides, my attention was largely engrossed in directing the
+nozzle of the smoker at those cracks between the laths. Addison and I
+were badly crowded on the ladder, and the small rungs were not
+comfortable to stand on. Now and then, in spite of our efforts, an
+Egyptian got through the cracks and dived down near Uncle Hannibal's
+head.
+
+"A little more smoke up there, boys!" he would cry, pretending to dodge
+the insect. "I thought I heard an Egyptian then, and it sounded a little
+like Brother Morrill's voice!"
+
+The great buzzing that was going on up in the loft was plainly audible
+below. Now and again Uncle Hannibal cocked his ear to listen, and once
+he cried, "The Egyptians are rallying! We are going to have a hard fight
+with them this year. Don't let them rob us!"
+
+When the old Squire introduced the next speaker, Judge Peters, Senator
+Hamlin remarked that Peters was a hard stinger himself, as many a
+criminal had learned to his cost. And when the Hon. Hiram Bliss was
+introduced, Uncle Hannibal cut in with the remark that we need make no
+mistake on account of Mr. Bliss's name, for when he got after the
+Egyptians they would be in anything except a blissful state of mind. He
+also jocosely bade Mr. Bliss not to talk too long.
+
+"We must get that honey," he said, laughing heartily. "I'd much rather
+have some honey than hear one of your old dry speeches!"
+
+During Mr. Bliss's address we boys were wondering whether Senator Hamlin
+really intended to try to get that honey. We were inclined to think that
+he had merely been joking; but Mr. Bliss had no sooner sat down than
+Uncle Hannibal was on his feet.
+
+"Now for that honey!" he cried with twinkling eyes. "I feel sure there's
+enough up there for every one to have a bite."
+
+"How are you going to get it?" some one said.
+
+"Why, go right up and take it!" he exclaimed. "You know, my friends, that
+all through the Civil War I had the misfortune to be Vice-President,
+which is about the most useless, sit-still-and-do-nothing office in
+this country. All those four years I wanted to go to the front and do
+something. I wanted to be a general or a private with a gun. The war is
+past, thank God, but I haven't got over that feeling yet, and now I want
+to lead an attack on those Egyptians! Back there over the singers'
+gallery I think I see a scuttle that leads up into the loft. Come on,
+boys, and fetch a bucket or two, or some baskets. Let's storm the fort!"
+
+The crowd was laughing now, and men were shouting advice of all sorts.
+Uncle Hannibal was already on his way to the singers' gallery, and
+Addison, hastily thrusting the smoker into my hands, got down from the
+ladder and ran to help our distinguished visitor. Others followed them
+up the back stairs to the gallery; but the old Squire, seeing what was
+likely to happen, came to my assistance on the ladder. Taking the smoker
+into his own hands, he worked it vigorously in order to send as much
+smoke as possible up into the loft.
+
+But on pushing up the scuttle the opening was found to be no more than
+fifteen inches square; and Uncle Hannibal was a two-hundred-pound man
+with broad shoulders. He mounted the singers' bench, but he could barely
+get his large black head up through the hole.
+
+"Ah!" he cried in disgust. "Why didn't they make it larger? Just my
+luck. I never can get to the front!"
+
+Grabbing Addison playfully by the shoulder he said, "I will put you up."
+
+But at first Addison held back. "They'll sting me to death!" he
+protested.
+
+"Wait!" Uncle Hannibal cried. "We will rig you up for it!" And leaning
+over the front rail of the gallery, he shouted, "Has any lady got a
+veil--two or three veils?"
+
+Several women gave their veils, which Uncle Hannibal tied over Addison's
+hat; then the Senator put his own large gloves on Addison's hands. By
+that time the gallery was full of people--all laughing and giving
+advice. A man produced some string, and with it they tied Addison's
+trouser legs down and fastened his jacket sleeves tight round the
+wrists. Then Uncle Hannibal lifted him up as if he had been a child and
+at one boost shoved him up through the scuttle hole. When Addison had
+got to his feet in the loft, the Senator passed him a wicker lunch
+basket and a tin pail.
+
+Tiptoeing his way perilously over the scantlings, laths and plaster,
+Addison made his way back to the rear end of the meetinghouse. The
+honeycombs were mostly on a beam against the boards of the outer wall.
+The punk smoke was so dense up there that he could hardly get his
+breath. The bees, nearly torpid from the smoke, were crawling sluggishly
+along on the underside of the roof, and offered no resistance when
+Addison broke off the combs.
+
+With his basket and pail well filled, he tiptoed back to the scuttle and
+handed the spoils to Uncle Hannibal, who instantly led the way down the
+back stairs and outdoors.
+
+"We have despoiled the Egyptians!" he cried. "I didn't do much myself,
+but a younger hero has appeared. Now for a sweet time!" And he passed
+the pail and basket round.
+
+There was as much as twenty pounds of honey, and every one got at least
+a taste. The old Squire and I had now stopped puffing smoke, and we
+joined the others outside. To this day I remember just how Uncle
+Hannibal looked as he stood there on the meetinghouse platform, with a
+chunk of white, dripping comb in his hand. He took a big bite from it;
+and I said to myself that, if he took many more bites like that one,
+there would not be much honey left for the old Squire and me. But we got
+a taste of it, and very good honey it was.
+
+Our victory over the Egyptians, however, was not yet complete. Either
+because the smoke was now clearing up, or because they smelled the honey
+that we were eating, they began to come round to the front end of the
+house, where they hovered over the people and darted down savagely at
+them. Outcries arose; men and women tried frantically to brush the
+insects away. Horses out at the sheds began to squeal. More bees were
+coming round every moment--the angriest bees I have ever seen! They
+stung wherever they touched. Judge Peters and Mr. Bliss were fighting
+the insects with both hands; and Uncle Hannibal, too, was pawing the
+air, with guffaws of laughter.
+
+"The Egyptians are getting the best of us!" he cried. "We had better
+retire in as good order as we can--or it will be another Bull Run!"
+
+Retreat was clearly the part of discretion, and so the whole gathering
+streamed away down the road to a safe distance. In fact, there was a
+pretty lively time before all of the people had unhitched their teams
+and got away. But in spite of many bee stings it had been a very
+hilarious meeting; and it is safe to say that all who were at the
+Methodist chapel that afternoon wanted Uncle Hannibal for Senator.
+
+The old Squire drove home with his guests to supper; Addison and I
+gathered up our brooms and bee smoker and followed them.
+
+At supper Uncle Hannibal asked us to tell him more about those Egyptian
+bees, of which he had never heard before; and after the meal he went out
+to see the colonies in the garden. He walked up to a hive and boldly
+caught one of the bees between his thumb and forefinger. Holding it
+fast, he picked up a pea pod for it to sting, so that he could see how
+long a stinger it had.
+
+"Ah, but that is a cruel chap!" he said. "You'll have to use brimstone,
+I guess, to get those Egyptians out of the meetinghouse."
+
+In point of fact, brimstone was what two of the church stewards did use,
+a few weeks later, before there were services at the chapel again; but
+they did not find much honey left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THAT MYSTERIOUS DAGUERREOTYPE SALOON
+
+
+For two years our young neighbor Catherine had been carrying on a little
+industry that had proved fairly lucrative--namely, gathering and curing
+wild herbs and selling them to drug stores in Portland. Her grandmother
+had taught her how to cure and press the herbs. One season she sold
+seventy dollars' worth.
+
+Catherine took many long jaunts to gather her herbs--thoroughwort,
+goldthread, catnip, comfrey, skullcap, pennyroyal, lobelia, peppermint,
+old-man's-root, snakehead and others of greater or less medicinal value.
+She soon came to know where all those various wild plants grew for miles
+round. Naturally she wished to keep her business for herself and was
+rather chary about telling others where the herbs she collected grew.
+
+She had heard that thoroughwort was growing in considerable quantity in
+the old pastures at "Dresser's Lonesome." She did not like to go up
+there alone, however, for the place was ten or eleven miles away, and
+the road that led to it ran for most of the distance through deep woods;
+a road that once proceeded straight through to Canada, but had long
+since been abandoned. Years before, a young man named Abner Dresser had
+cleared a hundred acres of land up there and built a house and a large
+barn; but his wife had been so lonely--there was no neighbor within ten
+miles--that he had at last abandoned the place.
+
+Finally Catherine asked my cousin Theodora to go up to "Dresser's
+Lonesome" with her and offered to share the profits of the trip. No one
+enjoyed such a jaunt better than Theodora, and one day early the
+previous August, they persuaded me to harness one of the work horses to
+the double-seated buckboard and to take them up there for the day.
+
+It was a long, hard drive, for the old road was badly overgrown; indeed
+we were more than two hours in reaching the place. What was our
+amazement when we drew near the deserted old farmhouse to see a
+"daguerreotype saloon" standing before it: one of those peripatetic
+studios on wheels, in which "artists" used to journey about the country
+taking photographs. Of course, card photographs had not come into vogue
+then; but there were the daguerreotypes, and later the tintypes, and
+finally the ambrotypes in little black-and-gilt cases.
+
+Those "saloons" were picturesque little contrivances, not much more than
+five feet wide by fifteen feet long, and mounted on wheels. On each side
+was a little window, and overhead was a larger skylight; a flight of
+three steps led up to a narrow door at the rear. The door opened into
+the "saloon" proper, where the camera and the visitor's chair stood;
+forward of that was the cuddy under the skylight, in which the
+photographer did his developing.
+
+The photographer was usually some ambitious young fellow who, after
+learning his trade, often made and painted his "saloon" himself.
+Frequently he slept in it, and sometimes cooked his meals in it. If he
+did not own a horse, he usually made a bargain with some farmer to haul
+him to his next stopping place in exchange for taking his picture. When
+business grew dull in one neighborhood, he moved to another. He was the
+true Bohemian of his trade--the gypsy of early photography.
+
+The forward wheels of this one were gone, and its front end was propped
+up level on a short piece of timber; but otherwise the "saloon" looked
+as if the "artist" might at that moment be developing a plate inside.
+
+On closer inspection, however, we saw that weeds had sprung up beneath
+and about it, and I guessed that the wagon had been standing there for
+at least a month or two; and on peeping in at the little end door we saw
+that birds or squirrels had been in and out of the place. All that we
+could make of it was that the photographer, whoever he was, had come
+there, left his "saloon" and gone away--with the forward wheels.
+
+We gathered a load of herbs and drove home again, much puzzled by our
+discovery. The story of the "daguerreotype saloon" at Dresser's Lonesome
+soon spread abroad, but no one was able to furnish a clue to its
+history. Of course all manner of rumors began to circulate; some people
+declared that the owner of the "saloon" must be a naturalist who had
+journeyed up there to take pictures of wild animal life; others thought
+that the photographer had lost his way and perished in the woods.
+
+When Willis Murch passed along the old road in October that fall, the
+mysterious "saloon" was still standing there; and lumbermen spoke of
+seeing it there during the winter. That next August, a year after we had
+first discovered it, Catherine and Theodora again went up to Dresser's
+Lonesome to gather herbs; and still the "daguerreotype saloon" was
+there.
+
+It was Halstead who carried the girls up on that trip. The weather had
+been threatening when they started, and showers soon set in; rain fell
+pretty much all the afternoon, so that the girls were badly delayed in
+gathering their herbs. When Halstead declared that it was high time to
+start for home, Catherine proposed that they stay there overnight and
+finish their task the next day. The roof of the old farmhouse was now so
+leaky that they could find no shelter there from the rain; but Catherine
+suggested that the deserted "daguerreotype saloon" would be a cosy place
+to camp in.
+
+Theodora did not like the idea very well, for the region was wild and
+lonely, and Halstead thought he ought to return to the farm.
+
+"Why, this old saloon is just as good as a house!" Catherine said. "We
+can fasten the door, and then nothing can get in. And we have plenty of
+lunch left for our supper."
+
+At last Theodora reluctantly agreed to stay. Promising to return for
+them by noon the next day, Halstead then started for home. After he had
+gone, the girls gathered a quart or more of raspberries, to eat with
+their supper. When they had finished the meal, they made, with the sacks
+of herbs, a couch on the floor of the "saloon," and Catherine fastened
+the door securely by leaning a narrow plank from the floor of the old
+barn against it.
+
+For a while the girls lay and talked in low tones. Outside everything
+was very quiet, and scarcely a sound came to their ears. All nature
+seemed to have gone to rest; not a whippoorwill chanted nor an owl
+hooted about the old buildings. Before long Catherine fell peacefully
+asleep. Theodora, however, who was rather ill at ease in these wild
+surroundings, had determined to stay awake, and lay listening to the
+crickets in the grass under the "saloon." But crickets make drowsy
+music, and at last she, too, dropped asleep.
+
+Not very much later something bumped lightly against the front end of
+the "saloon" outside; the noise was repeated several times. Oddly
+enough, it was not Theodora who waked, but Catherine. She sat up and,
+remembering instantly where she was, listened without stirring or
+speaking. Her first thought was that a deer had come round and was
+rubbing itself against the "saloon."
+
+"It will soon go away," she said to herself, and did not rouse her
+companion.
+
+The queer, bumping, jarring sounds continued, however, and presently
+were followed by a heavy jolt. Then for some moments Catherine heard
+footsteps in the weeds outside, and told herself that there must be two
+or three deer. She was not alarmed, for she knew that the animals would
+not harm them; but she hoped that they would not waken Theodora, who
+might be needlessly frightened.
+
+But presently she heard a sound that she could not explain; it was like
+the jingling of a small chain. Rising quietly, she peeped out of one of
+the little side windows, and then out of the other. The clouds had
+cleared away, and bright moonlight flooded the place, but she could not
+see anywhere the cause of the disturbance. Whatever had made the sounds
+was out of sight in front; there was no window at that end of the
+"saloon."
+
+Still not much alarmed, Catherine stepped up on the one old chair of the
+studio and cautiously raised the hinged skylight. At that very instant,
+however, the "saloon" started as if of its own accord and moved slowly
+across the yard and down the road!
+
+The wagon started so suddenly that Catherine fell off the chair.
+Theodora woke, but before she could speak or cry out Catherine was
+beside her.
+
+"Hush! Hush!" she whispered, and put her hand over her companion's
+mouth. "Don't be scared! Keep quiet. Some one is drawing the old saloon
+away!"
+
+That was far from reassuring to Theodora. "Oh, what shall we do?" she
+whispered in terror.
+
+Catherine was still begging her to be silent, when a terrific jolt
+nearly threw her off her feet. In great alarm the girls sprang to the
+little rear door to get out and escape.
+
+But as a result probably of the rocking and straining of the frail
+structure, the plank that Catherine set against the door had settled
+down and stuck fast. Again and again she tried to pull it away, but she
+could not move it. Theodora also tugged at it--in vain. They were
+imprisoned; they could not get out; and meanwhile the old "saloon" was
+bumping over the rough road.
+
+"Oh, who do you suppose it is?" Theodora whispered, weak from fear.
+"Where do you suppose he is going with us?"
+
+"We must find out. Hold the chair steady, Doad, if you can, while I get
+up and look out."
+
+She set the chair under the skylight again, and then, while Theodora
+held it steady, climbed upon it--no easy matter with the vehicle rocking
+so violently--and tried to raise the skylight. But that, too, had
+jammed. At last, by pushing hard against it, she succeeded in raising it
+far enough to let her peer out over the flat roof.
+
+There, in the moonlight, she saw a strange-looking creature,--a
+man,--who rolled and ambled rather than walked; he was leading a white
+horse by the bit, and the horse was dragging the "saloon" down the road.
+The man was a truly terrifying spectacle. He seemed to be a giant; his
+head projected far forward between his shoulders, and on his back was
+what looked like a camel's hump! His feet were not like human feet, but
+rather like huge hoofs; and the man, if he was one, wabbled forward on
+them in a way that turned Catherine quite sick with apprehension. All
+she could think of was the picture of Giant Despair in her grandmother's
+copy of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
+
+Unable to imagine who or what he could be, Catherine stood for some
+moments and stared at him, fascinated. All the while Theodora was
+anxiously whispering:
+
+"Who is it? Who is it? Oh, let me see!"
+
+"Don't try to look," Catherine answered earnestly, as she leaped to the
+floor. "Doad, we must get out if we can."
+
+She threw herself at the door again and tried to pull it open; Theodora
+joined her, but even together they could not stir it.
+
+Meanwhile the "saloon" swayed and jolted over the rough road; to keep
+from pitching headlong from side to side the girls had to sit down on
+the sacks. Their one consoling thought was that, if they could not get
+out, their captor, whoever he was, could not get in.
+
+They were a little cheered, too, when they realized that the wagon was
+apparently following the road that led toward home. But when they had
+gone about three or four miles and had come to the branch road that led
+to Lurvey's Mills, they felt the old "saloon" turn off from the main
+road. With sinking hearts they struggled again to open the door, until,
+weak and exhausted, they gave up.
+
+Theodora was limp with terror at their plight. Catherine, more resolute,
+tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the
+deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own courage began to
+weaken.
+
+At last they came to a ford that led across a muddy brook. As the horse
+entered the water, the forward end of the rickety old "saloon" pitched
+sharply downward. The prop that had held the door fast loosened and the
+door flew open!
+
+Needless to say, the girls lost little time in getting out of their
+prison. Before the "saloon" had topped the other bank, they jumped out
+and ran into the alder bushes that bordered the stream.
+
+Their captor was evidently not aware of their escape, for the "saloon"
+kept on its course. As soon as it was out of sight the girls waded the
+brook and, hastening back to the fork of the road, took the homeward
+trail.
+
+About four o'clock in the morning grandmother Ruth heard them knocking
+at the door. They were still much excited, and told so wild and curious
+a story of their adventure that after breakfast the old Squire and
+Addison drove over to Lurvey's Mills to investigate.
+
+Almost the first thing they saw when they reached the Mills was that old
+"daguerreotype saloon," standing beside the road near the post office,
+and pottering about it a large, ungainly man--a hunchback with club
+feet.
+
+A few minutes' conversation with him cleared up the mystery. This was
+the first he had heard that two girls had ridden in his "saloon" the
+night before! His name, he told them, was Duchaine, and he said that he
+came from Lewiston, Maine.
+
+"Maybe you've heard of me," he said to Addison, with a somewhat painful
+smile. "The boys down there call me Big Pumplefoot."
+
+Unable to do ordinary work, he had learned to take ambrotypes and set up
+as an itinerant photographer. But ere long his mother, who was a French
+Canadian, had gone back to live at Megantic in the Province of Quebec;
+and in June the year before he set off to visit her. Thinking that he
+might find customers at Megantic, he had taken his "saloon" along with
+him; but when he got to Dresser's Lonesome he found the road so much
+obstructed that he left the "saloon" behind, and went on with his horse
+and the forward wheels.
+
+An accident had laid him up at Megantic during the winter and spring,
+but later in the season he started for Maine. On the way down the old
+road from Canada he got belated, and had not reached Dresser's Lonesome
+with his horse and wheels until late at night; but as there was no place
+where he could put up, and as the moon was shining, he had decided to
+hitch up to his "saloon" and continue on his way to the Mills.
+
+Thus the mystery was cleared up; but although the explanation was simple
+enough, Theodora and Catherine were little inclined to laugh over their
+adventure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"RAINBOW IN THE MORNING"
+
+
+That was the year noted for a celestial phenomenon of great interest to
+astronomers.
+
+We were taking breakfast rather earlier than usual that morning in
+August, for a party of us had planned to go blackberrying up at the
+"burnt lots."
+
+Three or four years before, forest fires had burned over a large tract
+up in the great woods to the north of the old Squire's farm. We had
+heard that blackberries were very plentiful there that season; and now
+that haying was over, Addison and I had planned to drive up there with
+the girls, and Catherine and Thomas Edwards, who wished to go with us.
+
+So far as Addison and I were concerned, the trip was not wholly for
+blackberries; we had another motive for going--one that we were keeping
+a profound secret. One afternoon late in the preceding fall we had gone
+up there to shoot partridges; and Addison, who was much interested in
+mineralogy, had come across what he believed to be silver in a ledge.
+
+Every one knows that there is silver in Maine. Not a few know it to
+their sorrow; for there is nothing more discouraging than a mine that
+yields just a little less than enough to pay running expenses. But to us
+boys Addison's discovery suggested the possibilities of vast fortunes.
+
+Addison felt very sure that it was silver, but we decided to say nothing
+to any one until we were certain. All that winter, however, we cherished
+rosy hopes of soon being wealthy. At the first opportunity we meant to
+make a quiet trip up there with hammer and drill to obtain specimens for
+assay, but for one reason or another we did not get round to it until
+August, when we planned the blackberrying excursion.
+
+While we were at the breakfast table that morning there came a
+thundershower, and a thundershower in the early morning is unusual in
+Maine. The sun had risen clear, but a black cloud rose in the west, the
+sky darkened suddenly, and so heavy a shower fell that at first we
+thought we should have to give up the trip.
+
+But the shower ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun shone out
+again. Ellen, who had gone to the pantry for something, called to us
+that there was a bright rainbow in the northwest.
+
+"Do come here to the back window!" she cried. "It's a lovely one!"
+
+Sure enough, there was a vivid rainbow; the bright arch spanned the
+whole northwestern sky over the great woods.
+
+    "Rainbow in the morning,
+    Good sailors take warning,"
+
+the old Squire remarked, smiling. "Better take your coats and umbrellas
+with you to-day."
+
+We did not know then how many times during that day our thoughts would
+go back to the rainbow and the old superstition.
+
+After breakfast we hitched up Old Sol, drove round by the Edwardses' to
+pick up Tom and Kate, and from there followed the lumber road into the
+great woods, to Otter Brook. The "burnt lots" were perhaps a mile beyond
+the brook.
+
+Addison and I picked blackberries for a while with the others; then,
+watching our chance, we stole away and made for the ledges, a mile or
+two to the northeast.
+
+I had managed to bring a drill hammer along in my basket, wrapped up in
+my jacket; and Addison had brought a short drill in his pocket. We found
+the ledge where Addison had made his discovery and had no great trouble
+in chipping off some specimens. I may add here that the specimens later
+proved to contain silver--in small quantities. I still have a few of
+them--mementos of youthful hopes that faded early in the light of
+greater knowledge.
+
+We followed the ledges off to the northeast over several craggy hills.
+At one place we found many exfoliating lumps of mica; we cleaved out
+sheets of it nearly a foot square, which Addison believed might prove
+valuable for stove doors.
+
+While pottering with the mica, I accidentally broke into a kind of
+cavity, or pocket, in the ledge, partly filled with disintegrated rock;
+and on clearing out the loose stuff from this pocket we came upon a
+beautiful three-sided crystal about two inches long, like a prism, green
+in color, except at one end, where it shaded to pink.
+
+It was a tourmaline crystal, similar to certain fine ones that have been
+found some miles to the eastward, at the now world-famous Mount Mica. At
+that time we did not know what it was, but, thinking that it might be
+valuable, we searched the pocket for other crystals, but found no more.
+
+We had both become so much interested in searching for minerals that we
+had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and
+the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in
+those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north of us
+during the summer.
+
+But presently, as Addison was thumping away with the hammer, I noticed
+that it was growing dark. At first I thought that it was merely a darker
+cloud above the smoke that had drifted over the sun, and said nothing;
+but the sky continued to darken, and soon Addison noticed it.
+
+"Another shower coming, I guess," he said, looking up. "Don't see any
+particular clouds, though. I wonder what makes it so dark?"
+
+"It seems just like night coming on," said I. "But it isn't so late as
+all that, is it?"
+
+"No!" exclaimed Addison. "It isn't night yet, I know!" And he hastily
+took out Theodora's watch, which she had intrusted to him to carry that
+day, so that we should know when to start for home. "It's only half past
+three, and the sun doesn't set now till after seven o'clock."
+
+We hammered at the ledge again for a while; but still it grew darker.
+
+"Well, this beats me!" Addison exclaimed; and again he surveyed the sky.
+
+"That watch hasn't stopped, has it?" I said; for night was plainly
+falling.
+
+Addison hastily looked again.
+
+"No, it's ticking all right," he said. "Theodora's watch never stops,
+you know." It was a fine watch that her father had left to her.
+
+By that time it was so dark that we could hardly see the hands on the
+watch; and although the day had been warm, I noticed a distinct change
+in the temperature--a chill. Somewhere in the woods an owl began to hoot
+dismally, as owls do at night; and from a ledge a little distance from
+the one on which we stood a whippoorwill began to chant.
+
+Night was evidently descending on the earth--at four o'clock of an
+August afternoon! We stared round and then looked at each other,
+bewildered.
+
+"Addison, what do you make of this!" I cried.
+
+Thoughts of that rainbow in the morning had flashed through my mind; and
+with it came a cold touch of superstitious fear, such as I had never
+felt in my life before. In that moment I realized what the fears of the
+ignorant must have been through all the past ages of the world. It is a
+fear that takes away your reason. I could have cried out, or run, or
+done any other foolish thing.
+
+Without saying a word, Addison put the tourmaline crystal into his
+pocket and picked up the drill and the little bundle of silver-ore
+specimens, which to carry the more easily he had tied up in his
+handkerchief.
+
+"Come on," he said in a queer, low tone. "Let's go find Theodora and
+Nell. I guess we'd better go home--if it's coming on night in the middle
+of the afternoon."
+
+He tried to laugh, for Addison had always prided himself on being free
+from all superstition. But I saw that he was startled; and he admitted
+afterwards that he, too, had remembered about that rainbow in the
+morning, and had also thought of the comet that had appeared a few years
+before and that many people believed to presage the end of the world.
+
+We started to run back, but it had already grown so dark that we had to
+pay special heed to our steps. We could not walk fast. To this day I
+remember how strange and solemn the chanting of the whippoorwills and
+the hoarse _skook_! of the nighthawks sounded to me. No doubt I was
+frightened. It was exactly like evening; the same chill was in the air.
+
+At last we reached the place where we had left the others, but they were
+not there. Addison called to Theodora and Ellen several times in low,
+suppressed tones; I, too, felt a great disinclination to shout or speak
+aloud.
+
+"I guess they've all gone back where we left the wagon," Addison said at
+last.
+
+We made our way through the tangled bushes, brush and woods, down to
+Otter Brook. In the darkness we went a little astray from the place
+where we had unharnessed the horse; but presently, as we were moving
+about in the brushwood, we heard a low voice say:
+
+"Is that you, Ad?"
+
+It was Theodora; and immediately we came upon them all, sitting together
+forlornly there in the wagon. They had hitched up Old Sol and were
+anxiously waiting for us in order to start for home. The strange
+phenomenon seemed to have dazed them; they sat there in the dark as
+silent as so many mice.
+
+"Hello, girls!" Addison exclaimed. "Are you all there? Quite dark, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Oh, Ad, what do you think this is?" Theodora asked, still in the same
+hushed voice.
+
+"Well, I think it is _dark_," replied Addison, trying to appear
+unconcerned.
+
+"Don't laugh, Ad," said Theodora solemnly. "Something awful has
+happened."
+
+"And where have you two been so long?" asked Catherine. "We thought you
+were lost. We thought you would never come. What time is it?"
+
+We struck a match and looked. It was nearly half past four.
+
+"Oh, get in, Ad, and take the reins! Let's go home!" Ellen pleaded.
+
+"Yes, Ad, let's go home, if we can get there," said Tom Edwards. "What
+d'ye suppose it is, anyhow?"
+
+"_Dark!_" exclaimed Addison hardily. "Just plain dark!"
+
+"Oh, Addison!" exclaimed Theodora reprovingly. "Don't try to joke about
+a thing like this."
+
+"It may be the end of the world," Ellen murmured.
+
+"The world has had a good many ends to it," said Addison. "Which end do
+you think this is, Nell?"
+
+But neither Ellen nor Theodora cared to reply to him. Their low,
+frightened voices increased my uneasiness. I could think of nothing
+except that rainbow in the morning; "morning," "warning," seemed to ring
+in my ears.
+
+We climbed into the wagon and started homeward, but it was so dark that
+we had to plod along slowly. Old Sol was unusually torpid, as if the
+ominous obscurity had dazed him, too. After a time he stopped short and
+snorted; we heard the brush crackle and caught a glimpse of a large
+animal crossing the road ahead of us.
+
+"That's a bear," Thomas said. "Bears are out, just as if it were night."
+
+Some minutes passed before we could make Old Sol go on; and again we
+heard owls hooting in the woods.
+
+Long before we got down to the cleared land, however, the sky began
+gradually to grow lighter. We all noticed it, and a feeling of relief
+stole over us. In the course of twenty minutes it became so light that
+we could discern objects round us quite plainly. The night chill, too,
+seemed to go from the air.
+
+Suddenly, as we rattled along, Addison jumped up from his seat and
+turned to us. "I know now what this is!" he cried. "Why didn't I think
+of it before?"
+
+"What is it--if you know?" cried Catherine and Theodora at once.
+
+"The eclipse! The total eclipse of the sun!" exclaimed Addison. "I
+remember now reading something about it in the _Maine Farmer_ a
+fortnight ago. It was to be on the 7th--and this is it!"
+
+At that time advance notices of such phenomena were not so widely
+published as they are now; at the old farm, too, we did not take a daily
+newspaper. So one of the great astronomical events of the last century
+had come and gone, and we had not known what it was until it was over.
+
+Except for the dun canopy of smoke and clouds over the sun we should
+have guessed at once, of course, the cause of the darkness; but as it
+was, the eclipse had given us an anxious afternoon; and although the
+rainbow in the morning had probably not the slightest connection with
+the eclipse,--indeed, could not have had,--it had greatly heightened the
+feeling of awe and superstitious dread with which we had beheld night
+fall in the middle of the afternoon!
+
+By the time we got home it was light again. As we drove into the yard,
+the old Squire came out, smiling. "Was it a little dark up where you
+were blackberrying a while ago?" he asked.
+
+"Well, _just_ a little dark, sir," Addison replied, with a smile as
+droll as his own. "But I suppose it was all because of that rainbow in
+the morning that you told us to look out for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+WHEN I WENT AFTER THE EYESTONE
+
+
+A few evenings ago, I read in a Boston newspaper that, as the result of
+a close contest, Isaac Kane Woodbridge had been elected mayor of one of
+the largest and most progressive cities of the Northwest.
+
+Little Ike Woodbridge! Yes, it was surely he. How strangely events work
+round in this world of ours! Memories of a strange adventure that befell
+him years ago when he was a little fellow came to my mind, and I thought
+of the slender thread by which his life hung that afternoon.
+
+The selectmen of our town had taken Ike Woodbridge from the poor-house
+and "bound him out" to a farmer named Darius Dole. He was to have food,
+such as Dole and his wife ate, ten weeks' schooling a year, and if he
+did well and remained with the Doles until he was of legal age, a
+"liberty suit" of new clothes and fifty dollars.
+
+That was the written agreement; and Farmer Dole, who was a severe,
+hard-working man, began early to see to it that little Ike earned all
+that came to him. The boy, who was a little over seven years old, had to
+be up and dressed at five o'clock in the morning, fetch wood and water
+to the kitchen, help do chores at the barn, run on errands, pull weeds
+in the garden, spread the hay swathes in the field with a little fork,
+and do a hundred other things, up to the full measure of his strength.
+
+The neighbors soon began to say that little Ike was being worked too
+hard. When the old Squire was one of the selectmen, he remonstrated with
+Dole, and wrung a promise from him that the boy should have more hours
+for sleep, warmer clothes for winter, and three playdays a year; but
+Dole did not keep his promise very strictly.
+
+The fall that little Ike was in his eighth year, the threshers, as we
+called the men who journeyed from farm to farm to thresh the grain, came
+to the old Squire's as usual. While my cousin Halstead was helping to
+tend the machine, he got a bit of wheat beard in his right eye.
+
+First Theodora, then Addison, and finally the old Squire, tried to wipe
+it out of his eye with a silk handkerchief; but they could not get it
+out, and by the next morning Halstead was suffering so much that Addison
+went to summon Doctor Green from the village, six miles away. But the
+doctor had gone to Portland, and Addison came back without him.
+Meanwhile a neighbor, Mrs. Wilbur, suggested putting an eyestone into
+Halstead's eye to get out the irritating substance. Mrs. Wilbur told
+them that Prudent Bedell, a queer old fellow who lived at Lurvey's
+Mills, four miles away, had an eyestone that he would lend to any one
+for ten cents.
+
+Bedell was generally known as "the old sin-smeller," because he
+pretended to be able, through his sense of smell, to detect a criminal.
+Indeed, the old Squire had once employed him to settle a dispute for
+some superstitious lumbermen at one of his logging camps.
+
+Anxious to try anything that might relieve Halstead's suffering, the old
+Squire sent me to borrow the eyestone. Although I was fourteen, that was
+the first time I had ever heard of an eyestone; from what Mrs. Wilbur
+had said about it, I supposed that it was something very mysterious.
+
+"It will creep all round, inside the lid of his eye," she had said, "and
+find the dirt, and draw it along to the outer corner and push it out."
+
+Physicians and oculists still have some faith in eyestones, I believe,
+although, on account of the progress that has been made in methods of
+treating the eye, they are not as much in use as formerly. Most
+eyestones are a calcareous deposit, found in the shell of the common
+European crawfish. They are frequently pale yellow or light gray in
+color.
+
+Usually you put the eyestone under the eyelid at the inner canthus of
+the eye, and the automatic action of the eye moves it slowly over the
+eyeball; thus it is likely to carry along with it any foreign body that
+has accidentally lodged in the eye. When the stone has reached the outer
+canthus you can remove it, along with any foreign substance it may have
+collected on its journey over the eye.
+
+Halstead's sufferings had aroused my sympathy, and I set off at top
+speed; by running wherever the road was not uphill, I reached Lurvey's
+Mills in considerably less than an hour. Several mill hands were piling
+logs by the stream bank, and I stopped to inquire for Prudent Bedell.
+Resting on their peavies, the men glanced at me curiously.
+
+"D'ye mean the old sin-smeller?" one of them asked me. "What is it you
+want?"
+
+"I want to borrow his eyestone," I replied.
+
+"Well," the man said, "he lives just across the bridge yonder, in that
+little green house."
+
+It was a veritable bandbox of a house, boarded, battened, and painted
+bright green; the door was a vivid yellow. In response to my knock, a
+short, elderly man opened the door. His hair came to his shoulders; he
+wore a green coat and bright yellow trousers; and his arms were so long
+that his large brown hands hung down almost to his knees.
+
+It was his nose, however, that especially caught my attention, for it
+was tipped back almost as if the end had been cut off. I am afraid I
+stared at him.
+
+"And what does this little gentleman want?" he said in a soft, silky
+voice that filled me with fresh wonder.
+
+I recalled my wits sufficiently to ask whether he had an eyestone, and
+if he had, whether he would lend it to us. Whereupon in the same soft
+voice he told me that he had the day before lent his eyestone to a man
+who lived a mile or more from the mills.
+
+"You can have it if you will go and get it," he said.
+
+I paid him the usual fee of ten cents, and turned to hasten away; but he
+called me back. "It must be refreshed," he said.
+
+He gave me a little glass vial half full of some liquid and told me to
+drop the eyestone into it when I should get it. Before using the
+eyestone it should be warmed in warm water, he said; then it should be
+put very gently under the lid at the corner of the eye. The eye should
+be bandaged with a handkerchief; and it was very desirable, he said, to
+have the sufferer lie down, and if possible, go to sleep.
+
+With those directions in mind, I hurried away in quest of the eyestone;
+but at the house of the man to whom Bedell had sent me I found that the
+eyestone had done its work and had already been lent to another
+afflicted household, a mile away, where a woman had a sty in her eye. At
+that place I overtook it.
+
+The woman, whose sty had been cured, opened a drawer and took out the
+eyestone, carefully wrapped in a piece of linen cloth. She handled it
+gingerly, and as I gazed at the small gray piece of chalky secretion,
+something of her own awe of it communicated itself to me. We dropped it
+into the vial, to be "refreshed"; and then, buttoning it safe in the
+pocket of my coat, I set off for home. Since I was now two or three
+miles north of Lurvey's Mills, I took another and shorter road than that
+by which I had come.
+
+As it chanced, that road took me by the Dole farm, where little Ike
+lived. I saw no one about the old, unpainted house or the long,
+weathered barn, which with its sheds stood alongside the road. But as I
+hurried by I heard some hogs making a great noise--apparently under the
+barn. They were grunting, squealing, and "barking" gruffly, as if they
+were angry.
+
+As I stopped for an instant to listen, I heard a low, faint cry, almost
+a moan, which seemed to come from under the barn. It was so unmistakably
+a cry of distress that, in spite of my haste, I went up to the barn
+door. Again I heard above the roars of the hogs that pitiful cry. The
+great door of the barn stood partly open, and entering the dark,
+evil-smelling old building, I walked slowly along toward that end of it
+from which the sounds came.
+
+Presently I came upon a rickety trapdoor, which opened into the hogpen;
+the cover of the trapdoor was turned askew and hung down into the dark
+hole. Beside the hole lay a heap of freshly pulled turnips, with the
+green tops still on them.
+
+The hogs were making a terrible noise below, but above their squealing I
+heard those faint moans.
+
+"Who's down there?" I called. "What's the matter?"
+
+From the dark, foul hole there came up the plaintive voice of a child.
+"Oh, oh, take me out! The hogs are eating me up! They've bit me and bit
+me!"
+
+It was little Ike. Dole and his wife, I learned later, had gone away for
+the day on a visit, and had left the boy alone to do the chores--among
+other things to feed the hogs at noon; but as Ike had tugged at the
+heavy trapdoor to raise it, he had slipped and fallen down through the
+hole.
+
+The four gaunt, savage old hogs that were in the pen were hungry and
+fierce. Even a grown person would have been in danger from the beasts.
+The pen, too, was knee-deep in soft muck and was as dark as a dungeon.
+In his efforts to escape the hogs, the boy had wallowed round in the
+muck. The hole was out of his reach, and the sty was strongly planked up
+to the barn floor on all sides.
+
+At last he had got hold of a dirty piece of broken board; backing into
+one corner of the pen, he had tried, as the hogs came "barking" up to
+him, to defend himself by striking them on their noses. They had bitten
+his arms and almost torn his clothes off him.
+
+The little fellow had been in the pen for almost two hours, and plainly
+could not hold out much longer. Prompt action was necessary.
+
+At first I was at a loss to know how to reach him. I was afraid of those
+hogs myself, and did not dare to climb down into the pen. I could see
+their ugly little eyes gleaming in the dark, as they roared up at me. At
+last I hit upon a plan. I threw the turnips down to them; then I got an
+axe from the woodshed, and hurried round by way of the cart door to the
+cellar. While the hogs were ravenously devouring the turnips, I chopped
+a hole in the side of the pen, through which I pulled out little Ike. He
+was a sorry sight. His thin little arms were bleeding where the hogs had
+bitten him, and he was so dirty that I could hardly recognize him. When
+I attempted to lead him out of the cellar, he tottered and fell
+repeatedly.
+
+At last I got him round to the house door--only to find it locked. Dole
+and his wife had locked up the house and left little Ike's dinner--a
+piece of corn bread and some cheese--in a tin pail on the doorstep; the
+cat had already eaten most of it. I had intended to take him indoors and
+wash him, for he was in a wretched condition. Finally I put him on
+Dole's wheelbarrow, which I found by the door of the shed, and wheeled
+him to the nearest neighbors, the Frosts, who lived about a quarter of a
+mile away. Mrs. Frost had long been indignant as to the way the Doles
+were treating the boy; she gladly took him in and cared for him, while I
+hurried on with the eyestone.
+
+I reached home about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the old Squire
+thought that, in view of my errand, I had been gone an unreasonably long
+time.
+
+Halstead's eye was so much inflamed that we had no little trouble in
+getting the eyestone under the lid. Finally, however, the old Squire,
+with Addison's help, slipped it in. Halstead cried out, but the old
+Squire made him keep his eye closed; then the old gentleman bandaged it,
+and made him lie down.
+
+But after all, I am unable to report definitely as to the efficacy of
+the eyestone, for shortly after five o'clock, when the stone had been in
+Halstead's eye a little more than an hour, Doctor Green came. He had
+returned on the afternoon train from Portland, and learning that we had
+sent for him earlier in the day, hurried out to the farm. When he
+examined Halstead's eye, he found the eyestone near the outer canthus,
+and near it the irritating bit of wheat beard. He removed both together.
+Whether or not the eyestone had started the piece of wheat beard moving
+toward the outer corner of the eye was doubtful; but Doctor Green said,
+laughingly, that we could give the good old panacea the benefit of the
+doubt.
+
+It was not until we were at the supper table that evening--with Halstead
+sitting at his place, his eye still bandaged--that I found a chance to
+explain fully why I had been gone so long on my errand.
+
+Theodora and grandmother actually shed tears over my account of poor
+little Ike. The old Squire was so indignant at the treatment the boy had
+received that he set off early the next morning to interview the
+selectmen. As a result, they took little Ike from the Doles and put him
+into another family, the Winslows, who were very kind to him. Mrs.
+Winslow, indeed, gave him a mother's care and affection.
+
+The boy soon began to grow properly. Within a year you would hardly have
+recognized him as the pinched and skinny little fellow that once had
+lived at the Dole farm. He grew in mind as well as body, and before long
+showed so much promise that the Winslows sent him first to the village
+academy, and afterward to Westbrook Seminary, near Portland. When he was
+about twenty-one he went West as a teacher; and from that day on his
+career has been upward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BORROWED FOR A BEE HUNT
+
+
+We were eating breakfast one morning late in August that summer when
+through an open window a queer, cracked voice addressed the old Squire:
+
+"Don't want to disturb ye at your meals, Squire, but I've come over to
+see if I can't borry a boy to hark fer me."
+
+It was old Hughy Glinds, who lived alone in a little cabin at the edge
+of the great woods, and who gained a livelihood by making baskets and
+snowshoes, lining bees and turning oxbows. In his younger days he had
+been a noted trapper, bear hunter and moose hunter, but now he was too
+infirm and rheumatic to take long tramps in the woods.
+
+The old Squire went to the door. "Come in, Glinds," he said.
+
+"No, Squire, I don't believe I will while ye're eatin'. I jest wanted to
+see if I could borry one of yer boys this forenoon. I've got a swarm of
+bees lined over to whar the old-growth woods begin, and if I'm to git
+'em I've got to foller my line on amongst tall trees and knock; and
+lately, Squire, I'm gettin' so blamed deaf I snum I can't hear a bee
+buzz if he's right close to my head! So I come over to see if I could
+git a boy to go with me and hark when I knock on the trees."
+
+"Why, yes, Glinds," said the old Squire, "one of the boys may go with
+you. That is, he may if he wants to," he added, turning to us.
+
+Addison said that he had something else he wished to do that forenoon.
+Halstead and I both offered our services; but for some reason old Glinds
+decided that I had better go. Grandmother Ruth objected at first and
+went out to talk with the old fellow. "I'm afraid you'll let him get
+stung or let a tree fall on him!" she said.
+
+Old Hughy tried to reassure her. "I'll be keerful of him, marm. I
+promise ye, marm, the boy shan't be hurt. I'm a-goin' to stifle them
+bees, marm, and pull out all their stingers." And the old man laughed
+uproariously.
+
+Grandmother Ruth shook her head doubtfully; old Hughy's reputation for
+care and strict veracity was not of the best.
+
+When I went to get ready for the jaunt grandmother charged me to be
+cautious and not to go into any dangerous places, and before I left the
+house she gave me a pair of gloves and an old green veil to protect my
+head.
+
+Before starting for the woods we had to go to old Hughy's cabin to get
+two pails for carrying the honey and a kettle and a roll of brimstone
+for "stifling" the bees. As we passed the Murch farm the old man told me
+that he had tried to get Willis, who stood watching us in the dooryard,
+to go with him to listen for the bees. "But what do you think!" he
+exclaimed with assumed indignation. "That covetous little whelp wouldn't
+stir a step to help me unless I'd agree to give him half the honey! So I
+came to git you, for of course I knowed that as noble a boy as I've
+heered you be wouldn't act so pesky covetous as that."
+
+Getting the tin pails, the kettle and the brimstone together with an axe
+and a compass at the old man's cabin, we went out across the fields and
+the pastures north of the Wilbur farm to the borders of the woods
+through which old Hughy wanted to follow the bees.
+
+A line of stakes that old Hughy had set up across the open land marked
+the direction in which the bees had flown to the forest. After taking
+our bearings from them by compass we entered the woods and went on from
+one large tree to another. Now and again we came to an old tree that
+looked as if it were hollow near the top. On every such tree old Hughy
+knocked loudly with the axe, crying, "Hark, boy! Hark! D'ye hear 'em?
+D'ye see any come out up thar?" At times he drew forth his "specs" and,
+having adjusted them, peeped and peered upward. Like his ears, the old
+man's eyes were becoming too defective for bee hunting.
+
+In that manner we went on for at least a mile, until at last we came to
+Swift Brook, a turbulent little stream in a deep, rocky gully. Our
+course led across the ravine, and while we were hunting for an easy
+place to descend I espied bees flying in and out of a woodpecker's hole
+far up toward the broken top of a partly decayed basswood tree.
+
+"Here they are!" I shouted, much elated.
+
+Old Hughy couldn't see them even with his glasses on, they were so high
+and looked so small. He knocked on the trunk of the tree, and when I
+told him that I could see bees pouring out and distinctly hear the hum
+of those in the tree he was satisfied that I had made no mistake.
+
+When bee hunters trace a swarm to a high tree they usually fell the
+tree; to that task the old man and I now set ourselves. The basswood was
+fully three feet in diameter, and leaned slightly toward the brook. In
+spite of the slant, old Hughy thought that by proper cutting the tree
+could be made to fall on our side of the gully instead of across it. He
+threw off his old coat and set to work, but soon stopped short and began
+rubbing his shoulder and groaning, "Oh, my rheumatiz, my rheumatiz!
+O-o-oh, how it pains me!"
+
+That may have been partly pretense, intended to make me take the axe;
+for he was a wily old fellow. However that may be, I took it and did a
+borrowed boy's best to cut the scarfs as he directed, but hardly
+succeeded. I toiled a long time and blistered my palms.
+
+Basswood is not a hard wood, however, and at last the tree started to
+fall; but instead of coming down on our side of the gully it fell
+diagonally across it and crashed into the top of a great hemlock that
+stood near the stream below. The impact was so tremendous that many of
+the brittle branches of both trees were broken off. At first we thought
+that the basswood was going to break clear, but it finally hung
+precariously against the hemlock at a height of thirty feet or more
+above the bed of the brook. From the stump the long trunk extended out
+across the brook in a gentle, upward slant to the hemlock. The bees came
+out in force. Though in felling the tree I had disturbed them
+considerably, none of them had come down to sting us, but now they
+filled the air. Apparently the swarm was a large one.
+
+Old Hughy was a good deal disappointed. "I snum, that 'ere's a bad
+mess," he grumbled.
+
+At last he concluded that we should have to fell the hemlock. Judging
+from the ticklish way the basswood hung on it, the task looked
+dangerous. We climbed down into the gully, however, and, with many an
+apprehensive glance aloft where the top of the basswood hung
+threateningly over our heads, approached the foot of the hemlock and
+began to chop it. The bees immediately descended about our heads. Soon
+one of them stung old Hughy on the ear. We had to beat a retreat down
+the gully and wait for the enraged insects to go back into their nest.
+
+The hole they went into was in plain sight and appeared to be the only
+entrance to the cavity in which they had stored their honey. It was a
+round hole and did not look more than two inches in diameter. While we
+waited for the bees to return to it old Hughy, still rubbing his sore
+ear, changed his plan of attack.
+
+"We've got to shet the stingin' varmints in!" he exclaimed. "One of us
+has got to walk out with a plug, 'long that 'ere tree trunk, and stop
+'em in."
+
+We climbed back up the side of the gully to the stump of the basswood.
+There the old man, taking out his knife, whittled a plug and wrapped
+round it his old red handkerchief.
+
+"Now this 'ere has got to be stuck in that thar hole," he said, glancing
+first along the log that projected out over the gully and then at me.
+"When I was a boy o' your age I'd wanted no better fun than to walk out
+on that log; but my old head is gittin' a leetle giddy. So I guess you'd
+better go and stick in this 'ere plug. A smart boy like you can do it
+jest as easy as not."
+
+"But I am afraid the bees will sting me!" I objected.
+
+"Oh, you can put on them gloves and tie that 'ere veil over your head,"
+the old man said. "I'll tie it on fer ye."
+
+I had misgivings, but, not liking to fail old Hughy at a pinch, I let
+him rig me up for the feat and at last, taking the plug, started to walk
+up the slightly inclined tree trunk to the woodpecker's hole, which was
+close to the point where the basswood rested against the hemlock. I
+found it was not hard to walk up the sloping trunk if I did not look
+down into the gully. With stray bees whizzing round me, I slowly took
+one step after another. Once, I felt the trunk settle slightly, and I
+almost decided to go back; but finally I went on and, reaching the hole,
+grasped a strong, green limb of the hemlock to steady myself. Then I
+inserted the plug, which fitted pretty well, and drove it in with the
+heel of my boot.
+
+Perhaps it was the jar of the blow, perhaps it was my added weight, but
+almost instantly I felt the trunk slip again--and then down into the
+gully it went with a crash!
+
+Luckily I still had hold of the hemlock limb and clung to it
+instinctively. For a moment I dangled there; then with a few convulsive
+efforts I succeeded in drawing myself to the trunk of the hemlock and
+getting my feet on a limb. Breathless, I now glanced downward and was
+terrified to see that in falling the basswood had carried away the lower
+branches of the hemlock and left no means of climbing down. If the trunk
+of the hemlock had been smaller I could have clasped my arms about it
+and slid down; but it was far too big round for that. In fact, to get
+down unassisted was impossible, and I was badly frightened. I suppose I
+was perched not more than thirty-five feet above the ground; but to me,
+glancing fearfully down on the rocks in the bed of the brook, the
+distance looked a hundred!
+
+Moreover, the trunk of the basswood had split open when it struck, and
+all the bees were out. Clouds of them, rising as high as my legs, began
+paying their respects to me as the cause of their trouble. Luckily the
+veil kept them from my face and neck.
+
+I could see old Hughy on the brink of the gully, staring across at me,
+open-mouthed, and in my alarm I called aloud to him to rescue me. He did
+not reply and seemed at a loss what to do.
+
+I had started to climb higher into the shaggy top of the hemlock, to
+avoid the bees, when I heard some one call out, "Hello!" The voice
+sounded familiar and, glancing across the gully, I saw Willis Murch
+coming through the woods. Seeing us pass his house and knowing what we
+were in quest of, Willis, curious to know what success we would have,
+had followed us. He had lost track of us in the woods for a time, but
+had finally heard the basswood fall and then had found us.
+
+Even at that distance across the gully I saw Willis's face break into a
+grin when he saw me perched in the hemlock. For the present, however, I
+was too much worried to be proud and implored his aid. He looked round a
+while, exchanged a few words with old Hughy and then hailed me.
+
+"I guess we shall have to fell that hemlock to get you down," he
+shouted, laughing.
+
+Naturally, I did not want that done.
+
+"I shall have to go home for a long rope," he went on, becoming serious.
+"If we can get the end of a rope up there, you can tie it to a limb and
+then come down hand over hand. But I don't think our folks have a rope
+long enough; I may have to go round to the old Squire's for one."
+
+Since old Hughy had no better plan to suggest, Willis set off on the
+run. As the distance was fully two miles, I had a long wait before me,
+and so I made myself as comfortable as I could on the limb and settled
+down to wait.
+
+Old Hughy hobbled down into the gully with his kettle and tried to
+smother the bees by putting the brimstone close to the cleft in the tree
+trunk and setting it afire; but, although the fumes rose so pungently
+that I was obliged to hold my nose to keep from being smothered, the
+effect on the bees was not noticeable. Old Hughy then tried throwing
+water on them. The water was more efficacious than the brimstone, and
+before Willis returned the old man was able to cut out a section of the
+tree trunk and fill his two pails with the dripping combs--all of which
+I viewed not any too happily from aloft.
+
+Willis appeared at last with the coil of rope. With him came Addison and
+Halstead, much out of breath, and a few minutes later the old Squire
+himself arrived. They said that grandmother Ruth also was on the way.
+Willis, it seems, had spread alarming reports of my predicament.
+
+Willis and Addison tied numerous knots in the rope so that it should not
+slip through my hands and knotted a flat stone into the end of it. Then
+they took turns in throwing it up toward me until at length I caught it
+and tied it firmly to the limb on which I was sitting. Then I ventured
+to trust my weight to it and amid much laughter but without any
+difficulty lowered myself to the ground.
+
+In fact, I was not exactly the hero. The hero, I think, was Willis. But
+for his appearance I hardly know how I should have fared.
+
+Old Hughy, I remember, was rather loath to share the honey with us; but
+we all took enough to satisfy us. The old man, indeed, was hardly the
+hero of the occasion either--a fact that he became aware of when on our
+way home we met grandmother Ruth, anxious and red in the face from her
+long walk. She expressed herself to him with great frankness. "Didn't
+you promise to be careful where you sent that boy!" she exclaimed. "Hugh
+Glinds, you are a palavering old humbug!"
+
+Old Hughy had little enough to say; but he tried to smooth matters over
+by offering her a piece of honey-comb.
+
+"No, sir," said she. "I want none of your honey!"
+
+All that the old Squire had said when he saw me up in the hemlock was,
+"Be calm, my son; you will get down safe." And when they threw the rope
+up to me he added, "Now, first tie a square knot and then take good hold
+of the rope with both hands."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+WHEN THE LION ROARED
+
+
+At daybreak on September 26, if I remember aright, we started to drive
+from the old farm to Portland with eighteen live hogs. There was a crisp
+frost that morning, so white that till the sun rose you might have
+thought there had been a slight fall of snow in the night.
+
+We put eight of the largest hogs into one long farm wagon with high
+sideboards, drawn by a span of Percheron work horses, which I drove; the
+ten smaller hogs we put into another wagon that Willis Murch drove. By
+making an early start we hoped to cover forty miles of our journey
+before sundown, pass the night at a tavern in the town of Gray where the
+old Squire was acquainted, and reach Portland the next noon. Since we
+wished to avoid unloading the hogs, we took dry corn and troughs for
+feeding them in the wagons and buckets for fetching water to them. The
+old Squire went along with us for the first fifteen miles to see us well
+on our way, then left us and walked to a railroad station a mile or two
+off the wagon road, where he took the morning train into Portland, in
+order to make arrangements for marketing the hogs.
+
+Everything went well during the morning, although the hogs diffused
+a bad odor along the highway. Toward noon we stopped by the wayside,
+near the Upper Village of the New Gloucester Shakers, to rest and
+feed the horses, and to give the hogs water. About one o'clock we
+went on down the hill to Sabbath Day Pond and into the woods beyond
+it. The loads were heavy and the horses were plodding on slowly, when,
+just round a turn of the road in the woods ahead, we heard a deep,
+awful sound, like nothing that had ever come to our ears before. For
+an instant I thought it was thunder, it rumbled so portentously:
+_Hough--hough--hough--hough-er-er-er-er-hhh!_ It reverberated through
+the woods till it seemed to me that the earth actually trembled.
+
+Willis's horses stopped short. Willis himself rose to his feet, and it
+seemed to me his cap rose up on his head. Other indistinct sounds also
+came to our ears from along the road ahead, though nothing was as yet in
+sight. Then again that awful, prolonged _Hough--hough--hough!_ broke
+forth.
+
+Close by, lumbermen had been hauling timber from the forest into the
+highway and had made a distinct trail across the road ditch. While
+Willis stood up, staring, the horses suddenly whirled half round and
+bolted for the lumber trail, hogs and all. They did it so abruptly that
+Willis had no time to control them, and when the wagon went across the
+ditch, he was pitched off headlong into the brush. Before I could set my
+feet, my span followed them across the ditch; but I managed to rein them
+up to a tree trunk, which the wagon tongue struck heavily. There I held
+them, though they still plunged and snorted in their terror.
+
+Willis's team was running away along the lumber trail, but before it had
+gone fifty yards we heard a crash, and then a horrible squealing. The
+wagon had gone over a log or a stump and, upsetting, had spilled all ten
+hogs into the brushwood.
+
+Willis now jumped to his feet and ran to help me master my team, which
+was still plunging violently, and I kept it headed to the tree while he
+got the halters and tied the horses. Just then we heard that terrible
+_Hough--hough!_ again, nearer now. Looking out toward the road, we saw
+four teams dragging large, gaudily painted cages that contained animals.
+The drivers, who wore a kind of red uniform, pulled up and sat looking
+in our direction, laughing and shouting derisively. That exasperated us
+so greatly that, checking our first impulse to run in pursuit of the
+horses and hogs, we rushed to the road to remonstrate.
+
+It was not a full-fledged circus and menagerie, but merely a show on its
+way from one county fair to another. In one cage there was a boa
+constrictor, untruthfully advertised to be thirty feet long, which a Fat
+Lady exhibited at each performance, the monster coiled round her neck.
+In another cage were six performing monkeys and four educated dogs.
+
+When we saw them that day on the road, the Fat Lady, said to weigh four
+hundred pounds, was journeying in a double-seated carriage behind the
+cages. Squeezed on the seat beside her, rode a queer-looking little old
+man, with a long white beard, whose specialty was to eat glass tumblers,
+or at least chew them up. He also fought on his hands and knees with one
+of the dogs. His barking, growling and worrying were so true to life
+that the spectators could scarcely tell which was the dog and which the
+man. On the back seat was a gypsy fortune teller and a Wild Man, alleged
+to hail from the jungles of Borneo and to be so dangerous that two armed
+keepers had to guard him in order to prevent him from destroying the
+local population. As we first saw him, divested of his "get-up," he
+looked tame enough. He was conversing sociably with the gypsy fortune
+teller.
+
+But for the moment our attention and our indignation were directed
+mainly at the lion. He was not such a very large lion, but he certainly
+had a full-sized roar, and the driver of the cage sat and grinned at us.
+
+"You've no right to be on the road with a lion roaring like that!"
+Willis shouted severely.
+
+"Wal, young feller, you've no right to be on the road with such a hog
+smell as that!" the driver retorted. "Our lion is the best-behaved in
+the world; he wouldn't ha' roared ef he hadn't smelt them hogs so
+strong."
+
+"But you have damaged us!" I cried. "Our horses have run away and
+smashed things! You'll have to pay for this!"
+
+Another man, who appeared to be the proprietor, now came from a wagon in
+the rear of the cavalcade.
+
+"What's that about damages?" he cried. "I'll pay nothing! I have a
+permit to travel on the highway!"
+
+"You have no right to scare horses!" Willis retorted. "Your lion made a
+horrible noise."
+
+"His noise wasn't worse than your hog stench!" the showman rejoined
+hotly. "My lion has as good a right to roar as your hogs have to squeal.
+Drive on!" he shouted to his drivers.
+
+The show moved forward. The Fat Lady looked back and laughed, and the
+Wild Man pretended to squeal like a pig; but the gypsy fortune teller
+smiled and said, "Too bad!"
+
+Having got no satisfaction, we returned hastily to chase our runaway
+team. We came upon it less than a hundred yards away, jammed fast
+between two pine trees. Parts of the harness were broken, the wagon body
+was shattered, and ten hogs were at large.
+
+For some minutes we were at a loss to know what to do. How to catch the
+hogs and put them back into the wagon was a difficult matter, for many
+of them weighed three hundred pounds, and moreover a live hog is a
+disagreeable animal to lay hands on. But, taking an axe, we cut young
+pine trees and constructed a fence round the wagon to serve as a hogpen.
+Leaving a gap at one end that could be stopped when the hogs were
+inside, we then set near the wagon the troughs we had brought, poured
+the dry corn into them and called the hogs as if it were feeding time.
+Most of them, it seemed, were not far away. As soon as they heard the
+corn rattling into the troughs all except three came crowding in.
+Presently we drove two of the missing ones to the pen, but one we could
+not find.
+
+None of the wagon wheels was broken, and in the course of an hour or
+two, Willis and I succeeded in patching up the shattered body
+sufficiently to hold the hogs. But how to get the heavy brutes off the
+ground and up into the wagon was a task beyond our resources. When you
+try to take a live hog off its feet, he is likely to bite as well as to
+squeal. We had no tackle for lifting them.
+
+At last Willis set off to get help. He was gone till dusk and came back
+without any one; but he had persuaded two Shakers to come and help us
+early the next morning--they could not come that night on account of
+their evening prayer meeting. One of the Shaker women had sent a loaf of
+bread and a piggin half full of Shaker apple sauce to us.
+
+The lantern and bucket that went with Willis's wagon had been smashed;
+but I had a similar outfit with mine. So we tied the horses to trees
+near our improvised hog pound, and fed and blanketed them by lantern
+light. Afterwards we brought water for them from a brook not far away.
+
+It was nine o'clock before we were ready to eat our own supper of bread
+and Shaker apple sauce. The night was chilly; our lantern went out for
+lack of oil; we had only light overcoats for covering; and as we had
+used our last two matches in lighting the lantern, we could not kindle a
+fire.
+
+The night was so cold that we frequently had to jump up and run round to
+get warm. We slept scarcely at all. The hogs squealed. They, too, were
+cold as well as hungry, and toward morning they quarreled, bit one
+another and made piercing outcries.
+
+"Oh, don't I wish 'twas morning!" Willis exclaimed again and again.
+
+Fortunately, the Shakers were early risers, and long before sunrise
+three of them, clad in gray homespun frocks and broad-brimmed hats,
+appeared. They greeted us solemnly.
+
+"Thee has met with trouble," said one of them, who was the elder of the
+village. "But I think we can give thee aid."
+
+They proved to be past masters at handling hogs. From one of the halters
+they contrived a muzzle to prevent the hogs from biting us, and then
+with their help we caught and muzzled the hogs one by one and boosted
+them into the wagon. The good men stayed by us till the horses were
+hitched up and we were out of the woods and on the highway again. I had
+a little money with me and offered to pay them for their kind services,
+but the elder said:
+
+"Nay, friend, thee has had trouble enough already with the lion." And at
+parting all three said "Fare thee well" very gravely.
+
+We fared on, but not altogether well, for those hungry hogs were now
+making a terrible uproar. We drove as far as Gray Corners, where there
+was a country store, and there I bought a bushel of oats for the horses
+and a hundred-pound bag of corn for the hogs. The hogs were so ravenous
+that it was hard to be sure that each got his proper share; but we did
+the best we could and somewhat reduced their squealing.
+
+The hastily repaired wagon body had also given us trouble, for it had
+threatened to shake to pieces as it jolted over the frozen ruts of the
+road; but we bought a pound of nails, borrowed a hammer and set to work
+to repair it better, with the hogs still aboard--much to the amusement
+of a crowd of boys who had collected. It was almost noon when we left
+Gray Corners, and it was after three o'clock before we reached
+Westbrook, five miles out of Portland. Here whom should we see but the
+old Squire, who, growing anxious over our failure to appear, had driven
+out to meet us. He could not help smiling when he heard Willis's
+indignant account of what had delayed us.
+
+He thought it likely that we could recover the missing hog, and that
+evening he inserted a notice of the loss in the _Eastern Argus_. But
+nothing came of the notice or of the many inquiries that we made on our
+way home the next day. The animal had wandered off, and whoever captured
+it apparently kept quiet. Instead of blaming us, however, the old Squire
+praised us.
+
+"You did well, boys, in trying circumstances," he said. "You do not meet
+a lion every day."
+
+After what had happened, Willis and I felt much interest the following
+week in seeing the show that had discomfited us. It had established
+itself at the county fair in its big tent and apparently was doing a
+rushing business. Buying admission tickets, Willis and I went in and
+approached the lion's cage for a nearer view of the king of beasts. We
+hoped he would spring up and roar as he had done in the woods below the
+Shaker village; but he kept quiet. After all, he did not look very
+formidable, and he seemed sadly oppressed and bored.
+
+I think the proprietor of the show recognized us, for we saw him
+regarding us suspiciously; and we moved on to the cage in which the Wild
+Man sat, with a big brass chain attached to his leg--ostensibly to
+prevent him from running amuck among the spectators. Two of his keepers
+were guarding him, with axes in their hands. He was loosely arrayed in a
+tiger's skin, and his limbs appeared to be very hairy. His skin was dark
+brown and rough with warts. His hair, which was really a wig, hung in
+tangled snarls over his eyes. He gnashed his teeth, clenched his fists,
+and every few moments he uttered a terrific yell at which timid patrons
+of the show promptly retired to the far side of the tent.
+
+When Willis and I approached the cage, a smile suddenly broke across the
+Wild Man's face, and he nodded to us. "You were the fellows with the
+hogs, weren't you?" he said in very good English. I can hardly describe
+what a shock that gave us.
+
+"Why, why--aren't you from the wilds of Borneo?" Willis asked him in low
+tones.
+
+"Thunder, no!" the Wild Man replied confidentially. "I don't even know
+where it is. I'm from over in Vermont--Bellows Falls."
+
+"But--but--you do look pretty savage!" stammered Willis in much
+astonishment.
+
+"You bet!" said the Wild Man. "Ain't this a dandy rig? It gets 'em, too.
+But don't give me away; I get a good living out of this."
+
+Just then a group of spectators came crowding forward, and the Wild Man
+let out a howl that brought them to an appalled halt. The keepers
+brandished their axes.
+
+"Well, did you ever?" Willis muttered as we moved on. "Doesn't that beat
+everything?"
+
+The Fat Lady was ponderously unwinding the coils of the boa constrictor
+from round her neck as we paused in front of her cage, but presently she
+recognized us and smiled. We asked her whether she wasn't afraid to let
+the snake coil itself round her neck.
+
+"No, not when he has had his powders," she replied. "Sometimes, when he
+is waking up, I have to be a little careful not to let him get clean
+round me, or he'd give me a squeeze."
+
+The old man and the educated dogs had just finished their performance
+when we came in, and so we went over to the platform on the other side
+of the tent, where the gypsy fortune teller was plying her vocation.
+
+"Cross me palm, young gentlemen," she droned. "Cross me palm wi' siller,
+and I'll tell your fortunes and all that's going to happen to you." Then
+she, too, recognized us and smiled. "Did you find your hogs?" she asked.
+
+"All but one," Willis told her.
+
+"It was too bad," she said, "but you never will get anything out of the
+boss of this show. He's a brute! He cheats me out of half my contract
+money right along."
+
+"Where do you come from?" Willis said with a knowing air. "You are no
+gypsy."
+
+"No, indeed!" the girl replied, laughing, and, rubbing a place on the
+back of her left hand, she showed us that her skin was white under the
+walnut stain. "I'm from Albany. I live with my mother there, and I'm
+sending my brother to the Troy Polytechnic School."
+
+"Well, did you ever!" Willis said again as, now completely
+disillusioned, we left the tent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+UNCLE SOLON CHASE COMES ALONG
+
+
+There was what the farmers and indeed the whole country deemed "hard
+times" that fall, and the "hard times" grew harder. Again we young folks
+had been obliged to put off attending school at the village
+Academy--much to the disappointment of Addison and Theodora.
+
+Money was scarce, and all business ventures seemed to turn out badly.
+Everything appeared to be going wrong, or at least people imagined so.
+Uncle Solon Chase from Chase's Mills--afterward the Greenback candidate
+for the Presidency--was driving about the country with his famous steers
+and rack-cart, haranguing the farmers and advocating unlimited greenback
+money.
+
+To add to our other troubles at the old Squire's that fall, our twelve
+Jersey cows began giving bitter milk, so bitter that the cream was
+affected and the butter rendered unusable. Yet the pasture was an
+excellent one, consisting of sweet uplands, fringed round with
+sugar-maples, oaks and beeches, where the cleared land extended up the
+hillsides into the borders of the great woods.
+
+For some time we were wholly at a loss to know what caused all those
+cows to give bitter milk.
+
+A strange freak also manifested itself in our other herd that summer;
+first one of our Black Dutch belted heifers, and then several others
+took to gnawing the bark from young trees in their pasture and along the
+lanes to the barn. Before we noticed what they were doing, the bark from
+twenty or more young maples, elms and other trees had been gnawed and
+stripped off as high as the heifers could reach. It was not from lack of
+food; there was grass enough in the pasture, and provender and hay at
+the barn; but an abnormal appetite had beset them; they would even pull
+off the tough bark of cedars, in the swamp by the brook, and stand for
+hours, trying to masticate long, stringy strips of it.
+
+In consequence, probably, of eating so much indigestible bark, first
+one, then another, "lost her cud," that is, was unable to raise her food
+for rumination at night; and as cattle must ruminate, we soon had
+several sick animals to care for.
+
+In such cases, if the animal can only be started chewing an artificially
+prepared cud she will often, on swallowing it, "raise" again; and
+rumination, thus started, will proceed once more, and the congestion be
+relieved.
+
+For a week or more we were kept busy, night and morning, furnishing the
+bark-eaters with cuds, prepared from the macerated inner bark of sweet
+elder, impregnated with rennet. These had to be put in the mouths of the
+cows by main strength, and held there till from force of habit the
+animal began chewing, swallowing and "raising" again.
+
+What was stranger, this unnatural appetite for gnawing bark was not
+confined wholly to cows that fall; the shoats out in the orchard took to
+gnawing apple-trees, and spoiled several valuable Sweetings and
+Gravensteins before the damage was discovered. It was an "off year."
+Every living thing seemed to require a tonic.
+
+The bitter milk proved the most difficult problem. No bitter weed or
+foul grass grew in the pasture. The herd had grazed there for years;
+nothing of the sort had been noticed before.
+
+The village apothecary, who styled himself a chemist, was asked to give
+an opinion on a specimen of the cream; but he failed to throw much light
+on the subject. "There seems to be tannic acid in this milk," he said.
+
+At about that time uncle Solon Chase came along one afternoon, and gave
+one of his harangues at our schoolhouse. I well remember the old fellow
+and his high-pitched voice. Addison, I recall, refused to go to hear
+him; but Willis Murch and I went. We were late and had difficulty in
+squeezing inside the room. Uncle Solon, as everybody called him, stood
+at the teacher's desk, and was talking in his quaint, homely way: a lean
+man in farmer's garb, with a kind of Abraham Lincoln face, honest but
+humorous, droll yet practical; a face afterwards well known from Maine
+to Iowa.
+
+"We farmers are bearin' the brunt of the hard times," Uncle Solon said.
+"'Tain't fair. Them rich fellers in New York, and them rich railroad men
+that's running things at Washington have got us down. 'Tis time we got
+up and did something about it. 'Tis time them chaps down there heard the
+tramp o' the farmers' cowhide boots, comin' to inquire into this. And
+they'll soon hear 'em. They'll soon hear the tramp o' them old cowhides
+from Maine to Texas.
+
+"Over in our town we have got a big stone mortar. It will hold a bushel
+of corn. When the first settlers came there and planted a crop, they
+hadn't any gristmill. So they got together and made that 'ere mortar out
+of a block of granite. They pecked that big, deep hole in it with a
+hammer and hand-drill. That hole is more'n two feet deep, but they
+pecked it out, and then made a big stone pestle nearly as heavy as a man
+could lift, to pound their corn.
+
+"They used to haul that mortar and pestle round from one log house to
+another, and pounded all their corn-meal in it.
+
+"Now d'ye know what I would do if I was President? I'd get out that old
+stone mortar and pestle, and I'd put all the hard money in this country
+in it, all the rich man's hard money, and I'd pound it all up fine. I'd
+make meal on't!"
+
+"And what would you do with the meal?" some one cried.
+
+Uncle Solon banged his fist on the desk. "I'd make greenbacks on't!" he
+shouted, and then there was great applause.
+
+That solution of the financial problem sounded simple enough; and yet it
+was not quite so clear as it might be.
+
+Uncle Solon went on to picture what a bright day would dawn if only the
+national government would be reasonable and issue plenty of greenbacks;
+and when he had finished his speech, he invited every one who was in
+doubt, or had anything on his mind, to ask questions.
+
+"Ask me everything you want to!" he cried. "Ask me about anything that's
+troublin' your mind, and I'll answer if I can, and the best I can."
+
+There was something about Uncle Solon which naturally invited
+confidence, and for fully half an hour the people asked questions, to
+all of which he replied after his quaint, honest fashion.
+
+"You might ask him what makes cows give bitter milk," Willis whispered
+to me, and laughed. "He's an old farmer."
+
+"I should like to," said I, but I had no thoughts of doing so--when
+suddenly Willis spoke up:
+
+"Uncle Solon, there is a young fellow here who would like to ask you
+what makes his cows give bitter milk this fall, but he is bashful."
+
+"Haw! haw!" laughed Uncle Solon. "Wal, now, he needn't be bashful with
+me, for like's not I can tell him. Like's not 'tis the bitterness in the
+hearts o' people, that's got into the dumb critters."
+
+Uncle Solon's eyes twinkled, and he laughed, as did everybody else.
+
+"Or, like's not," he went on, "'tis something the critters has et.
+Shouldn't wonder ef 'twas. What kind of a parster are them cows runnin'
+in?"
+
+Somewhat abashed, I explained, and described the pasture at the old
+Squire's.
+
+"How long ago did the milk begin to be bitter?"
+
+"About three weeks ago."
+
+"Any red oak in that parster?" asked Uncle Solon.
+
+"Yes," I said. "Lots of red oaks, all round the borders of the woods."
+
+"Wal, now, 'tis an acorn year," said Uncle Solon, reflectively. "I
+dunno, but ye all know how bitter a red-oak acorn is. I shouldn't wonder
+a mite ef your cows had taken to eatin' them oak acorns. Critters will,
+sometimes. Mine did, once. Fust one will take it up, then the rest will
+foller."
+
+An approving chuckle at Uncle Solon's sagacity ran round, and some one
+asked what could be done in such a case to stop the cows from eating the
+acorns.
+
+"Wal, I'll tell ye what I did," said Uncle Solon, his homely face
+puckering in a reminiscent smile. "I went out airly in the mornin',
+before I turned my cows to parster, and picked up the acorns under all
+the oak-trees. I sot down on a rock, took a hammer and cracked them
+green acorns, cracked 'em 'bout halfway open at the butt end. With my
+left-hand thumb and forefinger, I held the cracked acorn open by
+squeezing it, and with my right I dropped a pinch o' Cayenne pepper into
+each acorn, then let 'em close up again.
+
+"It took me as much as an hour to fix up all them acorns. Then I laid
+them in little piles round under the trees, and turned out my cows. They
+started for the oaks fust thing, for they had got a habit of going there
+as soon as they were turned to parster in the morning. I stood by the
+bars and watched to see what would happen."
+
+Here a still broader smile overspread Uncle Solon's face. "Within ten
+minutes I saw all them cows going lickety-split for the brook on the
+lower side o' the parster, and some of 'em were in such a hurry that
+they had their tails right up straight in the air!
+
+"Ef you will believe it," Uncle Solon concluded, "not one of them cows
+teched an oak acorn afterward."
+
+Another laugh went round; but an interruption occurred. A good lady from
+the city, who was spending the summer at a farmhouse near by, rose in
+indignation and made herself heard.
+
+"I think that was a very cruel thing to do!" she cried. "I think it was
+shameful to treat your animals so!"
+
+"Wal, now, ma'am, I'm glad you spoke as you did. I'm glad to know that
+you've got a kind heart," said Uncle Solon. "Kind-heartedness to man and
+beast is one of the best things in life. It's what holds this world
+together. Anybody that uses Cayenne pepper to torture an animal, or play
+tricks on it, is no friend of mine, I can tell ye.
+
+"But you see, ma'am, it is this way. Country folks who keep dumb animals
+of all kinds know a good many things about them that city folks don't.
+Like human beings, dumb animals sometimes go all wrong, and have to be
+corrected. Of course, we can't reason with them. So we have to do the
+next best thing, and correct them as we can.
+
+"I had a little dog once that I was tremendous fond of," Uncle Solon
+continued. "His name was Spot. He was a bird-dog, and so bright it
+seemed as if he could almost talk. But he took to suckin' eggs, and
+began to steal eggs at my neighbors' barns and hen-houses. He would
+fetch home eggs without crackin' the shells, and hold 'em in his mouth
+so cunning you wouldn't know he had anything there. He used to bury them
+eggs in the garden and all about.
+
+"Of course that made trouble with the neighbors. It looked as if I'd
+have to kill Spot, and I hated to do it, for I loved that little dog.
+But I happened to think of Cayenne. So I took and blowed an egg--made a
+hole at each end and blowed out the white and the yelk. I mixed the
+white with Cayenne pepper and put it back through the hole. Then I stuck
+little pieces of white paper over both holes, and laid the egg where I
+knew Spot would find it.
+
+"He found it, and about three minutes after that I saw him going to the
+brook in a hurry. He had quite a time on't, sloshin' water, coolin' off
+his mouth--and I never knew him to touch an egg afterward.
+
+"But I see, ma'am, that you have got quite a robustious prejudice
+against Cayenne. It isn't such bad stuff, after all. It's fiery, but it
+never does any permanent harm. It's a good medicine, too, for a lot of
+things that ail us. Why, Cayenne pepper saved my life once. I really
+think so. It was when I was a boy, and boy-like, I had et a lot of green
+artichokes. A terrible pain took hold of me. I couldn't breathe. I
+thought I was surely going to die; but my mother gave me a dose of
+Cayenne and molasses, and in ten minutes I was feeling better.
+
+"And even now, old as I am, when I get cold and feel pretty bad, I go
+and take a good stiff dose of Cayenne and molasses, and get to bed. In
+fifteen minutes I will be in a perspiration; pretty soon I'll go to
+sleep; and next morning I'll feel quite smart again.
+
+"Just you try that, ma'am, the next time you get a cold. You will find
+it will do good. It is better than so much of that quinin that they are
+givin' us nowadays. That quinin raises Cain with folks' ears. It
+permanently injures the hearin'.
+
+"When I advise any one to use Cayenne, either to cure a dog that sucks
+eggs or cows that eat acorns, I advise it as a medicine, just as I would
+ef the animal was sick. And you mustn't think, ma'am, that we farmers
+are so hard-hearted and cruel as all that, for our hearts are just as
+tender and compassionate to animals as if we lived in a great city."
+
+Uncle Solon may not have been a safe guide for the nation's finances,
+but he possessed a valuable knowledge of farm life and farm affairs.
+
+I went home; and the next morning we tried the quaint old Greenbacker's
+"cure" for bitter milk; it "worked" as he said it would.
+
+We also made a sticky wash, of which Cayenne was the chief ingredient,
+for the trunks of the young trees along the lanes and in the orchard,
+and after getting a taste of it, neither the Black Dutch belted heifers
+nor the hogs did any further damage. A young neighbor of ours has also
+cured her pet cat of slyly pilfering eggs at the stable, in much the way
+Uncle Solon cured his dog.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+ON THE DARK OF THE MOON
+
+
+In a little walled inclosure near the roadside at the old Squire's stood
+two very large pear-trees that at a distance looked like Lombardy
+poplars; they had straight, upright branches and were fully fifty feet
+tall. One was called the Eastern Belle and the other the Indian Queen.
+They had come as little shoots from grandmother Ruth's people in
+Connecticut when she and the old Squire were first married. Grandmother
+always spoke of them as "Joe's pear-trees"; Joseph was the old Squire's
+given name. Some joke connected with their early married life was in her
+mind when she spoke thus, for she always laughed roguishly when she said
+"Joe's pears," but she would never explain the joke to us young folks.
+She insisted that those were the old Squire's pears, and told us not to
+pick them.
+
+In the orchard behind the house were numerous other pear-trees. There
+were no restrictions on those or on the early apples or plums; but every
+year grandmother half jokingly told us not to go to those two trees in
+the walled inclosure, and she never went there herself.
+
+I must confess, however, that we young folks knew pretty well how those
+pears tasted. The Eastern Belle bore a large, long pear that turned
+yellow when ripe and had a fine rosy cheek on one side. The Indian Queen
+was a thick-bodied pear with specks under the skin, a deep-sunk nose and
+a long stem. It had a tendency to crack on one side; but it ripened at
+about the same time as the Belle, and its flavor was even finer.
+
+The little walled pen that inclosed the two pear-trees had a history of
+its own. The town had built it as a "pound" for stray animals in 1822,
+shortly after the neighborhood was settled. The walls were six or seven
+feet high, and on one side was a gateway. The inclosure was only twenty
+feet wide by thirty feet long. It had not been used long as a pound, for
+a pound that was larger and more centrally situated became necessary
+soon after it was built. When those two little pear-trees came from
+Connecticut the old Squire set them out inside this walled pen; he
+thought they would be protected by the high pound wall. A curious
+circumstance about those pear-trees was that they did not begin bearing
+when they were nine or ten years old, as pear-trees usually do. Year
+after year passed, until they had stood there twenty-seven years, with
+never blossom or fruit appearing on them.
+
+The old Squire tried various methods of making the trees bear. At the
+suggestion of neighbors he drove rusty nails into the trunks, and buried
+bags of pear seeds at the foot of them, and he fertilized the inclosure
+richly. But all to no purpose. Finally grandmother advised the old
+Squire to spread the leached ashes from her leach tub--after she had
+made soap and hulled corn in the spring--on the ground inside the pen.
+The old Squire did so, and the next spring both trees blossomed. They
+bore bountifully that summer and every season afterward, until they
+died.
+
+We had a young neighbor, Alfred Batchelder, who was fond of foraging by
+night for plums, grapes, and pears in the orchards of his neighbors. His
+own family did not raise fruit; they thought it too much trouble to
+cultivate the trees. But Alfred openly boasted of having the best fruit
+that the neighborhood afforded. One of Alfred's cronies in these
+nocturnal raids was a boy, named Harvey Yeatton, who lived at the
+village, six or seven miles away; almost every year he came to visit
+Alfred for a week or more in September.
+
+It was a good-natured community. To early apples, indeed, the rogues
+were welcome; but garden pears, plums, and grapes were more highly
+prized, for in Maine it requires some little care to raise them. At the
+farm of our nearest neighbors, the Edwardses, there were five greengage
+trees that bore delicious plums. For three summers in succession Alfred
+and Harvey stole nearly every plum on those trees--at least, there was
+little doubt that it was they who took them.
+
+They also took the old Squire's pears in the walled pen. Twice Addison
+and I tracked them home the next morning in the dewy grass, across the
+fields. Time and again, too, they took our Bartlett pears and plums.
+Addison wanted the old Squire to send the sheriff after them and put a
+stop to their raids, but he only laughed. "Oh, I suppose those boys love
+pears and plums," he said, forbearingly. But we of the younger
+generation were indignant.
+
+One day, when the old Squire and I were driving to the village, we met
+Alfred; the old gentleman stopped, and said to him:
+
+"My son, hadn't you better leave me just a few of those pears in the old
+pound this year?"
+
+"I never touched a pear there!" Alfred shouted. "You can't prove I did,
+and you'd better not accuse me."
+
+The old Squire only laughed, and drove on.
+
+A few nights afterward both pear-trees were robbed and nearly stripped
+of fruit. We found several broken twigs on the top branches, and guessed
+that Alfred had used a long pole with a hook at the end with which to
+shake down the fruit. After what had passed on the road this action
+looked so much like defiance that the old Squire was nettled. He did
+nothing about it at the time, however.
+
+Another year passed. Then at table one night Ellen remarked that Harvey
+Yeatton had come to visit Alfred again. "Alfred brought him up from the
+village this afternoon," she said. "I saw them drive by together."
+
+"Now the pears and plums will have to suffer again!" said I.
+
+"Yes," said Ellen. "They stopped down at the foot of the hill, and
+looked up at those two pear-trees in the old pound; then they glanced at
+the house, to see if any one had noticed that they were passing."
+
+"Those pears are just getting ripe," said Addison. "It wouldn't astonish
+me if they disappeared to-night. There's no moon, is there?"
+
+"No," said grandmother Ruth. "It's the dark of the moon. Joseph, you had
+better look out for your pears to-night," she added, laughing.
+
+The old Squire went on eating his supper for some minutes without
+comment; but just as we finished, he said, "Boys, where did we put our
+skunk fence last fall?"
+
+"Rolled it up and put it in the wagon-house chamber," said I.
+
+"About a hundred and fifty feet of it, isn't there?"
+
+"A hundred and sixty," said Addison. "Enough, you know, to go round that
+patch of sweet corn in the garden."
+
+"That wire fence worked well with four-footed robbers," the old Squire
+remarked, with a twinkle in his eye. "Perhaps it might serve for the
+two-footed kind. You fetch that down, boys; I've an idea we may use it
+to-night."
+
+For several summers the garden had been ravaged by skunks. Although
+carnivorous by nature, the little pests seem to have a great liking for
+sweet corn when in the milk.
+
+Wire fence, woven in meshes, such as is now used everywhere for poultry
+yards, had then recently been advertised. We had sent for a roll of it,
+two yards in width, and thereafter every summer we had put it up round
+the corn patch. None of the pests ever scaled the wire fence; and
+thereafter we had enjoyed our sweet corn in peace.
+
+That night, just after dusk, we reared the skunk fence on top of the old
+pound wall, and fastened it securely in an upright position all round
+the inclosure. The wall was what Maine farmers call a "double wall"; it
+was built of medium-sized stones, and was three or four feet wide at the
+top. It was about six feet high, and when topped with the wire made a
+fence fully twelve feet in height.
+
+The old pound gate had long ago disappeared; in its place were two or
+three little bars that could easily be let down. The trespassers would
+naturally enter by that gap, and on a moonless night would not see the
+wire fence on top of the wall. They would have more trouble in getting
+out of the place than they had had in getting into it if the gap were to
+be stopped.
+
+At the farm that season were two hired men, brothers named James and Asa
+Doane, strong, active young fellows; and since it was warm September
+weather, the old Squire asked them to make a shake-down of hay for
+themselves that night behind the orchard wall, near the old pound, and
+to sleep there "with one eye open." If the rogues did not come for the
+pears, we would take down the skunk fence early the next morning, and
+set it again for them the following night.
+
+Nothing suited Asa and Jim better than a lark of that sort. About eight
+o'clock they ensconced themselves in the orchard, thirty or forty feet
+from the old pound gateway. Addison also lay in wait with them. If the
+rogues came and began to shake the trees, all three were to make a rush
+for the gap, keep them in there, and shout for the old Squire to come
+down from the house.
+
+Addison's surmise that Alfred and his crony would begin operations that
+very night proved a shrewd one. Shortly after eleven o'clock he heard a
+noise at the entrance of the old pound. Asa and Jim were asleep. Addison
+lay still, and a few minutes later heard the rogues put up their poles
+with the hooks on them, and begin gently to shake the high limbs.
+
+The sound of the pears dropping on the ground waked Asa and Jim, and at
+a whispered word from Addison all three bounded over the orchard wall
+and rushed to the gateway, shouting, "We've got ye! We've got ye now!
+Surrender! Surrender and go to jail!"
+
+Surprised though they were, Alfred and Harvey had no intention of
+surrendering. Dropping their poles, they sprang for the pound wall. In a
+moment they had scrambled to the top. Then they jumped for the ground on
+the other side; but the yielding meshes of the skunk fence brought them
+up short. It was too dark for them to see what the obstruction was, and
+they bounced and jumped against the wire meshes like fish in a net.
+
+"Cut it with your jackknife!" Harvey whispered to Alfred; and then both
+boys got out their knives and sawed away at the meshes--with no success
+whatever!
+
+By that time Jim and Asa had entered the pound, and shouting with
+laughter, each grabbed a boy by the ankle and hauled him down from the
+wall. At about that time, too, the old Squire arrived on the scene,
+bringing a rope and a new horsewhip. I myself had been sleeping soundly,
+and was slow to wake. Even grandmother Ruth and the girls were ahead of
+me, and when I rushed out, they were standing at the orchard gate,
+listening in considerable excitement to the commotion at the old pound.
+When I reached the place Jim and Asa--with Addison looking on--had tied
+the rogues together, and were haling them up through the orchard.
+
+"Take 'em to the barn, Squire!" Jim shouted. "Shut the big doors, so the
+neighbors can't hear 'em holler, and then give it to 'em good!"
+
+"Yes, give it to 'em, Squire!" Asa exclaimed. "They need it."
+
+The old Squire was following after them, cracking his whip, for I
+suppose he thought it well to frighten the scamps thoroughly. It was too
+dark for me to see Alfred's face or Harvey's, but they had little to
+say. The procession moved on to the barn; I rolled the doors open, while
+Addison ran to get a lantern. Grandmother and the girls had retired
+hastily to the ell piazza, where they stood listening apprehensively.
+
+"Now I am going to give you your choice," the old Squire said. "Shall I
+send for the sheriff, or will you take a whipping and promise to stop
+stealing fruit?"
+
+Neither Alfred nor Harvey would reply; and the old Squire told Addison
+to hitch up Old Sol and fetch Hawkes, the sheriff. The prospect of jail
+frightened the boys so much that they said they would take the whipping,
+and promise not to steal any more fruit.
+
+"I am sorry to say, Alfred, that I don't wholly trust your word," the
+old Squire said. "You have told me falsehoods before. We must have your
+promise in writing."
+
+He sent me into the house for paper and pencil, and then set Addison to
+write a pledge for the boys to sign. As nearly as I remember, it ran
+like this:
+
+"We, the undersigned, Harvey Yeatton and Alfred Batchelder, confess that
+we have been robbing gardens and stealing our neighbors' fruit for four
+years. We have been caught to-night stealing pears at the old pound. We
+have been given our choice of going to jail or taking a whipping and
+promising to steal no more in the future. We choose the whipping and the
+promise, and we engage to make no complaint and no further trouble about
+this for any one."
+
+The old Squire read it over to them and bade them to take notice of what
+they were signing. "For if I hear of your stealing fruit again," said
+he, "I shall get a warrant and have you arrested for what you have done
+to-night. Here are four witnesses ready to testify against you."
+
+Alfred and Harvey put their names to the paper while I held the lantern.
+
+"Now give it to 'em, Squire!" said Jim, when the boys had signed.
+
+From the first Addison and I had had little idea that the old Squire
+would whip the boys. It was never easy to induce him to whip even a
+refractory horse or ox. Now he took the paper, read their names, then
+folded it and put it into his pocket.
+
+"I guess this will hold you straight, boys," he said. "Now you can go
+home."
+
+"What, ain't ye goin' to lick 'em?" Jim exclaimed.
+
+"Not this time," said the old gentleman. "Untie them and let them go."
+
+Jim and Asa were greatly disappointed. "Let me give 'em jest a few
+licks," Jim begged, with a longing glance at the whip.
+
+"Not this time," the old Squire replied. "If we catch them at this
+again, I'll see about it. And, boys," he said to them, as Jim and Asa
+very reluctantly untied the knots of their bonds, "any time you want a
+pocketful of pears to eat just come and ask me. But mind, don't you
+steal another pear or plum in this neighborhood!"
+
+Addison opened the barn doors, and Alfred and Harvey took themselves off
+without ceremony.
+
+Apparently they kept their promise with us, for we heard of no further
+losses of fruit in that neighborhood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+HALSTEAD'S GOBBLER
+
+
+At that time a flock of twenty or thirty turkeys was usually raised at
+the old farm every fall--fine, great glossy birds. Nearly every
+farmhouse had its flock; and by October that entire upland county
+resounded to the plaintive _Yeap-yeap, yop-yop-yop!_ and the noisy
+_Gobble-gobble-gobble!_ of the stupid yet much-prized "national bird."
+At present you may drive the whole length of our county and neither hear
+nor see a turkey.
+
+In their young days the old Squire and Judge Fessenden of Portland,
+later in life Senator Fessenden, had been warm friends; and after the
+old Squire chose farming for a vocation and went to live at the family
+homestead, he was wont to send the judge a fine turkey for
+Thanksgiving--purely as a token of friendship and remembrance. The judge
+usually acknowledged the gift by sending in return an interesting book,
+or other souvenir, sometimes a new five-dollar greenback--when he could
+not think of an appropriate present.
+
+The old Squire did not like to accept money from an old friend, and
+after we young people went home to Maine to live he transferred to us
+the privilege of sending Senator Fessenden a turkey for Thanksgiving,
+and allowed us to have the return present.
+
+By September we began to look the flock over and pick out the one that
+bade fair to be the largest and handsomest in November. There was much
+"hefting" and sometimes weighing of birds on the barn scales. We
+carefully inspected their skins under their feathers, for we sent the
+judge a "yellow skin," and never a "blue skin," however heavy.
+
+That autumn there was considerable difference of opinion among us which
+young gobbler, out of twenty or more, was the best and promised to
+"dress off" finest by Thanksgiving. Addison chose a dark, burnished bird
+with a yellow skin; at that time our flock was made up of a mixture of
+breeds--white, speckled, bronze and golden. Halstead chose a large
+speckled gobbler with heavy purple wattles and a long "quitter" that
+bothered him in picking up his food.
+
+Theodora and Ellen also selected two, and I had my eye on one with
+golden markings, but of that I need say no more here; as weeks passed,
+it proved inferior to Addison's and to Theodora's.
+
+Even as late as October 20, it was not easy to say which was the best
+one out of five; at about that time I also discovered that Addison was
+secretly feeding his bronze turkey, out at the west barn, with rations
+of warm dough. Theodora and I exchanged confidences and began feeding
+ours on dough mixed with boiled squash, for we had been told that this
+was good diet for fattening turkeys.
+
+When Halstead found out what we were doing, he was indignant and
+declared we were not playing fair; but we rejoined that he had the same
+chance to "feed up," if he desired to take the trouble.
+
+At the Corners, about a mile from the old Squire's, there lived a person
+who had far too great an influence over Halstead. His name was Tibbetts;
+he was post-master and kept a grocery; also he sold intoxicants
+covertly, in violation of the state law, and was a gambler in a small,
+mean way. Claiming to know something of farming and of poultry, he told
+Halstead that the best way to fatten a turkey speedily was to shut it up
+and not allow it to run with the rest of the flock. He said, too, that
+if a turkey were shut up in a well-lighted place, it would fret itself,
+running to and fro, particularly if it heard other turkeys calling to
+it.
+
+The food for fattening turkeys, said Tibbetts, should consist of a warm
+dough, made from two parts corn meal and one part wheat bran. To a quart
+of such dough he asserted that a tablespoonful of powdered eggshells
+should be added, also a dust of Cayenne pepper. And if a really perfect
+food for fattening poultry were desired, Tibbetts declared that a
+tablespoonful of new rum should be added to the water with which the
+quart of dough was mixed. A wonderful turkey food, no doubt!
+
+Tibbetts also told Halstead to take a pair of sharp shears and cut off
+an inch and a half of his turkey's "quitter," if it were too long and
+bothered him about eating. If the turkey grew "dainty," as Tibbetts
+expressed it, Halstead was to make the dough into rolls about the size
+of his thumb, then open the bird's beak, shove the rolls in, and make
+him swallow them--three or four of them, three times a day.
+
+Halstead came home from the Corners and made a quart of dough according
+to the Tibbetts formula. I do not know certainly about the spoonful of
+rum. If Tibbetts gave him the rum, Halstead kept quiet about it; the old
+Squire was a strict observer of the Maine law.
+
+None of us found out what Halstead was doing for four or five days, and
+then only by accident. For he had caught his speckled gobbler and put
+him down at the foot of the stairs in the wagon-house cellar; and he got
+a sheet of hemlock bark, four feet long by two or three feet wide, such
+as are peeled off hemlock logs, and sold at tanneries, for the turkey to
+stand on.
+
+It was dark as Egypt down in that cellar, when the door at the head of
+the stairs was shut; and turkeys, as is well-known, are very timid about
+moving in the dark. That poor gobbler just stood there, stock-still, on
+that sheet of bark and did not dare step off it. Three times a day
+Halstead used to go down there, on the sly, with a lantern, and feed
+him.
+
+This went on for some time; Addison and I learned of it from hearing a
+little faint gobble in the cellar one morning when the flock was out in
+the farm lane, just behind the wagon-house. The young gobblers were
+gobbling and the hen turkeys yeaping; and from down cellar came a faint,
+answering gobble. We wondered how a turkey had got into that cellar, and
+on opening the door and peering down the stairs, we discovered
+Halstead's speckled gobbler standing on the curved sheet of hemlock
+bark.
+
+While Addison and I were wondering about it, Halstead came out, and
+roughly told us to let his turkey alone! In reply to our questions he at
+last gave us some information about his project and boasted that within
+three weeks he would have a turkey four pounds heavier than any other in
+the flock; but he would not tell us how to make his kind of dough.
+
+Addison scoffed at the scheme; but to show how well it was working,
+Halstead took us downstairs and had us "heft" the turkey. It did seem to
+be getting heavy. Halstead also got his dough dish and showed us how he
+fed his bird. After the second roll of dough had been shoved down his
+throat, the poor gobbler opened his bill and gave a queer little gasp of
+repletion, like _Ca-r-r-r!_ None the less, Halstead made him swallow
+four rolls of dough!
+
+Addison was disgusted. "Halse, I call that nasty!" he said. "I wouldn't
+care to eat a turkey fattened that way. I've a good notion to tell the
+old Squire about this."
+
+Halstead was angry. "Oh, yes!" he exclaimed. "After I raise the biggest
+turkey, I suppose you will go and tell everybody that it isn't fit to
+eat!"
+
+So Addison and I went about our business, but we used to peep down there
+once in a while, to see that poor bird standing, humped up, on his sheet
+of bark. Sometimes, too, when we saw Halstead going down with the
+lantern to feed him, we went along to see the performance and hear the
+turkey groan, _Ca-r-r-r!_ "Halstead, that's wicked!" Addison said
+several times; and Halstead retorted that we were both trying to make
+out a story against him, so as to sneak our own turkeys in ahead of his.
+
+Nine or ten days passed. Halstead was nearly always behindhand when we
+turned out to do the farm chores. As we went through the wagon-house one
+morning Addison stopped to take another peep at the captive; I went on,
+but a moment later heard him calling to me softly. When I joined him at
+the foot of the stairs he lighted a match for me to see. Halstead's
+gobbler lay dead with both feet up in the air. We wondered what Halstead
+would say when he went to feed his turkey. As we left, we heard him
+coming down from upstairs. He did not join us, to help do the chores,
+for half an hour. When he did appear, he looked glum; he had carried the
+poor victim of forced feeding out behind the west barn and buried him in
+the bean field--without ceremonies.
+
+We said nothing--except now and then, as days passed, to ask him how the
+speckled gobbler was coming on. Halstead would look hard at us, but
+vouchsafed no replies.
+
+The judge's turkey was sent to Portland on November 15; at that period
+each state appointed its own Thanksgiving Day, and in Maine the 17th had
+been set. Addison's choice had proved the best turkey: I think it
+weighed nearly seventeen pounds; he divided the five dollars with
+Theodora. The old Squire never learned of Halstead's bootless experiment
+in forced feeding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+MITCHELLA JARS
+
+
+Cold weather was again approaching. October had been very wet; but
+bright, calm days of Indian summer followed in November. And about that
+time Catherine, Theodora and Ellen had an odd adventure while out in the
+woods gathering partridge berries.
+
+At the old farm we called the vivid green creeping vine that bears those
+coral-red berries in November, "partridge berry," because partridge feed
+on the berries and dig them from under the snow. Botanists, however,
+call the vine _Mitchella repens_. In our tramps through the woods we
+boys never gave it more than a passing glance, for the berries are not
+good to eat. The girls, however, thought that the vine was very pretty.
+Every fall Theodora and Ellen, with Kate Edwards, and sometimes the
+Wilbur girls, went into the woods to gather lion's-paw and mitchella
+with which to decorate the old farmhouse at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
+But it was one of their girl friends, named Lucia Scribner, or rather
+Lucia's mother, at Portland, who invented mitchella jars, and started a
+new industry in our neighborhood.
+
+Lucia, who was attending the village Academy, often came up to the old
+farm on a Friday night to visit our girls over Saturday and Sunday. On
+one visit they gathered a basketful of mitchella, and when Lucia went
+home to Portland for Thanksgiving, she carried a small boxful of the
+vines and berries to her mother. Mrs. Scribner was an artist of some
+ability, and she made several little sketches of the vine on whitewood
+paper cutters as gifts to her friends. In order to keep the vine moist
+and fresh while she was making the sketches, she put it in a little
+glass jar with a piece of glass over the top.
+
+The vine was so pretty in the jar that Mrs. Scribner was loath to throw
+it away; and after a while she saw that the berries were increasing in
+size. She had put nothing except a few spoonfuls of water into the jar
+with the vine; but the berries grew slowly all winter, until they were
+twice as big as in the fall.
+
+Mrs. Scribner was delighted with the success of her chance experiment.
+The jar with the vine in it made a very pretty ornament for her work
+table. Moreover, the plant needed little care. To keep it fresh she had
+only to moisten it with a spoonful of water every two or three weeks.
+And cold weather--even zero weather--did not injure it at all. Friends
+who called on Mrs. Scribner admired her jar, and said that they should
+like to get some of them. Mrs. Scribner wrote to Theodora and suggested
+that she and her girl friends make up some mitchella jars, and sell them
+in the city.
+
+That was the way the little industry began. The girls, however, did not
+really go into the business until the next fall. Then Theodora, Ellen,
+and Catherine prepared over a hundred jarfuls of the green vine and
+berries. Those they sent to Portland and Boston during Christmas week
+under the name of Mitchella Jars, and Christmas Bouquets. The jars,
+which were globular in shape and which ranged from a quart in capacity
+up to three and four quarts, cost from fifteen to thirty-five cents
+apiece. When filled with mitchella vines, they brought from a dollar and
+a quarter to two dollars.
+
+On the day above referred to they set out to gather more vines, and they
+told the people at home that they were going to "Dunham's open"--an old
+clearing beyond our farther pasture, where once a settler named Dunham
+had begun to clear a farm. The place was nearly two miles from the old
+Squire's, and as the girls did not expect to get home until four
+o'clock, they took their luncheon with them.
+
+They hoped to get enough mitchella at the "open" to fill fifteen jars,
+and so took two bushel baskets. Four or five inches of hard-frozen snow
+was on the ground; but in the shelter of the young pine and fir thickets
+that were now encroaching on the borders of the "open" the "cradle
+knolls" were partly bare.
+
+However, they found less mitchella at Dunham's open than they had hoped.
+After going completely round the borders of the clearing they had
+gathered only half a basketful. Kate then proposed that they should go
+on to another opening at Adger's lumber camp, on a brook near the foot
+of Stoss Pond. She had been there the winter before with Theodora, and
+both of them remembered having seen mitchella growing there.
+
+The old lumber road was not hard to follow, and they reached the camp in
+a little less than an hour. They found several plats of mitchella, and
+began industriously to gather the vine.
+
+They had such a good time at their work that they almost forgot their
+luncheon. When at last they opened the pasteboard box in which it was
+packed, they found the sandwiches and the mince pie frozen hard. Kate
+suggested that they go down to the lumber camp and kindle a fire.
+
+"There's a stove in it that the loggers left three years ago," she said.
+"We'll make a fire and thaw our lunch."
+
+"We have no matches!" Ellen exclaimed, when they reached the camp.
+
+Inside the old cabin, however, they found three or four matches in a
+little tin box that was nailed to a log behind the stovepipe. Hunters
+had occupied the camp not long before; but they had left scarcely a
+sliver of anything dry or combustible inside it; they had even whittled
+and shaved the old bunk beam and plank table in order to get kindlings.
+After a glance round, Kate went out to gather dry brush along the brook.
+
+Running on a little way, she picked up dry twigs here and there. At
+last, by a clump of white birches, she found a fallen spruce. As she was
+breaking off some of the twigs a strange noise caused her to pause
+suddenly. It was, indeed, an odd sound--not a snarl or a growl, or yet a
+bark like that of a dog, but a querulous low "yapping." At the same
+instant she heard the snow crust break, as if an animal were approaching
+through the thicket of young firs.
+
+More curious than frightened, Kate listened intently. A moment later she
+saw a large gray fox emerge from among the firs and come toward her.
+Supposing that it had not seen or scented her, and thinking to frighten
+it, she cried out suddenly, "Hi, Mr. Fox!"
+
+To her surprise the fox, instead of bounding away, came directly toward
+her, and now she saw that its head moved to and fro as it ran, and that
+clots of froth were dropping from its jaws. Kate had heard that foxes,
+as well as dogs and wolves, sometimes run mad. She realized that if this
+beast were mad, it would attack her blindly and bite her if it could.
+Still clutching her armful of dry twigs, she turned and sped back toward
+the camp. As she drew near the cabin, she called to the other girls to
+open the door. They heard her cries, and Ellen flung the door open. As
+Kate darted into the room, she cried, "Shut it, quick!"
+
+Startled, the other two girls slammed the door shut, and hastily set the
+heavy old camp table against it.
+
+"It's only a fox!" Kate cried. "But it has gone mad, I think. I was
+afraid it would bite me."
+
+Peering out of the one little window and the cracks between the logs,
+they saw the animal run past the camp. It was still yapping weirdly, and
+it snapped at bushes and twigs as it passed. Suddenly it turned back and
+ran by the camp door again. Afterward they heard its cries first up the
+slope behind the camp, and then down by the brook.
+
+"We mustn't go out," Kate whispered. "If it were to bite us, we, too,
+should go mad."
+
+There was no danger of the beast's breaking into the camp, and after a
+while the girls kindled a fire, thawed out their luncheon and ate it.
+The December sun was sinking low, and soon set behind the tree tops. It
+was a long way home, and they had their baskets of mitchella to carry.
+Hoping that the distressed creature had gone its way, they listened for
+a while at the door, and at last ventured forth; but when they drew near
+the place where Kate had gathered the dry spruce branches they heard the
+creature yapping in the thickets ahead. In a panic they ran back to the
+camp.
+
+Their situation was not pleasant. They dared not venture out again.
+Darkness had already set in; the camp was cold and they had little fuel.
+The prospect that any one from home would come to their aid was small,
+for they were now a long way from Dunham's open, where they had said
+they were going, and where, of course, search parties would look for
+them. Kate, however, remained cheerful.
+
+"It's nothing!" she exclaimed. "I can soon get wood for a fire." Under
+the bunk she had found an old axe, and with it she proceeded to chop up
+the camp table.
+
+"The only thing I'm afraid of," she said, "is that the boys will start
+out to look for us, and that if they find our tracks in the snow,
+they'll come on up here and run afoul of that fox before they know it."
+
+"We can shout to them," Ellen suggested.
+
+Not much later, in fact, they began to make the forest resound with
+loud, clear calls. For a long while the only answer to their cries came
+from two owls; but Kate was right in thinking that we boys would set out
+to find them.
+
+Addison, Halstead and I had been up in Lot 32 that day with the old
+Squire, making an estimate of timber, and we did not reach home until
+after dark. Grandmother met us with the news that the girls had gone to
+Dunham's open for partridge-berry vines, and had not returned. She was
+very uneasy about them; but we were hungry and, grumbling a little that
+the girls could not come home at night as they were expected to, sat
+down to supper.
+
+"I am afraid they've lost their way," grandmother said, after a few
+minutes. "It's going to be very cold. You must go to look for them!" And
+the old Squire agreed with her.
+
+Just as we finished supper Thomas Edwards, Kate's brother, came in with
+a lantern, to ask whether Kate was there; and without much further delay
+we four boys set off. Addison took his gun and Halstead another lantern.
+We were not much worried about the girls; indeed, we expected to meet
+them on their way home. When we reached Dunham's open, however, and got
+no answer to our shouts, we became anxious.
+
+At last we found their tracks leading up the winter road to Adger's
+camp, and we hurried along the old trail.
+
+We had not gone more than half a mile when Tom, who was ahead, suddenly
+cried, "Hark! I heard some one calling!"
+
+We stopped to listen; and after a moment or two we all heard a distant
+cry.
+
+"That's Kate!" Tom muttered. "Something's the matter with them, sure!"
+
+We started to run, but soon heard the same cry again, followed by
+indistinct words.
+
+"What's the matter?" Tom shouted.
+
+Again we heard their calls, but could not make out what they were trying
+to say. We were pretty sure now that the girls were at the old lumber
+camp; and hastening on to the top of the ridge that sloped down toward
+the brook, we all shouted loudly. Immediately a reply came back in
+hasty, anxious tones:
+
+"Take care! There's a mad fox down here!"
+
+"A what?" Addison cried.
+
+"A fox that has run mad!" Kate repeated.
+
+"Where is he?" Halstead cried.
+
+"Running round in the thickets," Kate answered. "Look out, boys, or
+he'll bite you. That's the reason we didn't come home. We didn't dare
+leave the camp."
+
+This was such a new kind of danger that for a few moments we were at a
+loss how to meet it. Tom looked about for a club.
+
+"It's only a fox," he said. "I guess we can knock him over before he can
+bite us."
+
+He and Addison went ahead with the club and the gun; Halstead and I,
+following close behind, held the lanterns high so that they could see
+what was in front of them. In this manner we moved down the brushy slope
+to the camp. The girls, who were peering out of the door, were certainly
+glad to see us.
+
+"But where's your 'mad' fox?" we asked.
+
+"He's round here somewhere. He really is," Kate protested earnestly. "We
+heard him only a little while ago."
+
+Thereupon, while the girls implored us to be careful, we began to search
+about by lantern light. At last we heard a low wheezing noise near the
+old dam. On bringing the lantern nearer we finally caught sight of an
+animal behind the logs. It was a fox surely enough, and it acted as if
+it were disabled or dying. While Halstead and I held the lanterns,
+Addison took aim and shot the beast. Tom found a stick with a projecting
+knot that he could use as a hook, and with it he hauled the body out
+into plain view. It was a large cross-gray fox.
+
+"Boys, that skin's worth thirty dollars!" Tom exclaimed.
+
+"But I shouldn't like to be the one to skin it," Addison said. "Don't
+touch it with your hands, Tom."
+
+While the girls were telling us of the fox's strange actions we warmed
+ourselves at the fire in the camp stove, and then all set off for home,
+for by this time it was getting late and the night was growing colder.
+
+Halstead led the way with the two lanterns; Addison and I, each
+shouldering a basket of mitchella, followed; Tom, dragging the body of
+the fox with his hooked stick, came behind the girls. It was nearly
+midnight when we reached home.
+
+Tom still thought that the fox's silvery pelt ought to be saved; but the
+old Squire persuaded him not to run the risk of skinning the creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+WHEN BEARS WERE DENNING UP
+
+
+Despite the hard times and low prices, the old Squire determined to go
+on with his lumber business that winter; and as more teams were needed
+for work at his logging camp in the woods, he bought sixteen
+work-horses, from Prince Edward Island. They had come by steamer to
+Portland; and the old Squire, with two hired men, went down to get them.
+He and the men drove six of them home, hitched to a new express wagon,
+and led the other ten behind.
+
+The horses were great, docile creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs
+as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to
+shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow.
+Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and
+tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds
+apiece. Each horse had its name, age, and weight on a tag. I still
+remember some of the names. There was Duncan, Ducie, Trube, Lill, Skibo,
+Sally, Prince, and one called William-le-Bon.
+
+They reached us in October, but we were several weeks getting them
+paired in spans and ready to go up into the woods for the winter's work.
+
+The first snow that fall caught us in the midst of "housing-time," but
+fine weather followed it, so that we were able to finish our farmwork
+and get ready for winter.
+
+Housing-time! How many memories of late fall at the old farm cling to
+that word! It is one of those homely words that dictionary makers have
+overlooked, and refers to those two or three weeks when you are making
+everything snug at the farm for freezing weather and winter snow; when
+you bring the sheep and young cattle home from the pasture, do the last
+fall ploughing, and dig the last rows of potatoes; when you bank
+sawdust, dead leaves or boughs round the barns and the farmhouse; when
+you get firewood under cover, and screw on storm windows and hang storm
+doors. It is a busy time in Maine, where you must prepare for a long
+winter and for twenty degrees below zero.
+
+At last we were ready to start up to the logging camp with the sixteen
+horses. We hitched three spans of them to a scoot that had wide, wooden
+shoes, and that was loaded high with bags of grain, harnesses, peavies,
+shovels, axes, and chains. The other ten horses we led behind by
+halters.
+
+Asa Doane, one of our hired men at the farm, drove the three spans on
+the scoot; Addison and I sat on the load behind and held the halters of
+the led horses. We had often taken horses into the woods in that way,
+and expected to have no trouble this time; although these horses were
+young, they were not high-spirited or mettlesome. We started at
+daybreak, and expected, if all went well, to reach the first of the two
+lumber camps by nine o'clock that evening.
+
+We had a passenger with us--an eccentric old hunter named Tommy Goss,
+with his traps and gun. He had come to the farm the previous night, on
+his way up to his trapping grounds beyond the logging camps, and as his
+pack was heavy, he was glad of a lift on the scoot. Tommy was a queer,
+reticent old man; I wanted him to tell me about his trapping, but could
+get scarcely a word from him. We were pretty busy with our horses,
+however, for it is not easy to manage so many halters.
+
+The air was very frosty and sharp in the early morning; but when the sun
+came up from a mild, yellow, eastern sky, we felt a little warmer. Not a
+breath of wind stirred the tree tops. The leaves had already fallen, and
+lay in a dense, damp carpet throughout the forest; the song birds had
+gone, and the woods seemed utterly quiet. When a red squirrel
+"chickered" at a distance, or when a partridge whirred up, the sound
+fell startlingly loud on the air.
+
+There was, indeed, something almost ominous in the stillness of the
+morning. As we entered the spruce woods beyond the bushy clearing of the
+Old Slave's Farm, Addison cast his eye southward, and remarked that
+there was a "snow bank" rising in the sky. Turning, we saw a long,
+leaden, indeterminate cloud. It was then about nine o'clock in the
+morning.
+
+By ten o'clock the cloud had hidden the sun, and by noon the entire sky
+had grown dark. The first breath of the oncoming storm stirred the
+trees, and we felt a piercing chill in the air. Then fine "spits" of
+snow began to fall.
+
+"It's coming," Addison said; "but I guess we can get up to camp. We can
+follow the trail if it does storm."
+
+At the touch of the snow, the coats of the horses ruffled up, and they
+stepped sluggishly. Asa had to chirrup constantly to the six ahead, and
+those behind lagged at their halters. The storm increased and we got on
+slowly. By four o'clock it had grown dark.
+
+Suddenly the horses pricked their ears uneasily, and one of them
+snorted. We were ascending a rocky, wooded valley between Saddleback
+Mountain and the White Birch Hills. The horses continued to show signs
+of uneasiness, and presently sounds of a tremendous commotion came from
+the side of the hills a little way ahead. It sounded as if a terrific
+fight between wild animals was in progress. The horses had stopped
+short, snorting.
+
+"What's broke loose?" Addison exclaimed. "Must be bears."
+
+"Uh-huh!" old Tommy assented. "Tham's b'ars. Sounds like as if one b'ar
+had come along to another b'ar's den and was tryin' to git in and drive
+tother one out. B'ars is dennin' to-night, and tham as has put off
+lookin' up a den till now is runnin' round in a hurry to get in
+somewhars out of the snow.
+
+"A b'ar's allus ugly when he's out late, lookin' for a den," the old
+trapper went on. "A b'ar hates snow on his toes. Only time of year when
+I'm afraid of a b'ar is when he is jest out of his den in the spring,
+and when he's huntin' fer a den in a snowstorm."
+
+Addison and I were crying, "Whoa!" and trying to hold those ten horses.
+Asa was similarly engaged with his six on the scoot. Every instant, too,
+the sounds were coming nearer, and a moment later two large animals
+appeared ahead of us in the stormy obscurity. One was chasing the other,
+and was striking him with his paw; their snarls and roars were terrific.
+
+We caught only a glimpse of them. Then all sixteen of the horses bolted
+at once. Asa could not hold his six. They whirled off the trail and ran
+down among the trees toward a brook that we could hear brawling in the
+bed of the ravine. They took the scoot with them, and in wild confusion
+our ten led horses followed madly after them. Bags, harnesses, axes, and
+shovels flew off the scoot. Halters crossed and crisscrossed. I was
+pulled off the load, and came near being trodden on by the horses
+behind. I could not see what had become of old Tommy or the bears.
+
+Still hanging to his reins, Asa had jumped from the scoot. Addison, too,
+still clinging to his five halters, had leaped off. Before I got clear,
+two horses bounded over me. The three spans on the scoot dashed down the
+slope, but brought up abruptly on different sides of a tree. Some of
+them were thrown down, and the others floundered over them. Two broke
+away and ran with the led horses. It was a rough place, littered with
+large rocks and fallen trees. In their panic the horses floundered over
+those, but a little farther down came on a bare, shelving ledge that
+overhung the brook. Probably they could not see where they were going,
+or else those behind shoved the foremost off the brink; at any rate, six
+of the horses went headlong down into the rocky bed of the torrent,
+whence instantly arose heart-rending squeals of pain.
+
+It had all happened so suddenly that we could not possibly have
+prevented it. In fact, we had no more than picked ourselves up from
+among the snowy logs and stones when they were down in the brook. Those
+that had not gone over the ledge were galloping away down the valley.
+
+"Goodness! What will the old Squire say to this?" were Addison's first
+words.
+
+After a search, we found a lantern under a heap of bags and harness. It
+was cracked, but Asa succeeded in lighting it; and about the first
+object I saw with any distinctness was old Tommy, doubled up behind a
+tree.
+
+"Are you hurt?" Addison called to him.
+
+"Wal, I vum, I dunno!" the old man grunted. "Wa'n't that a rib-h'ister!"
+
+Concluding that there was not much the matter with him, we hastened down
+to the brook. There hung one horse--William-le-Bon--head downward,
+pawing on the stones in the brook with his fore hoofs. He had caught his
+left hind leg in the crotch of a yellow birch-tree that grew at the foot
+of the ledges. In the brook lay Sally, with a broken foreleg. Beyond her
+was Duncan, dead; he had broken his neck. Lill was cast between two big
+stones; and she, too, had broken her leg. Moaning dolefully, Prince
+floundered near by. Another horse had got to his feet; he was dragging
+one leg, which seemed to be out of joint or broken.
+
+Meanwhile the storm swirled and eddied. We did not know what to do. Asa
+declared that it was useless to try to save Prince, and with a blow of
+the axe he put him out of his misery. Then, while I held the lantern, he
+and Addison cut the birch-tree in which William-le-Bon hung. The poor
+animal struggled so violently at times that they had no easy task of it;
+but at last the tree fell over, and we got the horse's leg free. It was
+broken, however, and he could not get up.
+
+As to the others, it was hard to say, there in the night and storm, what
+we ought to do for them. In the woods a horse with a broken leg is
+little better than dead, and in mercy is usually put out of its misery.
+We knew that the four horses lying there were very seriously injured,
+and Asa thought that we ought to put an end to their sufferings. But
+Addison and I could not bring ourselves to kill them, and we went to ask
+Tommy's advice.
+
+The old man was pottering about the scoot, trying to recover his traps
+and gun. He hobbled down to the brink of the chasm and peered over at
+the disabled animals; but "I vum, I dunno," was all that we could get
+from him in the way of advice.
+
+At last we brought the horse blankets from the scoot and put them over
+the suffering creatures to protect them from the storm. In their efforts
+to get up, however, the animals thrashed about constantly, and the
+blankets did not shelter them much. We had no idea where the horses were
+that had run away.
+
+At last, about midnight, we set off afoot up the trail to the nearest
+lumber camp. Asa led the way with the lantern, and old Tommy followed
+behind us with his precious traps. The camp was nearly six miles away;
+it proved a hard, dismal tramp, for now the snow was seven or eight
+inches deep. We reached the camp between two and three o'clock in the
+morning, and roused Andrews, the foreman, and his crew of loggers. Never
+was warm shelter more welcome to us.
+
+At daybreak the next morning it was still snowing, but Andrews and eight
+of his men went back with us. The horses still lay there in the snow in
+a pitiful plight; we all agreed that it was better to end their
+sufferings as quickly as possible.
+
+We then went in search of the runaways, and after some time found them
+huddled together in a swamp of thick firs about two miles down the
+trail. We captured them without trouble and led them back to the scoot,
+which we reloaded and sent on up to camp with Asa. Addison and I put
+bridles on two of the horses,--Ducie and Skibo,--and rode home to the
+farm.
+
+It was dark when we got home, and no one heard us arrive. After we had
+put up the horses, we went into the house with our dismal tidings. The
+old Squire was at his little desk in the sitting-room, looking over his
+season's accounts.
+
+"You go in and tell him," Addison said to me.
+
+I dreaded to do it, but at last opened the door and stole in.
+
+"Ah, my son," the old gentleman said, looking up, "so you are back."
+
+"Yes, sir," said I, "but--but we've had trouble, sir, terrible trouble."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
+
+"We've had a dreadful time. Some bears came out ahead of us and scared
+the horses!" I blurted out. "And we've lost six of them! They ran off
+the ledges into Saddleback brook and broke their legs. We had to kill
+them."
+
+The old Squire jumped to his feet with a look of distress on his face.
+Addison now came into the room, and helped me to give a more coherent
+account of what had happened.
+
+After his first exclamation of dismay, the old Squire sat down and heard
+our story to the end. Naturally, he felt very badly, for the accident
+had cost him at least a thousand dollars. He did not reproach us,
+however.
+
+"I have only myself to blame," he said. "It is a bad way of taking
+horses into the woods--leading so many of them together. I have always
+felt that it was risky. They ought to go separate, with a driver for
+every span. This must be a lesson for the future."
+
+"It is an ill wind that blows no one any good," says the proverb. Our
+disaster proved a bonanza to old Tommy Goss; he set his traps there all
+winter, near the frozen bodies of the horses, and caught marten,
+fishers, mink, "lucivees," and foxes by the dozen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+CZAR BRENCH
+
+
+The loss of Master Joel Pierson as our teacher at the district school
+the following winter, was the greatest disappointment of the year. We
+had anticipated all along that he was coming back, and I think he had
+intended to do so; but an offer of seventy-five dollars a month--more
+than double what our small district could pay--to teach a village school
+in an adjoining county, robbed us of his invaluable services; for
+Pierson was at that time working his way through college and could not
+afford to lose so good an opportunity to add to his resources during the
+winter vacation.
+
+We did not learn this till the week before school was to begin; and when
+his letter to Addison reached us, explaining why he could not come,
+there were heart-felt lamentations at the old Squire's and at the
+Edwards farm.
+
+I really think that the old Squire would have made up the difference in
+wages to Master Pierson from his own purse; but the offer to go to the
+larger school had already been accepted.
+
+As several of the older boys of our own district school had become
+somewhat unruly--including Newman Darnley, Alf Batchelder and, I grieve
+to say, our cousin Halstead--the impression prevailed that the school
+needed a "straightener." Looking about therefore at such short notice,
+the school agent was led to hire a master, widely noted as a
+disciplinarian, named Nathaniel Brench, who for years had borne the
+nickname of "Czar" Brench, owing to his autocratic and cruel methods of
+school government.
+
+I remember vividly that morning in November, the first day of school,
+when Czar Brench walked into the old schoolhouse, glanced smilingly
+round, and laid his package of books and his ruler, a heavy one, on the
+master's desk; then, coming forward to the box stove in the middle of
+the floor, he warmed his hands at the stovepipe. Such a big man! Six
+feet three in his socks, bony, broad-shouldered, with long arms and big
+hands.
+
+He wore a rather high-crowned, buff-colored felt hat. Light buff,
+indeed, seemed to be his chosen color, for he wore a buff coat, buff
+vest and buff trousers. Moreover, his hair, his bushy eyebrows and his
+short, thin moustache were sandy.
+
+Beaming on us with his smiling blue eyes, he rubbed his hands gently as
+he warmed them.
+
+"I hope we are going to have a pleasant term of school together," he
+said, in a tone as soft as silk. "And it will not be my fault if we
+don't have a real quiet, nice time."
+
+We learned later that it was his custom always to begin school with a
+beautiful speech of honeyed words--the calm before the storm.
+
+"Of course we have to have order in the schoolroom," he said
+apologetically. "I confess that I like to have the room orderly, and
+that I do not like to hear whispering in study hours. When the scholars
+go out and come in at recess time, too, it sort of disturbs me to have
+crowding and noise. I never wish to be hard or unreasonable with my
+scholars--I never am, if I can avoid it. But these little things, as you
+all know, have to be mentioned sometimes, if we are going to have a
+really pleasant and profitable term.
+
+"There is another thing that always make me feel nervous in school
+hours, and that is buzzing with the lips while you are getting your
+lessons, I don't like to speak about it, and there may be no need for
+it, but lips buzzing in study hours always make me feel queer. It's just
+as easy to get your lessons with your eyes as with your lips, and for
+the sake of my feelings I hope you will try to do so.
+
+"Speaking of lessons," he went on, "I don't believe in giving long ones.
+I always liked short, easy lessons myself, and I suppose you do."
+
+In point of fact he gave the longest, hardest lessons of any teacher we
+ever had! We had to put in three or four hours of hard study every
+evening in order to keep up; and if we failed--
+
+By this time some of the larger boys--Newman Darnley, Ben Murch, Absum
+Glinds and Melzar Tibbetts--were smiling broadly and winking at one
+another. The new master, they thought, was "dead easy."
+
+Later in the morning, when the bell rang for the boys to come in from
+their recess, Newman and many of the others pushed in at the doorway,
+pell-mell, as usual. Before they were fairly inside the room the new
+master, calm and smiling, stood before them. One of his long arms shot
+out; he collared Newman and, with a trip of the foot, flung him on the
+floor. Ben Murch, coming next, landed on top of Newman. Alfred
+Batchelder, Ephraim Darnley, Absum Glinds, Melzar Tibbetts and my
+cousin, Halstead, followed Ben, till with incredible suddenness nine of
+the boys, all almost men-grown, were piled in a squirming heap on the
+floor!
+
+Filled with awe, we smaller boys stole in to our seats, casting
+frightened glances at the teacher, who stood beaming genially at the
+heap of boys on the floor.
+
+"Lie still, lie still," he said, as some of the boys at the bottom of
+the pile struggled to get out. "Lie still. I suppose you forgot that it
+disturbs me to have crowding and loud trampling. Try and remember that
+it disturbs me."
+
+Turning away, he said, "The girls may now have their recess."
+
+To this day I remember just how those terrified girls stole out from the
+schoolroom. Not until they had come in from their recess and had taken
+their seats did Master Brench again turn his attention to the pile of
+boys. He walked round it with his face wreathed in smiles.
+
+"Like as not that floor is hard," he remarked. "It has just come into my
+mind. I'm afraid you're not wholly comfortable. Rise quietly, brush one
+another, and take your seats. It grieves me to think how hard that floor
+must be."
+
+There were at that time about sixty-five pupils in our district, ranging
+in size and age from little four-year-olds, just learning the alphabet,
+to young men and women twenty years of age. It was impossible that so
+many young persons could be gathered in a room without some shuffling of
+feet and some noise with books and slates. Moreover, boys and girls
+unused to study for nine months of the year are not always able at first
+to con lessons without unconsciously and audibly moving their lips.
+
+Buzzing lips, however, were among the seven "deadly sins" under the
+regime of Czar Brench. Dropping a book or a slate, wriggling about in
+your seat, whispering to a seatmate, sitting idly without seeming to
+study and not knowing your lesson reasonably well were other grave
+offenses.
+
+Because of the length of the lessons, there were frequently failures in
+class; the punishment for that was to stand facing the school, and study
+the lesson diligently, feverishly, until you knew it. There were few
+afternoons that term when three or four pupils were not out there, madly
+studying to avoid remaining after school. For no one knew what would
+happen if you were left there alone with Czar Brench!
+
+He seemed to care for little except order and strict discipline. He used
+to take off his boots and, putting on an old pair of carpet slippers,
+walk softly up and down the room, leisurely swinging his ruler. First
+and last that winter he feruled nearly all of us boys and several of the
+girls. "Little love pats to assist memory," he used to say, as he
+brought his ruler down on the palms of our hands.
+
+Feruling with the ruler was for ordinary, miscellaneous offenses; but
+Czar Brench had more picturesque punishments for the six or seven
+"deadly sins." If you dropped a book, he would instantly cry, "Pick up
+that book and fetch it to me!" Then, when you came forward, he would
+say, "Take it in your right hand. Face the school. Hold it out straight,
+full stretch, and keep it there till I tell you to lower it."
+
+Oh, how heavy that book soon got to be! And when Czar Brench calmly went
+on hearing lessons and apparently forgot you there, the discomfort soon
+became torture. Your arm would droop lower and lower, until Czar
+Brench's eye would fall on you, and he would say quietly, "Straight out,
+there!"
+
+There were many terribly tired arms at our school that winter!
+
+But holding books at arm's length was a far milder penalty than "sitting
+on nothing," which was Czar Brench's specially devised punishment for
+those who shuffled uneasily on those hard old benches during study
+hours.
+
+"Aha, there, my boy!" he would cry. "If you cannot sit still on that
+bench, come right out here and sit on nothing."
+
+Setting a stool against the wall, he would order the pupil to sit down
+on it with his back pressing against the wall. Then he would remove the
+stool, leaving the offender in a sitting posture, with his back to the
+wall and his knees flexed. By the time the victim had been there ten
+minutes, he wished never to repeat the experience. I know whereof I
+speak, for I "sat on nothing" three times that winter.
+
+Czar Brench's most picturesque, not to say bizarre, punishment was for
+buzzing lips. Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very
+likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that
+schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master's ear.
+
+"Didn't I hear a buzzer then?" he would ask in his softest tone, raising
+his finger to point to the offender. "Ah, yes. It is--it is _you_! Come
+out here. Those lips need a lesson."
+
+The lesson consisted in your standing, facing the school, with your
+mouth propped open. The props were of wood, and were one or two inches
+long, for small or large "buzzers."
+
+I remember one day when six boys--and I believe one girl--stood facing
+the school with their mouths propped open at full stretch, each gripping
+a book and trying to study! Inveterate "buzzers"--those who had been
+called out two or three times--had not only to face the school with
+props in their mouths but to mount and stand on top of the master's
+desk.
+
+If Czar Brench had not been so big and strong, the older boys would no
+doubt have rebelled and perhaps carried him out of the schoolhouse,
+which was the early New England method of getting rid of an unpopular
+schoolmaster. None of the boys, however, dared raise a finger against
+him, and he ruled his little kingdom as an absolute monarch. At last,
+however, towards the close of the term, some one dared to defy him--and
+it was not one of the big boys, but our youthful neighbor Catherine
+Edwards.
+
+That afternoon Czar Brench had put a prop in Rufus Darnley, Jr.'s mouth.
+Rufus was only twelve years old and by no means one of the bright boys
+of the school. He stuttered in speech, and, being dull, had to study
+very hard to get his lessons. Every day or two he forgot his lips and
+"buzzed." I think he had stood on the master's desk four or five times
+that term.
+
+It was a high desk; and that afternoon Rufus, trying to study up there,
+with his mouth propped open, lost his balance and fell to the floor in
+front of the desk. In falling, the prop was knocked out of his mouth.
+
+At the crash Czar Brench, who had been hearing the grammar class with
+his back to Rufus, turned. I think he thought that Rufus had jumped
+down; for, fearing the teacher's wrath, the frightened boy scrambled to
+his feet and, with a cry, started to run out of school.
+
+With one long stride the master had him by the arm. "I don't quite know
+what I shall do to you," he said, as he brought the boy back.
+
+He shook Rufus until the little fellow's teeth chattered and his eyes
+rolled; and while he shook him, he seemed to be reflecting what new
+punishment he could devise for this rebellious attempt.
+
+To the utter amazement of us all, Catherine, who was sitting directly in
+front of them, suddenly spoke out.
+
+"Mr. Brench," she cried, "you are a hard, cruel man!"
+
+The master was so astounded that he let go of Rufus and stared down at
+her. "Stand up!" he commanded, no longer in his soft tone, but in a
+terrible voice.
+
+Catherine stood up promptly, unflinching; her eyes, blazing with
+indignation, looked squarely into his.
+
+"Let me see your hand," he said.
+
+Instead of one hand, Catherine instantly thrust out both, under his very
+nose.
+
+"Ferule me!" she cried. "Ferule both my hands, Mr. Brench! Ferule me all
+you want to! I don't care how hard you strike! But you are a bad, cruel
+man, and I hate you!"
+
+Still holding the ruler, Czar Brench gazed at her for some moments in
+silence; he seemed almost dazed.
+
+"You are the first scholar that ever spoke to me like that," he said at
+last. A singular expression had come into his face; he was having a new
+experience. For another full minute he stared down at the girl, but he
+apparently had no longer any thought of feruling her.
+
+"Take your seat," he said to her at last; and, after sending the still
+trembling Rufus to his seat, he dismissed the grammar class.
+
+Nothing out of the ordinary happened afterwards. There were but three
+weeks more of school, and the term ended about as usual.
+
+The school agent and certain of the parents in the district who believed
+in the importance of rigid discipline wished to have Czar Brench teach
+there another winter; but for some reason he declined to return. At the
+old Squire's we thought that it was, perhaps, because he had failed to
+conquer Catherine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+WHEN OLD PEG LED THE FLOCK
+
+
+During the fifth week of school there was an enforced vacation of three
+or four days, over Sunday, while the school committee were investigating
+certain complaints of abusive punishment, against Master Brench.
+
+The complaints were from numbers of the parents, and concerned putting
+those props in pupils' mouths to abolish "buzzing" of the lips, while
+studying their lessons; and also complaints about "sitting on nothing,"
+said to be injurious to the spine. The affair did not much concern us
+young folks at the old Squire's. Indeed, we did not much care for the
+school that winter. Master Brench's attention was chiefly directed to
+keeping order and devising punishments for violations of school
+discipline. School studies appeared to be of minor importance with him.
+
+It was on Tuesday of that week, while we were at home, that the
+following incident occurred.
+
+Owing to our long winters, sheep raising, in Maine, has often been an
+uncertain business. But at the old Squire's we usually kept a flock of
+eighty or a hundred. They often brought us no real profit, but
+grandmother Ruth was an old-fashioned housewife who would have felt
+herself bereaved if she had had no woolen yarn for socks and bed
+blankets.
+
+The sheep were already at the barn for the winter; it was the 12th of
+December, though as yet we had had no snow that remained long on the
+ground. We were cutting firewood out in the lot that day and came in at
+noon with good appetites, for the air was sharp.
+
+While we sat at table a stranger drove up. He said that his name was
+Morey, and that he was stocking a farm which he had recently bought in
+the town of Lovell, nineteen or twenty miles west of our place.
+
+"I want to buy a flock of sheep," he said. "I have called to see if you
+have any to sell."
+
+"Well, perhaps," the old Squire replied, for that was one of the years
+when wool was low priced. As he and Morey went out to the west barn
+where the sheep were kept, grandmother Ruth looked disturbed.
+
+"You go out and tell your grandfather not to sell those sheep," she said
+after a few minutes to Addison and me. "Tell him not to price them."
+
+Addison and I went out, but we arrived too late. Mr. Morey and the old
+Squire were standing by the yard bars, looking at the sheep, and as we
+came up the stranger said:
+
+"Now, about how much would you take for this flock--you to drive them
+over to my place in Lovell?"
+
+Before either Addison or I could pass on grandmother Ruth's admonition,
+the old Squire had replied smilingly, "Well, I'd take five dollars a
+head for them."
+
+As a matter of fact, the old gentleman had not really intended to sell
+the sheep; he had not thought that the man would pay that price for
+them, because it was now only the beginning of winter, and the sheep
+would have to be fed at the barn for nearly six months.
+
+But to the old Squire's surprise Mr. Morey, with as little ado as if he
+were buying a pair of shoes, said, "Very well. I will take them."
+
+Drawing out his pocketbook, he handed the old Squire ten new
+fifty-dollar bills and asked whether we could conveniently drive the
+sheep over to his farm on the following day. In fact, before the old
+Squire had more than counted the money, Mr. Morey had said good-day and
+had driven off.
+
+Just what grandmother Ruth said when the old gentleman went in to put
+the bills away in his desk, we boys never knew; but for a long time
+thereafter the sale of the sheep was a sore subject at the old farm.
+
+The transaction was not yet complete, however, for we still had to
+deliver the sheep to their new owner. At six o'clock the following
+morning Halstead, Addison and I set out to drive them to Lovell. The old
+Squire had been up since three o'clock, feeding the flock with hay and
+provender for the drive; he told us that he would follow later in the
+day with a team to bring us home after our long walk. The girls put us
+up luncheons in little packages, which we stowed in our pockets.
+
+It was still dark when we started. The previous day had been clear, but
+the sky had clouded during the night. It was raw and chilly, with a feel
+of snow in the air. The sheep felt it; they were sluggish and unwilling
+to leave the barn. Finally, however, we got them down the lane and out
+on the hard-frozen highway; Halstead ran ahead, shaking the salt dish;
+Addison and I, following after, hustled the laggards along.
+
+The leader of our flock was a large brock-faced ewe called Old Peg. She
+was known to be at least eleven years old, which is a venerable age for
+a sheep. She raised twin lambs every spring and was, indeed, a kind of
+flock mother, for many of the sheep were either her children or her
+grandchildren. Wherever the flock went, she took the lead and set the
+pace.
+
+So long as we kept Old Peg following Halstead and the salt dish, the
+rest of the sheep scampered after, and we got on well.
+
+We had gone scarcely more than a mile when, owing to a too hasty
+breakfast, or the morning chill, Halstead was taken with cramps. He was
+never a very strong boy and had always been subject to such ailments. We
+had to leave him at a wayside farmhouse--the Sylvester place--to be
+dosed with hot ginger tea. At last, after losing half an hour there, we
+went on without him; Addison now shook the salt dish ahead, and I,
+brandishing a long stick, kept stragglers from lagging in the rear.
+
+Three persons are needed to drive a flock of a hundred sheep; but we saw
+no way except to go on and do the best we could. Now that it was light,
+the sky looked as if a storm were at hand.
+
+The storm did not reach us until nearly eleven o'clock, however; we had
+got as far as the town of Albany before the first flakes began to fall.
+Then Old Peg made trouble. Leaving the barn and going off so far was
+against all her ideas of propriety, and now that a snowstorm had set in
+she was certain that something or other was wrong. She looked this way
+and that, sometimes turning completely round to look at the road.
+Presently she made a bolt off to the left and, jumping a stone wall,
+tried to circle back through a field. Part of the flock immediately
+followed, and we had a lively race to head her off and start her along
+the road again.
+
+Addison abandoned the salt dish,--it was no longer attractive to the
+sheep,--and helped me to drive the flock. At every cross road Peg seemed
+bent on taking the wrong turn. In spite of the cold she kept us in a
+perspiration, and we did not have time even to eat the luncheon that we
+had brought in our pockets. Old Peg's one idea was to lead the flock
+home to the old farm.
+
+By hard work we kept the sheep going in the right direction until after
+three o'clock in the afternoon. By that time four or five inches of snow
+had fallen. It whitened the whole country and loaded the fleeces of the
+sheep. The flock had begun to lag, and the younger sheep were bleating
+plaintively. We were getting worried, for the storm was increasing, and
+as nearly as Addison could remember we had six miles farther to go. It
+would soon be night; the forests that here bordered the road were
+darkening already. We had no idea how we should get the flock on after
+dark.
+
+Old Peg soon took the matter out of our hands. She had been plodding on
+moodily at the head of her large family for half an hour or more, and
+coming at length to a dim cross road that entered the highway from the
+woods on the north side, she turned and started up it at a headlong run.
+
+How she ran! And how the flock streamed after her! How we ran, too, to
+head her off and turn her back! Addison dashed out to one side of the
+narrow forest road and I to the other. But there was brush and swamp on
+both sides. Neither of us could catch up with Old Peg. Stumbling through
+the snowy thickets, we tried to get past her half a dozen times, but she
+still kept ahead.
+
+She must have gone a mile. When she at last emerged into an opening, we
+saw, looming dimly through the storm and the fast-gathering dusk, a
+large, weathered barn, with its great doors standing open.
+
+"Well, let her go, confound her!" Addison exclaimed, panting.
+
+Quite out of breath, we gave up the chase and fell behind. Old Peg never
+stopped until she was inside that barn. When we caught up with the rout,
+she had her flock about her on the barn floor.
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well to let them stay overnight here," Addison
+said after we had looked round.
+
+Thirty or forty yards farther along the road stood a low, dark house,
+with the door hanging awry and half the glass in the two front windows
+broken. Evidently it was a deserted farm. From appearances, no one had
+lived there for years. But some one had stored a quantity of hay in the
+mow beside the barn floor; the sheep were already nibbling at it.
+
+"I don't know whose hay this is," Addison said, "but the sheep must be
+fed. The old Squire or Mr. Morey can look up the owners and settle for
+it afterwards."
+
+We strewed armfuls of the hay over the barn floor and let the hungry
+creatures help themselves. Then we shut the barn doors and went to the
+old house.
+
+Every one knows what a cheerless, forbidding place a deserted house is
+by night. The partly open door stuck fast; but we squeezed in, and
+Addison struck a match. One low room occupied most of the interior;
+there was a fireplace, but so much snow had come down the large chimney
+that the prospect of having a fire there was poor. As in many old
+farmhouses, there was a brick oven close beside the fireplace.
+
+"Maybe we can light a fire in the oven," Addison said, and after
+breaking up several old boards we did succeed in kindling a blaze there.
+The dreary place was not a little enlivened by the firelight. We stood
+before it, warmed our fingers and munched the cold meat, doughnuts and
+cheese that the girls had put up for us.
+
+But the smoke had disturbed a family of owls in the chimney. Their
+dismal whooping and chortling, heard in the gloom of the night and the
+storm, were uncanny to say the least. I wanted to go back to the barn,
+with the sheep; but Addison was more matter-of-fact.
+
+"Oh, let them hoot!" he said. "I am going to stay here and have a fire,
+if I can find anything to burn."
+
+While poking about at the far end of the room for more boards to break
+up, he found a battered old wardrobe with double doors and called to me
+to help him drag it in front of the oven.
+
+"Going to smash that?" I asked.
+
+"No, going to sleep in it," said he. "We'll set it up slantwise before
+the fire, open the doors and lie down in it. I've a notion that it will
+keep us warm, even if it isn't very soft."
+
+The wardrobe was about four feet wide, and, after propping up the top
+end at an easy slant, we lay down in it, and took turns getting up to
+replenish the blaze in the oven. It was not wholly uncomfortable; but
+any sense of ease that I had begun to feel was banished by a suspicion
+that Addison now confided to me.
+
+"I don't certainly know what place this is," he said, "but I'm beginning
+to think that it must be the old Jim Cronin farm. I've heard that it's
+over in this vicinity, away off in the woods by itself. If that's so,"
+Addison went on, "nobody has lived here for eight or nine years. Cronin,
+you know, kept his wife shut up down cellar for a year or two, because
+she tried to run away from him. Finally she disappeared, and a good many
+thought that Cronin murdered her. Folks say the old house is haunted,
+but that's all moonshine. Cronin himself enlisted and was killed in the
+Civil War. By the way those owls carry on up the chimney I guess nobody
+ever comes here."
+
+That account quite destroyed my peace of mind. I would much rather have
+gone out with the sheep, but I did not like to leave Addison. I got up
+and searched for more fuel, for I could not bear to think of letting the
+fire go out. No loose boards remained except an old cleated door partly
+off its hinges, which opened on a flight of dark stairs that led into
+the cellar. We broke up the door and took turns again tending the fire.
+
+"Oh, well, this isn't so bad," Addison said. "But I wonder what the old
+Squire will think when he gets to Morey's place with the team and finds
+that we haven't come. Hope he isn't out looking for us in the storm."
+
+That thought was disquieting; but there was nothing we could do about
+it, and so we resigned ourselves to pass the night as best we could. The
+owls still hooted and chortled at times, but their noise did not greatly
+disturb us now. After a while I dropped off to sleep, and I guess
+Addison did, too.
+
+It was probably well toward morning when a cry like a loud shriek
+brought me to my feet outside the old wardrobe! A single dying ember
+flickered in the oven. Addison, too, was on his feet, with his eyes very
+wide and round.
+
+"I say!" he whispered. "What was that?"
+
+Before I could speak we heard it again; but this time, now that we were
+awake, it sounded less like a human shriek than the shrill yelp of an
+animal. The sounds came from directly under us; and for the instant all
+I could think of was Cronin's murdered wife!
+
+Addison had turned to stare at the dark cellar doorway, when we heard it
+yet again--a wild staccato yelp, prolonged and quavering.
+
+"There must be a wolf or a fox down there!" Addison muttered and picked
+up a loose brick from the fireplace.
+
+He started to throw it down the cellar stairs, when three or four yelps
+burst forth at once, followed by a rumble and clatter below, as if a
+number of animals were running madly round, and then by the ugliest,
+most savage growl that ever came to my ears!
+
+Addison stopped short. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "That's some big
+beast. Sounds like a bear! He'll be up here in a minute! Quick, help me
+stand this wardrobe in front of the doorway!"
+
+He seized it on one side, I on the other, and between us we quickly
+stood that heavy piece of furniture up against the dark opening. Then,
+while I held it in place, Addison propped it fast with the door from the
+foot of the chamber stairs, which with one wrench he tore from its
+hinges.
+
+It was evidently foxes, or bears, or both; but how they had got into the
+cellar was not clear. We started the fire blazing again and, standing in
+front of it, listened to the uproar. At times we heard yelps in the
+storm outside, at the back of the house, and decided that there must be
+some other way than the stairs of getting into the cellar.
+
+After a while it began to grow light. Snow was still falling, but not so
+fast. The commotion below had quieted, but we heard a fox barking
+outside and from the back window caught sight of the animal moving about
+in the snow, holding up first one foot then another. Farther away, among
+the bushes of the clearing, stood another fox; and, still farther off in
+the woods, a third was barking querulously. Tracks in the snow led to a
+large hole under the sill of the house where a part of the cellar wall
+had caved in.
+
+"But there's a bear or some other large animal down cellar," Addison
+said. "You watch here at the window."
+
+He got a brick and, pulling the old wardrobe aside, flung it down the
+stairs and yelled. Instantly there was a clatter below, and out from the
+hole under the sill bounded a big black animal, evidently a bear, and
+loped away through the snow.
+
+We could now pretty well account for the nocturnal uproar. Bears
+hibernate in winter, but are often out until the first snows come. The
+storm had probably surprised this one while he was still roaming about,
+and he had hastily searched for a den.
+
+The storm had abated, and we decided to start for Lovell at once. We
+gave the sheep a foddering of hay and then got the flock outdoors. Old
+Peg was very loath to leave the barn, and we had to drag her out by main
+strength. Addison went ahead and tramped a path in the deep snow.
+Finding that there was no help for it, Old Peg followed, and the flock
+trailed after her in a woolly file several hundred feet long.
+Flourishing my stick and shouting loudly, I urged on the rear of the
+procession.
+
+In less than half an hour we met the old Squire with the team and two
+men from the Morey farm. The old gentleman had arrived there about six
+o'clock the night before and had been worried as to what had become of
+us. He must have passed the place where Old Peg had bolted up the road
+not long after we were there; but it was already so dark that he had not
+seen our snow-covered tracks.
+
+"Well, well, boys, you must have had a hard time of it!" were his first
+words. "Where did you pass the night?"
+
+"At the old Cronin farm, I guess," Addison replied.
+
+"That lonesome place!" the old Squire exclaimed.
+
+"It _was_ slightly lonesome," Addison admitted dryly.
+
+"Did you see a ghost?" one of the men asked with a grin.
+
+"Not a white one," Addison replied. "But we saw something pretty big and
+black. There were owls in the chimney and foxes in the cellar--also a
+bear. I guess that's all the ghost there is. But there's a hay bill for
+somebody to pay; about three hundredweight, I think."
+
+From there on, with the men to help us, we made better progress, and
+before noon we had delivered the flock to its new owner. The warm dinner
+that we ate at the Morey farm tasted mighty good to Addison and me.
+
+We never saw Peg again; but before the winter had passed, the old Squire
+bought another small flock of sheep from a neighbor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WITCHES' BROOMS
+
+
+The school committee finally decided that Master Brench's curious
+methods of punishment were not actually dangerous. He was advised,
+however, to discontinue them; and school went on again Monday morning.
+Six or seven of the older boys refused to come back; but the old Squire
+thought we would better attend, for example's sake, if for no other
+reason, and we did so. During Christmas week, however, we were out
+several days, on account of an order for Christmas trees which had come
+up to us from Portland. I still remember that order distinctly. It ran
+as follows:
+
+"Bring us one large Christmas tree, a balsam fir, fifteen feet tall, at
+least, and wide-spreading. Do not allow the tips of the boughs or the
+end buds to get broken or rubbed off.
+
+"Bring six smaller firs, ten feet tall, to set in a half circle on each
+side of the large tree.
+
+"Bring us also a large box of 'lion's-paw,' as much as four or five
+bushels of the trailing vines. And another large box of holly, carefully
+packed in more of the same soft vines, so that the berries shall not be
+shaken off.
+
+"And, if you can find them, bring a dozen witches' brooms."
+
+The order was from the superintendent of a Sunday school at Portland.
+This was the winter after our first memorable venture in selling
+Christmas trees in the city, when we had left the two large firs that we
+could not sell on the steps of two churches. The _Eastern Argus_ had
+printed an item the next day, saying that the Sunday-school children
+wished to thank the unknown Santa Claus who had so kindly remembered
+them.
+
+I suppose we should hardly have given away those two trees if we could
+have sold them; and my cousin Addison, who was always on the lookout to
+earn a dollar, sent a note afterward to the Sunday schools of both
+churches, informing them that we should be very glad to furnish them
+with Christmas trees in future, at fair rates. Not less than five
+profitable orders came from that one gift, which did not really cost us
+anything.
+
+"What in the world are 'witches' brooms'?" Addison exclaimed, after
+reading the order. Theodora echoed the query. We had heard of witches'
+broom-sticks, but witches' brooms were clearly something new in the way
+of Christmas decorations. But what? We looked in the dictionary; no help
+there. We asked questions of older people, and got no help from them.
+Finally we went to the old Squire, who repeated the query absently,
+"Witches' brooms? Witches' brooms? Why, let me see. Aren't they those
+great dense masses of twigs you sometimes see in the tops of fir trees?
+It is a kind of tree disease, some say tree cancer. At first they are
+green, but they turn dead and dry by the second year, and may kill that
+part of the tree. Often they are as large as a bushel basket. I saw one
+once fully six feet in diameter, a dry globe of closely packed twigs."
+
+We knew what he meant now, but we had never heard those singular growths
+called "witches' brooms" before. Unlike mistletoe, the broom is not a
+plant parasite, but a growth from the fir itself, like an oak gall, or a
+gnarl on a maple or a yellow birch; but instead of being a solid growth
+on the tree trunk, it is a dense, abnormal growth of little twigs on a
+small bough of the fir, generally high up in the top.
+
+The next day we went out along the borders of the farm wood lot and cut
+the seven firs; then, thinking that there might be a sale for others, we
+got enough more to make up a load for our trip to Portland.
+
+While we were thus employed, Theodora and Ellen gathered the
+"lion's-paw," on the knolls by the border of the pasture woods; and in
+the afternoon we cut an immense bundle of holly along the wall by the
+upper field.
+
+Holly is a word of many meanings; but in Maine what is called holly is
+the winterberry, a deciduous shrub that botanists rank as a species of
+alder. The vivid red berries are very beautiful, and resemble coral.
+
+All the while we had been on the lookout for witches' brooms. In the
+swamp beyond the brook we found six, only two of which were perfect
+enough to use as decorations; at first we were a little doubtful of
+being able to fill this part of the order. There was one place, however,
+where we knew they could be found, and that was in the great fir swamp
+along Lurvey's Stream, on the way up to the hay meadows. Addison
+mentioned it at the supper table that evening; but the distance was
+fully thirteen miles; and at first we thought it hardly worth while to
+go so far for a dozen witches' brooms, for which the Sunday school would
+probably be unwilling to pay more than fifty cents apiece.
+
+"And yet," Addison remarked, "if this Sunday school wants a dozen, other
+schools may want some after they see them. What if we go up and get
+seventy-five or a hundred, and take them along with the rest of our
+load? They may sell pretty well. Listen: 'Witches' brooms for your
+Christmas tree! Very sylvan! Very odd! Something new and unique! Only
+fifty cents apiece! Buy a broom! Buy a witches' broom!'"
+
+The girls laughed. "What a peddler you would make, Ad!" Ellen cried; and
+we began to think that the venture might be worth trying.
+
+It snowed hard that night, and instead of going up the stream on the ice
+with two hand sleds, as we had at first planned, Addison and I set a
+hayrack on two traverse sleds, and with two of the work-horses drove up
+the winter road. Axes and ropes were taken, feed for the team, and food
+enough for two days.
+
+The sun had come out bright and warm; there was enough snow to make the
+sleds run easily, and we got on well until past three in the afternoon,
+when we were made aware of a very unusual change of temperature, for
+Maine in December. It grew warm rapidly; clouds overspread the sky; a
+thunderpeal rumbled suddenly. Within ten minutes a thundershower was
+falling, and almost as if by magic, all that snow melted away. We were
+left with our rack and traverse sleds, scraping and bumping over logs
+and stones. Never before or since have I seen six inches of snow go out
+of sight so suddenly. When we started, the earth was white on every
+hand, and the firs and spruces were like huge white umbrellas. In a
+single hour earth and forest were black again.
+
+But matters more practical than scenery engaged our attention. It was
+eight miles farther to the fir swamp. The good sledding had vanished
+with the snow; every hole and hollow was full of water; it was hard to
+get on with our team; and for a time we hardly knew what course to
+follow.
+
+On a branch trail, about half a mile off the winter road, there was
+another camp, known to us as Brown's Camp, which had been occupied by
+loggers the winter before. Addison thought that we had better go there
+and look for witches' brooms the next day. We reached the camp just at
+dusk, after a hard scramble over a very rough bit of trail.
+
+Brown's Camp consisted of two low log houses, the man camp and the ox
+camp, and dreary they looked, standing there silent and deserted in the
+dark, wet wilderness of firs.
+
+The heavy door of the ox camp stood ajar, and I think a bear must
+recently have been inside, for it was only with the greatest difficulty
+that we could lead or pull the horses in. Buckskin snorted constantly,
+and would not touch his corn; and the sweat drops came out on Jim's
+hair. We left them the lantern, to reassure them, and closing the door,
+went to the man camp, kindled a fire in the rusted stove, then warmed
+our food, and tried to make ourselves comfortable in the damp hut, with
+the blankets and sleigh robes that we had brought on the sleds.
+
+Tired as we were, neither of us felt like falling asleep that night. It
+was a dismal place. We wished ourselves at home. Judging by the
+outcries, all the wild denizens of the wilderness were abroad. For a
+long time we lay, whispering now and then, instead of speaking aloud. A
+noise at the ox camp startled us, and, fearful lest one of the horses
+had thrown himself, Addison went hastily to the door to listen. "Come
+here," he whispered, in a strange tone.
+
+I peeped forth over his shoulder, and was as much bewildered as he by
+what I saw. Cloudy as was the night, glimpses of something white
+appeared everywhere, going and coming, or flopping fitfully about. There
+were odd sounds, too, as of soft footfalls, and now and then low,
+petulant cries.
+
+"What in the world are they?" Addison muttered.
+
+Soon one of the mysterious white objects nearly bounced in at the door,
+and we discovered it was a hare in its white winter coat. The whole
+swamp was full of hares, all on the leap, going in one direction.
+
+Seizing a pole, Addison knocked over three or four of them; still they
+came by; there must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, all
+going one way.
+
+At a distance we heard occasionally loud, sharp squealings, as of
+distress, and presently a lynx that seemed to be on the roof of the ox
+camp squalled hideously. Addison took the gun that we had brought, and
+while the hares were still flopping past, tried to get a shot at the
+lynx. But he was unable to make it out in the darkness, and it escaped.
+
+I brought in one of the hares. I had an idea that we might add a bunch
+of them to our load for Portland; but it and the others that we had
+knocked over were too lank and light to be salable.
+
+For an hour or more hares by the dozen continued to leap past the camp.
+We repeatedly heard lynxes, or other beasts of prey, snarling at a
+distance, as if following the mob of hares. Where all those hares came
+from, or where they went, or why they were traveling by night, we never
+knew. That is a question for naturalists. The next morning, when we went
+out to look for witches' brooms, there was not a hare in sight, except
+those that Addison had killed.
+
+The witches' brooms were plentiful in the fir swamp along the stream;
+and as they were usually high up in the tree tops and not easily reached
+by climbing, we began to cut down such firs as had them. At that time
+and in that remote place, a fir-tree was of no value whatever.
+
+Firs are easy trees to fell, for the wood is very soft, but they are bad
+to climb or handle on account of the pitch. We cut down about fifty
+trees that day, and left them as they fell, after getting the one or
+more witches' brooms in the top. Of those, we got eighty-two, all told;
+with the green fir boughs that went with them, they pretty nearly filled
+the rack. All were sear and dry, for they were just a densely interwoven
+mass of little twigs, but they contained a great many yellow flakes of
+dried pitch. In two of them we found the nests of flying squirrels; but
+in both cases the squirrels "flew" before the tree fell, and sailed away
+to other firs, standing near.
+
+Altogether, it was a day of hard work. We were very tired--all the more
+so because we had slept hardly ten minutes the preceding night. But
+again we were much disturbed by the snarling of lynxes and the
+uneasiness of our horses at the ox camp. In fact, it was another dismal
+night for us; we hitched up at daybreak, and after a fearfully rough
+drive over bare logs and stones, and several breakages of harness, we
+reached the old Squire's, thoroughly tired out, at four o'clock in the
+afternoon.
+
+The girls, however, were delighted with our lofty load of witches'
+brooms. In truth, it was rather picturesque, so many of those great gray
+bunches of intermeshed twigs, ensconced amid the green fir boughs that
+we had cut with them. A hall or a church would look odd indeed thus
+decorated.
+
+Cheered by a good supper, we made ready to start for Portland the next
+morning. During the night, however, the weather changed. By daybreak on
+the twenty-third considerable snow had fallen, and we were able to
+travel this time on snow again. We had the rack piled higher than
+before, with the Christmas trees and the boxes of lion's-paw in the
+front end, and all those witches' brooms stacked and lashed on at the
+rear. The load was actually fourteen feet high, yet far from heavy;
+witches' brooms are dry and light. A northwest wind, blowing in heavy
+gusts behind us, fairly pushed us along the road. We got on fast, baited
+our team at New Gloucester at one o'clock in the afternoon, and by dusk
+had reached Welch's Tavern, eleven miles out of Portland.
+
+Here we put up for the night; as our load was too bulky to draw into the
+barn, we were obliged to leave it in the yard outside, near the garden
+fence--fifty yards, perhaps, from the tavern piazza.
+
+We had supper and were about to go to bed, when in came three fellows
+who had driven up from the city, on their way to hunt moose in
+Batchelder's Grant. All three were in a hilarious mood; they called for
+supper, and said that they meant to drive on to Ricker's Tavern, at the
+Poland Spring.
+
+There was a lively fire on the hearth, for the night was cold and windy;
+the newcomers stood in front of it--while Addison and I sat back,
+looking on. The cause of their boisterousness was quite apparent; they
+were plentifully supplied with whiskey. Then, as now, the "Maine law"
+prohibited the sale of intoxicants; but this happened to be one of the
+numerous periods when the authorities were lax in enforcing the law.
+
+Soon one of the newly arrived moose hunters drew out a large flask, from
+which all three drank. Turning to us, he cried, "Step up, boys, and take
+a nip!" Addison thanked him, but said that we were just going to bed.
+
+"Oh, you'll sleep all the warmer for it. Come, take a swig with us."
+
+We made no move to accept the invitation.
+
+"Aw, you're temperance, are you?" one of the three exclaimed. "Nice
+little temperance lads!"
+
+"Yes," Addison said, laughing. "But that's all right. We thank you just
+the same."
+
+The three stood regarding us in an ugly mood, ready to quarrel. "If
+there's anything I hate," one of them remarked with a sneer, "it's a
+young fellow who's too much a mollycoddle to take a drink with a friend,
+and too stingy to pay for one."
+
+We made no reply, and he continued to vent offensive remarks. The
+landlord came in, and Addison asked him to show us to our room. The
+hilarious trio called out insultingly to us as we ascended the stairs,
+and when the hotel keeper went down, we heard them asking him who we
+were and what our lofty load consisted of.
+
+Half an hour or more later, we heard the moose hunters drive off,
+shouting uproariously; hardly three minutes afterward there was a sudden
+alarm below, and the window of our room was illuminated with a ruddy
+light.
+
+"Fire! The place is afire!" Addison exclaimed.
+
+We jumped up and looked out. The whole yard was brilliantly illuminated;
+then we saw that our load by the garden fence was on fire, and burning
+fiercely.
+
+Throwing on a few clothes, we rushed downstairs. The hotel keeper and
+his hostler were already out with buckets of water, but could do little.
+The load was ablaze, and those dry, pitchy witches' brooms flamed up
+tremendously. Fortunately, the wind carried the flame and sparks away
+from the tavern and barns, or the whole establishment might have burned
+down. The crackling was terrific; the firs as well as the witches'
+brooms burned. Great gusts of flame and vapor rose, writhing and
+twisting in the wind. Any one might have imagined them to be witches of
+the olden time, riding wildly away up toward the half-obscured moon!
+
+So great was the heat that it proved impossible to save the rack and
+sleds, or even the near-by garden fence, which had caught fire.
+
+That disaster ended the trip. It was now too near Christmas Day to get
+more large firs, to say nothing of witches' brooms; and we were obliged
+to send word to this effect to our Portland patrons. The next morning
+Addison and I rode home on old Jim and Buckskin, with their harness tied
+up in a bundle before us. The wind was piercing and bleak; we were both
+so chilled as to be ill of a cold for several days afterward. The story
+that we had to tell at home was far from being an inspiriting one. Not
+only had we lost our load, traverse sleds and rack, but in due time we
+had a bill of ten dollars to pay the hotel keeper for his garden fence.
+
+We always supposed that those drunken ruffians touched off our load just
+before driving away; but of course it may have been a spark from the
+chimney.
+
+That was our first and last experience with witches' brooms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE LITTLE IMAGE PEDDLERS
+
+
+I think it was the following Friday afternoon that a curious diversion
+occurred at the schoolhouse, just as the school was dismissed. Coming
+slowly along the white highway two small boys were espied, each carrying
+on his head a raft-like platform laden with plaster-of-Paris images.
+They were dark-complexioned little fellows, not more than twelve or
+thirteen years old; and were having difficulty to keep their feet and
+stagger along with their preposterous burdens.
+
+The plaster casts comprised images of saints, elephants, giraffes,
+cherubs with little wings tinted in pink and yellow, a tall Madonna and
+Child, a bust of George Washington, a Napoleon, a grinning Voltaire, an
+angel with a pink trumpet and an evil-looking Tom Paine.
+
+I suppose the loads were not as heavy as they looked, but the boys were
+having a hard time of it, to judge from their distressed faces peering
+anxiously from underneath the rafts which, at each step, rocked to and
+fro and seemed always on the point of toppling. Frantic clutches of
+small brown hands and the quick shifting of feet alone saved a smash-up.
+
+The master was still in the schoolhouse with some of the older boys and
+girls; but the younger ones had rushed out when the bell rang.
+
+"Hi, where are you going?" several shouted. "What you got on your
+heads?"
+
+The little strangers turned their faces and, nodding violently, tried to
+smile ingratiatingly. Some one let fly a snowball, and in a moment the
+mob of boys, shouting and laughing noisily, chased after them. No harm
+was intended; it was merely excess of spirits at getting out from
+school. But the result was disastrous. The little fellows faced round in
+alarm, cried out wildly in an unknown tongue and then, in spite of their
+burdens, tried to run away.
+
+The inevitable happened: one of them stumbled, fell against the other,
+and down they both went headlong with a crash. The tall Madonna was
+broken in two; Washington had his cocked hat crushed; the cherubs had
+lost their wings; and as for the elephants and the giraffes, there was a
+general mix-up of broken trunks and long necks.
+
+The little fellows had scrambled to their feet, and after a frightened
+glance set up wails of lamentation in which the word _padrone_ recurred
+fast and fearfully. By that time Master Brench, with the older pupils,
+among whom were my cousins, Addison, Theodora and Ellen, had come out.
+The old Squire, too, chanced to be approaching with a horse sled; often
+of late, since the traveling was bad, he had driven to the schoolhouse
+to get us.
+
+It was a wholly compassionate group that now gathered about the forlorn
+itinerants. Who they were or whither they were traveling was at first
+far from clear, for they could not speak a word of English.
+
+At last the old Squire, touched by their looks of despair and sorrow,
+decided to put their "rafts" on the horse sled and to take the little
+strangers home with us for the night.
+
+They seemed to be chilled to the very marrow of their bones, for they
+hung round the stove in the kitchen as if they would never thaw out.
+When grandmother Ruth set a warm supper before them, they ate like
+starved animals and cast pathetic glances at the table to see whether
+there was more food. Tears stood in grandmother's eyes as she
+replenished their plates.
+
+Little by little, with the aid of many signs and gestures, they managed
+to tell us their story. A _padrone_ had brought them with nine other
+boys from Naples to sell plaster images for him; we gathered that this
+man, who lived in Portland, cast the images himself. The only English
+words he had taught them were "ten cent," "twenty-five cent" and "fifty
+cent"--the prices of the plaster casts.
+
+A few days before, in spite of the bitterly cold weather, he had sent
+them out with their wares and bidden them to call at every house until
+they had sold their stock. Then they were to bring back the money they
+had taken in. He had given a package of dry, black bread to each of them
+and had told them to sleep at nights in barns.
+
+Sales were few, and long after their bread was gone they had wandered
+on, not daring to go back until they had sold all their wares. What
+little money they had taken in they dared not spend for food, for fear
+the _padrone_ would whip them! Their tale roused no little indignation
+in the old Squire and grandmother Ruth.
+
+What with the food and the warmth the little Italians soon grew so
+sleepy that they drowsed off before our eyes. We made a couch of
+blankets for them in a warm corner, and they were still soundly asleep
+there when Addison and I went out to do the farm chores the next
+morning.
+
+We kept the little image peddlers with us for several days thereafter.
+In fact, we were at a loss to know what to do with them, for a cold snap
+had come on. With their thin clothes and worn-out shoes they were in no
+condition either to go on or to go back; and, moreover, now that their
+images were broken, they were in terror of their _padrone_.
+
+One of the boys was slightly larger and stronger than the other; his
+name, he managed to tell us, was Emilio Foresi. The first name of the
+other was Tomaso, but I have forgotten his surname. Tomaso, I recollect,
+had little gold rings in his ears. His voice was soft, and he had gentle
+manners.
+
+Under the influence of good food and a warm place to sleep both boys
+brightened visibly and even grew vivacious. On the third morning we
+heard Emilio singing some Neapolitan folk-song to himself. Yet they were
+shy about singing to us, and it was only after considerable coaxing that
+Theodora induced them to sing a few Italian songs together. Halstead had
+an old violin, and we found that Tomaso could play it surprisingly well.
+
+By carefully sorting our reserve of worn clothes and shoes we managed to
+fit out the little strangers more comfortably, but the problem of what
+to do with them remained. Grandmother Ruth thought that their _padrone_
+might trace them and appear on the scene.
+
+Several days more passed; and then the old Squire, having business at
+Portland, decided to take them with him. He intended to find this
+Neapolitan _padrone_ and try to secure better treatment for the boys in
+the future.
+
+Addison drove them to the railway station, where the old Squire checked
+their empty image "rafts" in the baggage car. Before they left the old
+farm, first Emilio and then Tomaso took grandmother Ruth's hand very
+prettily and said, with deep feeling, "_Vi ringrazio_," several times,
+and managed to add "Tank you."
+
+After his return from Portland the old Squire told us that he had gone
+with the lads to the place where they lodged and had taken an officer
+with him. They found the _padrone_ in a basement, engaged in casting
+more images. At first the Italian was very angry; but partly by
+persuasion, partly by putting the fear of the law into his heart, they
+made him promise not to send his boys out again until May.
+
+The old Squire also enlisted the sympathies of two women in Portland,
+who undertook to see that the boys were better housed and cared for in
+the future. And there for the time being the episode of the little image
+venders ended.
+
+Twelve, perhaps it was thirteen, years passed. Addison, Halstead,
+Theodora and Ellen went their various ways in life, and of the group of
+young folks at the old farm I alone was left there. The old Squire was
+not able now to do more than oversee the work and to give me advice from
+his large experience of the past.
+
+One day, late in October, we were in the apple house getting the crop of
+winter apples ready for market--Baldwins, Greenings, Blue Pearmains,
+Russets, Orange Apples, Arctic Reds--about four hundred barrels of them.
+We were sorting the apples carefully and putting the "number ones" in
+fresh, new barrels.
+
+It was near noon, and grandmother Ruth had come out to say that our
+midday meal would soon be ready. She remained for a few moments and was
+counting the barrels we had put up that forenoon, when the doorway
+darkened behind her, and, looking up, we saw a stranger standing
+there--a well-dressed, rather handsome young man with dark hair and dark
+moustache. He was looking at us inquiringly, smilingly, almost timidly,
+I thought.
+
+"How do you do?" I said. "You wanted to see some one here?"
+
+He came a step nearer and said, with a foreign accent, "I ver glad see
+you again."
+
+Seeing our puzzled looks, he went on: "I tink maybe you not remember me.
+But I come here one time, when snow ver deep. Ver cold then," and he
+shuddered to show how cold it was. "I stay here whole week. You no
+remember? I Emilio--Emilio Foresi."
+
+Now, indeed, we remembered the little image peddlers. "Yes, yes, yes!"
+the old Squire cried.
+
+"Well, I never! Can it be possible?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed. "Why,
+you've grown up, of course!"
+
+Grown up, in good truth, and a very prosperous-looking young man was
+Emilio. He evidently remembered well his sojourn with us years ago, and,
+moreover, remembered it with pleasure; for now he grasped the old
+Squire's hand warmly and then, laughing joyously, held grandmother
+Ruth's in both his own.
+
+"But where have you been all this time?" the old Squire exclaimed.
+
+"I live now in Boston. Not long did I sell the images. I leave my
+_padrone_. He was hard man, not so ver bad, but ver poor. Then I have a
+cart and sell fruit, banan, orange, apple, in de street, four year.
+After that I have fruit stand on Tremont Street three year. I do ver
+well, and have five fruit stands; and now I buy apples to send to Genoa
+and Messina."
+
+"But Tomaso, where's little Tomaso?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed.
+
+Emilio's face saddened. "Tomaso he die," said he and shook his head. "He
+tak bad colds and have cough two year. Doctors said he have no chance in
+dis climate. I send him home to Napoli, and he die. But America fine
+place," Emilio added, as if defending our climate. "Good country.
+Everybody do well here."
+
+We had Emilio as a guest at our midday meal that day--quite a different
+Emilio from the pinched little fellow of thirteen years before. He
+glanced round the old dining-room.
+
+"Here where I sit dat first night!" he cried, laughing like a boy. "Big
+old clock right over there, Tomaso dis side of me, and young, kind,
+pretty girl on other side. All smile so kind to us; and oh, how good dat
+warm, nice food taste, we so hongry!"
+
+He remembered every detail of his stay. The red apples that we had given
+him seemed to have impressed him especially; neither of the boys had
+ever eaten an apple before.
+
+"Whole big basketful you fetch up from de cellar and say tak all you
+want," he ran on, still laughing. "Naver any apple taste like dose, so
+beeg, so red!"
+
+As we sat and talked he told us of his present business and how he had
+tried the then novel experiment of shipping small lots of New England
+apples to Italy. There had been doubt whether the apples would bear the
+voyage and arrive in sound condition, but he had no trouble when the
+fruit was carefully selected and well put up. That led him to inquire
+about our apple crop and to explain that that was perhaps one of the
+reasons--not the only one--for his visit.
+
+"I know you raise good apples," he said. "I like to buy them."
+
+We told him how many we had, and he asked what price we expected to get.
+We answered that the local dealers had already fixed the price that fall
+at two dollars a barrel.
+
+"I will pay you two dollars and a half," Emilio said without a moment's
+hesitation.
+
+"But, Emilio," the old Squire put in, "we couldn't ask more than the
+market price."
+
+"Ah, but you have good apples!" he replied. "I know how dose apples
+taste, and I know dey will be well barreled. No wormy apples, no bruised
+apples. Dey worf more because good honest man put dem up. I pay you two
+fifty."
+
+We shipped the entire lot to him the following week and received prompt
+payment. Incidentally, we learned that Foresi's rating as a business man
+was high, and that he enjoyed the reputation of being an honorable
+dealer. For many years--as long as he was in the business, in fact--we
+sent him choice lots of winter fruit, for which he always insisted on
+paying a price considerably in advance of the market quotations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A JANUARY THAW
+
+
+Just before school closed a disagreeable incident occurred.
+
+It was one of the few times that the old Squire really reproved us
+sternly. Often, of course, he had to caution us a little, or speak to us
+about our conduct; but he usually did it in an easy, tolerant way,
+ending with a laugh or a joke. But that time he was in earnest.
+
+He had come home that night just at dark from Three Rivers, in Canada,
+where he was engaged in a lumbering enterprise. He had been gone a
+fortnight, and during his absence Addison, Halstead and I had been doing
+the farm chores. The drive from the railway stations, on that bleak
+January afternoon had chilled the old gentleman, and he went directly
+into the sitting-room to get warm. So it was not until he came out to
+sit down to supper with us that he noticed a vacant chair at table.
+
+"Where is Halstead?" he asked. "Isn't Halstead at home?"
+
+No one answered at first; none of us liked to tell him what had
+happened. We had always found our cousin Halstead hard to get on with.
+Lately he had been complaining to us that he ought to be paid wages for
+his labor, when, as a matter of fact, what he did at the farm never half
+repaid the old Squire for his board, clothes and the trouble he gave.
+During the old gentleman's absence that winter Halstead had become worse
+than ever and had also begun making trouble at the district school.
+
+His special crony at school was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely
+bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and
+he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result
+of which the school committee suspended them for three weeks.
+
+That was unfortunate, for it turned the boys loose to run about in
+company. Usually they quarreled by the time they had been together half
+a day; but this time there seemed to be a special bond between them, and
+they hatched a secret project to go off trapping up in the great woods.
+They intended to stay until spring, when they would reappear with five
+hundred dollar's worth of fur!
+
+Addison and I guessed that something of the sort was in the wind, for we
+noticed that Halstead was collecting old traps and that he was oiling a
+gun he called his. We also missed two thick horse blankets from the
+stable and a large hand sled. A frozen quarter of beef also disappeared
+from the wagon-house chamber.
+
+"Let him go, and good riddance," Addison said, and we decided not to
+tell grandmother or the girls what we suspected. In fact, I fear that we
+hoped Halstead would go.
+
+The following Friday afternoon while the rest of us were at school both
+boys disappeared. That evening Mrs. Batchelder sent over to inquire
+whether Alfred was at our house. Halstead, to his credit, had shown that
+he did not wish grandmother to worry about him. Shortly before two
+o'clock that afternoon, he had come hastily to the sitting-room door,
+and said, "Good-by, gram. I'm going away for a spell. Don't worry."
+Then, shutting the door, he had run off before she could reply or ask a
+question.
+
+When we got home from school that night, Addison and I found traces of
+the runaways. There had been rain the week before, followed by a hard
+freeze and snow squalls, which had left a film of light snow on the hard
+crust beneath. At the rear of the west barn we found the tracks of a
+hand sled leading off across the fields toward the woods.
+
+"Gone hunting, I guess," said Addison. "They are probably heading for
+the Old Slave's Farm, or for Adger's lumber camp. Let them go. They'll
+be sick to death of it in a week."
+
+I felt much the same about it; but grandmother and Theodora were not a
+little disturbed. Ellen, however, sided with Addison. "Halse will be
+back by to-morrow night," she said. "He and Alfred will have a spat by
+that time."
+
+Saturday and Sunday passed, however, and then all the following week,
+with no word from them.
+
+On Tuesday evening, when they had been gone eleven days, Mrs. Batchelder
+hastened in with alarming news for us. She had had a letter from Alfred,
+she said, written from Berlin Falls in New Hampshire, where he had gone
+to work in a mill; but he had not said one word about Halstead!
+
+"I don't think they could have gone off together," she said, and she
+read Alfred's letter aloud to us, or seemed to do so, but did not hand
+it to any of us to read.
+
+We had never trusted Mrs. Batchelder implicitly; and a long time
+afterwards it came out that there was one sentence in that letter that
+she had not read to us. It was this: "Don't say anything to any of them
+about Halstead." Guessing that there had been trouble of some kind
+between the boys, she was frightened; to shield Alfred she had hurried
+over with the letter, and had tried to make us believe that the boys had
+not gone off together.
+
+Addison and I still thought that the boys had set out in company, though
+we did not know what to make of Alfred's letter. We were waiting in that
+disturbed state of mind, hoping to hear something from Alfred that would
+clear up the mystery, when the old Squire came home.
+
+"He has gone away, sir," Addison said at last, when the old gentleman
+inquired for Halstead at supper.
+
+"Gone away? Where? What for?" the old gentleman asked in much
+astonishment; and then the whole story had to be told him.
+
+The old Squire heard it through without saying much. When we had
+finished, he asked, "Did you know that Halstead meant to go away?"
+
+"We did not know for certain, sir," Addison replied.
+
+"Still, you both knew something about it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did either one of you do anything to prevent it?"
+
+We had to admit that we had done nothing.
+
+The old Squire regarded us a moment or two in silence.
+
+"In one of the oldest narratives of life that have come down to us," he
+said at last, "we read that there were once two brothers living
+together, who did not agree and who often fell out. After a time one of
+them disappeared, and when the other--his name was Cain--was asked what
+had become of his brother, he replied, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
+
+"In this world we all have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire
+continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and
+safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and
+crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a
+family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his
+best to make things go right."
+
+That was a great deal for the old Squire to say to us. Addison and I saw
+just where we had shirked and where we had let temper and resentment
+influence us. Scarcely another word was said at table. It was one of
+those times of self-searching and reflection that occasionally come
+unbidden in every family circle. The old Squire went into the
+sitting-room to think it over and to learn what he could from
+grandmother. He was very tired, and I am afraid he felt somewhat
+discouraged about us.
+
+Addison and I went up to our room early that evening. We exchanged
+scarcely a word as we went gloomily to bed. We knew that we were to
+blame; but we also felt tremendously indignant with Halstead.
+
+Very early the next morning, however, long before it was light, Addison
+roused me.
+
+"Wake up," he said. "Let's go see if we can find that noodle of ours and
+get him back home."
+
+It was cold and dark and dreary; one of those miserable, shivery
+mornings when you hate to stir out of bed. But I got up, for I agreed
+with Addison that we ought to look for Halstead.
+
+After dabbling our faces in ice-cold water and dressing we tiptoed
+downstairs. Going to the kitchen, we kindled a fire in order to get a
+bit of breakfast before we started. Theodora had heard us and came
+hastily down to bear a hand. She guessed what we meant to do.
+
+"I'm glad you're going," said she as she began to make coffee and to
+warm some food.
+
+It was partly the bitter weather, I think, but Addison and I felt so
+cross that we could hardly trust ourselves to speak.
+
+"I'll put you up a nice, big lunch," Theodora said, trying to cheer us.
+"And I do hope that you will find him at the Old Slave's Farm, or over
+at Adger's camp. If you do, you may all be back by night."
+
+She stole up to her room to get a pair of new double mittens that she
+had just finished knitting for Addison; and for me she brought down a
+woolen neck muffler that grandmother had knitted for her. Life brightens
+up, even in a Maine winter, with a girl like that round.
+
+Addison took his shotgun, and I carried the basket of luncheon. No snow
+had come since Halstead and Alfred left, and we could still see along
+the old lumber road the faint marks of their hand-sled runners. In the
+hollows where the film of snow was a little deeper, two boot tracks were
+visible.
+
+"Halse wouldn't go off far into the woods alone, after Alf left him,"
+said I.
+
+"No, he is too big a coward," said Addison.
+
+It was thirteen miles up to the Old Slave's Farm, where the negro--who
+called himself Pinkney Doman--had lived for so many years before the
+Civil War.
+
+"We can make it in three hours!" Addison exclaimed. "If we find him
+there, we shall be back before dark. And we had better hurry," he added,
+with a glance at the sky. "For I guess there's a storm coming; feels
+like it."
+
+In a yellow-birch top at a little opening near the old road we saw two
+partridges eating buds; Addison shot one of them and took it along,
+slung to his gun barrel.
+
+The faint trail of the sled continued along the old winter road all the
+way up to the clearing where the negro had lived, and by ten o'clock we
+came into view of the two log cabins. Very still and solitary they
+looked under that cold gray sky.
+
+"No smoke," Addison said. "But we'll soon know." He called once. We then
+hurried forward and pushed open the door of the larger cabin. No one was
+there.
+
+But clearly the two truants had stopped there, for the sled track led
+directly to the door of the cabin. There had been a fire in the stone
+fireplace. Beside a log at the door, too, Addison espied a hatchet that
+a while before we had missed from the tool bench in the wagon-house.
+
+"Well, if that isn't like their carelessness!" he exclaimed, laughing.
+"I'll take this along."
+
+But the runaways had not tarried long. We found the sled track again,
+leading into the woods at the northwest of the clearing.
+
+"Well, that settles it," said Addison. "They haven't gone to Adger's,
+for that is east from here. I'll tell you! They went to Boundary Camp on
+Lurvey's Stream. And that's eighteen or nineteen miles from here." He
+glanced at the sky. "Now, what shall we do? It will snow to-night."
+
+"Perhaps we could get up there by dark," said I.
+
+For a moment Addison considered. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It's a long
+jaunt. But come on!"
+
+On we tramped again, following that will-o'-the-wisp of a hand-sled
+track into the thick spruce forest. For the first nine or ten miles
+everything went well; then one of the dangers of the great Maine woods
+in winter suddenly presented itself.
+
+About one o'clock it began to snow--little icy pellets that rattled down
+through the tree tops like fine shot or sifted sand. The chill, damp
+wind sighing drearily across the forest presaged a northeaster.
+
+"We've got to hurry!" Addison said, glancing round.
+
+We both struck into a trot and, with our eyes fastened to the trail, ran
+on for about two miles until we came to a brook down in a gorge. By the
+time we had crossed that the storm was upon us and the forest had taken
+on the bewildering misty, gray look that even the most experienced
+woodsman has reason to dread.
+
+The snow that had fallen had obscured the faint sled tracks, and
+Addison, who was ahead, pulled up. "We can't do it," he said. "We shan't
+get through."
+
+My first impulse was to run on, to run faster; that is always your first
+instinct in such cases. Then I remembered the old Squire's advice to us
+what to do if we should ever happen to be caught by a snowstorm in the
+great woods:
+
+"Don't go on a moment after you feel bewildered. Don't start to run, and
+don't get excited. Stop right where you are and camp. If you run, you
+will begin to circle, get crazy and perish before morning."
+
+Addison cast another uneasy glance into the dim forest ahead. "Better
+camp, I guess," he said. Turning, we hurried back into the hollow.
+
+A few yards back from the brook were two rocks, about six feet apart and
+nearly as high as my head. Hard snow lay between them; but we broke it
+into pieces by stamping on it, and succeeded in clearing most of it
+away, so that we bared the leaves and twigs that covered the ground.
+Then, while I hacked off dry branches from a fallen fir-tree, Addison
+gathered a few curled rolls of bark from several birches near by and
+kindled a fire between the rocks.
+
+We kept the fire going for more than an hour, until all the remaining
+snow was thawed and the frost and wet thoroughly dried out, and until
+the rocks had become so hot that we could hardly touch them. Then, after
+hauling away the brands and embers, we brushed the place clean with
+green boughs, and thus made for ourselves a warm, dry spot between the
+rocks.
+
+With poles and green boughs, we made for our shelter a roof that was
+tight enough to keep out the snow. Except that we made a little mat of
+bark and dry fir brush, to lie on, and that Addison brought an armful of
+curled bark from the birches and a quantity of dry sticks to burn now
+and then, that was the extent of our preparation for the night. We had
+as warm and comfortable a den as any one could wish for.
+
+We decided not to cook our partridge, but to eat the food in our basket.
+After our meal we got a drink of water at the brook, then crawled inside
+our den and--as Maine woodsmen say--"pulled the hole in after us," by
+stopping it with boughs.
+
+"Now, let it storm!" Addison exclaimed.
+
+Taking off our jackets and spreading them over us, we cuddled down there
+by the warm rocks, and there we passed the night safely and by no means
+uncomfortably.
+
+It was still snowing fast in the morning; but the flakes were larger
+now, and the weather had perceptibly moderated during the latter part of
+the night. The forest, however, still looked too misty for us to find
+our way through it.
+
+"We might as well take it easy," Addison said. "If Halse is at Boundary
+Camp, he will not leave in such weather as this."
+
+All that forenoon it snowed steadily, and in fact for most of the
+afternoon. More than a foot of snow had come. We opened the front of our
+snow-coated den, kindled a fire there, and after dressing our partridge
+broiled it over the embers. Still it snowed; but the weather now was
+much warmer. By the following morning, we thought, we should have clear,
+cold weather and should be able to set out again.
+
+But never were weather predictions more at fault. The next morning it
+was raining furiously; and our den had begun to drip. In fact, a
+veritable January thaw had set in.
+
+All that forenoon it poured steadily; and water began to show yellow
+through the snow in the brook beside our camp. Addison crept out and
+looked round, but soon came back dripping wet.
+
+"Look here!" said he in some excitement. "There's a freshet coming, and
+Lurvey's Stream is between us and Boundary Camp. If we don't start soon,
+we can't get there at all."
+
+Just as he finished speaking a deep, portentous rumbling began and
+continued for several seconds. The distant mountain sides seemed to
+reverberate with it, and at the end the whole forest shook with heavy,
+jarring sounds. We both leaped out into the rain.
+
+"What is it, Ad?" I cried.
+
+"Earthquake," said Addison at last. "I've heard the old Squire say that
+one sometimes comes in Maine, when there is a great winter thaw."
+
+The deep jar and tremor gave us a strange sense of insecurity and
+terror; there seemed to be no telling what might happen next.
+Accordingly, we abandoned our moist den and set off in the rain. We went
+halfway to our knees at every step in the now soft, slushy snow. Addison
+went ahead with the hatchet, spotting a tree every hundred feet or so,
+and I followed in his tracks, carrying the basket and the gun. In
+fifteen minutes we were wet to our skins.
+
+For three or four miles we were uncertain of our course. The forest then
+lightened ahead, and presently we came out on the shore of a small lake
+that looked yellow over its whole surface.
+
+"Good!" Addison exclaimed. "This must be Lone Pond, and see, away over
+there is Birchboard Mountain. Boundary Camp is just this side of it. It
+can't be more than four or five miles."
+
+Skirting the south shore of the pond, we pushed on through fir and cedar
+swamps. Worse traveling it would be impossible to imagine. Every hole
+and hollow was full of yellow slush. Finally, after another two hours or
+so of hard going, we came out on Lurvey's Stream about half a mile below
+the camp, which was on the other bank. A foot or more of water was
+running yellow over the ice; but the ice itself was still firm, and we
+were able to cross on it.
+
+Even before we came in sight of the camp, we smelled wood smoke.
+
+"Halse is there!" I exclaimed.
+
+"It may be trappers from over the line," Addison said. "Be cautious."
+
+I ran forward, however, and peeped in at the little window. Some one was
+crawling on the floor, partly behind the old camp stove, and I had to
+look twice before I could make out that it was really Halstead. Then we
+burst in upon him, and Addison said rather shortly, "Well, hunter, what
+are you doing here?"
+
+Halstead raised himself slowly off the floor beside the stove, stared at
+us for a moment without saying a word, and then suddenly burst into
+tears!
+
+It was some moments before Halstead could speak, he was so shaken with
+sobs. We then discovered that his left leg was virtually useless, and
+that in general he was in a bad plight. He had been there for eight days
+in that condition, crawling round on one knee and his hands to keep a
+fire and to cook his food.
+
+"But how did you get hurt?" Addison asked.
+
+"That Alf did it!" Halstead cried; and then, with tears still flowing,
+he went on to tell the story--his side of it.
+
+While getting their breakfast on the third morning after they had
+reached the camp, they had had a dispute about making their coffee; hard
+names had followed, and at last, in high temper, Alfred had sprung up
+declaring that he would not camp with Halstead another hour. Grabbing
+the gun, he had started off.
+
+"That's my gun! Leave it here! Drop it!" Halstead had shouted angrily
+and had run after him.
+
+Down near the bank of the stream, Halstead had overtaken him and had
+tried to wrest the gun from him. Alfred had turned, struck him, and then
+given him so hard a push that he had fallen over sidewise with his foot
+down between two logs. Alfred had run on without even looking back.
+
+The story did not astonish us. For the time being, however, we were
+chiefly concerned to find out how badly Halstead was injured, with a
+view to getting him home. His ankle was swollen, sore and painful; he
+could not touch the foot to the floor, and he howled when we tried to
+move it.
+
+Evidently he had suffered a good deal, and pity prevented us from
+freeing our minds to him as fully as we should otherwise have done. The
+main thing now was to get him home, where a doctor could attend him.
+
+"We shall have to haul him on the hand sled," Addison said to me; and
+fortunately the sled that Alfred and he had taken was there at the camp.
+
+But first we cooked a meal of some of the beef, corn meal and coffee
+they had taken from the old Squire's.
+
+It was still raining; and on going out an hour later we found that the
+stream had risen so high that we could not cross it. The afternoon, too,
+was waning; and, urgent as Halstead's case appeared, we had to give up
+the idea of starting that night. During the rest of the afternoon we
+busied ourselves rigging a rude seat on the sled.
+
+There were good dry bunks at the camp, but little sleep was in store for
+us. Halstead was in a fevered, querulous mood and kept calling to us for
+something or other all night long. Whenever he fell asleep he tumbled
+about and hurt his ankle. That would partly wake him and set him crying,
+or shouting what he would do to Alfred.
+
+Throughout the night the roar of the stream outside grew louder, and at
+daybreak it was running feather white. As for the snow, most of it had
+disappeared; stumps, logs and stones showed through it everywhere; the
+swamps were flooded, and every hole, hollow and depression was full of
+water.
+
+That was Wednesday. We made a soup of the beef bone, cooked johnny-cake
+from the corn meal and kept Halstead as quiet as possible. We had left
+home early Sunday morning and knew that our folks would be greatly
+worried about all three of us.
+
+As the day passed, the stream rose steadily until the water was nearly
+up to the camp door.
+
+"If only we had a boat, we could put Halse in it and go home," Addison
+said.
+
+We discussed making a raft, for if we could navigate the stream we could
+descend it to within four miles of the old farm. But the roaring yellow
+torrent was clearly so tumultuous that no raft that we could build would
+hold together for a minute; and we resigned ourselves to pass another
+night in the camp.
+
+The end of the thaw was at hand, however; at sunset the sky lightened,
+and during the evening the stars came out. At midnight, while
+replenishing the fire, I heard smart gusts of wind blowing from the
+northwest. It was clearing off cold. Noticing that it seemed very light
+outside, I went to the door and saw the bright arch of a splendid aurora
+spanning the whole sky. It was so beautiful that I waked Addison to see
+it.
+
+By morning winter weather had come again; the snow slush was frozen. The
+stream, however, was still too high to be crossed, and the swamps and
+meadows were also impassable. We now bethought ourselves of another
+route home, by way of a lumber trail that led southward to Lurvey's
+Mills, where there was a bridge over the stream.
+
+"It is five miles farther, but it is our only chance of getting home
+this week," Addison said.
+
+We were busy bundling Halstead up for the sled trip when the door opened
+and in stepped Asa Doane, one of our hired men at the farm, and a
+neighbor named Davis.
+
+"Well, well, here you are, then!" Asa exclaimed in a tone of great
+relief. "Do you know that the old Squire's got ten men out searching the
+woods for you? Why, the folks at home are scared half to death!"
+
+We were not sorry to see Asa and Davis, and to have help for the long
+pull homeward. We made a start, and after a very hard tramp we finally
+reached the old farm, thoroughly tired out, at eight o'clock that
+evening.
+
+Theodora and grandmother were so affected at seeing us back that they
+actually shed tears. The old Squire said little; but it was plain to see
+that he was greatly relieved.
+
+If the day had been a fatiguing one for us, it had been doubly so for
+poor Halstead. We carried him up to his room, put him to bed and sent
+for a doctor. He did not leave his room again for three weeks and
+required no end of care from grandmother and the girls.
+
+Little was ever said among us afterwards of this escapade of Halstead's.
+As for Alfred, he came sneaking home about a month later, but had the
+decency, or perhaps it was the prudence, to keep away from us for nearly
+a year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+UNCLE BILLY MURCH'S HAIR-RAISER
+
+
+At about this time Tom and I were up at the Murches' one evening to see
+Willis, and persuaded old Uncle Billy, Willis' grandfather, to tell us
+his panther story again. That panther story was a veritable hair-raiser;
+and we were never tired of hearing the old man tell it. Owing to our
+severe climate panthers were never very numerous in northern New
+England--not nearly so numerous as panther stories, in which the
+"panther" is usually a Canadian lynx. Even at present we occasionally
+hear of a catamount or an "Indian devil"; but perhaps the last real
+panther was trapped and shot in the town of Wardsboro, Vermont, in 1875.
+There can be no doubt whatever that it was a genuine panther, for its
+skin and bones, handsomely mounted, as taxidermists say, can be seen at
+any time in the Museum of Natural History in Boston. It is a fine
+specimen of the New England variety of the _Felis concolor_ and would no
+doubt have proved an ugly customer to meet on a dark night.
+
+No doubt there were panthers larger than that one. According to Uncle
+Billy the Wardsboro panther was a mere kitten to the one that he once
+encountered when he was a boy of fourteen. Our old Squire, who then was
+fifteen years old, was with him and shared the experience. But try as we
+would, we never could induce him to tell the story. "You get Uncle Billy
+Murch to tell you about that," he would say and laugh. "That's Uncle
+Billy's story; he tells it a little better every time, and he has got
+that catamount so large now that I am beginning to think that it must
+have been a survival of the cave tiger." Yet when pinned down to it the
+old Squire admitted that he was with Grandsir Billy on that night and
+that they did have an alarming experience with an animal that beyond
+doubt was a large and hungry panther.
+
+I must have heard the story ten or twelve times in all, and I recollect
+many of Grandsir Billy's words and expressions. But the old man's
+vocabulary was "picturesque"; when he was describing exciting events he
+was apt to drift into language that was more forceful than choice. It
+will be best therefore to give this account substantially as years
+later--long after Grandsir Billy had passed away--the old Squire told it
+one afternoon when he and I were driving home together from a field day
+of the grange.
+
+It seems that back in the days when the county was first settled the
+pioneers found the ponds and streams in peaceful possession of an
+ancient trapper whom they called Daddy Goss. Trapping was his business;
+he did nothing else. Every fall and winter while he was tending his trap
+lines he used to stay for a week or a month at a time at the settlers'
+houses. Frequently the wife of a settler at whose house he was staying
+would have to take drastic measures to get rid of him; no gentler
+measures than taking his chair and his plate away from the table or
+putting his bundle of things out on the doorstep would move him. "As
+slow to take the hint as old Daddy Goss," came to be a local proverb.
+
+One December while he was staying at the Murch farm he fell sick with a
+heavy cold, and while he lay in bed he fretted constantly about his
+traps. At last he offered Billy Murch, who was then fourteen years old,
+half of all the animals that might be in them if he would go out and
+fetch them home. The line of traps, he said, began at a large pine-tree
+near the head of Stoss Pond and thence extended round about through the
+then unbroken forest for a distance of perhaps fifteen miles to a
+birch-bark camp on Lurvey's Stream that the old trapper had built to
+shelter himself from storms two years before.
+
+Billy wanted to go but his mother would not consent to his going alone.
+So he talked the matter over with the old Squire, who was a year older
+than Billy, and offered him half the profits if he would accompany him;
+and the result was that the two boys took the old man's flintlock gun
+and set off at daylight the following morning. They were not to stop to
+skin any animals that they found in the traps, but were to make bunches
+of them and carry them home on their backs. The old trapper would not
+trust them either to skin the catch or to reset the traps. Since there
+were only two or three inches of snow on the ground, they did not have
+to use snowshoes and hoped therefore that they should return by evening.
+They found the first trap on Stoss Pond and from there followed the line
+without much difficulty, for Daddy Goss had made a trail by spotting
+trees with his hatchet. Moreover, the marten traps were "boxed" into
+spruce-trees at a height of two or three feet from the ground and could
+easily be seen.
+
+There is an old saying among trappers that nothing catches game like a
+neglected trap; and that time at least the adage was correct. The boys
+found a marten in the second trap and found others at frequent
+intervals. What was remarkable, they found three minks, two ermines and
+a fisher in traps on high, hilly forest land. I think the old Squire
+once said that they took nineteen martens from the traps, of which there
+were one hundred and two.
+
+The boys soon found themselves loaded down with fur. Since they were to
+have half of what they brought home, they did not like to leave
+anything. So with an ever increasing burden on their backs they toiled
+on from trap to trap. Before night each was carrying at least forty and
+perhaps fifty pounds. They had brought thongs for tying the animals
+together. Billy carried his bunch slung over the stock of the gun, which
+he carried over his shoulder. His comrade carried his on a short pole. A
+good many of the martens were still alive in the traps and had to be
+knocked on the head; the blood from them dripped from the packs on the
+snow behind.
+
+Fifteen miles is a long tramp for boys of their age, and, since December
+days are short, it is not astonishing that the afternoon had waned and
+the sun set before they reached the birch-bark camp. From that place
+they would have to descend Lurvey's Stream for two or three miles to
+Lurvey's Mills, and then reach home by way of a wagon road. Dusk falls
+rapidly in the woods. By the time they reached the camp they could
+barely see the "blazes" on the tree trunks. They decided to kindle a
+fire and remain at the camp till the next morning. Each began at once to
+collect dry branches and bark from the white birch-trees that grew along
+the stream.
+
+It was not until then that Billy made a bad discovery. In those days
+there were no matches; for kindling a fire pioneers depended on igniting
+a little powder and tow in the pans of their flintlocks. But when Billy
+unslung his pack of martens from the stock of the gun he found that the
+thong had somehow loosened the flint in the lock and that it had dropped
+out and was lost. Both boys were discouraged, for the night was chilly.
+They crept inside the camp, which was barely large enough to hold two
+persons. It was merely a boxlike structure only six feet square and five
+feet high; sheets of bark from the large white birch-trees were tied
+with small, flexible spruce roots to the frame, which was of light
+poles. The door was a small square sheet of bark bound to a little frame
+that would open and shut on curious wooden hinges. Though the camp was
+frail, it kept off the wind and was slightly warmer than it was outside.
+The boys found a couch of dry fir boughs inside, but the only cover for
+it was a dried deerskin and one of Daddy Goss's old coats.
+
+Meanwhile full darkness had fallen; and there would be no moon till late
+at night. An owl came circling round and whoop-hooed dismally. Billy
+said that he wished he were at home, and his companion admitted that he
+wished he were there also. They closed the door and then, lying down as
+close together as they could, put the two bunches of fur at their feet
+and covered themselves with the old coat and the deer hide. But they had
+scarcely lain down when crashes in the underbrush startled them, and
+they heard a great noise as of a herd of cattle running past. The old
+Squire peeped out at the door. "I guess it's deer," he said.
+"Something's scared them."
+
+He lay down again; but a few minutes later they heard what sounded like
+a shriek a long way off up the stream. Billy started up. "Now what do
+you s'pose that was, Joe?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"It sounded," said Billy, "just as the schoolmistress did when she
+stepped on a snake last summer."
+
+They sat up to listen; pretty soon they heard the noise again, this time
+much nearer.
+
+"It's coming this way, Joe!" Billy whispered. "What do you s'pose it
+is?"
+
+They continued to listen, and soon they heard a short, ugly shriek close
+by in the woods.
+
+"Joe, I'm afraid that's a catamount," Billy said unsteadily.
+
+The old Squire picked up the useless gun and sat with it in his hands.
+For some time there were no more outcries; but after a while they heard
+the crumpling of snow and the snapping of twigs behind the camp. Some
+large animal was walking round; several times they heard the sough of
+its breath.
+
+"Joe, I'm scared!" Billy whispered.
+
+The old Squire was frightened also, but he opened the door a crack and
+peered out. On the snow under the birch-trees he could distinguish the
+dark form of a large panther. It had seen the door move and had crouched
+as if to spring. He saw the flash of two fiery eyes in the dim light and
+again heard the sough of the creature's breath before he clapped the
+door shut and braced the gun against it. But he had no confidence in the
+flimsy birch bark; so he got out his jackknife and bade Billy get out
+his. It did not occur to them that the panther had scented the freshly
+killed game and had followed the trail of it.
+
+The boys passed dreadful hours of suspense during that long, cold
+December night. More than once they heard the creature "sharpen its
+claws" on tree trunks, and the sound was by no means cheerful. The brute
+seemed bent on remaining near the little camp. I remember that Grandsir
+Billy said that they heard it "garp" several times; I suppose he meant
+yawn. The circumstance seems rather strange. He said that it "garped"
+like a big dog every time it sharpened its claws. Yet it did not cease
+to watch the little inclosure.
+
+At last, tired with watching the boys fell asleep, a circumstance that
+is not strange perhaps when you consider they had plodded fifteen miles
+that day and had carried heavy loads.
+
+They slept for some time. From later events the boys could infer what
+took place outside the hut. The late-rising moon swung up from behind
+the dark tree-tops. The panther had crept to within a few feet of the
+shack. Suddenly it crouched and sprang upon the roof of the little camp!
+When it struck the flimsy roof, the boys woke up. For an instant the
+whole frail structure shook; then it reeled and partly collapsed. The
+boys sprang up, and as they did so a big paw with claws spread burst
+through the roof and came down between them! The claws opened and closed
+as the paw moved to and fro. Billy's face was scratched slightly, and
+Joe's jacket was ripped. Joe then seized the paw with both hands and
+tried to hold it. The roof swayed and trembled and, for a moment, seemed
+about to fall; then the panther withdrew its paw, and the boys heard the
+creature leap off and bound away.
+
+Hunters say that if a panther misses its first spring it will not try
+again. That may sometimes be true; but in this case the panther went off
+a short distance among the trees and after a few minutes crept forward
+as if to spring again. Terribly excited, the boys peered out at it and
+waited. They could not close the door of the camp. The whole structure
+had lurched to one side, and several sheets of bark had fallen from the
+light frame. Billy wanted to rush out and run, but his comrade, fearful
+lest the panther should chase them, held him back.
+
+Now for the first time it occurred to Joe that he might divert the
+creature's attention by throwing out some of the dead martens. Cutting
+one of them loose, he slung it as far as he could into the woods.
+Immediately the panther stole forward, seized the carcass of the little
+animal in its mouth and ran off. But before long it returned, and then
+Joe threw out a second marten, which the panther carried off. After the
+boys had thrown out two more martens, the panther did not return, and
+they saw nothing more of it. As soon as day dawned they crept forth from
+their shattered camp, hastened down the stream and reached home with
+their trapped animals.
+
+The first time I heard Grandsir Billy tell the story he said that the
+panther was as large as a yearling steer. Later he declared that it was
+the size of a two-year-old steer; and I have frequently heard him say
+that it was as large as a three-year-old! The old Squire said it was as
+large as the largest dog he ever saw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+ADDISON'S POCKETFUL OF AUGER CHIPS
+
+
+Another year had now passed, and we were not much nearer realizing our
+plans for getting an education than when Master Pierson left us the
+winter before.
+
+Owing to the bad times and a close money market, lumbering scarcely more
+than paid expenses that winter. This and the loss of five work-horses
+the previous November, put such stress on the family purse, that we felt
+it would be unkind to ask the old Squire to send four of us to the
+village Academy that spring, as had been planned.
+
+"We shall have to wait another year," Theodora said soberly.
+
+"It will always be 'another year' with us, I guess!" Ellen exclaimed
+sadly.
+
+But during March that spring, a shrewd stroke of mother wit, on the part
+of Addison, greatly relieved the situation and, in fact, quite set us on
+our feet in the matter of funds. This, however, requires a bit of
+explanation.
+
+For fifty years grandsir Cranston had lavished his love and care on the
+old Cranston farm, situated three miles from our place. He had been born
+there, and he had lived and worked there all his life. Year by year he
+had cleared the fields of stone and fenced them with walls. The farm
+buildings looked neat and well-cared for. The sixty-acre wood-lot that
+stretched from the fields up to the foot of Hedgehog Ledge had been
+cleaned and cleared of undergrowth until you could drive a team from end
+to end of it, among the three hundred or more immense old sugar maples
+and yellow birches.
+
+That wood-lot, indeed, had been the old farmer's special pride. He loved
+those big old-growth maples, loved them so well that he would not tap
+them in the spring for maple sugar. It shortened the lives of trees, he
+said, to tap them, particularly large old trees.
+
+It was therefore distressing to see how, after grandsir Cranston died,
+the farm was allowed to run down and go to ruin. His wife had died years
+before; they had no children; and the only relatives were a brother and
+a nephew in Portland, and a niece in Bangor. Cranston had left no will.
+The three heirs could not agree about dividing the property. The case
+had gone to court and stayed there for four years.
+
+Meanwhile the farm was rented first to one and then to another tenant,
+who cropped the fields, let weeds, briers, and bushes grow, neglected
+the buildings and opened unsightly gaps in the hitherto tidy stone
+walls. The taxes went unpaid; none of the heirs would pay a cent toward
+them; and the fifth year after the old farmer's death the place was
+advertised for sale at auction for delinquent taxes.
+
+In March of the fifth year after grandsir Cranston died, Willis and Ben
+Murch wrote to one of the Cranston heirs, and got permission to tap the
+maples in the wood-lot at the foot of the ledge and to make sugar there.
+
+They tapped two hundred trees, three spiles to the tree, and had a great
+run of sap. Addison and I went over one afternoon to see them "boil
+down." They had built an "arch" of stones for their kettles up near the
+foot of the great ledge, and had a cosy little shed there. Sap was
+running well that day; and toward sunset, since they had no team, we
+helped them to gather the day's run in pails by hand. It was no easy
+task, for there were two feet or more of soft snow on the ground, and
+there were as many as three hundred brimming bucketfuls that had to be
+carried to the sap holders at the shed.
+
+Several times I thought that Addison was shirking. I noticed that at
+nearly every tree he stopped, put down his sap pails, picked up a
+handful of the auger chips that lay in the snow at the foot of the tree,
+and stood there turning them over with his fingers. The boys had used an
+inch and a half auger, for in those days people thought that the bigger
+the auger hole and the deeper they bored, the more sap would flow.
+
+"Don't hurry, Ad," I said, smiling, as we passed each other. "The snow's
+soft! Pails of sap are heavy!"
+
+He grinned, but said nothing. Afterward I saw him slyly slipping
+handfuls of those chips into his pocket. What he wanted them for I could
+not imagine; and later, after sunset, as we were going home, I asked him
+why he had carried away a pocketful of auger chips.
+
+He looked at me shrewdly, but would not reply. Then, after a minute, he
+asked me whether I thought that Ben or Willis had seen him pick them up.
+
+"What if they did?" I asked. But I could get nothing further from him.
+
+It was that very evening I think, after we got home, that we saw the
+notice the tax collector had put in the county paper announcing the sale
+at public auction of the Cranston farm on the following Thursday, for
+delinquent taxes. The paper had come that night, and Theodora read the
+notice aloud at supper. The announcement briefly described the farm
+property, and among other values mentioned five hundred cords of
+rock-maple wood ready to cut and go to market.
+
+"That's that old sugar lot up by the big ledge, where Willis and Ben
+were making syrup," said I. "Ad, whatever did you do with that pocketful
+of auger chips?"
+
+Addison glanced at me queerly. He seemed disturbed, but said nothing.
+The following forenoon, when he and I were making a hot-bed for early
+garden vegetables, he remarked that he meant to go to that auction.
+
+It was not the kind of auction sale that draws a crowd of people; there
+was only one piece of property to be sold, and that was an expensive
+one. Not more than twenty persons came to it--mostly prosperous farmers
+or lumbermen, who intended to buy the place as a speculation if it
+should go at a low price. The old Squire was not there; he had gone to
+Portland the day before; but Addison went over, as he had planned, and
+Willis Murch and I went with him.
+
+Hilburn, the tax collector, was there, and two of the selectmen of the
+town, besides Cole, the auctioneer. At four o'clock Hilburn stood on the
+house steps, read the published notice of the sale and the court warrant
+for it. The town, he said, would deduct $114--the amount of unpaid
+taxes--from the sum received for the farm. Otherwise the place would be
+sold intact to the highest bidder.
+
+The auctioneer then mounted the steps, read the Cranston warranty deed
+of the farm, as copied from the county records, describing the premises,
+lines, and corners. "A fine piece of property, which can soon be put
+into good shape," he added. "How much am I offered for it?"
+
+After a pause, Zachary Lurvey, the owner of Lurvey's Lumber Mills,
+started the bidding by offering $1,000.
+
+"One thousand dollars," repeated the auctioneer. "I am offered one
+thousand dollars. Of course that isn't what this farm is really worth.
+Only one thousand! Who offers more?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred," said a man named Haines, who had arrived from the
+southern part of the township while the deed was being read.
+
+"Sixteen," said another: and presently another said, "Seventeen!"
+
+I noticed that Addison was edging up nearer the steps, but I was amazed
+to hear him call out, "Seventeen fifty!"
+
+"Ad!" I whispered. "What if Cole knocks it off to you? You have only
+$100 in the savings bank. You couldn't pay for it."
+
+I thought he had made a bid just for fun, or to show off. Addison paid
+no attention to me, but watched the auctioneer closely. The others, too,
+seemed surprised at Addison's bid. Lurvey turned and looked at him
+sharply. I suppose he thought that Addison was bidding for the old
+Squire; but I knew that the old Squire had no thought of buying the
+farm.
+
+After a few moments Lurvey called, "Eighteen hundred!"
+
+"Eighteen fifty," said Addison; and now I grew uneasy for him in good
+earnest.
+
+"You had better stop that," I whispered. "They'll get it off on to you
+if you don't take care." And I pulled his sleeve impatiently.
+
+Willis was grinning broadly; he also thought that Addison was bluffing
+the other bidders.
+
+Haines then said, "Nineteen hundred"; and Lurvey at once cried,
+"Nineteen twenty-five!"
+
+It was now apparent that Lurvey meant to get the farm if he could, and
+that Haines also wanted it. The auctioneer glanced toward us. Much to my
+relief, Addison now backed off a little, as if he had made his best bid
+and was going away; but to my consternation he turned when near the gate
+and cried, "Nineteen fifty!"
+
+"Are you crazy?" I whispered, and tried to get him to leave. He backed
+up against the gatepost, however, and stood there, watching the
+auctioneer. Lurvey looked suspicious and disgruntled, but after a pause,
+said in a low voice, "Nineteen seventy-five." Haines then raised the bid
+to $2,000, and the auctioneer repeated that offer several times. We
+thought Haines would get it; but Lurvey finally cried, "Two thousand
+twenty-five!" and the auctioneer began calling, "Going--going--going for
+two thousand twenty-five!" when Addison shouted, "Two thousand fifty!"
+
+Lurvey cast an angry look at him. Haines turned away; and Cole, after
+waiting for further bids, cried, "Going--going--gone at two thousand
+fifty to that young man by the gate--if he has got the money to pay for
+it!"
+
+"You've done it now, Ad!" I exclaimed, in distress. "How are you going
+to get out of this?"
+
+I was frightened for him; I did not know what the consequences of his
+prank would be. To my surprise and relief, Addison went to Hilburn and
+handed him $100.
+
+"I'll pay a hundred down," he said, "to bind my bid, and the balance
+to-morrow."
+
+The two selectmen and Hilburn smiled, but accepted it. I remembered then
+that Addison had gone to the village the day before, and guessed that he
+had drawn his savings from the bank. But I did not see how he could
+raise $1,950 by the next day. All the way home I wanted to ask him what
+he planned to do. However, I did not like to question him before Willis
+and two other boys who were with us. All the way home Addison seemed
+rather excited.
+
+The family were at supper when we went in. The old Squire was back from
+Portland; grandmother and the girls had told him that we had gone to the
+auction. The first thing he did was to ask us whether the farm had been
+sold, and how much it had brought.
+
+"Two thousand and fifty," said I, with a glance at Addison.
+
+"That's all it's worth," the old Squire said. "Who bought it?"
+
+Addison looked embarrassed; and to help him out I said jocosely, "Oh, it
+was bid off by a young fellow we saw there."
+
+"What was his name?" the old Squire asked in surprise.
+
+"He spells it A-d-d-i-s-o-n," said I.
+
+There was a sudden pause round the table.
+
+"Yes," I continued, laughing, for I thought the best thing for Ad was to
+have the old Squire know the facts at once. "He paid $100 of it down,
+and he has to get round with nineteen hundred and fifty more by
+to-morrow noon."
+
+Food was quite forgotten by this time. The old Squire, grandmother, and
+the girls were looking at Addison in much concern.
+
+"Haven't you been rather rash?" the old Squire said, gravely.
+
+"Maybe I have," Addison admitted. "But the bank has promised to lend me
+the money to-morrow at seven per cent. if--if,"--he hesitated and
+reddened visibly,--"if you will put your name on the note with me, sir."
+
+The old Squire's face was a study. He looked surprised, grave, and
+stern; but his kind old heart stood the test.
+
+"My son," he said, after a short pause, "what led you into this? You
+must tell me before we go farther."
+
+"It was something I noticed over there in that wood-lot. I haven't said
+anything about it so far; but I think I am right."
+
+He went upstairs to his trunk and brought down a handful of those auger
+chips, and also a letter that he had received recently. He spread the
+chips on the table by the old Squire's plate, and the latter, after a
+glance at them, put on his reading glasses. Dry as the chips had become,
+we could still see what looked like tiny bubbles and pits in the wood.
+
+"Bird's-eye, isn't it?" the old Squire said, taking up a chip in his
+fingers. "Bird's-eye maple. Was there more than one tree of this?"
+
+"More than forty, sir, that I saw myself, and I've no doubt there are
+others," Addison replied.
+
+"Ah!" the old Squire exclaimed, with a look of understanding kindling in
+his face. "I see! I see!"
+
+During our three or four winters at the old Squire's we boys had
+naturally picked up considerable knowledge about lumber and lumber
+values.
+
+"Yes," Addison said. "That's why I planned to get hold of that wood-lot.
+I wrote to Jones & Adams to see what they would give for clear,
+kiln-dried bird's-eye maple lumber, for furniture and room finish, and
+in this letter they offer $90 per thousand. I haven't a doubt we can get
+a hundred thousand feet of bird's-eye out of that lot."
+
+"If Lurvey had known that," said I, "he wouldn't have stopped bidding at
+two thousand!"
+
+"You may be sure he wouldn't," the old Squire remarked, with a smile.
+
+"As for the quarreling heirs," said Addison, "they'll be well satisfied
+to get that much for the farm."
+
+The next day the old Squire accompanied Addison to the savings bank and
+indorsed his note. The bank at once lent Addison the money necessary to
+pay for the farm.
+
+No one learned what Addison's real motive in bidding for the farm had
+been until the following winter, when we cut the larger part of the
+maple-trees in the wood-lot and sawed them into three-inch plank at our
+own mill. Afterward we kiln-dried the plank, and shipped it to the
+furniture company.
+
+Out of the three hundred or more sugar maples that we cut in that lot,
+eighty-nine proved to be bird's-eye, from which we realized well over
+$7,000. We also got $600 for the firewood; and two years later we sold
+the old farm for $1,500, making in all a handsome profit. It seemed no
+more than right that $3,000 of it should go to Addison.
+
+The rest of us more than half expected that Addison would retain this
+handsome bonus, and use it wholly for his own education, since the fine
+profit we had made was due entirely to his own sagacity.
+
+But no, he said at once that we were all to share it with him; and after
+thinking the matter over, the old Squire saw his way clear to add two
+thousand from his share of the profits.
+
+We therefore entered on our course at the Academy the following spring,
+with what was deemed a safe fund for future expenses.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUSY YEAR AT THE OLD SQUIRE'S***
+
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