111
Sam Raften turned out to be more congenial than he looked. His slow, drawling speech had given a wrong impression of stupidity, and, after a formal showing of the house under Mr. Raften, a real investigation was headed by Sam. "This yer's the paaar-le-r," said he, unlocking a sort of dark cellar aboveground and groping to open what afterward proved to be a dead, buried and almost forgotten window. In Sanger settlement the farmhouse parlour is not a room; it is an institution. It is kept closed all the week except when the minister calls, and the one at Raften's was the pure type. Its furniture consisted of six painted chairs (fifty cents each), two rockers ($1.49), one melodeon (thirty-two bushels of wheat—the agent asked forty), a sideboard made at home of the case the melodeon came in, one rag carpet woofed at home and warped and woven in exchange for wool, one center-table varnished (!) ($9.00 cash, $11.00 catalogue). On the center-table was one tintype album, a Bible, and some large books for company use. Though dusted once a week, they were never moved, and it was years later before they were found to have settled permanently into the varnish of the table. In112extremely uncostly frames on the wall were the coffin-plates of the departed members of the family. It was the custom at Sanger to honour the dead by bringing back from the funeral the name-plate and framing it on a black background with some supposed appropriate scripture text.
The general atmosphere of the room was dusty and religious as it was never opened except on Sundays or when the parson called, which instituted a sort of temporary Sunday, and the two small windows were kept shut and plugged as well as muffled always, with green paper blinds and cotton hangings. It was a thing apart from the rest of the house—a sort of family ghost-room: a chamber of horrors, seen but once a week.
But it contained one thing at least of interest—something that at once brought Sam and Yan together. This was a collection of a score of birds' eggs. They were all mixed together in an old glass-topped cravat box, half full of bran. None of them were labelled or properly blown. A collector would not have given it a second glance, but it proved an important matter. It was as though two New Yorkers, one disguised as a Chinaman and the other as a Negro, had accidently met in Greenland and by chance one had made the sign of the secret brotherhood to which they both belonged.
"Do you like these things?" said Yan, with sudden interest and warmth, in spite of the depressing113surroundings.
"You bet," said Sam. "And I'd a-had twice as many only Da said it was doing no good and birds was good for the farm."
"Well, do you know their names?"
"Wall, I should say so. I know every Bird that flies and all about it, or putty near it," drawled Sam, with an unusual stretch for him, as he was not given to bragging.
"I wish I did. Can't I get some eggs to take home?"
"No; Da said if I wouldn't take any more he'd lend me his Injun Chief gun to shoot Rabbits with."
"What? Are there Rabbits here?"
"Wall, I should say so. I got three last winter."
"But I meannow," said Yan, with evident disappointment.
"They ain't so easy to get atnow, but we can try. Some day when all the work's done I'll ask Da for his gun."
Stuffed Owl
"When all the work's done," was a favourite expression of the Raftens for indefinitely shelving a project, it sounded so reasonable and was really so final.
Sam opened up the lower door of the sideboard and got out some flint arrow-heads picked up in the ploughing, the teeth of a Beaver dating from the early days of the settlement, and an Owl very badly stuffed. The sight of these precious things set Yan all ablaze. "Oh!" was all he could say. Sam was114gratified to see such effect produced by the family possessions and explained, "Da shot that off'n the barn an' the hired man stuffed it."
The boys were getting on well together now. They exchanged confidences all day as they met in doing chores. In spite of the long interruptions, they got on so well that Sam said after supper, "Say, Yan, I'm going to show you something, but you must promise never to tell—Swelpye!" Of course Yan promised and added the absolutely binding and ununderstandable word—"Swelpme."
"Le's both go to the barn," said Sam.
When they were half way he said: "Now I'll let on I went back for something. You go on an' round an' I'll meet you under the 'rusty-coat' in the orchard." When they met under the big russet apple tree, Sam closed one of his melancholy eyes and said in a voice of unnecessary hush, "Follow me." He led to the other end of the orchard where stood the old log house that had been the home before the building of the brick one. It was now used as a tool house. Sam led up a ladder to the loft (this was all wholly delightful). There at the far end, and next the little gable pane, he again cautioned secrecy, then when on invitation Yan had once more "swelped" himself, he rummaged in a dirty old box and drew out a bow, some arrows, a rusty steel trap, an old butcher knife, some fish-hooks, a flint and steel, a box full of matches, and some dirty, greasy-looking stuff that he said was115dried meat. "You see," he explained, "I always wanted to be a hunter, and Da was bound I'd be a dentist. Da said there was no money in hunting, but one day he had to go to the dentist an' it cost four dollars, an' the man wasn't half a day at the job, so he wanted me to be a dentist, but I wanted to be a hunter, an' one day he licked me andan old butcher knife, some fish-hooks,(Bud, that's my brother that died a year ago. If you hear Ma talk you'll think he was an angel, but I always reckoned he was a crazy galoot, an' he was the worst boy in school by odds). Wall, Da licked us awful for not feeding the hogs, so Bud got ready to clear out, an' at first I felt just like he did an' said I'd go too, an' we'd j'ine the Injuns. Anyhow, I'd sure go if ever I was licked again, an' this was the outfit we got together. Bud wanted to steal Da's gun an' I wouldn't. I tell you I was hoppin' mad that time, an' Bud was wuss—but I cooled off an' talked to Bud. I says, 'Say now, Bud, it would take about a month of travel to get out West, an' if the Injuns didn't want nothin' but our scalps that wouldn't be no fun, an' Da ain't really so bad, coz we sho'ly did starve them pigs so one of 'em died.' I reckon we deserved all we got—anyhow, it was all dumb foolishness about skinnin' out, though I'd like mighty well to be a hunter. Well, Bud died that winter. You seen the biggest coffin plate on the wall? Well, that's him. I see Ma lookin' at it an' cryin' the other day. Da says he'll send me to college if I'll be a dentist or a lawyer—lawyers116make lots of money: Da had a lawsuit once—an' if I don't, he says I kin go to—you know."
Here was Yan's own kind of mind, and he opened his heart. He told all about his shanty in the woods and how he had laboured at and loved it. He was full of enthusiasm as of old, boiling over with purpose and energy, and Sam, he realized, had at least two things that he had not—ability with tools and cool judgment. It was like having the best parts of his brother Rad put into a real human being. And remembering the joy of his Glen, Yan said:
"Let's build a shanty in the woods by the creek; your father won't care, will he?"
a bow, some arrows, a rusty steel trap"Not he, so long as the work's done."
117
The very next day they must begin. As soon as every chore was done they went to the woods to select a spot.
The brook, or "creek," as they called it, ran through a meadow, then through a fence into the woods. This was at first open and grassy, but farther down the creek it was joined by a dense cedar swamp. Through this there was no path, but Sam said that there was a nice high place beyond. The high ground seemed a long way off in the woods, though only a hundred yards through the swamp, but it was the very place for a camp—high, dry and open hard woods, with the creek in front and the cedar swamp all around. Yan was delighted. Sam caught no little of the enthusiasm, and having brought an axe, was ready to begin the shanty. But Yan had been thinking hard all morning, and now he said: "Sam, we don't want to beWhitehunters. They're no good; we want to be Indians."
"Now, that's just where you fool yourself," said Sam. "Da says there ain't nothin' an Injun can do that a White-man can't do better."
118"Oh, what are you talking about?" said Yan warmly. "A White hunter can't trail a moccasined foot across a hard granite rock. A White hunter can't go into the woods with nothing but a knife and make everything he needs. A White hunter can't hunt with bows and arrows, and catch game with snares, can he? And there never yet was a White man could make a Birch canoe." Then, changing his tone, Yan went on: "Say, now, Sam, we want to be the best kind of hunters, don't we, so as to be ready for going out West. Let's be Injuns and do everything like Injuns."
After all, this had the advantage of romance and picturesqueness, and Sam consented to "try it for awhile, anyhow." And now came the point of Yan's argument. "Injuns don't live in shanties; they live in teepees. Why not make a teepee instead?"
"That would be just bully," said Sam, who had seen pictures enough to need no description, "but what are we to make it of?"
"Well," answered Yan, promptly assuming the leadership and rejoicing in his ability to speak as an authority, "the Plains Injuns make their teepees of skins, but the wood Injuns generally use Birch bark."
"Well, I bet you can't find skins or Birch bark enough in this woods to make a teepee big enough for a Chipmunk to chaw nuts in."
"We can use Elm bark."
119"That's a heap easier," replied Sam, "if it'll answer, coz we cut a lot o' Elm logs last winter and the bark'll be about willin' to peel now. But first let's plan it out."
This was a good move, one Yan would have overlooked. He would probably have got a lot of material together and made the plan afterward, but Sam had been taught to go about his work with method.
So Yan sketched on a smooth log his remembrance of an Indian teepee. "It seems to me it was about this shape, with the poles sticking up like that, a hole for the smoke here and another for the door there."
"Sounds like you hain't never seen one," remarked Sam, with more point than politeness, "but we kin try it. Now 'bout how big?"
Eight feet high and eight feet across was decided to be about right. Four poles, each ten feet long, were cut in a few minutes, Yan carrying them to a smooth place above the creek as fast as Sam cut them.
"Now, what shall we tie them with?" said Yan.
"You mean for rope?"
"Yes, only we must get everything in the woods; real rope ain't allowed."
"I kin fix that," said Sam; "when Da double-staked the orchard fence, he lashed every pair of stakes at the top with Willow withes."
"That's so—I quite forgot," said Yan. In a few minutes they were at work trying to tie the four poles together with slippery stiff Willows, but it was no easy matter. They had to be perfectly tight or they120would slip and fall in a heap each time they were raised, and it seemed at length that the boys would be forced to the impropriety of using hay wire, when they heard a low grunt, and turning, saw William Raften standing with his hands behind him as though he had watched them for hours.
The boys were no little startled. Raften had a knack of turning up at any point when something was going on, taking in the situation fully, and then, if he disapproved, of expressing himself in a few words of blistering mockery delivered in a rich Irish brogue. Just what view he would take of their pastime the boys had no idea, but awaited with uneasiness. If they had been wasting time when they should have been working there is no question but that they would have been sent with contumely to more profitable pursuits, but this was within their rightful play hours, and Raften, after regarding them with a searching look, said slowly: "Bhoys!" (Sam felt easier; his father would have said "Bhise" if really angry.) "Fhat's the good o' wastin' yer time" (Yan's heart sank) "wid Willow withes fur a job like that? They can't be made to howld. Whoi don't ye git some hay woire or coord at the barrun?"
The boys were greatly relieved, but still this friendly overture might be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent. So Yan said, presently, "We ain't allowed to use anything but what the Indians had or could get in the woods."
121"An' who don't allow yez?"
"The rules."
"Oh," said William, with some amusement. "Oi see! Hyar."
He went into the woods looking this way and that, and presently stopped at a lot of low shrubs.
"Do ye know what this is, Yan?"
"No, sir."
"Le's see if yer man enough to break it aff."
Yan tried. The wood was brittle enough, but the bark, thin, smooth and pliant, was as tough as leather, and even a narrow strip defied his strength.
"That's Litherwood," said Raften. "That's what the Injuns used; that's what we used ourselves in the airly days of this yer settlement."
The boys had looked for a rebuke, and here was a helping hand. It all turned on the fact that this was "play hours," Raften left with a parting word: "In wan hour an' a half the pigs is fed."
Leatherwood
"You see Da's all right when the work ain't forgot," said Sam, with a patronizing air. "I wonder why I didn't think o' that there Leatherwood meself. I've often heard that that's what was used fur tying bags in the old days when cord was scarce, an' the Injuns used it for tying their prisoners, too. Ain't it the real stuff?"
wigwams
Several strips were now used for tying four poles together at the top, then these four were raised on end and spread out at the bottom to serve as the frame of the teepee, or more properly wigwam, since122it was to be made of bark.
After consulting, they now got a long, limber Willow rod an inch thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These were lashed at their upper ends to the Willow rod, and now they were ready for the bark slabs. The boys went to the Elm logs and again Sam's able use of the axe came in. He cut the bark open along the top of one log, and by using the edge of the axe and some wooden wedges they pried off a great roll eight feet long and four feet across. It was a pleasant surprise to see what a wide piece of bark the small log gave them.
Three logs yielded three fine large slabs and others yielded pieces of various sizes. The large ones were set up against the frame so as to make the most of them. Of course they were much too big for the top, and much too narrow for the bottom; but the little pieces would do to patch if some way could be found to make them stick.
Sam suggested nailing them to the posts, and Yan was horrified at the idea of using nails. "No Indian has any nails."
"Well, whatwouldthey use?" said Sam.
"They used thongs, an'—an'—maybe wooden pegs. I don't know, but seems to me that would be all right."
123"But them poles is hard wood," objected the practical Sam. "You can drive Oak pegs into Pine, but you can't drive wooden pegs into hard wood without you make some sort of a hole first. Maybe I'd better bring a gimlet."
"Now, Sam, you might just as well hire a carpenter—thatwouldn't be Indian at all. Let's play it right. We'll find some way. I believe we can tie them up with Leatherwood."
So Sam made a sharp Oak pick with his axe, and Yan used it to pick holes in each piece of bark and then did a sort of rude sewing till the wigwam seemed beautifully covered in. But when they went inside to look they were unpleasantly surprised to find how many holes there were. It was impossible to close them all because the bark was cracking in so many places, but the boys plugged the worst of them and then prepared for the great sacred ceremony—the lighting of the fire in the middle.
They gathered a lot of dry fuel, then Yan produced a match.
"That don't look to me very Injun," drawled Sam critically. "I don't think Injuns has matches."
"Well, they don't," admitted Yan, humbly. "But I haven't a flint and steel, and don't know how to work rubbing-sticks, so we just got to use matches,ifwewanta fire."
"Why, of course we want a fire. I ain't kicking," said Sam. "Go ahead with your old leg-fire sulphur stick. A camp without a fire would be 'bout like last year's bird's nest or a house with the roof124off."
Prayer sticks
Yan struck a match and put it to the wood. It went out. He struck another—same result. Yet another went out.
Sam remarked:
"Pears to me you don't know much about lightin' a fire. Lemme show you. Let the White hunter learn the Injun somethin' about the woods," said he with a leer.
Sam took the axe and cut some sticks of a dry Pine root. Then with his knife he cut long curling shavings, which he left sticking in a fuzz at the end of each stick.
"Oh, I've seen a picture of an Indian making them. They call them 'prayer-sticks,'" said Yan.
"Well, prayer-sticks is mighty good kindlin'" replied the other. He struck a match, and in a minute he had a blazing fire in the middle of the wigwam.
"Old Granny de Neuville, she's a witch—she knows all about the woods, and cracked Jimmy turns everything into poetry what she says. He says she says when you want to make a fire in the woods you take—
down at the bend o' the creek
"First a curl of Birch bark as dry as it kin be,Then some twigs of soft-wood, dead, but on the tree,Last o' all some Pine knots to make the kittle foam,An' thar's a fire to make you think you're settin' right at home."
125"Who's Granny de Neuville?"
"Oh, she's the old witch that lives down at the bend o' the creek."
"What? Has she got a granddaughter named Biddy?" said Yan, suddenly remembering that his ancient ally came from this part of Sanger.
"Oh, my! Hain't she? Ain't Biddy a peach—drinks like a fish, talks everybody to death about the time she resided in Bonnerton. Gits a letter every mail begging her to come back and 'reside' with them some more."
"Ain't this fine," said Yan, as he sat on a pile of Fir boughs in the wigwam.
"Looks like the real thing," replied Sam from his seat on the other side. "But say, Yan, don't make any more fire; it's kind o' warm here, an' there seems to be something wrong with that flue—wants sweepin', prob'ly—hain't been swep' since I kin remember."
The fire blazed up and the smoke increased. Just a little of it wandered out of the smoke-hole at the top, then it decided that this was a mistake and thereafter positively declined to use the vent. Some of it went out by chinks, and a large stream issued from the door, but by far the best part of it seemed satisfied with the interior of the wigwam, so that in a minute or less both boys scrambled out. Their eyes were streaming with smoke-tears and their discomfiture was complete.
"'Pears to me," observed Sam, "like we got them holes mixed. The dooer should 'a 'been at the top,126sence the smoke has a fancy for usin' it, an' thenwe'dhad a chance."
"The Indians make it work," said Yan; "a White hunter ought to know how."
"Now's the Injun's chance," said Sam. "Maybe it wants a dooer to close, then the smoke would have to go out."
They tried this, and of course some of the smoke was crowded out, but not till long after the boys were.
"Seems like what does get out by the chinks is sucked back agin by that there double-action flue," said Sam.
It was very disappointing. The romance of sitting by the fire in one's teepee appealed to both of the boys, but the physical torture of the smoke made it unbearable. Their dream was dispelled, and Sam suggested, "Maybe we'd better try a shanty."
"No," said Yan, with his usual doggedness. "I know it can be done, because the Indians do it. We'll find out in time."
But all their efforts were in vain. The wigwam was a failure, as far as fire was concerned. It was very small and uncomfortable, too; the wind blew through a hundred crevices, which grew larger as the Elm bark dried and cracked. A heavy shower caught them once, and they were rather glad to be driven into their cheerless lodge, but the rain came abundantly into the smoke-hole as well as through the walls, and they found it but little protection.
127
The wigwam was a failure.
129"Seems to me, if anything, aleetlewetter in here than outside," said Sam, as he led in a dash for home.
That night a heavy storm set in, and next day the boys found their flimsy wigwam blown down—nothing but a heap of ruins.
Some time after, Raften asked at the table in characteristic stern style, "Bhoys, what's doin' down to yer camp? Is yer wigwam finished?"
"No good," said Sam. "All blowed down."
"How's that?"
"I dunno'. It smoked like everything. We couldn't stay in it."
"Couldn't a-been right made," said Raften; then with a sudden interest, which showed how eagerly he would have joined in this forty years ago, he said, "Why don't ye make a rale taypay?"
"Dunno' how, an' ain't got no stuff."
"Wall, now, yez have been pretty good an' ain't slacked on the wurruk, yez kin have the ould wagon kiver. Cousin Bert could tache ye how to make it, if he wuz here. Maybe Caleb Clark knows," he added, with a significant twinkle of his eye. "Better ask him." Then he turned to give orders to the hired men, who, of course, ate at the family table.
"Da, do you care if we go to Caleb?"
"I don't care fwhat ye do wid him," was the reply.
Raften was no idle talker and Sam knew that, so as soon as "the law was off" he and Yan got out the130old wagon cover. It seemed like an acre of canvas when they spread it out. Having thus taken possession, they put it away again in the cow-house, their own domain, and Sam said: "I've a great notion to go right to Caleb; he sho'ly knows more about a teepee than any one else here, which ain't sayin' much."
"Who's Caleb?"
"Oh, he's the old Billy Goat that shot at Da oncet, just after Da beat him at a horse trade. Let on it was a mistake: 'twas, too, as he found out, coz Da bought up some old notes of his, got 'em cheap, and squeezed him hard to meet them. He's had hard luck ever since.
"He's a mortal queer old duck, that Caleb. He knows heaps about the woods, coz he was a hunter an' trapper oncet. My! wouldn't he be down on me if he knowed who was my Da, but he don't have to know."
Granny de Neuville's cabin
131
The Sanger Witch dwelt in the bend of the creek,And neither could read nor write;But she knew in a day what few knew in a week,For hers was the second sight."Read?" said she, "I am double read;You fools of the ink and penCount never the eggs, but the sticks of the nest,See the clothes, not the souls of men."
—Cracked Jimmy's Ballad of Sanger.
The boys set out for Caleb's. It was up the creek away from the camp ground. As they neared the bend they saw a small log shanty, with some poultry and a pig at the door.
"That's where the witch lives," said Sam.
"Who—old Granny de Neuville?"
"Yep, and she just loves me. Oh, yes; about the same way an old hen loves a Chicken-hawk. 'Pears to me she sets up nights to love me."
"Why?"
"Oh, I guess it started with the pigs. No, let's see: first about the trees. Da chopped off a lot of Elm trees that looked terrible nice from her windy. She's awful queer about a tree. She hates to see 'em cut down, an' that soured her same as if she owned 'em.
Slippery Elm
132Then there wuz the pigs. You see, one winter she was awful hard up, an' she had two pigs worth, maybe, $5.00 each—anyway, she said they was, an' she ought to know, for they lived right in the shanty with her—an' she come to Da (I guess she had tried every one else first) an' Da he squeezed her down an' got the two pigs for $7.00. He al'ays does that. Then he comes home an' says to Ma, 'Seems to me the old lady is pretty hard put. 'Bout next Saturday you take two sacks of flour and some pork an' potatoes around an' see that she is fixed up right.' Da's al'ays doin' them things, too, on the quiet. So Ma goes with about $15.00 worth o' truck. The old witch was kinder 'stand off.' She didn't say much. Ma was goin' slow, not knowin' just whether to give the stuff out an' out, or say it could be worked for next year, or some other year, when there was two moons, or some time when the work was all done. Well, the old witch said mighty little until the stuff was all put in the cellar, then she grabs up a big stick an' breaks out at Ma:
"'Now you git out o' my house, you dhirty, sthuck-up thing. I ain't takin' no charity from the likes o' you. That thing you call your husband robbed me o' my pigs, an' we ain't any more'n square now, so git out an' don't you dar set fut in my house agin'."
Ironwood, or Hop Hornbeam
"Well, she was sore on us when Da bought her pigs, but she was five times wuss after she clinched the groceries. 'Pears like they soured on her stummick."
133"What a shame, the old wretch," said Yan, with ready sympathy for the Raftens.
"No," replied Sam; "she's only queer. There's lots o' folk takes her side. But she's awful queer. She won't have a tree cut if she can help it, an' when the flowers come in the spring she goes out in the woods and sets down beside 'em for hours an' calls 'em 'Me beauty—me little beauty,' an' she just loves the birds. When the boys want to rile her they get a sling-shot an' shoot the birds in her garden an' she just goes crazy. She pretty near starves herself every winter trying to feed all the birds that come around. She has lots of 'em to feed right out o' her hand. Da says they think its an old pine root, but she has a way o' coaxin' 'em that's awful nice. There she'll stand in freezin' weather calling them 'Me beauties'.
"You see that little windy in the end?" he continued, as they came close to the witch's hut. "Well, that's the loft, an' it's full o' all sorts o' plants an' roots."
"What for?"
"Oh, for medicine. She's great on hairbs."
"Oh, yes, I remember now Biddy did say that her Granny was a herb doctor."
Silver Maple
"Doctor? She ain't much of a doctor, but I bet she knows every plant that grows in the woods, an' they're sure strong after they've been up there for a year, with the cat sleepin' on them."
"I wish I could go and see her."
134"Guess we can," was the reply.
"Doesn't she know you?"
"Yes, but watch me fix her," drawled Sam. "There ain't nothin' she likes better'n a sick pusson."
Sam stopped now, rolled up his sleeves and examined both arms, apparently without success, for he then loosed his suspenders, dropped his pants, and proceeded to examine his legs. Of course, all boys have more or less cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. Sam selected his best, just below the knee, a scratch from a nail in the fence. He had never given it a thought before, but now he "reckoned it would do." With a lead pencil borrowed from Yan he spread a hue of mortification all around it, a green butternut rind added the unpleasant yellowish-brown of human decomposition, and the result was a frightful looking plague spot. By chewing some grass he made a yellowish-green dye and expectorated this on the handkerchief which he bound on the sore. He then got a stick and proceeded to limp painfully toward the witch's abode. As they drew near, the partly open door was slammed with ominous force. Sam, quite unabashed, looked at Yan and winked, then knocked. The bark of a small dog answered. He knocked again. A sound now of some one moving within, but no answer. A third time he knocked, then a shrill voice: "Get out o' that. Get aff my place, you dirthy young riff-raff."
Sam grinned at Yan. Then drawling a little more than usual, he said:
135"It's a poor boy, Granny. The doctors can't do nothin' for him," which last, at least, was quite true.
Granny de Neuville
There was no reply, so Sam made bold to open the door. There sat the old woman glowering with angry red eyes across the stove, a cat in her lap, a pipe in her mouth, and a dog growling toward the strangers.
"Ain't you Sam Raften?" she asked fiercely.
"Yes, marm. I get hurt on a nail in the fence. They say you kin git blood-p'isinin' that way," said Sam, groaning a little and trying to look interesting. The order to "get out" died on the witch's lips. Her good old Irish heart warmed to the sufferer. After all, it was rather pleasant to have the enemy thus humbly seek her aid, so she muttered:
"Le's see it."
Sam was trying amid many groans to expose the disgusting mess he had made around his knee, when a step was heard outside. The door opened and in walked Biddy.
She and Yan recognized each other at once. The one had grown much longer, the other much broader since the last meeting, but the greeting was that of two warm-hearted people glad to see each other once more.
"An' how's yer father an' yer mother an' how is all the fambily? Law, do ye mind the Cherry Lung-balm we uster make? My, but we wuz greenies then! Ye mind, I uster tell ye about Granny? Well, here she is. Granny, this is Yan. Me an' him hed lots o' fun together when I 'resided' with his mamma,136didn't we, Yan? Now, Granny's the one to tell ye all about the plants."
A long groan from Sam now called all attention his way.
"Well, if it ain't Sam Raften," said Biddy coldly.
"Yes, an' he's deathly sick," added Granny. "Their own docther guv him up an said mortal man couldn't save him nohow, so he jest hed to come to me."
Another long groan was ample indorsement.
"Le's see. Gimme my scissors, Biddy; I'll hev to cut the pant leg aff."
"No, no," Sam blurted out with sudden vigour, dreading the consequences at home. "I kin roll it up."
"Thayer, thot'll do. Now I say," said the witch. "Yes, sure enough, thayerisproud flesh. I moight cut it out," said she, fumbling in her pocket (Sam supposed for a knife, and made ready to dash for the door), "but le's see, no—that would be a fool docther trick. I kin git on without."
"Yes, sure," said Sam, clutching at the idea, "that's just what a fool doctor would do, but you kin give me something to take that's far better."
"Well, sure an' I kin," and Yan and Sam breathed more freely. "Shwaller this, now," and she offered him a tin cup of water into which she spilled some powder of dry leaves. Sam did so. "An' you take this yer bundle and bile it in two gallons of wather and drink a glassful ivery hour, an' hev a loive137chicken sphlit with an axe an' laid hot on the place twicet ivery day, till the proud flesh goes, an' it'll be all right wid ye—a fresh chicken ivery toime, moind ye."
"Wouldn't—turkeys—do—better?" groaned Sam, feebly. "I'm me mother's pet, Granny, an' expense ain't any objek"—a snort that may have meant mortal agony escaped him.
"Niver moind, now. Sure we won't talk of yer father an' mother; they're punished pretty bad already. Hiven forbid they don't lose the rest o' ye fur their sins. It ain't meself that 'ud bear ony ill-will."
A long groan cut short what looked like a young sermon.
"What's the plant, Granny?" asked Yan, carefully avoiding Sam's gaze.
"Shure, an' it grows in the woods."
"Yes, but I want to know what it's like and what it's called."
"Shure, 'tain't like nothin' else. It's just like itself, an' it's called Witch-hazel.
"'Witch-hazel blossoms in the faal,To cure the chills and Fayvers aall,'
"as cracked Jimmy says."
"I'll show you some av it sometime," said Biddy.
"Can it be made into Lung-balm?" asked Yan, mischievously.
"I guess we'll have to go now," Sam feebly put in. "I'm feeling much better. Where's my stick?138Here, Yan, you kin carry my medicine, an' beverykeerful of it."
Yan took the bundle, not daring to look Sam in the face.
Granny bade them both come back again, and followed to the door with a hearty farewell. At the same moment she said:
"Howld on!" Then she went to the one bed in the room, which also was the house, turned down the clothes, and in the middle exposed a lot of rosy apples. She picked out two of the best and gave one to each of the boys.
"Shure, Oi hev to hoide them thayer fram the pig, for they're the foinest iver grew."
"I know they are," whispered Sam, as he limped out of hearing, "for her son Larry stole them out of our orchard last fall. They're the only kind that keeps over. They're the best that grow, but a trifle too warm just now."
"Good-by, and thank you much," said Yan.
"I-feel-better-already," drawled Sam. "That tired feeling has left me, an' sense tryin' your remedy I have took no other," but added aside, "I wish I could throw up the stuff before it pisens me," and then, with a keen eye to the picturesque effect, he wanted to fling his stick away and bound into the woods.
It was all Yan could do to make him observe some of the decencies and limp a little till out of sight. As it was, the change was quite marked and the genial old witch called loudly on Biddy to see with139her own eyes how quickly she had helped young Raften "afther all the dochters in the country hed giv him up."
"Now for Caleb Clark, Esq., Q.C.," said Sam.
"Q.C.?" inquired his friend.
"Some consider it means Queen's Counsel, an' some claims as it stands for Queer Cuss. One or other maybe is right."
"You're stepping wonderfully for a crippled boy the doctors have given up," remarked Yan.
"Yes; that's the proud flesh in me right leg that's doin' the high steppin'. The left one is jest plain laig."
"Let's hide this somewhere till we get back," and Yan held up the bundle of Witch-hazel.
"I'll hide that," said Sam, and he hurled the bundle afar into the creek.
"Oh, Sam, that's mean. Maybe she wants it herself."
"Pooh, that's all the old brush is good for. I done more'n me duty when I drank that swill. I could fairly taste the cat in it."
"What'll you tell her next time?"
"Well, I'll tell her I put the sticks in the right place an' where they done the most good. I soaked 'em in water an' took as much as I wanted of the flooid.
"She'll see for herself I really did pull through, and will be a blamed sight happier than if I drank her old pisen brushwood an' had to send for a really140truly doctor."
Yan was silenced, but not satisfied. It seemed discourteous to throw the sticks away—so soon, anyway; besides, he had curiosity to know just what they were and how they acted.
Granny's Hairb processor
141
A mile farther was the shanty of Caleb Clark, a mere squatter now on a farm once his own. As the boys drew near, a tall, round-shouldered man with a long white beard was seen carrying in an armful of wood.
"Ye see the Billy Goat?" said Sam.
Yan sniffed as he gasped the "why" of the nickname.
"I guess you better do the talking; Caleb ain't so easy handled as the witch, and he's just as sour on Da."
So Yan went forward rather cautiously and knocked at the open door of the shanty. A deep-voiced Dog broke into a loud bay, the long beard appeared, and its owner said, "Wall?"
"Are you Mr. Clark?"
"Yep." Then, "Lie down, Turk," to a black-and-tan Hound that came growling out.
"I came—I—we wanted to ask some questions—if you don't mind."
"What might yer name be?"
"Yan."
142"An' who is this?"
"He's my chum, Sam."
"I'm Sam Horn," said Sam, with some truth, for he was Samuel Horn Raften, but with sufficient deception to make Yan feel very uncomfortable.
"And where are ye from?"
"Bonnerton," said Yan.
"To-day?" was the rejoinder, with a tone of doubt.
"Well, no," Yan began; but Sam, who had tried to keep out of notice for fear of recognition, saw that his ingenuous companion was being quickly pumped and placed, and now interposed: "You see, Mr. Clark, we are camped in the woods and we want to make a teepee to live in. We have the stuff an' was told that you knew all about the making."
"Who told ye?"
"The old witch at the bend of the creek."
"Where are ye livin' now?"
"Well," said Sam, hastening again to forestall Yan, whose simple directness he feared, "to tell the truth, we made a wigwam of bark in the woods below here, but it wasn't a success."
"Whose woods?"
"Oh, about a mile below on the creek."
"Hm! That must be Raften's or Burns's woods."
"I guess it is," said Sam.
"An' you look uncommon like Sam Raften. You consarned young whelp, to come here lyin' an' tryin' to pull the wool over my eyes. Get out o' this now, or I'll boot ye."