Those Big TroutTHOSE BIG TROUT.
THOSE BIG TROUT.
The next spring, about May 1st, he went off fishing, unobserved, and brought home two more big trout. After that if he so much as took down his fish-pole, the rumor of it went round, and more than one boy made ready to follow him. For we were all persuaded that he had discovered some wonderful new brook or trout preserve.
Not even the girls could endure the grin of superior skill which Addison wore when he came home with those big trout. Theodora and Ellen also began to watch him; and the two girls, with Catherine Edwards, hatched a scheme for tracking him. Thomas had a little half-bred cocker spaniel puppy, called Tyro, which had a great notion of running after members of the family by scent. If Thomas had gone out, and Kate wished to discover his whereabouts, she would show him one of Thomas's shoes and say, "Go find him!" Tyro would go coursing around till he took Thomas's track, then race away till he came upon him.
The girls saved up one of Addison's socks, and on a lowery day in June, when they made pretty sure that he had stolen off fishing, Ellen ran over for Kate and Tyro. Thomas was with them when they came back, and Halstead and I joined in the hunt. The sock was brought out for Tyro to scent; then away he ran till he struck Addison's trail, and dashed out through the west field and down into the valley of the Horr Brook.
All six of us followed in great glee, but kept as quiet as possible. It proved a long, hot chase; for when Tyro had gone along the brook as far as the lake woods, he suddenly tacked and ran on an almost straight course through the woods and across the bushy pasture-lands, stopping only now and then for us to catch up. When we came out on the Foy Brook at a distance below the old dam, the dog ran directlyup the stream till he came to the place where the little rill from the hidden hole joined it; then he scrambled in among the thick willows.
We were a little way behind, and knowing that the dog would soon come out at the mill-pond, we climbed up the bank among the low pines on the hither side of the brook.
Tyro was not a noisy dog, but a few moments after he entered the thicket we heard him give one little bark, as if of joy.
"He's found him!" whispered Kate. "Let's keep still!"
Nothing happened for some minutes; then we saw Addison's head appear among the brush, as if to look around. For some time he stood there, still as a mouse, peering about and listening. Evidently he suspected that some one was with the dog, most likely Thomas, and that he had gone to the mill-pond to fish; but we were not more than fifty feet away, lying up in the thick pine brush.
After looking and listening for a long while, Addison drew back into the thicket, but soon reappeared with two large trout, and was hurrying away down the brook when we all shouted, "Oho!"
Addison stopped, looking both sheepish and wrathful; but we pounced on him, laughing so much that he was compelled to own up that he was beaten. He showed us the hole—after we had crept into the thicket—and the ledge where he had sat so many times to fish. "But there are only four more big trout," he said. "I meant to leave them here, and put in twenty smaller ones to grow up."
The girls thought it best to do so, and Halstead and I agreed to the plan; but three or four days later, when Theodora, Ellen and Addison went over to see the hole again, we found that the four large trout had disappeared. We always suspected that Thomas caught them, or that he told the Murch boys or AlfredBatchelder of the hole. Yet an otter may possibly have found it. In May, two years afterward, Halstead and I caught six very pretty half-pound trout there, but no one since has ever found such a school of beauties as Addison discovered.
During the next week there was what is termed by Congregationalists a "Conference Meeting," at the town of Hebron, distant fifteen miles from the Old Squire's. Gram and he made it a rule to attend these meetings; and on this occasion they set off on Monday afternoon with old Sol and the light driving wagon, in Sunday attire, and did not return till the following Monday. Wealthy went with them; but the rest of us young folks were left, with many instructions, to keep house and look after things at the farm.
Haying was now over; and the wheat and barley were in; but an acre more of late-sown oats still remained to be harvested, also an acre of buckwheat. There was not a little solicitude felt for this acre of buckwheat. With it were connected visions of future buckwheat cakes and maple sirup. I was assured by Ellen and the others who had come to the farm in advance of me, that the maple molasses and candy "flapjacks," made on pans of hard snow, during the previous spring, had been something to smack one's mouth for.
The Old Squire had bidden Addison, who was practically in charge, to mow the oats on Tuesday, and the buckwheat on Thursday, if the weather continued good. Asa Doane was coming to assist us. The oats were to be turned on Wednesday and drawn in on Friday. The buckwheat would need to lie in the swath till the next week and be turned once or twice, in order to cure properly.
We had also a half acre of weeds to pull, in a part of the potato field which had thus far been hoed but once; and an acre of stubble to clear of stones, preparatory to ploughing. The Old Squire did not believe that abundant leisure is good for boys, left alone under such circumstances.
"If you get the loose stones all off the stubble and have time, you can begin to draw off the stone heaps from the piece which we are going to break up in the south field," he said finally, as he got into the wagon and took the reins to drive away. But he laughed when he said it; and Addison laughed, too; for we thought that he had already laid out a long stint for us. Halstead was grumbling about it to himself. "Wonder if he thinks we can do a whole season's work in a week," he exclaimed, spitefully. "Never saw such a man to lay off work! Wants a week to play in, himself, but expects us to stay at home and dig like slaves!"
"Oh, he doesn't want us to hurt ourselves," said Addison. "He will be satisfied if we manage the grain, the weeds and the stones on the stubble. It really isn't so very much for four of us. We could do it in one half the time, by working smart, and have the rest of the time to play in."
Gram had left corresponding work for the girls, indoors, besides cooking, getting the three daily meals and caring for the dairy.
We set to work that afternoon and pulled the weeds, finishing this task before five o'clock. Ellen had found time to make a brief call on Kate Edwards; and at supper, she informed us that Tom had invited us all to come to his "fort," that evening. "He is going to have a fire there and roast some of his early Pine Knot corn," continued Ellen. "He says he has got a whole basketful of ears, all nice in the milk and ready to roast."
"Where is his 'fort?'" I inquired, for this was thefirst that I had heard of such a fortification, although the others appeared to know something about it.
"Oh, Tom thinks he has got a great fort over there!" said Halse. "It's no more a fort, like some I've seen, than our sheep pen!"
"Oh, but it is," replied Ellen. "It is a terribly rocky place. Nobody can get into it, if Tom hasn't a mind to let them."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Halse. "One little six pound cannon would knock it all down over his head."
"I don't think so," persisted Ellen.
"What do you know about cannon?" cried Halse.
"Well, I don't know much about them," replied Ellen. "But I do not believe that a small cannon would knock down rocks as big as this house."
This argument increased my curiosity, and Addison now told me something about the so-called fortress. "It is a queer sort of place," said he; "a kind of knoll, with four or five prodigious great rocks around it. I guess we never have been over there since you came, though we passed in sight of it the day we went to dig out the foxes. It is on the line between Mr. Edwards' south field on one side, and the woods of our pasture where those big yellow birches and rock maples are, on the other. Those great rocks lie close together there, on that little knoll, just as if they had been dropped down there like so many big kernels of corn in a hill.
"From what I have read about geology," continued Addison, reflectively, "I think it is likely that some mighty glacier, in long past ages, piled them there. One could imagine that a giant had placed them there, or had dropped them, accidentally out of his big leather apron, as he strode across the continent, in early times."
"Oh, hear him!" cried Halse. "Ad will be out giving lectures on geology next!"
"No," said Addison, laughing, "I don't want togive lectures. I don't know how the rocks got there, but they got there somehow, for there they are. Two of them, as Nell says, are almost as large as a house; and they all stand around, irregularly, enclosing a sort of little space inside them, as large as—how big is it, Doad?"
"Oh, I should think that it was as large as our sitting-room," she replied.
"It is bigger than that," said Ellen. "It is as big as the sitting-room and parlor together."
"Perhaps it is," assented Theodora. "But it isn't like rooms at all; it is an odd place and there are nooks like little side rooms running back between where the sides of the great rocks approach each other. It is a real pleasant place, sort of gigantic and rustic. I don't wonder that Thomas and Kate like to go there."
"None of these big rocks quite touch together," continued Addison, "but Tom has built up between them with stones, all around, except one narrow place which he calls the fort gate. He has built up all the open places, six or seven feet high, so that it is really like a fort: and he has made a stone fireplace against one of the rocks inside, with a little chimney of flat stones running up the side of the rock, so that he can have a fire there without being plagued by the smoke."
"And he's got a woodpile in there," said Ellen, "and seats to sit on, round his fireplace. It is a cozy place, I tell you; the wind doesn't strike you at all in there; and the knoll is quite a good deal higher than the ground about it. You climb up a little path and turn the corner of one big rock, and then go in between that one and another, for fifteen or twenty feet, till you come to the open place inside, where the fireplace is. Tom and Kate gave a little party there last fall. Tom was a number of days building the fireplace and the wall and getting ready. We all went there one evening and Kate and I played there one afternoon, a week after that. But I guess they haven't been thereat all this spring and summer. I haven't heard them say anything about it for a long time, till this afternoon. 'Tell the boys and Doad to come over here this evening,' Tom said, as I was coming away. 'I'm going to roast corn down at my fort to-night.'"
"Let's all go over after it gets dark and storm his fort!" exclaimed Halse. "We can take sods and pitch them over the rocks into his fort after he gets in there and is roasting corn!"
"I don't think that would be a very polite way of accepting his invitation," said Theodora.
"That would be contrary to all the laws of war, to storm a neighboring nation's fort, before war was declared!" said Addison, laughing. "That would be a sad piece of international treachery."
"Oh, dear, only hear the big words roll out!" cried Halse. "Ad's a walking dictionary."
"Well, dictionaries are always handy to have about," said Theodora, smoothing away the rudeness of this ill-natured remark. Addison did not mind, however; it was only occasionally that Halse's flings disturbed him.
"Yes, let's all go," said he. "We will get our milking off early and our chores done. Then we will take a lantern and start; for it will be nine o'clock before we get back home, and we shall have to go through the little piece of woods between here and the Aunt Hannah lot."
The girls had prepared a nice supper. Ellen had been making pop-overs, and Theodora had fried a great panful of crispy doughnuts. They cut a sage cheese to go with these; and rather unwisely Ellen made a pot of fresh coffee. It tasted much better than that which we ordinarily had at breakfast; for she roasted the coffee, then ground it smoking hot from the oven, and poured it into the pot before it had time to lose its delicate aroma. They set on a brimming pitcherful of cream to put in it; and we each had twocupfuls, at table, in consequence of which we all felt very bright and jolly throughout the evening. But this was not a wise procedure, from a hygienic point of view; I scarcely slept at all that night.
In the twilight we loaded our pockets with early apples, then went across the fields, through the pasture and over the hill, toward the fort. The great trees in the Aunt Hannah lot pasture favored a covert approach, and we drew near, very quietly, to surprise our friends. It was now dusk, and halting under a great beech, we reconnoitered the rocks on the knoll for some moments. Smoke was rising from out the fort; at least we could smell it; and presently a pale gleam of firelight shone up into the leafy top of a great black cherry tree which stood within the space enclosed by the rocks. But not a word could we hear spoken inside, or about the fort.
"Perhaps Kate hasn't come down from the house yet," Ellen said. "Let's steal up softly till we are at the foot of the knoll; then you boys rush up the path and surprise Tom. Shout 'Surrender, your fort is ours!' as you rush in."
We approached, apparently without being discovered, and then emerging suddenly from under the shadow of the great trees, ran up the path and around the corner of the rock at the gateway with tumultuous cheers!
But we soon found that instead of surprising the fort, we had been beguiled into a trap, ourselves. Kate and Tom had guessed our tactics, in advance, and were watching us all the while. We rushed into the narrow passage, but found our progress arrested there by four or five stout bars; and then bang! went Tom's gun, from the rocks over our heads. He and Kate were both up there in a strong position; and Tom's only response to our shouts was, "Throw down your arms or we will open fire on you with grape and canister!"
"We may as well surrender," said Addison, laughing. "Nell, you proved a very bad general. You've lost your whole army before striking a single blow."
"So I see," replied Ellen. "I'm disgraced and shall be superseded at once."
In 1866 the circumstance of superseding one general by another was still very familiar in the minds of every one, old and young, in the United States.
We were now admitted to the fort. To me, at that time, Tom's fort was a great novelty. I present a photograph of it, as the knoll and rocks now appear; but the walls have mostly fallen down. I believe that the place was stormed once by a party of boys who broke down much of the light stone wall, in imitation of sieges, in ancient warfare. But that evening it was all new to me and made a lasting impression on my boyish fancy. They had a fire burning; and a row of short Pine Knot corn ears stood roasting in front of it. There were two long seats consisting each of a board placed on piles of flat stones with another board for the back, held in its place by short stakes, driven into the ground. The light shone on the great rough sides of the schistose rocks and on the trunks of the cherry tree and two white birch trees inside the enclosed space. It was so much shut in as to seem like a room in a house; yet overhead the stars could be seen shining. Sufficient warmth was radiated from the fire to make us all quite comfortable as we sat around.
Kate had brought down a large ball of butter and half a dozen case-knives. We buttered our corn and feasted on it, then finished off on Early Sweet Bough, Sweet Harvey and August Pippin apples. After every few minutes, Tom would ascend, by stone steps which he had built up, to the top of the largest rock of the group, to see if any "enemies" were about, as he said. It was possible that Alfred Batchelder, or the Murch boys, or Ned Wilbur, might come around and scale the wall.
As we sat by the fire, regaling ourselves, we talked after the manner of the young to whom everything under the sun looks possible of achievement, to whom life looks long enough for every plan that tickles the fancy and to whom as yet the hard experiences of life have administered few rebuffs.
Oh, for that splendid courage of youth again! that joyous confidence that everything can be done! It is the heritage of young hearts. It is given us but once; and it was then ours.
"I would like to command a strong, big fort on the frontier of the country," exclaimed Tom. "The enemy wouldn't surprise me. I would be ready for them. If they attacked me they would get it hot, I tell you!
"I mean to study and try to get an appointment to West Point," he continued, enthusiastically. "Then I may command a fort somewheres. I tell you, West Point is the place to go! Don't you say so, Ad?"
"It is a good place to get a military education," replied Addison. "And a military education is a great thing to have, if there is a war. But there may never be another war, Tom; most of folks hope there will not be; but I shouldn't much wonder if there were another, before many years."
"Oh, I hope not," exclaimed Theodora, fervently. In fact, the Civil War with its sad afflictions was still too fresh in the minds of all in our family to be spoken of without a sense of bereavement.
"But I don't think that I should like a military life altogether," continued Addison. "Promotion is dreadfully slow, unless there's war; and even after you are a general, there is no money in it. I want to go into something that will give me all the money I want; and I want a lot of it."
"I had rather have fame than money," exclaimed Tom. "Nothing makes anybody feel so good, as toknow that folks are saying, 'He did a big thing. Nobody else could have done it.'"
"Tom, you want to be a hero," said Theodora.
"Well, I do," replied Tom. "I don't want to be such a hero as there are in novels. But I want to do something that will put me right up in the world."
I remember that I felt much like that myself, but did not quite like to say so outright.
"The trouble is that in common every-day life there do not seem to be many chances to do great things," remarked Addison, thoughtfully. "There are always a few distinguished men, like General Grant, General Sherman and President Lincoln, but only a few. There couldn't be a thousand famous men in a nation at once. We couldn't think of so many, even if they all had done great deeds. We could not even remember the names of so many heroes. So it is pretty plain that only a few, five or six, perhaps, of the millions of boys and girls in the country, can be really famous. All the rest have got to take a lower place and make the best of it. But if a fellow can plan and carry out enterprises to make lots of money, he can do a great deal with it in the world."
"I don't care just for money!" cried Tom again; "I want todosomething!"
"Tom, you ought to be an explorer," said Theodora; "a discoverer, like Livingstone, or Sir John Franklin, or Dr. Kane. If you could discover the North Pole, or a new race of people in Africa, you would be famous."
"I should like that," exclaimed Tom. "I should like to make a voyage up north. I can stand any amount of cold; and I never saw the sun so hot yet that I couldn't work, or run a mile, under it. Those folks that get sun-struck must be sort of sick, pindling fellows, I guess."
"Tom, I think that you would make a real go-ahead explorer," said Ellen. "I hope you will stick to it."
"Well, it takes money to fit out exploring expeditions," said Addison. "But there are other discoveries fully as important as those in the far north, or in Africa; discoveries in science bring the best kind of fame, like those of Franklin, Morse, Tyndall, Darwin and Pasteur. There is no end to the discoveries that can be made in science. It is the great field for explorers, I think. Grand new discoveries will be made right along now, and the more there are made the more there will be made; for one scientific discovery always seems to open the way to another."
"Oh, but I don't know anything about science," exclaimed Tom. "I don't believe I ever shall."
"No one does without hard study," replied Addison. "But any one can afford to study if by doing so some splendid new invention can be brought about."
"Dora, what are we girls going to do?" said Kate, laughing. "It makes me feel lonesome to hear the boys talk of the great exploits they mean to perform."
"There doesn't seem to be so much that girls can do," replied Theodora, with a sigh. "Still, I know of one thing I wish to do very much," she continued with a glance at Addison.
"What is it?" said Tom. "What are you going to astonish the world with?"
"Oh, I haven't the courage to talk about it," replied Theodora. "And it looks so hard to me and I shall need to study so long to get prepared, that I sometimes think I never shall do it."
"Well, girls can all make school-mistresses," said Addison.
"Kate is going to make something besides a school-mistress," said Ellen. "Kate means to study chemistry and be a chemist."
"She said last winter that she meant to learn how to telegraph and be a telegraph operator," said Halse, laughing.
"Yes, I did," replied Kate, coldly. "But I havechanged my mind. I don't know much about chemistry yet, but I think I like it. I mean to study it and I mean to learn all about drugs, too, and have a pharmacy in some large pleasant town. I'll make as much money as Addison; for I think money is a great thing."
"Shall you have a soda-fountain in your drug store and sell soda with a 'stick' in it?" asked Halse.
"I don't think so," replied Kate. "But if I do, I shall hire somebody like you to tend the 'stick' part of it."
Halse had sat poking fun at all the others, while they talked of their plans, pretending to be on the point of fainting away, when Addison, Tom and Theodora discussed different pursuits in life; and this retort from Kate hit him hard; he was angry. "I would not work for anyone with a tongue like yours," he exclaimed.
"Never mind," replied Kate. "We will not quarrel about that now. It is rather too far ahead. It will take you years and years to get education enough to tend a soda-fountain," she added, mischievously. "Perhaps you know enough already about putting the 'stick' in it, as you call it; I'm rather afraid you do from what I heard your friend Alfred Batchelder say a few days ago. It doesn't sound well for little boys like you to talk about 'sticks' in soda."
Halse usually fared ill when he attempted jokes at Kate's expense. It seemed odd to the rest of us that he did not learn to avoid such efforts; but he never did; he was always worsted, promptly, and always got angry. "Tom, if I had such a sister as you've got, I'd tie a hot potato in her mouth," he exclaimed.
"She is a terrible girl," said Tom, with a wink. "Her tongue is just like a new whalebone whip with a silk snapper on it. Takes the skin right off. But as she is all the sister I've got, I try to put up with her.
"She is a pretty good sister," he added, going across where Kate sat and sitting down beside her. "I don't know what I should do without her."
"Thank you, Tommy dear," said Kate. "I know now that you want me to coax father to let you take 'White-foot' (their colt) to the Fair. Perhaps I will; but it will not amount to anything. You will not get a premium on White-foot, if you take him. He isn't big and handsome enough. You've looked at him till your eyes think he is, but he isn't. I shall not tell father that I think he will take a premium, because I want father to respect my judgment more than that."
"Kate, you don't know anything about colts!" cried Tom. "That's the best colt in this town!"
"O my! O my!" groaned Kate. "Once let a boy begin to dote on a colt, particularly if he calls ithiscolt, and he can soon see beauty, size, speed, everything else in it, in matchless perfection. It's a kind of disease, a horse-disease that gets into his eye. Tom's got it badly. Please excuse his boasting!
"Here, Tom, pass this nice buttered ear of corn over to Halse, and tell him that I didn't mean to hurt his feelings—quite so badly," she added. "I only meant to hurt them a little."
This was like Kate; she would always talk like that; but she rarely said more than was true and never treasured up ill-feeling, nor wished others to do so.
But Halse would not accept her peace-offering.
"Ah, well," sighed Ellen, "I really am afraid that there is nothing I shall ever be able to do that will bring me either fame or money. I cannot think of a thing that I am good for."
"Oh, yes, there is!" cried Addison. "You have a sure hand on pop-overs, Nell, pop-overs and cookies."
"Right, Ad, I can make pop-overs," replied Ellen, laughing. "Perhaps I can get a living, cooking."
"Well, that is a pretty important thing, I think," remarked Thomas, candidly. "Somebody must know how to cook, and I like to have victuals taste good."
"I do not think those who cook get much credit for their labors," said Kate. "Mother and I are cooking every day and our men folks come in, sit down at table and swallow it all, with never a word of praise when we cook well; but if we make a mistake, and bread, or cake, or pie does not taste quite right, then they will growl and look at us as surly as if we had never cooked well in all our lives. I think that is rather hard usage and poor thanks for long service. Mother does not mind it. 'Oh, that is something you must get used to, Kate,' she says to me. 'Men folks always behave so. We never get much praise for our cooking.' But I do mind it. When I've made a nice batch of tea rolls, or cakes, I want them to know it and to act as if they appreciated it."
"That is just the way it is at our house," said Ellen.
"Yes," remarked Theodora. "The only way our boys ever show that they appreciate our good biscuit, or cake, is by eating about twice as much of it, which of course makes it all the harder for us to cook more. When we get a poor batch of bread it will last twice as long as good;—that's one comfort."
"Why, Doad, I never heard you talk like that before," said Halse, with a look of surprise.
"No more did I," remarked Addison. "Theodora, I am scandalized."
"I know it is horrid," she replied. "But I have thought it, if I never have said it, many and many a time, when I've nearly roasted myself over the hot stove, this summer, and thought I had enough cooked to last two days, at least; and then in would march you three hungry boys, to table, and eat it all up, eat my whole panful of doughnuts and finish off with eight or ten cookies apiece, just because they weregood, or a little better than usual. If they had been a little poorer they would have lasted two days, surely."
"Doad, you are getting positively wicked," said Addison. "I don't see what has come over you. You are not yourself."
"She is only telling the cold truth," exclaimed Kate. "Boys all seem to think that victuals grow ready cooked in the house somewheres, and that the more they can eat the better it ought to suit us. Here's Tom, a pretty good sort of boy generally, but he will come into the pantry, after he has been racing about out-of-doors, and commit ravages that it will take me hours of hot, hateful work to repair. Oh, he is a perfect pantry scourge, a doughnut-and-cooky terror! Why, I have had what I knew must be half a big panful of doughnuts, or cookies, enough for supper and breakfast, certainly; and then about three or four o'clock of a hot August afternoon, I would hear Tom's boots clumpering in the pantry, and by the time I would get there, he would be just sneaking out, grinning like a Chessy-cat, with his old mouth full and his pockets bulging out. I will look in my pan and there will not be enough left to put on a plate once! Then I know I have got to build a fire, get on my old floury apron and go at it again, when I've just got cool and comfortable, after my day's work!
"When he does that, I sometimes think I don't know whether I love him well enough to cook for him, or not. For when he is hungry and comes tearing in like that, he will carry off more than he can eat. His eyes want all he sees. He will carry off lots more than he can possibly eat; I've found it, time and again, laid up out in the wood-shed; and once I found eight of my doughnuts hid in a hole in the garden wall. He thought that he could eat the whole panful, but found that he couldn't."
"Oh, that was only laying up a store against days offamine," said Tom, calmly. "Some days the pantry is awfully bare; and Kate, too, has a caper of hiding the victuals. I call that a plaguey mean trick—when a fellow's hungry! I clear the pan when I do find it, to get square with her."
"Well," Addison remarked, "the girls have presented their side of the work pretty strongly; but I rather guess the boys could say something on their side;—how they have to work in the hot sun, all day long, to plough and harrow and sow and plant and hoe the crops, to get the bread stuff to cook into food. The girls want cooked victuals, too, as well as we. The hot, hard work isn't all on one side."
"That's so!" echoed Tom and Halse, fervently.
"I often come in tired, hot and sweaty after a drink of water, in the sweltering summer afternoons, and find our girls in the cool sitting-room, rocking by the windows, looking as comfortable as you please, reading novels," continued Addison.
"That's so!" we boys exclaimed.
"Not that I grudge them their comfort," Addison went on, laughing. "I don't. I like to see them comfortable. Besides girls ought not to work so hard and long as boys; they are not so strong, nor so well able to work in the heat. But I think that a great deal of the hardship that Kate and Doad and Nell complain of, about cooking over the hot stove, is due to a bad method which all the women hereabouts seem to follow. They cook twice every day. Fact, they seem to be cooking all the time. They all do their cooking in stoves, with small ovens that will not hold more than three or four pies, or a couple of loaves of bread at once. By the next day they have to bake again, and so on. In summer, particularly, their faces are red from bending over the hot stove about half the time."
"But what would you do, Addison?" asked Theodora.
"I'll tell you what I would do," replied Addison. "I would do just what I suggested to Gram last spring. The old lady was getting down to peep into the stove oven and hopping up again about every two minutes. She looked tired and her face was as red as a peony. 'Gram,' said I, 'I'll tell you what I'll do, if you want me to. I'll take the oxen and cart and go over to the Aunt Hannah lot, and draw home some brick there are in an old chimney over there; and then we will get a cask of lime and some sand for mortar, and have a mason come half a day and build you a good big brick oven, beside the wash-room chimney. It can be seven or eight feet long by four or five wide, big enough to bake all the pies, bread, pork and beans and most of the meat you want to cook for us, in a week. Then after you have baked, Saturday afternoon, you no need to have much more cooking to do till the next Saturday. All you need do over the stove will be to make coffee and tea, boil eggs and potatoes once in a while and warm up the food.' 'There's an oven that goes with the sitting-room chimney,' said she; 'I used always to bake in it; but somehow I have got out of the way of it, since we began to use stoves.' I couldn't get her to say that she wanted an oven, so I did nothing about it. But I know it would be a great deal easier, after she got the habit of it again."
"But how could you have hot tea-rolls every night and morning, Addison, with an oven like that?" asked Ellen.
"I should not want them, myself," replied Addison. "They nearly always smell so strongly of soda that I do not like them; and I do not think they are wholesome. For my own part I like bread better, or bread made into toast."
"Well, Ad, I think that sounds like a pretty good plan," said Kate. "Mother has an oven, too; but we never use it now, except to smoke bacon in. I thinkit would save us a great deal of hard work, if we baked in it once a week."
"Hark," said Tom, suddenly.
Far aloft, overhead, a faint "quark-quock" was heard.
"'Tis a flock of wild geese, going over," said Addison. "It's early in the season for them to be on their way to the south."
"Gram says that's a sign of an early winter," said Ellen.
We sat listening to the occasional quiet note of the flock gander for some moments till they passed out of hearing toward the lake. Addison then lighted our lantern; and after accompanying Tom and Kate a part of the way to the Edwards place, across the fields, we bade them good night and made our own way home.
Neighbor Wilbur had called at the door, during the evening, and left our mail on the doorstep. There was a letter for me from my mother, and also a circular from some swindling fellow in "Gotham," informing me most positively that for the sum of one dollar, a powder would be forwarded to me by mail, which, when dissolved and applied to my upper lip, would produce a moustache in the course of three or four weeks. I laid it away, thinking that I was perhaps not quite old enough for so ambitious an effort, but that it might be of importance to me, later.
We went to "Tom's fort" again on Wednesday evening; and I remember that one of the stones in the fireplace exploded that night. It burst in several pieces with a sharp report like that of a pistol. One of these hit Halse, scorching his wrist somewhat. At first we thought that someone had mischievously put powder in the fireplace; but after examining the pieces of stone carefully, Addison decided that it had burst from some unequal expansion of its substance, or of moisture in it, due to the heat.
That night, too, those long-delayed ambrotypes came home from artist Lockett. Lockett sent them up to us by Mr. Edwards, who had driven to the village that day.
In the sitting-room, that evening, after returning from the "fort," we examined them with great interest, each anxious to see what the result had been to us, personally. Halstead, I recollect, was wofully disappointed in his. Truth to say, the picture was far from good; and it is supposed that he destroyed it, later, in a fit of pique, for it mysteriously disappeared.
Indeed, the history of that day's little crop of ambrotypes is rather tragic. The Old Squire's and Gram's, alas, were lost in the farmhouse fire (1883). Addison's and Theodora's shared the same fate. Ellen lent hers to her first sweetheart, a college student named Cobb, at Colby University. He was unfortunately drowned a few months later; and for some cause the ambrotype was not returned. Little Wealthy's alone has survived the vicissitudes of time.
The pictures in this book are mainly from photographs taken subsequently.
Truth to say, we had a pretty "high time" that week. When not at Tom's fort evenings, our youthful neighbors came to our house. Sweet corn was in the "milk;" and early apples, pears and plums were ripe. We roasted corn ears and played hide-and-seek by moonlight, over the house, wagon-house, wood-shed, granary and both barns.
I am inclined to believe that the Old Squire did not leave work enough to keep us properly out of that idleness which leads to mischief. For on the afternoon of the fourth day, we broke one wheel of the ox cart and hay rack, while "coasting" in it. There was a long slope in the east field; and we coasted there, all getting into the cart and letting it run down backwards, dragging the "tongue" on the ground behind it: not the proper manner of using a heavy cart.
After we had coasted down, we hauled the cart back with the oxen which we yoked for the purpose. The wheel was broken on account of the cart running off diagonally and striking a large stone.
We were obliged to own up to the matter on the Old Squire's return. He said little; but after considering the matter over night, he held a species of moot court in the sitting-room, heard all the evidence and then, good-humoredly, "sentenced" Addison, Halstead and myself to work on the highway that fall till we had earned enough to repair the wheel, six dollars; and speaking for myself, it was the mostsalutary bit of correction which I ever received; it led me to feel my personal responsibility for damage done foolishly.
But it is not of the broken cart wheel, or hide-and-seek by moonlight, that I wish to speak here, but of another diversion next day, and of a mysterious stranger who arrived at nick of time to participate in it.
Generally speaking, Theodora did not excel as a cook. She was much more fond of reading than of housework and domestic duties, although at the farm she always did her share conscientiously. Ellen had a greater natural bent toward cookery.
But there was one article of food which Theodora could prepare to perfection and that was fried pies. Such at least was the name we had for them; and we boys thought that if "Doad" had known how to do nothing else in the world but fry pies, she would still be a shining success in life. We esteemed her gift all the more highly for the reason that it was extra-hazardous. Making fried pies is nearly as dangerous as working in a powder-mill; those who have made them will understand what this means. I know a housewife who lost the sight of one of her eyes from a fried pie explosion. In another instance fully half the kitchen ceiling was literally coated with smoking hot fat, from the frying-pan, thrown up by the bursting of a pie.
Let not a novice like myself, however, presume to descant on the subject of fried pies to the thousands who doubtless know all the details of their manufacture. Theodora first prepared her dough, sweetened and mixed like ordinary doughnut dough, rolled it like a thick pie crust and then enclosed the "filling," consisting of mince-meat, or stewed apple, or gooseberry, or plum, or blackberry; or perhaps peach, raspberry, or preserved cherries. Only such fruits must be cooked and the pits or stones of plums or peachescarefully removed. The edges of the dough were wet and dexterously crimped together, so that the pie would not open in frying.
Then when the big pan of fat on the stove was just beginning to get smoking hot, the pies were launched gently in at one side and allowed to sink and rise. And about that time it was well to be watchful; for there was no telling just when a swelling, hot pie might take a fancy to enact the role of a bomb-shell and blow the blistering hot fat on all sides.
After suffering from a bad burn on one of her wrists the previous winter, Theodora had learned not to take chances with fried pies. She had a face mask which Addison had made for her, from pink pasteboard, and a pair of blue goggles for the eyes, which some member of the family had once made use of for snow blindness. The mask as I remember wore an irresistible grin.
When ready to begin frying two dozen pies, Theodora donned the mask and goggles and put on a pair of old kid gloves. Then if spatters of hot fat flew, she was none the worse;—but it was quite a sight to see her rigged for the occasion. The goggles were of portentous size, and we boys used to clap and cheer when she made her appearance.
As an article of diet, perhaps, fried pies could hardly be commended for invalids; but to a boy who had been working hard, or racing about for hours in the fresh air out of doors, they were simply delicious and went exactly to the right spot. Few articles of food are more appetizing to the eye than the rich doughnut brown of a fine fried pie.
That forenoon we coaxed Theodora and Ellen to fry a batch of three dozen, and two "Jonahs;" and the girls, with some misgivings as to what Gram would say to them for making such inroads on "pie timber," set about it by ten o'clock. Be it said, however, that "closeness" in the matter of daily foodwas not one of Gram's faults. She always laid in a large supply of "pie timber" and was not much concerned for fear of a shortage.
They filled half a dozen with mince-meat, half a dozen with stewed gooseberry, and then half a dozen each, of crab apple jelly, plum, peach and blackberry. They would not let us see what they filled the "Jonahs" with, but we knew that it was a fearful load. Generally it was with something shockingly sour, or bitter. The "Jonahs" looked precisely like the others and were mixed with the others on the platter which was passed at table, for each one to take his or her choice. And the rule was that whoever got the "Jonah pie" must either eat it, or crawl under the table for a foot-stool for the others during the rest of the meal!
What they actually put in the two "Jonahs," this time, was wheat bran mixed with cayenne pepper—an awful dose such as no mortal mouth could possibly bear up under! It is needless to say that the girls usually kept an eye on the Jonah pie or placed some slight private mark on it, so as not to get it themselves.
When we were alone and had something particularly good on the table, Addison and Theodora had a habit of making up rhymes about it, before passing it around, and sometimes the rest of us attempted to join in the recreation, generally with indifferent success. Kate Edwards had come in that day, and being invited to remain to our feast of fried pies, was contributing her wit to the rhyming contest, when chancing to glance out of the window, Ellen espied a gray horse and buggy with the top turned back, standing in the yard, and in the buggy a large elderly, dark-complexioned man, a stranger to all of us, who sat regarding the premises with a smile of shrewd and pleasant contemplation.
"Now who in the world can that be?" exclaimedEllen in low tones. "I do believe he has overheard some of those awful verses you have been making up."
"But someone must go to the door," Theodora whispered. "Addison, you go out and see what he has come for."
"He doesn't look just like a minister," said Halstead.
"Nor just like a doctor," Kate whispered. "But he is somebody of consequence, I know, he looks so sort of dignified and experienced."
"And what a good, old, broad, distinguished face," said Ellen.
Thus their sharp young eyes took an inventory of our caller, who, I may as well say here, was Hannibal Hamlin, recently Vice-President of the United States and one of the most famous anti-slavery leaders of the Republican party before the Civil War.
The old Hamlin homestead, where Hannibal Hamlin passed his boyhood, was at Paris Hill, Maine, eight or ten miles to the eastward of the Old Squire's farm; he and the Old Squire had been young men together, and at one time quite close friends and classmates at Hebron Academy.
In strict point of fact, Mr. Hamlin's term of office as Vice-President with Abraham Lincoln, had expired; and at this time he had not entered on his long tenure of the Senatorship from Maine. Meantime he was Collector of Customs for the Port of Boston, but a few days previously had resigned this lucrative office, being unwilling longer to endorse the erratic administrative policy of President Andrew Johnson by holding an appointment from him.
In the interim he was making a brief visit to the scenes of his boyhood home, and had taken a fancy to drive over to call on the Old Squire. But we of the younger and lately-arriving generation, did not even know "Uncle Hannibal" by sight and had not theslightest idea who he was. Addison went out, however, and asked if he should take his horse.
"Why, Joseph S—— still lives here, does he not?" queried Mr. Hamlin, regarding Addison's youthful countenance inquiringly.
"Yes, sir," replied Addison. "I am his grandson."
"Ah, I thought you were rather young for one of his sons," Mr. Hamlin remarked. "I heard, too, that he had lost all his sons in the War."
"Yes, sir," Addison replied soberly.
Mr. Hamlin regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "I used to know your grandfather," he said. "Is he at home?"
Addison explained the absence of Gramp and Gram. "I am very sorry they are away," he added.
"I am sorry, too," said Mr. Hamlin, "I wanted to see them and say a few words to them." He began to turn his horse as if to drive away, but Theodora, who was always exceedingly hospitable, had gone out and now addressed our caller with greater cordiality.
"Will you not come in, sir?" she exclaimed. "Grandfather will be very sorry! Do please stop a little while and let the boys feed your horse."
Mr. Hamlin regarded her with a paternal smile. "I will get out and walk around a bit, to rest my legs," he replied.
Once he was out of the buggy, Addison and I took his horse to the stable; and Theodora having first shown him the garden and the long row of bee hives, led the way to the cool sitting-room, and domesticated him in an easy chair. We heard her relating recent events of our family history to him, and answering his questions.
Meantime the fried pies were waiting and getting cold; and when Addison and I had returned from the stable, we all began to feel a little impatient. Ellen and Kate set the pies in the oven, to keep them warm; we did not like to begin eating them with companyin the sitting-room, and so lingered hungrily about, awaiting developments. "How long s'pose he will stay!" Halse exclaimed crossly; and Addison began brushing up a little, in order to go in and help do the honors of the house with Theodora.
"He is a pretty nice old fellow," Addison remarked to Kate. "Have you any idea who he is?"
But Kate, though born in the county, had never seen him. Just then the sitting-room door opened, and we heard "Doad" saying, "We haven't much for luncheon to-day, but fried pies, but we shall all be glad to have you sit down with us."
"What an awful fib!" whispered Ellen behind her hand to Kate; and truth to say, his coming had rather upset our anticipated pleasure; but Mr. Hamlin had taken a great fancy to Theodora and was accepting her invitation, with vast good-nature.
What a great dark man he looked, as he followed Theodora out to the table.
"These are my cousins that I have told you of," she was saying, and then mentioned all our names to him and afterwards Kate's, although Mr. Hamlin had not seen fit to tell us his own; we supposed that he was merely some pleasant old acquaintance of Gramp's early years.
He was seated in Gramp's place at table and, after a brief flurry in the kitchen, the big platterful of fried pies was brought in. What Ellen and Theodora had done was, carefully to pick out the two "Jonahs" and lay them aside. We were now all gathered around. Addison and Theodora exchanged glances and there was a little pause of interrogation, in case our caller might possibly be a clergyman, after all, and might wish to say grace.
He evinced no disposition to do so, however; and laughing a little in spite of herself, Doad raised the platter and assayed to pass it to our guest.
"And are these the 'fried pies?'" he asked with thebroadest of smiles. "They resemble huge doughnuts. But I now remember that my mother used to fry something like this, when I was a boy at home, over at Paris Hill; and my recollection is that they were very good."
"Yes, the most of them are very good," said Addison, by way of making conversation, "unless you happen to get the 'Jonah.'"
"And what's the 'Jonah?'" asked our visitor.
Amidst much laughter, this was explained to him—also the penalty. Mr. Hamlin burst forth in a great shout of laughter, which led us to surmise that he enjoyed fun.
"But we have taken the 'Jonahs' out of these," Theodora made haste to reassure him.
"What for?" he exclaimed.
"Why—why—because we have company," stammered Doad, much confused.
"And spoil the sport?" cried our visitor. "Young lady, I want those 'Jonahs' put back."
"Oh, but they are awful 'Jonahs!'" pleaded Theodora.
"I want those 'Jonahs' put back," insisted Mr. Hamlin. "I shall have to decline to lunch here, unless the 'Jonahs' are in their proper places. Fetch in the 'Jonahs.'"
Very shamefaced, Ellen brought them in.
"No hokus-pokus now," cried our visitor, and nothing would answer, but that we should all turn our backs and shut our eyes, while Kate put them among the others in the platter.
It was then passed and all chose one. "Each take a good, deep mouthful," cried Mr. Hamlin, entering mirthfully into the spirit of the game. "Altogether—now!"
We all bit, eight bites at once; as it chanced no one got a "Jonah," and the eight fried pies rapidly disappeared.
"But these are good!" cried our visitor, "Minewas gooseberry." Then turning to Theodora, "How many times can a fellow try for a 'Jonah' here?"
"Five times!" replied Doad, laughing and not a little pleased with the praise.
The platter was passed again, and again no one got bran and cayenne.
But at the third passing, I saw Kate start visibly when our visitor chose his pie. "All ready. Bite!" he cried; and we bit! but at the first taste he stopped short, rolled his eyes around and shook his head with his capacious mouth full.
"Oh, but you need not eat it, sir!" cried Theodora, rushing round to him. "You need not do anything!"
But without a word our bulky visitor had sunk slowly out of his chair and pushing it back, disappeared under the long table.
For a moment we all sat, scandalized, then shouted in spite of ourselves. In the midst of our confused hilarity, the table began to oscillate; it rose slowly several inches, then moved off, rattling, toward the sitting-room door! Our jolly visitor had it on his back and was crawling ponderously but carefully away with it on his hands and knees;—and the rest of us were getting ourselves and our chairs out of the way! In fact, the remainder of that luncheon was a perfect gale of laughter. The tablewalkedclean around the room and came very carefully back to its original position.
After the hilarity had subsided, the girls served some very nice large, sweet blackberries, which our visitor appeared to relish greatly. He told us of his boyhood at Paris Hill; of his fishing for trout in the brooks thereabouts, of the time he broke his arm and of the doctor who set it so unskilfully that it had to be broken again and re-set; of the beautiful tourmaline crystals which he and his brother found at Mt. Mica; and of his school-days at Hebron Academy; and all with such feeling and such a relish, that for an hour we were rapt listeners.