"See his antlers, just above the thick bush? See 'em move? He's gazing now. He'll be off in a jiffy."
If left alone, but not so fast after the deacon had fired; for, after he had seen those antlers, he could guess pretty well at the body below them. He could not correctly guess its exact position, however; and so, instead of hitting the deer in the chest or side, the bullet grazed his shoulder, and struck his right hip. There was no more "run" after that in that magnificent buck, but there was plenty of fight. There was danger, too, in his sharp and branching horns, as Deacon Farnham discovered when he so rashly plunged in among those bushes.
Danger from a deer!
Exactly. Danger of being gored by those natural weapons of his.
Instead of being able to use his hunting-knife, the deacon found himself dodging actively behind trees, and fending off with his empty rifle the furious charges of his desperate assailant, until Vosh came to his assistance.
It was a very good thing that Vosh came when he did, and that his gun was loaded. Two charges of buckshot were fired at very short range; and the deacon was safe, but he was pretty nearly out of breath.
"You were just in time, Vosh."
"Glad I was. Isn't he a whopper? Sile Hathaway was right. The deer haven't run as well, down this way, since I remember."
Port came running up just then; and he was all eyes and ears, although his help was not needed.
"He's a grand one! We've got another."
"Have you?" panted his uncle. "Vosh, you go and 'tend to it. I'll 'tend to this one soon as I get my breath. Guess we've got all the game we want for one day."
"Why, uncle, it isn't much after noon: we might kill some more."
"Well, we might, but it'll be late enough when we get home. We've work before us, Port. Time we had some lunch, anyway."
They were all ready enough for that; but the boys began to discover soon afterwards that deer-hunting was not all play. It was easy enough to cut down branches of trees, and lay them on the sled, and fasten them together. Then it was not a terrible lift for all four of them to raise a dead deer, and lay him on the branches.
The tug of war came afterwards, as they hauled that sled homeward over the crust. Several times it broke through; and then there was no end of floundering in the snow, and tugging and lifting, before they again got it a-going. Then once it got away from them, and slid away down a deep, steep hollow, landing its cargo all in a heap at the bottom. There was no use for the snow-shoes, but they had to be fished for in the snow when the sled broke through.
It was a long pull, but they all worked at it until at last they hauled the sled out into the half-made road to Mink Lake. After that, they got on better; but they were a weary lot of hunters when they reached the farmhouse, and the day was about gone.
There were eager faces at the windows, that of Mrs. Stebbins among them. There were shrill shouts from Pen on the front stoop. Then there was an excited little gathering at the kitchen-door, when the sled was drawn in front of it, and the deacon exclaimed,—
"There! Look at 'em!"
"Three of 'em!" exclaimed aunt Judith. "All real good ones, too. Now, when I was a girl, I've known the men folks go out and bring in six of a morning, and they didn't have to go more'n a mile from the house."
Mrs. Farnham was equally well satisfied, and Pen clapped her little hands in a gale of excitement.
"Poor things!" said Susie.
She could hardly help feeling a little sorry for those three beautiful creatures on the sled; but Mrs. Stebbins curtly remarked,—
"Nonsense, my dear: they was made to be killed and eaten.—Deacon, did you and the boys kill any on 'em?"
She had a vague idea that the glory of that hunt must somehow have been won by "my Vosh;" but Susie had just time to say,—
"They look so innocent, so helpless!" when her uncle exclaimed,—
"Innocent! Helpless! That big buck was within an inch of making an end of me when Vosh came up and shot him.—He's your game, Mrs. Stebbins."
He forgot to mention that the fight with the buck was all his own fault, for he began it; but the story helped Susie out of her bit of soft-heartedness, and it made Mrs. Stebbins hold her head up amazingly.
"O father!" said Pen. "Did he hurt you? He's a dreadful deer."
"I think, Pen," said her father, "I'll let you eat some of him for supper."
There was venison-steak in abundance at table, and Corry was nearly justified in declaring,—
"It's good fun to hunt deer, but I'd rather eat 'em than drag 'em home."
Both Vosh Stebbins and Corry Farnham had a great deal to do in their hours before and after school. The former, particularly, had chores upon his hands which would have been a great burden to a less thoroughly efficient and industrious young fellow. He had his sorrel colt, instead of the two teams and the oxen of the other farm, and he also had cows and pigs. As to these and the poultry, Mrs. Stebbins relieved him of much, for she said of herself,—
"I'm as spry as a gal, and I don't show no signs of failin'. I don't intend to hev that boy choked off from havin' his sheer of all the goin's-on he can reach out to."
She was a notable housekeeper and manager, and was free to say so. As for Corry, not a little of the work put upon him was what his father wisely called "farm-schooling;" but he had it to do, just the same.
One consequence was, that the splendid skating prepared by the thaw and rain and freeze on the mill-pond had not received the attention it so well deserved. Some of the village boys had done what they could for it; and it lay there waiting for the rest, just as good as ever. Porter Hudson had looked at it longingly more than once; and it was only the day after the grand deer-hunt on the crust that he said to Susie,—
"Now, don't you say a word about it to any one. Put your skates under your shawl, and walk on down to the village with me. I'll wrap up mine in a bundle."
"What if anybody should see us? Who cares? I don't."
"Why, Susie, don't you see? We'll be out with all the rest before long. We haven't been on our skates since we were at the rink last winter. I don't feel more'n half sure I could stand up on mine."
"No, nor I: that's a fact. We must have some practice first, or they'll think we're just learning."
They felt very wise about it, but they had no notion whatever that precisely such an idea had occurred to Vosh Stebbins. His mother had not minded his getting home pretty late on the two or three evenings when she knew he was educating his feet and ankles before showing Susie Hudson and her brother what a country boy could do on good ice.
"Your father," she said to him, "was the best skater in the valley, and you ort to be. Get your skates filed, Lavawjer." And she told him a great deal about ice and skating before she felt satisfied that he knew what might some day be required of him as being her son and the smartest boy in Benton Valley.
So it came to pass, the day after the hunt, while Penelope and her brother and Vosh and all the other boys and girls were safely shut up in the village school-house, the boy and girl from the city were out upon the ice. They even took pains to keep at the upper end of the pond and on the river above it, so that not one critical pair of eyes should discover what they were about. It was a complete success, as far as secrecy was concerned, and nearly so in other respects. The first trial could not be too long, but it compelled Port to remark when they set out for home,—
"How stiff and lame I am!"
"Port," replied Susie, "I can't but just walk."
"We must try it again right off," said Port, "or it won't do. If we can manage it to get down there two or three times more"—
"Without any one seeing us"—
"We can skate as well as we ever could: shouldn't wonder if it surprised 'em."
Vosh had had a sort of surprise in his own mind, and he had worked it up among the other boys. It came out only a few evenings later, when aunt Judith was compelled to exclaim at the supper-table,—
"Skating-party on the ice! Who ever heard tell of such a thing! After dark too!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Corry gravely: "the skating's to be done on the ice,—all over it. There'll be the biggest bonfires you ever saw, and there'll be good moonlight too."
"Sakes alive!—Susie, would you like to go and look on for a while?"
"Indeed I would! Now, aunt Judith, you and aunt Sarah both go, and take Pen and me."
There was a little discussion of the matter, of course; but the deacon settled it.
"I used to think there wasn't any thing much better'n a skate by moonlight. It won't pay to hitch up a team, but I'll walk over with you. Let's all go."
The first whisper Port gave to Susie after supper was,—
"Hide your skates. I'll let 'em see mine: they don't know I can stand on 'em."
Corry was right about the moon, and the evening was wonderfully clear and bright.
"Plenty of light to skate by," said the deacon when they started; but even he had to admit that the village boys had done themselves credit, when he reached the pond, and saw the bonfires.
There must have been nearly a dozen of them strung along from the dam to the mouth of the little river on both shores; and one big one flared up right in the middle of the pond.
"It'll melt through," said Pen.
"Guess not," replied her brother. "The ice is awful thick."
There were a good many merry skaters already at work; and there were groups of spectators here and there, for the fires made the scene well worth coming to look at.
"Susie," said Vosh, "how I do wish you knew how to skate!"
"Let me see how you can do it. I'll look on a little while."
She felt almost conscience-smitten about her intended fun; but she kept her secret until all the boys had strapped on their skates, and she heard Vosh say to Port,—
"Can you get up alone? Shall I help you?"
"No, I guess not. Can you cut a figure 8, this way? Come on, Vosh, catch me if you can!"
"Corry!" exclaimed Pen, "Port can skate. See him go!"
"I declare!" remarked the deacon, "so he can."
"So can Vosh," said Mrs. Stebbins. "There ain't any city boy going to beat him right away."
Vosh's effort to find out if that were true had already carried him so far away, that, the moment Corry followed him, Susie felt safe to say,—
"Now, uncle Joshua, if you will help me buckle my skates"—
She was in such a fever to get them on, that she hardly heard the storm of remarks from Mrs. Stebbins and aunt Judith; but the deacon seemed to take an understanding interest in the matter, and he was right down on his knees on the ice, hurrying to fasten those skates for her.
"Can you really skate, Susie?"
"I'll show you in a minute. Please do hurry, before either of them suspect any thing."
"O Susie!" said Pen mournfully, "I do wish I could."
"You must learn some day."
"Susie!" exclaimed aunt Judith, "wait for somebody to go with ye: you might tumble down."
"Start, now, Susie," said her uncle. "Off with you!"
She was really a very graceful skater; and her aunts looked on with admiration, as well as a vast deal of astonishment, while she made a few whirls near by, to make sure her skates were on rightly. Then away she glided over the ice; and the first thing Vosh Stebbins knew of it was when the form of a young lady fluttered swiftly past him, between him and the glare of the great central bonfire. Her face was turned the other way, and his first exclamation was,—
"What a splendid skater! Who can she be?"
"I know," said Port Hudson, close at hand, and waiting for his share of the joke. "She's a girl from the city, and she's spending the winter with some relatives of mine. Come on: I'm going after her. Think you can keep up? Come on, Vosh."
Away went Porter, just as his friend felt a great hot flush come into his face, and dashed after them, exclaiming,—
"If I ain't stupid! Why, it's Susie Hudson herself!"
He felt as if his honor were at stake, and he had never skated so in all his life before. The fires on the bank seemed to flit by him as he followed that solitary girl-skater around the glittering icy reaches of the mill-pond. It looked so like a race, that almost everybody else paused to watch, and some even cheered. Deacon Farnham himself shouted,—
"Hurrah for Susie!" and Pen danced up and down.
"It's jest wonderful," said aunt Judith, "to see her go off that way the very first time."
"Guess it isn't quite the first skatin' she ever did," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but Vosh'll ketch her, now, you see'f he don't."
Susie had somehow got it into her head that she did not mean to be caught, and her practice was all in her favor; but just as she reached the head of the pond, and made a quick turn into the winding channel of the river, Vosh came swinging along at her side, and for a little distance he did not speak a word to her.
"Vosh," she said, after trying very hard to think of something else to say, "I wish you'd teach me to skate."
A ringing laugh was all his answer for a moment, and then he remarked innocently,—
"The ice is smoother up this way, but I mustn't let you get too far from the folks. Tire you all out skating back again."
On they went, while all the people they had left behind them, except their own, were inquiring of each other who the young lady could be that had so astonished them.
Oddly enough, the Benton girls had omitted skating from their list of accomplishments, by a kind of common consent; and Susie's bit of fun had a surprise in it for others besides Vosh and her aunts. It was quite likely she would have imitators thereafter, but she had made an unexpected sensation that evening.
Even Port had surprised Corry and the Benton boys, although some of them were every way his equals on the ice.
"Now, Vosh," remarked Susie at the end of nearly a mile of that crooked ice-path, "we'd better go back. Are you tired?"
"Tired! I could skate all night. We'd better go, though, or aunt Judith'll borrow a pair, and come skating along after us."
Down the river they went again, and across the pond; and by that time a score of busy tongues were circulating the discovery.
"It's that there city cousin of the Farnhams. She learned how to skate when she was travellin' in Russia."
Part of that news may have had some help from Corry; but Susie's aunts were glad to get her back again, and Mrs. Stebbins said to her,—
"You never did look prettier nor nicer. I do jest like to see any gal nowadays that ain't afraid of her shadder."
"Guess Susie isn't much afraid of any thing," said Pen; "but I'm awful glad there wasn't any holes in the ice."
"No air-holes are needed on a mill-pond," said Mr. Farnham; "but, if I'm not mistaken, there'll be some lame young people to-morrow. Nobody feels very well the day after such a race as that."
He was not altogether wrong. Susie felt pretty well the next day, but in spite of her practising beforehand, her race with Vosh Stebbins had been a severe one; and, to tell the full truth, he himself was willing to get over the effects of it before volunteering to try another.
The people of Benton valley and village had not been ignorant of the fact that Deacon Joshua Farnham's family had some city cousins spending the winter with them. Some had said at first that they were there for their health, and some that they were orphans and had come to stay; but the facts of the case got around after a while.
Susie and Port had made some acquaintances at the donation, and some at the spelling-match, and some at the meeting-house; but people had not exactly made up their minds what to do about them. Now came the altogether sensational affair of the moonlight skating-race on the mill-pond, and something had got to be done.
Away over on the other side of the valley, and just in the outer edge of the village, stood a great white, square box of a house, larger than any other house within ten miles of it. Squire King was by all odds the richest man in that circumference, and he had built his house large accordingly. Mrs. King was not exactly proud, although she knew she was rich, and that she had been to Europe once, and to a number of notable places in the United States. Neither she, nor any other woman in or about Benton, was in a position to look down upon the Farnhams. She liked them, as did everybody else, and was a little in awe of aunt Judith; but she had not felt any social duty in the matter of their visitors until she was told of the skating. It had really been pretty well done on the ice, but it was tenfold more wonderful when it was described in Mrs. King's dining-room. Even Squire King himself dropped his newspaper, and listened, and asked, "What's the world coming to?" And Mrs. King's three lady neighbors who were telling her about it were unable to answer him. They all said, however, that it was time some special attention should be paid, and that such a young lady must be worth getting acquainted with. So had said every girl in the valley who felt old enough to skate; and quite a number of well-grown boys decided to learn new "curly q's" on the ice. Every boy of them had a bump on the back of his head within three days, and the pond was less like a looking-glass than formerly; but Mrs. Squire King had made up her own mind in less time than that, without any headache. There should be a young people's party at her house; and her husband agreed with her, that the nearer they could fill it up, and leave standing-room, the better.
"Do it right away, Addie," said he. "Do it right up to the handle. Kind of startle folks. Nobody's a-looking for any such thing to come."
It was to be all sorts of a surprise; and the whole valley went about its affairs, just the same as if Mrs. Squire King were not manufacturing so much frosted cake, and boiling tongues and hams for sandwiches. Some other tongues would have been hot enough if they had known a word about it before the invitations were written and sent out.
Up at Deacon Farnham's it was a little quieter than it was anywhere else the day after the skating, until he himself came in from the village at noon. He had come for his dinner, but there was a look in his face as if he had brought something. Pen had seen it there before; and she asked him what it was to be, precisely as if he had spoken about it.
"What have I got? How do you know I've got any thing?"
"Is it something for me?"
"No, not this time, Pen; but I've something for Port and Susie."
"Letters, uncle!" exclaimed Susie; and Mrs. Farnham added,—
"I do hope so. She's been fairly mourning for some, day after day."
"It's all a mistake or neglect of somebody in your father's office in the city, Susie. There's three for you, and one is a fat one. Where's Port? There's as many for him."
Port was out at the barn; but Pen found him, and brought him in, as if his life depended upon getting those letters at once.
"Mother! Father!" said Susie, with a face that changed fast from red to pale, and back again, as she dropped into aunt Judith's big rocking-chair, and began to read those letters.
"Is it all good news?" asked Mrs. Farnham in a minute or so.
"All perfect, aunt Sarah. Mother seems to be doing very well."
She read on and on; and Port had now come in, and was doing the same; and it was as if with one voice they suddenly exclaimed,—
"How strange it seems!"
"What is so strange?" asked aunt Judith in almost a tone of alarm. "Did any thing happen to either of 'em?"
"Happen! No, indeed, but it's warm weather there. Father complains of the heat. Green grass and trees, and flowers and birds, and no sign of winter! Seems as if it couldn't be in the same world."
"I don't half believe I'd like that kind of winter weather, anyhow," said aunt Judith with emphasis. "When it's time for snow, I want snow, and plenty of it. 'Pears like to me, it would be kind of unnatural without sleighin'. Now, this here winter's been the most satisfactory we've had for four years past. It's been a real genuine, old-fashioned, right down cold and snowy winter."
"And it's getting colder now," said Deacon Farnham. "There's no telling where the thermometer'll go to, if it keeps on trying."
Nevertheless there was a curiously pleasant feeling to be had in listening to those accounts of the different condition of things in Florida; and Port was justified in remarking,—
"I'd like a little of that balmy air for a while in the morning, but I wouldn't care so much for it after I once got well a-going."
"I would," said Pen. "I could go a-sleighing, and keep my feet warm all the while."
"Shouldn't wonder if people down there would like a little of our ice at this very time," said her father; while Susie herself declared, that, except for seeing her mother and father, she did not wish to exchange winters with them.
When Corry came home in the afternoon, the first thing he said was, that he was glad Pen had returned at the midday "letting-out."
"The wind blows down the hill with an edge like a knife, and they say it's away below zero."
"It's coldest at the foot of the hill," said Pen confidently; and then, while Corry was warming himself, Susie and Port read to him tantalizing things about orange-groves and magnolia-trees and sunshine, and boat-rides on the St. John's River, away down in the sunny South.
"That's where De Soto hunted for the Fountain of Youth," said Corry; "and I guess Eden must have been around there somewhere. It wasn't down in Benton Valley, anyhow you can fix it."
"Nonsense!" said aunt Judith. "You'd get sick of any kind of Eden that didn't need a fireplace for six months in the year."
Corry's ears were beginning to feel better, and his opinion of the weather he was accustomed to improved as the tingling subsided. Still he was quite willing to discuss a little more fully the wonder of tropical and semi-tropical lands. Even after chores were attended to, and supper was eaten, and the whole family gathered in the sitting-room, they all seemed to feel more like talking than any thing else. Of course the knitting went on as usual, and Pen asserted that her next undertaking in yarn was to be a pair of stockings for Porter Hudson. It seemed as if they had just got fairly settled, before the front-gate opened with a great frosty creak, as if it pained the hinges to be swung upon in such cold weather, and the sound of a well-known voice came faintly to the door.
"If it isn't Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen; and her mother said,—
"Glad she's come. It isn't far, but it's neighborly for her to look in on such a night as this."
"Hope Vosh is with her," said Corry as he stepped towards the door; and so he was. But they both had come upon something more than a mere neighborly call. Hardly was Mrs. Stebbins inside of the door, before she exclaimed sharply,—
"Joshaway Farnham, it's a wolf, I know it is! I heard it twice; and, if I don't know a wolf when he howls, it's because the whole country wasn't full on 'em when I was a gal. I've known a man that a'most made his livin' off the bounty they sot on wolf-skelps, till they found out that he was raisin' of 'em at a place he had away back under Sawbuck Mountain; and they paid as much for pups' ears as they did for growed-up wolves, and"—
"Angeline Stebbins!" almost shouted aunt Judith, "what do you mean? There hasn't been a wolf down so far as this, these three years and more; and then they never came nigh any house except Josiah Rogers's hog-pen."
"Fact, though, now, I guess," said Vosh. "I listened hard, and I believe I heard one howl."
"Shouldn't wonder at all," said Mr. Farnham; "what between the deep snow, and the hard, cold snap. It isn't so much because they can't run down the deer so well, I believe, as because they somehow get bolder, and sort of crazy, in bitter frost. Did you hear more than one, Vosh?"
"Can't say, unless the same one howled several times. I heard it first when I was out at the barn, and it sounded just in the edge of the woods."
"I don't believe one could get at your stock very easily, or at mine. You don't feel like a tramp out after wolves on such a night as this?"
"My gun's leaning against the door outside," said Vosh, "if you care to come along. Mother said she'd rather stay here till I got back."
"No more chance of killing one than there is of flying," remarked Mrs. Farnham; "but if Joshaway wants to go"—
The deacon's pleasant blue eyes had been kindling a little under their shaggy brows; and he was now slowly rising from his chair, and buttoning up his coat.
"I'll go as far as the woods with you, Vosh, and see what's the matter.—We won't be gone a great while, Sarah. I'll only take my double-barrel: a rifle's of no use by moonlight. Where are Port and Corry?"
Nobody had seen them slip away; but their chairs had been empty from the moment when they heard the word "wolf," and saw Vosh Stebbins's shot-pouch slung over his shoulder. The deacon had hardly picked up his overcoat, before they were in the room again, loaded with guns and shot-pouches.
"Going for wolves, are you?" said the deacon. "You won't kill any. Not one has been killed this side of Sawbuck Mountain for years and years. Come along. Wrap your ears up, and put an extra slug into each barrel on top of the buckshot."
Rifle-bullets answered capitally well for slugs, and even Pen and Susie felt a tingling all over when they saw those guns loaded. Ponto was called in from the kitchen; and he too seemed to be all tingle, as soon as he saw the hunt-like look of matters.
"He couldn't whip a wolf," said Corry, "but he might be of some kind of use."
"My father had a dog once," began Mrs. Stebbins; but she was interrupted by aunt Judith with,—
"Now, Angeline, you sit right down, and we'll have up some krullers and some cider; and they'll all be frosted back again in time to eat their share of 'em."
Ponto was doomed to disappointment that time; for Mr. Farnham, on second thought, fastened him up in the kitchen again, remarking,—
"He'd only spoil any other chance we might have.—Come on, boys. Judith is pretty nearly correct about the weather, and I guess I'm right about the wolves."
"I heard 'em," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but they didn't say they'd sit down under a tree and wait till you came along."
They were hurrying out of the door as she said that, and there was no danger of their walking slowly. They had not reached the gate, before Mr. Farnham straightened up, exclaiming,—
"I declare! Hark!"
It was neither so faint nor so far away that they could not hear it; and it might have been the howl of a lost dog, for all that Porter Hudson would have known. There was a hurrying up the road, after that; and the frost was all but forgotten in the excitement of getting to the woods as soon as possible. There was hardly any talking done; and the snow of the road broke with a brittle, cracking sound under their feet.
"There it is again!" said Vosh at last, as they drew near the shadows of the forest; "and it sounds as if it were nearer."
"Nearer it is," said the deacon, "and so is something else. I'd like to know, now, just how many miles they've been chasing that deer. Hear him jump?"
His ears were better trained than those of his young companions, for he had all his life been a keen sportsman; but, on listening attentively, they all declared, one after another, that they could hear something. Again they heard the voices that were coming nearer, but they were more like yelps than howls this time; and Mr. Farnham at once asserted,—
"They are gaining on him. He has turned again, and is coming this way: shouldn't wonder if they'd been after him all day. Hold still, boys: better chance out in the open."
Yelp, yelp, jump, jump! and the hunters were shivering with cold and excitement, for they knew not how many or how few minutes more; and then, out through the frosty trees, in his last desperate race for life, dashed an all but tired-out buck. He had run well and far, but he had reached the limit of his strength. He hardly noticed the four hunters, in his fear of the enemies behind him. Not one of them thought of lifting a gun at him; but, just as a staggering leap carried him down from a snow-drift into the road, he slipped and fell. A few seconds earlier, Vosh had hoarsely whispered,—
"There they come,—pair of 'em!" And two long, dark forms, that seemed to glide on in a series of silent undulations, were only a few rods behind the buck.
"They'll get him," said Port, with a keen sense that his blood was warming suddenly.
"Father!" exclaimed Corry, "you say when."
Before the buck could regain his feet, his fierce pursuers were upon him with savage snarls, and his race for life was over. There was a vivid picture of forest-life for one tremendous moment, there in the middle of the road; but within thirty yards were the four sportsmen, and their guns were at their shoulders.
"Keep your second barrels for a moment," said the deacon. "Be sure of your aim. Now!"
The four reports followed one another in swift succession, and a storm of slugs and buckshot was hurled into the struggling group in the road. The buck was down already, but he rolled clean over now. One wolf lay kicking on the snow beside him, while the other gave a bound and a yelp that told of a shot reaching him.
"Take that one, all of you! the other's done for. Quick!"
The deacon fired as he spoke, and the rest followed so fast that nobody could even so much as guess who killed that wolf.
Down he went, and the sudden hunt was all over. Two wolves had run down a deer, only to deliver their own peltry with it to the astonished sportsmen they had summoned by their ill-advised howling.
Porter Hudson could hardly believe his ears and eyes. He had heard of wonderful hunting, and now he had actually done some on his own account. There were the forest savages dead in the road; and there was Deacon Farnham finishing up the deer, and saying,—
"We couldn't have done that if Ponto had been here: he'd have rushed forward, and been in the way of our shooting. We'd have lost both of them."
"We've got 'em now," said Vosh.
"One skin's yours, and half of the buck," said the deacon; "and now we'd better go for your colt and a sled, and haul 'em home."
That was bitter cold work, but nobody seemed to care where zero was just then. The sled was brought and loaded, and then it was drawn to the very kitchen-door of the Farnham farmhouse.
Ponto's nose had told him something, and he was barking furiously at the other side of that door. Lights were hurrying into the kitchen, and the door sprang nervously open.
"Joshaway, what's this? Was anybody hurt? We heard the firing," gasped Mrs. Farnham in a tone of intense anxiety.
"Oh, it's awful!" began Pen, but aunt Judith was calmer.
"Got a buck, did ye? It wasn't that that did the howling."
"Sakes alive!" shouted Mrs. Stebbins. "That's a wolf! I knew Vosh would kill something. Two on 'em? Two wolves and a deer? And you wasn't gone no time at all; but Sarah and Judith, they said it seemed as if you was going to stay all night.—Pen, don't you tetch 'em.—Susie, what do you think of that?—Joshaway Farnham, don't you ever tell me again that I don't know the kind of howl a wolf makes."
There she paused for a moment, and the hunters had a chance to tell how that very remarkable affair had actually come to pass.
"Just so," said aunt Judith. "It was the buck tolled 'em down for ye. They'd never have dreamed of coming, frost or no frost, if they hadn't been a-follerin' of that deer."
She was entirely correct, but it was pretty late that night before all was quiet in either of those two farmhouses. The game was slung up to the rafters of the woodshed, to be more thoroughly attended to in the morning. The excitement could not be slung up anywhere, and Susie Hudson was aware of a grisly feeling that the country was hardly as safe a place as she had been in the habit of thinking. She was very glad, however, that there were guns in the house, and she all but wished that she knew how to load and fire one.
Porter Hudson had a great deal upon his hands the forenoon following the coming of those wolves. He had to see his uncle take off their skins and that of the buck; and he had a great many questions to ask about wild animals in general, and wolves in particular. Pen had informed him, before she went to school, that the two wolf-skins were to be turned into buffalo-robes for Vosh's cutter and her father's big sleigh. She may also have been correct when she added, "They're the best kind of blankets you can get." Susie herself took an interest in that, for she was already crocheting the most fanciful red border she could think of for the rich fur of the wildcat they had brought home from Mink Lake. It promised to be an uncommonly brilliant lamp-mat.
As for Vosh and Corry and Pen, they were even eager to get to school early. The people of Benton Valley would know nothing about the wolves until the story should be set a-going. All three of them told it well, not only after they reached the school-house, but to some acquaintances whom they met on the way. If Pen's version was hardly as correct as the other two, there was certainly more of it; but her improvements were as nothing to those it received afterwards. Every boy and girl that heard it carried it home in a different shape. As many as could do so at noon were especially happy on that account; and such as lived too far away, and had brought luncheons with them, got along as well as they could, holding in, and hoping that they would still be the first to tell it to their folks.
Some were sure to be disappointed, for such news travels fast. One farmer who was in the village with a load of oats never waited to dicker about the price he sold them at, but got away at once, and stopped at six houses before he reached his own. By supper-time there were elderly ladies in the village who felt like bracing their front-gates with boards, and wondered if the wolves were really going to pester the village all winter. Perhaps the best and most vivid account of the fight was given by one small boy to Elder Keyser and his wife to carry home to Cobbleville. His description was very good, of how the buck led the wolves into Deacon Farnham's kitchen; and how Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith and Mrs. Stebbins, and Susie Hudson and Pen, were there all alone, eating apples, till the men came in from hunting, and helped them. The elder had a meeting to go to that evening, or he would have driven over at once to inquire into the matter, and see if any of the family were really very badly bitten by those ferocious wild beasts. He took "Wolves in sheep's clothing" as a text for his next sermon, and it was most attentively listened to. Elder Evans and his wife got out their horse and cutter at once, and went in a hurry: so did Mrs. Squire King, only she took her big double sleigh, with the longest gilded goose-necks in that whole region. There were six ladies in it by the time she reached the foot of the hill below the Farnham homestead; for she was a good neighbor, and loved company. Somebody was out looking at the wolf-skins until nearly tea-time; but not one soul would stay to tea, after obtaining all the facts of that affair to go home with.
All that Mrs. Squire King saw of Susie Hudson made her feel more in earnest about the party; but she resolutely sealed her lips over it, except in a small bit of confidential talk with aunt Judith and Mrs. Farnham, and the five ladies who went with her in her own sleigh to see about the wolves.
It was a very busy tea-table, for ever so many people had to be talked about, and what they said had to be repeated; and Pen broke down entirely in trying to rehearse a wolf-story the teacher had told the scholars who staid in at noon. It turned out to have been a tiger-story with an elephant in it, and Pen had added the snow on her own responsibility.
After tea a little while, Vosh came over with a sled to get his wolf-skin and his share of the buck; and it would have been a small miracle if his mother had not come with him. The weather was every bit as cold as it had been the night before, and she said so as she entered the house.
"Never mind, Angeline," said aunt Judith. "Sit right down, and take off your things, and there won't be any howling done to-night."
"I jest do hope not, Judith Farnham, for I waked up nine times afore mornin' last night, and each time I was kind o' dreaming that I heard something; and it kep' me every now and then, all day, a-remembering that story of old Mrs. Lucas and Alvin Lucas, and that was ever so long ago. And it always did seem to me one of the queerest things; and you can't account for it, nohow."
"What was it, Mrs. Stebbins?" asked Susie. "Couldn't you tell us the story?"
They were all sitting around the fireplace; and Susie was gazing at a flickering blaze on the top log, or she might have noticed that her uncle and aunts had not said a word.
"Tell it? Well, I s'pose I can; but it isn't much of a story, after all. They do say that story-tellin's a good thing of a winter evening, when it's as cold as this; but I wasn't ever much of a hand at it, and it's got to be an old story now, what there is of it."
Vosh had no doubt heard the story, and knew what was coming; but both Corry and Pen joined with Port and Susie to urge Mrs. Stebbins a little. The deacon was still silent, and aunt Judith and Mrs. Farnham seemed to be knitting more rapidly than usual. Mrs. Stebbins hemmed twice to clear her throat, and drank some cider, and said it was a good thing to know how to keep it sweet all winter by putting in a chunk of lime while it was a-fermenting; and then she told her story.
"There's a wolf in it," said Pen to Porter Hudson; but it went right along, just the same.
"The Lucases they owned the farm we live on now; and it's a right good one, as soon as Vosh is old enough to handle it himself. That was away back when your uncle Joshaway was a young man, and he and Alvin Lucas were the closest kind of friends; and there wasn't a likelier young man around here than Alvin was, unless it was Vosh's father or your uncle Joshaway. It was before either one of 'em was married; and the war broke out the spring before, and it seemed as if all the young men was half crazy before harvestin' was over. There was eighteen of the very best and pick went right out from Benton Valley, and twice as many more from over Cobbleville way, first thing, as soon as the grain was in, and some of the after-ploughin' was done. It was queer, but somehow, when they came together, they elected Alvin Lucas captain of that company; and a young fellow from Cobbleville was next; and Levi Stebbins was only a corporal at first; and your uncle Joshaway was a private, but he got to be a major before the war was over; and Vosh's father he came home a captain, with a big scar on his right arm, and he'd lost one of his front teeth in a scrimmage. But I must go right on to the wolf part."
"O Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen with a long breath, "I'd forgot all about the war."
"So has most people," said Mrs. Stebbins; "and it's well they have, for it's only a root of bitterness now, and it ort not to be dug up for ever and ever. But that first winter after the war begun was an awful cold one, up hereaway. Leastwise, there kem a bitter snap, like the one we're having now; and somehow it seemed as if we never missed all those young men so much, not even in the fall work, as we did after winter sot in. There was a good many fire-places like this all over the country, where the folks missed the best face they had, for the one that isn't there always kind o' seems to be the best; and old Mrs. Lucas she counted on Alvin, most likely, a good deal as I do on Vosh. He was away down on the Potomac with his company, and there hadn't been a man of 'em hurt up to the time of that cold snap, and they sent letters home as reg'lar as clock-work; and people thought the war wasn't sech a dreadful thing, after all, so long as nobody got killed from Benton Valley and Cobbleville. Your folks lived right here, and mine away over on the other hill, nigh the dividing-line into the Sanders school-district; and your grandfather and grandmother Farnham were alive, and Susie Farnham she hadn't married Reuben Hudson and gone to the city, and Judith she was a young woman; and those two gals was at home with the old folks one evening"—
Just then Deacon Farnham got up from his chair, and sat down again; and aunt Judith rubbed her spectacles very hard indeed, and Mrs. Farnham looked at her, sidling, as if to see if she were interested in the story; and Pen looked around at every one, for she knew that Mrs. Stebbins must be getting pretty near the wolf now.
"It was one bitter cold night, and all the Lucases were at home, except, of course, Alvin; and there were four younger than he was; but he was the likeliest, as well as the oldest, and his next brother didn't go into the war till the second year. Old Mrs. Lucas wasn't nervous generally, but that night there seemed to be something the matter with her; and it was as dark as a pocket, as well as being so cold you could hardly keep the hens from freezing. She kept a-going to the window; and her husband, I heard him tell my mother about it, how she seemed to be listening for something, and all of a sudden she broke out, 'John, it's a wolf! Hear him! He's out there in the road! Something's happened to Alvin!' Now, I ain't a mite superstitious, and she wasn't, and John Lucas wasn't; but there was a charge of buckshot in his gun, and he took it up, and went right out"—
"Was the wolf there?" asked Pen with widely open eyes; for Mrs. Stebbins paused a moment, as if for breath, and aunt Judith's knitting had dropped into her lap, and she was staring hard at the fire.
"Yes, Pen," went on Mrs. Stebbins, "and he was nigher the house, and he howled again; and he sot still, and held his head up to howl, till John Lucas and his next son—Roger, his name was—got within shot of him; for he was crazed with the frost, jest as wolves will get in sech times."
"Did they kill him?" asked Corry.
"Dead as a mackerel," said Mrs. Stebbins. "And he was the biggest kind; but it didn't seem to comfort Mrs. Lucas a mite, and it was the strangest kind of a thing, after all. There isn't any superstition in me: but, when the next letters kem from the war, there'd been a scrimmage on the Potomac that very night; and Capt. Alvin Lucas, and four men from Benton Valley, and twice as many from Cobbleville, had been killed in it."
"I don't believe the wolf knew a word about the skirmish," said Port. "He couldn't, you know."
"Besides," said Pen, "they shot him; and he couldn't go all around the valley, and over to Cobbleville, and howl for the other folks."
Susie was just going to say something to aunt Sarah about it; but she and aunt Judith had suddenly arisen, and were walking out into the kitchen. Mrs. Stebbins looked down at her knitting, just the same, and finished her story as she toed out the last half-inch of that stocking.
"It kem awful hard on John Lucas, and he sold out his farm that next spring, and went West; and Levi Stebbins bought it as soon as his army time was ended, and he could come home again; and Joshaway he staid in till it was all over. Old Mrs. Lucas, it took her awful; but she was a good woman, for she said she couldn't get her mind right about losing Alvin till she could feel to sympathize with the mothers of men that was killed on the other side. I never had no trouble about that, for Levi he always spoke well of the Southern soldiers, and so did your uncle Joshaway; and mothers are mothers, no matter where you find 'em."
Mrs. Stebbins was quiet for a moment, and then remarked,—
"Lavawjer, it's time we was a-going home."
"I guess it is, mother."
It was while she was getting on her things that Deacon Farnham beckoned Susie Hudson away into the parlor entry for a moment, and whispered to her,—
"You are old enough to know some things, Susie. Don't say any thing more about that story. Speak to Port, and I will to Corry. Your aunt Sarah's elder brother was the first man killed in that skirmish: that was what came to her."
"And aunt Judith?"
"Capt. Lucas. They were engaged."
"O uncle Joshua!"
"That is what the war meant to both sides, my dear."
"I'm glad it was ever so long ago, and we don't know any thing about it," said Susie; and that was about what Port said when they spoke to him. It was not much of a wolf-story, after all, but it had helped away a winter evening, and perhaps it had done something more; for the boys and girls of one generation should not be ignorant, altogether, of the sufferings and sacrifices of those who have lived and died before they came to take their turn at it.
When the family came down to breakfast the next morning, it looked as if every thing but the venison-steaks and johnnycake and hot coffee had been forgotten. The steaks were capital; and as for the johnnycake, nobody in all Benton Valley could beat aunt Judith at that sort of thing. She was proud of her skill, and liked to see its products eaten; but even as Porter Hudson was helping himself to his third slice, she said to him,—
"Once, when I was a girl, I remember being out of bread for a whole week."
"O aunt Judith!" exclaimed Pen, "didn't you eat any thing?"
"We had plenty of milk and pork and eggs and poultry, and we didn't starve. We pounded corn in a mortar and made samp, and we hulled some corn and made hominy, and ate it, and did capitally well."
"I think I could live a while on such starvation as that," remarked Susie, "especially if I had maple-sugar to melt down, and pour on the samp."
"We had some," said aunt Judith; "but we were just about out of flour and meal, when there came a thaw and a freshet; and the mill-dams all gave way, as if they'd agreed to go down together; and we had to wait till the mills got to running again. It wasn't easy to get a grist ground, even then; but we didn't suffer any. Folks sent ever so far for flour; but there wasn't any railroad then, and the roads were awful for a few weeks. There used to be great freshets in those days."
"That's a thing that might come any time after the bears turn over," said Mr. Farnham; and Port instantly asked him,—
"After the bears turn over! What have they to do with it?"
"Didn't you know that? Well, well! You're a city boy, and don't have any bears at home. Every bear hunts up a hollow tree as soon as it's too cold for him to get around in the woods comfortably, and sits down before it till there's a heavy snow. Then he creeps in, and gets the hole snowed up, and goes to sleep. He never dreams of waking up till spring; but, as soon as the sun is hot enough to warm the tree on one side, it makes him comfortable on that side of him, and he turns over in his sleep to warm the other. It's a sure sign of a thaw; and the snow melts pretty fast after that, till it's time for him to creep out and get something to eat."
"How hungry he must be!" said Pen.
"When is the best time to hunt for bears?" asked Port, with a dim idea that he would like to boast of having killed a few.
"Along in the fall, when the nuts are coming down. They're fattest then. They trap 'em every year all through the mountain country north."
"Trap 'em! Is there any trap big enough to catch a bear in?" asked Port.
"Big enough! I'd say so. And sometimes it's a wolf, or a wildcat, or a panther, instead of a bear; and I know of a man getting caught in one once."
"Did he get out?" asked Pen.
"I won't tell you about it now; but when we get into the sitting-room this evening, I'll let you know just how one man made a bear of himself away up on Sawbuck Mountain."
That was something to look forward to; but not long after Corry and Pen had gone to school, Porter Hudson took his gun, and marched away to the woods, all alone by himself. The crust was still as firm as ever, and there had been no snow worth mentioning since the great storm.
"I don't know exactly what I'm going to kill," he said to himself; "but I'm ready for any thing that comes."
His first call for Ponto had been obeyed somewhat fatly and sluggishly; but, the moment the old dog saw the gun, he was another and a more willing animal. He led the way, head and tail up, until he came to the spot in the road where the wolves had pulled down the buck. The new snow, thin as it was, covered all traces of that adventure. But Ponto's memory, or nose, made him precisely accurate. Port was quite willing to stop a moment, and recall how that spot had looked in the moonlight, and how uncommonly loud and sharp had seemed to be the reports of the guns. All the hills had echoed them; and it occurred to him, that, if he should now meet a pack of wolves, he would have but two loads of buckshot, instead of eight.
"And no slugs," he added. "I should have brought some along. I don't care, though. I could climb a small tree, and fire away."
He afterwards noted quite a number of small trees well adapted to such business. So were some lower limbs of several larger trees, and he stood for a few minutes under one of these. He imagined himself sitting on that great projecting branch, climbing out to where it was ten feet above the snow, with a large pack of very ferocious and hungry wolves raging around below him, while he loaded and fired until the last of them had keeled over.
"Wolves can't climb," he remarked to himself; and he felt that such an affair would be grand to tell of when he should get back to the city. It would make a sort of hero of him, and the wolves could be skinned right there. He enjoyed it mentally; but that particular pack of wild beasts, killed off, in his imagination, under that tree, were all the game, of any kind, that he obtained that day. Ponto did better, for he discovered innumerable tracks in the snow, and they seemed to answer his purposes admirably. He could sniff and bark, and run and come back again, and look up into Port's face as if he were saying, "There, I've had another hunt."
Port had one. In fact, he hunted until he was sick of it, and decided that it was altogether too cold to hunt any longer. It seemed to him that he had been gone from the house a very long time indeed; and he was all but astonished, on his return, to discover that he was quite in season for dinner.
"Didn't you see any thing whatever?" asked Susie. She had felt a little anxiety about him, considering what dreadful things the forest was known to contain, and was even relieved to have him reply,—
"Not so much as one rabbit. You never heard any thing so still as the woods are."
"Didn't know but what you might bring home a few deer," said Deacon Farnham, "or find a bear-tree."
"I'm good and hungry, anyhow," said Port; "and it's the hardest kind of work, looking all around for nothing."
He had not done that. No city boy can spend a morning in the winter forest, with a gun and a dog, without learning something. It is an experience he will not forget so long as he lives.
Those had been great days for Vosh Stebbins. He felt that he had new duties on his hands ever since his new neighbors came, and was more and more inclined to hurry home from school in the afternoon, and get his chores done early. His mother remarked more than once that she had hardly one moment to say a word to him, and that he could split more wood in half an hour than any other boy in Benton Valley. Nevertheless it was at their own supper-table that evening that she said to him,—
"We'd best not go over to the other house to-night, Lavawjer. We've been there a good deal lately, and I like to be neighborly, and it's a good idee to help 'em with their city cousins, and I never seen any that I took to more'n I do to Port and Susie Hudson; but there's reason in all things, and we mustn't be runnin' in too often."
Vosh buttered another hot biscuit, and did not make any reply, because he could not think of the right one to make. It was made for him just a little after tea, when he told his mother that every thing he had to do was done. She had cleared away the tea things, and had taken her knitting, and both of them were sitting by their own fireplace.
"Our sittin'-room," she said, "isn't as big as Joshaway Farnham's, and it doesn't call for more'n half so much fire; but it's a nice one, and I wish we had more folks into it. We must ask 'em all to come over some evening, and I'll see if I can't make 'em feel comfortable. I'll make some cake, and we've got a'most every thing else on hand. And that makes me think: I want Judith Farnham's new recipe for makin' the kind of cake she had Christmas and New-Year's; and you can put on your overcoat and come right over with me, and we won't stay one minute, and you mustn't let them get ye to talkin' about any thing." And Vosh was beginning to get ready before she reached that point. She put away her knitting at once, and said there was plenty of wood on the fire, for they were coming right back; and so Vosh piled on two more large logs, and they started. He may have had ideas of his own as to how much wood might burn while he and his mother were walking to Deacon Farnham's and returning. Some short walks are long ones, if the people who walk them are not careful.
"I'm real glad they've come," said Mrs. Farnham the moment she heard her neighbors at the gate. "They're good company, too, and it must sometimes be kind of lonely for 'em,—only two in the house, and no young people."
Her fireside had no lonely look, and it was all the brighter for those who now came in. It was of no manner of use for Mrs. Stebbins to speak about cake, and say she had not come to stay. Vosh settled himself at once with a hammer and a flat-iron and some hickory-nuts; and aunt Judith pulled up a rocking-chair, remarking,—
"Now, Angeline, don't let us have any nonsense. Sit right down here and be comfortable. I'll make a copy of the receipt for you to-morrow, and I always put in more eggs than it calls for."
"Vosh," said Pen, "you mustn't make too much noise. Father's going to tell a story. It's of a man that got lost in the woods, and made a bear of himself."
"I've known fellows do that, and not go far into the woods either," said Vosh; and Susie thought a moment before she added,—
"So have I. But then, some men can be bears, and not half try."
The deacon laughed, and put down the apple he was paring.
"I don't know if it's much of a story," said he; "but it has one advantage over some other stories, for it's a true one.—Take an apple, Mrs. Stebbins.—Corry, pass them to Vosh.—Pen, well, keep the cat in your lap if you want her."
"Now," said aunt Judith, "I guess everybody's ready."
"I won't go home till after the story, nohow," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but speaking of bears"—
"Mother," interrupted Vosh, "you've dropped your yarn. Here it is."
"Hem!" said the deacon. "There were more bears all around the country once than there are now, and they did more mischief. It was really worth while to take a hunt for 'em now and then; and there's always a good market for bear-skins, if you cure 'em well. The way my story came about was this:—
"There was one November when the woods were just full of deer, and some young fellows from Benton Valley made up their minds they'd have a good hunt before the real cold weather came. There hadn't been just such an Indian summer for years and years, and camping out in the mountains was no kind of hardship. The nights were cold, but the days were warm; and all four of them were strapping young men, used to taking care of themselves, and brimful of fun.
"They went up beyond Mink Lake, and it looked as if the deer kept away from them all that first day. They'd have gone to bed hungry, if it hadn't been for some fish they caught; and the next morning they made up their minds they'd go out singly, in different directions, and see which of them would do best. What was curious, they didn't have but one dog along, and his owner counted on having the most game, as a matter of course."
"He was the man that got beared," whispered Pen to the cat in her lap; but her father went right on,—
"The man that owned the dog started out from camp right along the slope of Sawbuck Mountain, northerly; and there are little lakes every mile or so, and they're just swarming with fish. He was following an old path that was pretty well marked. Maybe it was an old Indian trail; but white men had followed it in winter, for the trees were blazed, so you could follow it if there was snow on the ground to hide it."
The deacon paused a moment, as if thinking how to go on; and Porter Hudson asked him eagerly,—
"Did he have the kind of luck I had yesterday?"
"Well, not exactly," replied his uncle. "Before it was ten o'clock by his watch, he had killed and hung up three deer. Real fat ones they were, too, and one of them was a seven-year-old buck with horns that were worth having."
"'Pears to me," remarked Mrs. Stebbins, "the deer nowadays don't have the horns they did when I was a gal;" but the deacon went right on,—
"He didn't know just how many miles he might be from camp; and he knew he'd need help in carrying in those deer, unless he should cut up the meat and set out to smoke it right there."
"And good smoked deer-meat is something worth having," said his wife.
"But he walked on for half a mile or so, just as if there was any use in going for another deer that day, till he came out into a sort of open. The land sloped down to the shore of a little lake as regularly and smoothly as if it had been cleared for a deer-pasture. There wasn't a deer on it just then; but right in the edge of the opening the hunter found something that set him a-thinking. It was the best bear-trap he had ever seen. There was a little ledge of rocks; and about the middle of it was a break that made a square place the size of a small bedroom, only it wasn't much more than six feet high by ten feet deep. The fellows that made the trap had built up the front with heavy upright logs to hang their gate on, and covered the top with logs."
"Please, uncle Joshua," said Susie, "what is the gate for?"
"To let the bears in. Did you ever see a figure 4 rat-trap? That's it. The gate lifts up, with a strong sapling for a hinge, and the ends of the sapling (that's the roller) are fitted into the logs at the sides. There's a long pole fitted into the gate to lift it by, and, when that's pulled down flat on top of the trap, the gate is up about level. There was a wooden catch geared through the roof of that trap so nicely, that, when the pole was in the notch of it, the trap was set to spring at any kind of pull on the bait. The lower end of that catch hung away back by the rock, and the whole machine was in prime order."
"It was somebody else's trap," remarked Corry doubtfully.
"Oh, he could see that nobody had been there that year. The timber was all seasoned, and there was grass growing against the gate. There was a good stiff latch, made with a deep notch in the logs to hold that gate after it came down; and, if a bear once shut himself in, there was no possibility of his getting out. The hunter looked it all over, and made up his mind he'd set the trap, and go back to the last deer he'd killed, and get some fresh meat for bait, and see if something could be done with it. It was some time before he could get at the pole so as to bring it down; but he worked it with a grape-vine for a rope, and it came into place perfectly. Then he went to his deer, and got his bait, and hurried back, as if he were afraid some beast or other would get caught before the bait was there to account for it. You use it just as you use toasted cheese in a rat-trap, only you tie it on, so it'll take a hard pull to get it off. A bear is sure to pull, and that springs the trap; a panther isn't so apt to be stupid about it; and a wolf won't, unless he's hungry. They're more cunning than a bear is, anyhow."
"He didn't toast the whole deer, and put him on?" said Pen.
"No, he didn't toast any thing; but he was hard at work, tying all he had taken from the inside of that deer to the catch of the trap, when something happened that he hadn't been looking for."
"Was it a bear?" said Pen.
"Worse than that. He had pulled too hard on the catch, and it had slipped the pole free, and down came the gate with a bang, and he had trapped himself completely. The gate just missed the dog when it fell, but it left him outside. The first thing the hunter did was to laugh. Then he said he would finish tying the meat on, and go up and set the trap over again. He tied it on carefully, and set out to get ready for bears; but, when he tried to lift that gate, it wouldn't lift. It was made heavy purposely; and it was caught in the notch below, just exactly right, for the man that made that trap knew how. There was nothing about it to laugh at, and the hunter sat down and thought it over: so did the dog, looking at him through the cracks of the logs, and whimpering. It doesn't take a good dog long to understand when things are going badly."
"He could have chopped his way out," said Port.
"Yes," said the deacon, "but he had no axe, and a jack-knife is a poor tool to work with on seasoned timber. He tried it for a while; but it seemed as if he might whittle away for a week, or till he starved to death, before he could make a hole to get out by. He couldn't dig under, for limestone rock is hard digging. He worked a little at the roof, but that had been weighted with heavy stones, so that a bear could not have stirred a log of it. On the whole, it was a pretty tight place to be in; and it was dinner-time, and he was tremendously hungry. He had not a mouthful to eat or drink, and he knew his friends would not be uneasy about him before night, and not much even then. He was uneasy already, and so was the dog. The poor fellow came and pawed at the logs, and whined and whined; then he went back, and stood and barked like mad at the whole concern."
"What a pity he didn't have an axe to chop himself out!" said Pen. "Then he wouldn't have staid there and starved to death."
"He didn't do that exactly," said the deacon. "He sat down and thought about it, and studied that gate, until by and by an idea came to him. It was the middle of the afternoon before it came, but it was a good one. There were splinters of wood around the floor of the trap, and he had whittled a heap of shavings from the log he had worked on. He gathered them all, and began to crowd them into the chinks of the logs, away up in both corners of the gate, just under the roller that it swung on. Soon as he'd got them well packed in, he took out his match-box, and set them on fire. There isn't any trouble about getting dry wood to burn; and it was plain enough, that, if the ends of that roller were burned away, the gate would have to go down."
Everybody around that fireplace felt sure about the burning qualities of seasoned wood, for they all had to pull away a little, and the story went on.
"The fire kindled well on both corners. The fact was, it kindled a little too well, and it spread, and the smoke began to come back into the trap. Just before the hunter took out his match-box, he had looked around for his dog, and the fellow wasn't anywhere to be seen. There was time now to wonder what had become of him, but no amount of whistling brought him. Then the smoke grew too thick to whistle in, and the hunter lay down to get some fresher air at the bottom of the gate. The fire spread to the logs of the roof, and began to climb down the gate, and the trap became the hottest kind of a place. It took a long time for all that; but there was plenty of excitement in watching it, and in wondering whether or not he was going to roast himself to death instead of getting out. It grew hotter and hotter, until it could hardly be endured, and the smoke was stifling. At last the hunter sprang up, and gave a shove at the gate with all his might. If he had done it before, it might have let him out sooner. The gate went over upon the ground with a crash, and one jump carried the man out of the trap. He had left his rifle outside, leaning against a tree; and there it was yet, but there was not a sign of the dog.
"He had left a big piece of deer-meat out there too; and his next thought was that he had plenty of fire to cook by, and that he wanted some supper as soon as he had been to the lake for a long drink of water. That water tasted good, now, I tell you, and so did the broiled meat afterwards; for the sun was only an hour high, and he had had an early breakfast that morning. He sat and cooked and ate, and felt better; and all the while the fire was finishing up the bear-trap, roof and all. He did his cooking on the gate; and, if he had not been able to get out when he did, the gate and roof would have cooked him."
"Oh!" exclaimed Pen. "And he wasn't hurt a mite?"
"No," said her father; "and just as he finished eating, and rose to pick up his rifle and start for the camp, there came a yelp, yelp, yelp through the woods, and there was his dog got back again. He hadn't come alone either; for right along behind him, travelling good and fast, were the three other hunters. The dog had been to the camp for them, and made them understand that his master was in trouble."
"Splendid!" exclaimed Susie.
"And when they saw the smoke of that fire, they all shouted and ran, till the dog gave a howl and a jump, and began to dance around the man he belonged to. He told his friends the whole story, and there was the fire to prove the truth of it; and each of them had killed a deer that day."
"And how did you ever come to know just exactly how it all happened," said Mrs. Stebbins, "so't you can tell it right along, 'most as if you'd been there?"
"Well," said the deacon, "I suppose it's because I was the man that got caught in the trap; and the other three were Alvin Lucas, and Levi Stebbins, and Sarah's brother, Marvin Trowbridge, that's living now at Ticonderoga."
"I'd heard the story before," said aunt Sarah, "and I remember seeing that dog when he was so old he was gray."
"I guess he didn't get turned out of the house when he was old," said Port enthusiastically; "but why didn't you fix the trap, and set it again?"
"That's the very thing we did; and we caught three bears in it, and one wildcat, before the snow came. Only we always took care to bait the hook before we set the trap; and nobody else had to set it on fire to get out of it."
"Vosh," said his mother, "as soon as I've finished this apple, it'll be time for you and me to be getting ready to go home."
"That's all," said the deacon.