A HEARTFELT THANKSGIVING AND A MERRY YOUNG MUSE THAT VISITED US
UNINVITED
Thanksgiving was always a holiday at the old farm. Gram and the girls
made extensive preparations for it and intended to have a fine dinner.
Besides the turkey and chickens there were "spareribs" and great
frying-panfuls of fresh pork which, at this cold season of the year, was
greatly relished by us. On this present Thanksgiving-day, two of Gram's
nephews and their wives were expected to visit us, as also several
cousins of whom I had heard but vaguely.
It chanced, too, that on this occasion we had especially good reason to
be thankful that we were alive to eat a Thanksgiving dinner of any kind,
as I will attempt to relate. Up to the day before Thanksgiving the
weather, with the exception of two light snow storms, had been bright
and pleasant, and the snow had speedily gone off. On that day there came
a change. The Indian-summer mildness disappeared. The air was very
still, but a cold, dull-gray haze mounted into the sky and deepened and
darkened. All warmth went out from beneath it. There was a kind of
stone-cold chill in the air which made us shiver.
"Boys, there's a 'snow bank' rising," the Old Squire remarked at dinner.
"The ground will close for the winter. Glad we put those boughs round
the house yesterday and banked up the out-buildings."
The sky continued to darken as the vast, dim pall of leaden-gray cloud
overspread it, and cold, raw gusts of wind began to sigh ominously from
the northeast. Gramp at length came out where we were wheeling in the
last of the stove-wood. "Have you seen the sheep to-day?" he asked
Addison. "There is a heavy snow storm coming on. The flock must be
driven to the barn."
None of us had seen the sheep for several days; the flock had been
ranging about; and Halse ran over to the Edwardses to learn whether they
were there, but immediately returned, with Thomas who told us that he
had seen our sheep in the upper pasture, early that morning, and theirs
with them.
Immediately then we four boys rigged up in our thickest old coats and
mittens, and set off--with salt dish--to get the sheep home. The storm
had already obscured the distant mountains to eastward when we started;
and never have I seen Mt. Washington and the whole Presidential Range so
blackly silhouetted against the westerly sky as on that afternoon, from
the uplands of the sheep pasture.
The pasture was a large one, containing nearly a hundred acres, and was
partially covered by low copses of fir. Seeing nothing of the sheep
there, we followed the fences around, then looked in several openings
which, like bays, or fiords, extended up into the southerly border of
the "great woods." And all the while Tom, who was bred on a farm and
habituated to the local dialect concerning sheep, was calling, "Co'day,
co'day, co'nanny, co'nan." But no answering ba-a-a was heard.
"They are not here," Addison exclaimed at length. "The whole flock has
gone off somewheres."
"Most likely to 'Dunham's open,'" said Tom, "and that's two miles; but I
know the way. Come on. We've got to get them."
We set off at a run, following Thomas along a trail through the forest
across the upper valley of the Robbins Brook, but had not gone more than
a mile when the storm came on, not large snowflakes, but thick and
fine, driven by wind. It came with a sudden darkening of the woods and
a strange deep sound, not the roar of a shower, but like a vast
elemental sigh from all the surrounding hills and mountains. The wind
rumbled in the high, bare tree-tops and the icy pellets sifted down
through the bare branches and rattled inclemently on the great beds of
dry leaves.
"Shall we go back?" exclaimed Halse.
"No, no; come on!" Thomas exclaimed. "We've got to get those sheep in
to-night."
We ran on; but the forest grew dim and obscure. "I think we have gone
wrong," Addison said. "I 'most think we have," Thomas admitted. "I ought
to have taken that other path, away back there." He turned and ran back,
and we followed to where another forest path branched easterly; and
here, making a fresh start, we hastened on again for fifteen or twenty
minutes.
"Oughtn't we to be pretty near Dunham's open?" demanded Addison.
"Oh, I guess we will come to it," replied Tom. "It is quite a good bit
to go."
Thereupon we ran on again for some time, and crossed two brooks. By this
time the storm had grown so blindingly thick that we could see but a few
yards in any direction. Still we ran on; but not long after, we came
suddenly on the brink of a deep gorge which opened out to the left on a
wide, white, frozen pond. Below us a large brook was plunging down the
"apron" of a log dam.
Thomas now pulled up short, in bewilderment. Addison laughed. "Do you
know where you are?" said he. "Tom, that is Stoss Pond and Stoss Pond
stream. There's the log dam and the old camp where Adger's gang cut
spruce last winter. I know it by those three tall pine stubs over
yonder."
Tom looked utterly confused. "Then we are five miles from home," he
said, at length.
"We had better go back, too, as quick as we can!" Halse exclaimed,
shivering. "It's growing dark! The ground is covered with snow, now!"
Addison glanced around in the stormy gloom and shook his head. "Tom,"
said he, "I don't believe we can find our way back. In fifteen minutes
more we couldn't see anything in the woods. We had better get inside
that camp and build a fire in the old cook-stove."
"I don't know but that we had," Tom assented. "It's an awful night. Only
hear the wind howl in the woods!"
We scrambled down the steep side of the gorge to the log camp, found the
old door ajar and pushed in out of the storm. There was a strange smell
inside, a kind of animal odor. By good fortune Addison had a few matches
in the pocket of the old coat which he had worn, when we went on the
camping-trip to the "old slave's farm." He struck one and we found some
dry stuff and kindled a fire in the rusted stove. There were several
logger's axes in the camp; and Tom cut up a dry log for fuel; we then
sat around the stove and warmed ourselves.
"I expect that the folks will worry about us," Thomas said soberly.
"Well, it cannot be helped," replied Addison.
"But we haven't a morsel to eat here," said Halse. "I'm awfully hungry,
too."
Thereupon Tom jumped up and began rummaging, looking in two pork
barrels, a flour barrel and several boxes. "Not a scrap of meat and no
flour," he exclaimed. "But here are a few quarts of white beans in the
bottom of this flour barrel; and we have got the sheep salt. What say to
boiling some beans? Here's an old kettle."
"Let's do it!" cried Halse.
A kettle of beans was put on and the fire kept up, as we sat around, for
two or three hours. Meantime the storm outside was getting worse. Fine
snow was sifting into the old camp at all the cracks and crevices. The
cold, too, was increasing; the roaring of the forest was at times
awe-inspiring. On peeping out at the door, nothing could be discerned;
snow like a dense white powder filled the air. Already a foot of snow
had banked against the door; the one little window was whitened.
Occasionally, above the roar in the tree-tops, could be heard a distant,
muffled crash, and Tom would exclaim, "There went a tree!"
We got our beans boiled passably soft, after awhile, and being very
hungry were able to eat a part of them, well salted. Boiled beans can be
eaten, but they can never rank as a table luxury.
While chewing our beans, toward the end of the repast, an odd sound
began to be heard, as of some animal digging at the door, also
snuffling, whimpering sounds. We listened for some moments.
"Boys, you don't suppose that's Tyro, do you?" cried Tom at length.
"I'll bet it is! He has taken my track and followed us away up
here!"--and jumping up, Tom ran to the door. "Tyro" was a small dog
owned at the Edwards homestead.
When, however, he opened the door a little, there crept in, whimpering,
not Tyro, but a small, dark-colored animal, which the faint light given
out from the stove scarcely enabled us to identify. The creature ran
behind the barrels; and Tom clapped the door to. Addison lighted a
splinter and we tried to see what it was; but it had run under the long
bunk where the loggers once slept. After a flurry, we drove it out in
sight again, when Tom shouted that it was a little "beezling" of a bear!
"Yes, sir-ee, that's a little runt of a bear cub," he cried. "He's been
in this old camp before. That's what made it smell so when we came in."
Addison imagined that this cub had run out when he heard us coming to
the camp, but that the severity of the storm had driven it back to
shelter. It was truly a poor little titman of a bear. At length we
caught it and shut it under a barrel, placing a stone on the top head.
[Illustration: THE BEEZLING BEAR.]
After our efforts cooking beans and the fracas with the "beezling bear,"
it must have been eleven o'clock or past, before we lay down in the
bunk. The wind was still roaring fearfully, and the fine snow sifting
down through the roof on our faces. In fact, the gale increased till
past midnight. Addison said that he would sit by the stove and keep
fire. Tom, Halse and I lay as snug as we could in the bunk, with our
feet to the stove and presently fell asleep.
But soon a loud _crack_ waked us, so harsh, so thrilling, that we
started up. Addison had sprung to his feet with an exclamation of alarm.
One of those great pine tree-stubs up the bank-side, above the camp, had
broken short off in the gale. In falling, it swept down a large fir tree
with it. Next instant they both struck with so tremendous a crash, one
on each side of the camp, that the very earth trembled beneath the
shock! The stove funnel came rattling down. We had to replace it as best
we could.
It was not till daylight, however, that we fully realized how narrowly
we had escaped death. A great tree trunk had fallen on each side of the
camp, so near as to brush the eaves of the low roof. Dry stubs of
branches were driven deep into the frozen earth. Either trunk would have
crushed the old camp like an eggshell! The pine stub was splintered and
split by its fall. There was barely the width of the camp between the
two trunks, as they lay there prone and grim, in the drifted snow.
The gale slackened shortly after sunrise and the storm cleared in part;
although snow still spit spitefully till as late as ten o'clock.
"What a Thanksgiving-day!" grumbled Halse.
After a time we started for home, leaving the little bear shut up. As
much as two feet of snow had fallen on a level and the drifts in the
hollows were much deeper. It was my first experience of the great snow
storms of Maine; my legs soon ached with wallowing, and my feet were
distressingly cold.
Our homeward progress was slow; none the less, Tom and Addison decided
to go to Dunham's open, which was nearly a mile off our direct course,
to look for the sheep. Now that it was light, they knew the way. Halse
refused to go; and as my legs ached badly, he and I remained under a
large fir tree beside the path, the fan-shaped branches of which, like
all the other evergreens, were encrusted and loaded down by a white
canopy.
Addison and Thomas set off and were gone for more than an hour, but had
a large story to tell when they rejoined us. Not only had they found the
flock, snowbound, in Dunham's open, but had seen two deer which had
joined the sheep during the storm. The whole flock was in a copse of
firs, in the lee of the woods; and two loup-cerviers were sneaking about
near by. Thomas declared that their tracks were as large as his hand;
and Addison said that they had trodden a path in a semicircle around the
flock.
We resumed our wallowing way home, but erelong heard a distant shout.
Addison replied and immediately we saw two men a long way off in the
sheep pasture, advancing to meet us.
"I expect that one of them is my good dad," Thomas remarked dryly. "If I
know my mother, she has been worrying about this cub of hers all night."
It proved to be farmer Edwards, as Tom had surmised, and with him the
Old Squire, himself.
"Well, well, well, boys, where have you been all night?" was their first
salutation to us.
Addison gave a brief account of our adventure; we then proceeded
homeward together, and were in time for Gram's Thanksgiving dinner at
three o'clock, for which it is needless to say that we brought large
appetites. But I recall that the pleasures of the table for me were
somewhat marred by my feet which continued to ache and burn painfully
for two or three hours.
There was a snowdrift six feet in depth before the farmhouse piazza. The
drifts indeed had so changed the appearance of things around the house
and yard that everything looked quite strange to me.
None of the guests, whom we had expected to dinner, came, on account of
the storm; but a rumor of our adventure at the logging-camp had spread
through the neighborhood; and at night, after the road had been "broken"
with oxen, sled and harrow, Ned Wilbur and his sisters, the Murch boys,
and also Tom and Catherine, called to pass the evening.
Perhaps the snow storm with its bewildering whiteness had turned our
heads a little. That, or something else, started us off, making rhymes.
After great efforts, amidst much laughter and profound knitting of
brows, we produced what, in the innocence of youth, we called a
poem!--an epic, on our adventure. I still preserve the old scrawl of it,
in several different youthful hands, on crumpled sheets of yellowed
paper. It has little value as poesy, but I would not part with it for
autograph copies of the masterpieces of Kipling, or Aldrich.
It must have been akin to snow-madness, for I remember that Thomas who
never attempted a line of poetry before, nor since, led off with the
following stanzas:--
"Four boys went off to look for sheep,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
And the trouble they had would make you weep,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
"They searched the pasture high and low,
Then to Dunham's Open they tried to go.
But the sky was dark and the wind did blow
And the woods was dim with whirling snow.
"They lost their way and got turned round,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny co'nan.
It's a wonder now they ever were found.
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
"The storm howled round them wild and drear.
Stoss Pond did then by chance appear.
They all declared 'twas 'mazing queer.
'We're lost,' said Captain Ad, 'I fear.'"
Then either Kate or Ellen put forth a fifth and sixth stanza:--
"But Halse espied an old log camp,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
And into it they all did tramp,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
"'Here's beans,' said Tom. 'Here's salt,' said Ad.
'Boiled beans don't go so very bad,
When nothing else is to be had.
Let's eat our beans and not be sad.'"
I cannot say, certainly, who was responsible for these next stanzas, but
the handwriting is a little like my own at that age.
"They ate their beans and sang a song,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
And wished the night was not so long,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
"Said Ad, 'What makes that whining noise?'
'By jinks!' cried Tom, 'That's Tyro, boys!'
But when he looked, without a care,
In crawled a little beezling bear!"
There is a great deal more, not less than twenty stanzas; but a few will
suffice. Besides, too, I shrink from presenting the more faulty ones. To
strangers they will be merely the immature efforts of nameless young
folks; but for me a halo of memories glorifies each halting versicle.
The one where the tree fell runs as follows. It was Addison's; and in
his now distant home, he will anathematize me for exposing his youthful
bad grammar.
"But the night grew wild and wilder still,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
The forest roared like an old grist-mill,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
"At last there came a fearful crack!
A big pine tree had broke its back.
Down it fell, with a frightful smack!
And missed the camp by just a snack!"
Theodora alone made a stanza or two more in keeping with that finer
sentiment which the occasion might have inspired in us.
"And we who sat and watched at home,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan;
And wondered why they did not come,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
What dread was ours through that long night,
That they had perished was our fear,
Scarce could we check the anxious tear,
Nor slept at all till morning light.
"But safe from storm and falling tree,
Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan.
Their faces dear again we see,
Co'day, co'day co'nanny, co'nan.
They slept mid perils all unseen,
Some Guardian Hand protecting well;
E'en though the mighty tree trunks fell,
The little camp stood safe between."
After dinner, Mr. Edwards with Asa Doane went after the sheep, and by
tramping a path in advance of the flock, drove them home to the barns.
Next day Asa and Halse took a bushel basket, with a bran sack to tie
over it, and went to Adger's camp, to liberate and fetch home the little
"beezling bear," but found that bruin junior had upset the barrel and
made his escape.
THE END OF BOOK FIRST.
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| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| Page 191 murk changed to Murch |
| Page 344 defence changed to defense |
| Page 405 offences changed to offenses |
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