"Baa! baa! baa!" sounded in noisy, frightened chorus underneath Parson
Darius Miller's windows one cold April morning about fifty years ago.
So loud and so persistent was the chorus that Parson Miller's three
sturdy boys were awake and on their feet before it had grown light
enough to distinguish anything in the gray outside.
"Father! father!" shouted James, the second boy, clattering down the
stairs in his heavy boots, "what ails the sheep? They're all huddled up
close to the house, right under your window. Don't you hear them? Say,
father, wake up!"
In response to all this outcry, good Parson Miller, who was a
hardworking farmer as well as a parson, and slept the sleep of the just,
gave forth a feeble and only half-intelligent "yes." Presently, however,
he joined the boys, and then discovered that not all the sheep were
huddled together underneath the windows, but that two of them were
missing, and that large dangerous-looking tracks were all over the light
snow--a regular "sugar-snow"--which covered the ground outside.
"I'll bet it's a wolf," ventured Daniel, the eldest boy.
"Guess it's nothing but a wild-cat," said the parson.
"Too big for a wild-cat," said Tom. "A great deal bigger than the one
Squire Taylor caught in his trap."
Tom was the quiet boy, but somehow, when Tom spoke, even the older ones
paid attention. Tom's eyes were always on the alert, and though they
were of a gray and by no means beautiful color, and were set in a sallow
and "peaked" little face, Tom was considered a vastly good-looking boy
by all of the family and his intimate friends, on the principle of
"Handsome is that handsome does."
Just then Squire Taylor, their next neighbor, came tramping hastily
across his field, his two boys, of about the same age as James and Tom
Miller, following after him.
"Wolf tracks all around my barn," said the good Squire, excitedly,
before he had come near enough to see the sheep lying on the snow.
"There!" cried Daniel, nodding significantly to Tom.
"Where's the fellow gone?" queried little Tom, who was only fourteen,
and who didn't look so old as that by reason of his small stature.
"That's it! that's it!" cried the Squire, slapping Tom approvingly on
the shoulder. "Where's the varmint gone? Let's track him, to be sure.
Hullo! there's Uncle Zed."
Sure enough, old Zadok Cummings, familiarly known as "Uncle Zed," was
hurrying along through the fields toward them, and carrying his old
shot-gun in his hands. The news had evidently travelled fast.
"Seen him?" shouted the old man, all on fire with excitement, while
drops of sweat ran down his russet face, in spite of the chilly weather.
"Jest tell me what direction he's took, 'n' I'll ketch him! The critter!
I'll ketch him; oh, I'll ketch him!" And Uncle Zed looked so fierce and
funny that all of them began to laugh. But they finally succeeded in
convincing the old man that he couldn't possibly "ketch him," for a few
moments at least, and that the case was too serious for them to decide
at once on the best course to pursue.
"He'll be around to-night too, and bring some more with him, if we don't
ketch him," put in Uncle Zed, whenever a good chance occurred.
Two or three had started out to follow the trail of the wolf, and they
came back to report that the tracks ended in Squire Taylor's woods.
"We must make a ring right around the woods, and hem him in--that's the
way," said the Squire, quickly.
Tom, standing back behind his brothers, was seen to nod approvingly,
whereupon the other boys did the same. Indeed, the proposition seemed to
commend itself to the entire company, and they started toward the woods,
those who had not brought guns hurrying off to get some.
"I could do it jest as well alone," muttered Uncle Zed. "They hain't ben
no wolves around here for several years now, but I hain't forgot how to
ketch 'em. I guess I hain't."
The men were disposed, and then everything was profoundly quiet,
excepting for the sound of the beating of the bushes, or of a stray
shot, when some overconfident hunter was "sure he had him."
At last Uncle Zed heard a low growl in a thicket, and he had hardly time
to raise his gun when out sprang an enormous wolf, and came directly
toward him. The old man, almost paralyzed with fright, pulled the
trigger, but his hand trembled so that his shot went a yard above the
wolf's head, and the animal bounded past him unhurt. Uncle Zed shrieked,
"Wolf! wolf!" and a half-dozen men were soon in hot pursuit of the
discovered game.
Tom Miller, feeling very disconsolate because he hadn't any gun, had not
accompanied the rest; but his mother, who felt no fear for Tom, and
sympathized deeply with the courageous little fellow, had advised him to
go to a certain neighbor's and see if he couldn't borrow one. It was
necessary to go quite a distance, but Tom had made it on old Sorrel, the
mare. He had come back in a wonderfully short time, bringing a trusty
little shot-gun with him, and was making his way up the hill just as the
wolf dashed out of the woods, heading in his direction.
Tom's heart came up in his throat, but he ran for a clump of bushes
close by that he thought would afford a good position for a shot,
stationed himself among them, and waited.
The cries of the men in pursuit came nearer. Then the gallop into which
the wolf had broken from its quick trot when it left the woods seemed to
shake the very ground under him. Spring--spring--spring, came the
terrified brute. He was in sight. Tom steadied his gun and fired. The
wolf uttered a cry, half bark, half screech, and giving a few lame and
wounded leaps, lay bleeding on the ground. Then shot after shot from the
men behind was poured in upon the poor creature, until he lay thoroughly
dead. Tom Miller was quite the hero of the day, and it was voted
unanimously that the wolf-skin belonged to him.
"Well, Uncle Zed, why didn't you 'ketch him,' as you said you were going
to?" inquired Squire Taylor, jokingly, as the men were separating to go
to a late dinner.
"Don' know what in thunder ailed my gun," complained Uncle Zed, rapping
that unfortunate weapon crossly; "but, after all"--straightening up
proudly--"you'd never have ketched that wolf if it hadn't 'a ben for
me."
"How's that?" asked the Squire.
"Why, goodness gracious! didn't you hear me holler? I hollered an'
started you all up. My!" continued the old man, reflectively, as he
turned away amid a general laugh, which did not appear to damp his
spirits in the least, "how I did holler!"