THE SHINGLE WEAVER'S.
The travellers walked on with fresh strength and courage, now that they
thought they were in the right road. The road was, however, monotonous,
being, for most of the way, through a dense forest; and it was so very
similar to the road by which they had come the day before that they were
convinced they were now right.
They went on, without any special adventure, for nearly two hours, when
they arrived at what had the appearance of being an old wood road, which
branched off at right angles to the one in which they were travelling.
The trees were somewhat more open here. This admitted the sun; and there
were several raspberry bushes growing at the entrance of the wood road,
with ripe raspberries hanging upon them, for the season of raspberries
had now arrived.
Marco seized this fruit with great avidity. Forester followed his
example, and began gathering the berries. The bushes were, however, not
entirely dry, and they had to advance cautiously among them. In fact,
they found it better to keep along the wood road, gathering the berries
as they advanced. It was not a road, strictly speaking, for there were
no marks of wheels upon it, or tracks of any sort, made by travelling.
It was only a space for a road, made by cutting away the trees and
bushes.
Along this opening, Forester and Marco slowly advanced, eating the
raspberries which grew by the side of the way. After going on for a few
rods in this manner, Marco suddenly exclaimed,
"Why, here is another camp!"
Forester looked up and saw, just before them, the remains of a sort of
hut, somewhat similar to those which they had seen the evening before.
There was a large heap of chips and shavings about it.
"What can this be?" asked Marco.
"I presume," said Forester, "that it is an old shingle weaver's
establishment."
"What is a shingle weaver?" asked Marco.
"A man who makes shingles," replied Forester, "such as they use for
covering houses. They make them of clear straight-grained pine, which
will split easily and true."
So saying, Forester advanced towards the hut, and took up one of the
pieces of pine, which had been split out for a shingle. There were
several of such pieces lying about among the chips and shavings. It was
somewhat browned by exposure to the weather, but it had a very smooth
and glossy appearance, shining with a sort of silken lustre.
"This is a beautiful piece of pine," said Forester.
"Let us carry some of it home," rejoined Marco.
"What good would it do us?" asked Forester.
"Why, we might make something of it," said Marco. "Perhaps I could make
a little box."
"And that would serve as a _souvenir_ of this expedition," added
Forester.
"A souvenir?" said Marco,--"what is that?"
"Why, something to remember it by," replied Forester. "Hereafter,
whenever you should see the box, you would be reminded of our wanderings
and perils in this wilderness."
"Well," said Marco, "let us take it."
The farther conversation of our adventurers was interrupted by a sound,
like that of wagon wheels, coming along the main road, which they had
just left.
"There comes some traveller," exclaimed Forester. "Let us go and enquire
about our way."
"Hark!" said Marco.
At this instant, the sound of the wheels suddenly stopped, and Marco and
Forester heard the voice of a man calling out earnestly to his horse,
"Whoa! whoa!" as if something had happened. Marco and Forester hastened
to the spot, where they found that the horse had fallen down, and the
man was trying in vain to get him up. The harness was drawn so tight
about the horse's limbs, by the constrained position in which he was
lying, that he could not get up, and the man could not extricate him.
The man had gone behind, and had drawn the wagon back, so as to loosen
the pressure of the harness upon the horse, but, until Forester and
Marco came, there was no one to unbuckle the straps when they were thus
loosened; and, if the man let go of the wagon, to go and unbuckle the
harness, it was drawn back again at once by the tension of the straps,
and made as tight as before.
He was, therefore, very glad to see Forester and Marco coming. He asked
them to come and help him.
Forester and Marco were immediately going to attempt to unbuckle the
harness, but the man told them that there was danger of their getting
kicked by the horse, in case he should suddenly begin to struggle.
"Come here," said the man, "and hold the wagon back and I will loosen
the harness."
By means of this plan of operations, the horse was soon liberated from
his confinement, and he got up. The man seemed very thankful to Forester
and Marco, and he asked them where they were going.
"We are going to No. 3," said Forester. "Is this the right way?"
The townships in a new country are _numbered_ at first, not named. The
place to which Marco and Forester were going had yet very few
inhabitants, and it had no name but No. 3.
"Yes," replied the man, "this is the right road. I wish I was going that
way, I would take you along in my wagon."
This answer puzzled Marco a little, on two accounts. First, the man
_was_ going the same way with them, but then Marco thought that,
perhaps, he was going to turn off, pretty soon, into some other road.
Then, secondly, he did not see how the man could possibly carry him and
Forester, in any event, as the wagon seemed completely filled with bags,
and kegs, and firkins, leaving scarcely room for the man himself to sit.
Forester told the man that they could walk very well; but he said that
they were hungry, and if the man had anything to eat, in his wagon, they
should be glad to buy something of him.
"Yes," replied the man, "I've a loaf of bread that I can spare, and a
jug of milk."
"That will be just the thing," said Marco.
At first, the man was not willing to receive anything for the bread and
milk, but as Forester insisted upon it, he consented to take a little
pay. He then told Forester that he had some honey in his wagon, and a
few apples, and Forester bought a supply of these. At first, they
thought they should not have anything to put the honey in, but Marco ran
to the shingle weaver's hut, and got one of the thin pieces which had
been split out for shingles, and it made a very good plate. Forester
bought a pound of the honey, and half a dozen apples.
They then bade the man good-by, and he resumed his journey. Forester and
Marco went back to the hut, where they had a most excellent dinner. They
built a fire, and roasted the apples and toasted the bread. They cut it
into slices with Marco's knife. They made wooden spoons for the honey
out of pieces of pine, which answered very well indeed. Marco said it
was the very best dinner he ever ate in his life.
After dinner, they returned to the main road, and resumed their walk.
Forester said he wished he had asked the man how far it was to No. 3,
but he thought it could not be very far, as they had been travelling
nearly three hours, and it was only about ten miles in the morning.
As he was saying this, they were just ascending a hill, and when they
reached the top of it, they had a prospect of the road for a
considerable distance before them. Marco thought he saw something
coming, and he asked Forester what it was.
"I think it is only a stump, or something like that," said Forester.
"No, it moves," said Marco.
"It is another wagon," said Forester, "I really believe. Now we can find
out how far it is to No. 3."
It was very soon quite evident that it was a wagon, and that it was
coming on apace. As it drew nearer, it appeared that there was a boy in
it.
"He is just about as big as Isaiah," said Marco.
"Yes," said Forester. "And the horse looks very much like the horse
Isaiah had."
"I verily believe it is Isaiah," said Marco.
This supposition was confirmed as the wagon drew near. The boy was
Isaiah, but he stared at Marco and Forester with a look of perplexity
and wonder, as if he was very much surprised to see them.
"Isaiah!" said Marco, accosting him, as soon as Isaiah drew up the reins
and stopped the horse opposite to them.
"What are you coming back for?" asked Isaiah.
"Coming back!" repeated Forester, not knowing exactly what Isaiah meant.
"Yes," said Isaiah. "I thought you were going to stay at No. 3, and I
was going to carry your trunk there."
It immediately flashed upon Forester's mind that they had got turned
about in their wanderings, and, instead of going on towards No. 3, as
they supposed, they were in reality, though in the right road, going the
wrong way in it.
Forester had a hearty laugh at this discovery, in which Marco joined, as
soon as he fairly understood the case. At first, he was very much
perplexed. He could not believe that they could have got their ideas of
direction so completely reversed.
"Besides," said he, "that man told us that we were in the right way."
"Yes," said Forester, "but he did not tell us that we were _going right_
in it."
"I suppose he did not know which way we were going," said Marco.
The question then arose, what was to be done. Forester proposed that
they should get into the wagon and let Isaiah drive them to No. 3, but
Marco said that he was commander, and he was not going to try to get to
No. 3 any more. He had been travelling back and forth through those
woods long enough, and he declared that he would not vote to go through
them again, if he had to go round the world to get to the other side of
them.
Forester laughed and submitted to the decision; so they all returned to
Isaiah's father's.
The next morning they formed a different plan for pursuing their
journey. They wanted to get to the Quebec road now, as soon as possible,
and they found, by enquiry, that, by taking a boat upon a large pond or
lake, a few miles distant, they could go about twenty miles by water,
through a chain of ponds, which led in the direction in which they
wished to go.
So Forester hired a man to go with them and bring back the boat. They
went, in a wagon, to a place very near the landing, at the pond. The
landing was in a small cove, surrounded by forests. The cove opened out
into the pond by two points of land, rocky and precipitous, and crowned
with evergreen trees. The water was smooth, and the whole scene highly
picturesque. When Marco came in sight of it, he was much pleased with
the prospect of a voyage on such a sheet of water.
There was considerable water in the boat when the party arrived on the
beach, and Forester undertook to bail it out. The man who was going with
them went and cut a bush, with a thick top, to use as a sail, in case
there should be a fair wind. While he was bringing the bush, and
Forester was bailing out the boat, Marco stood upon the beach, looking
at the paddles.
"Does she leak, cousin Forester?" asked Marco.
[Illustration]
"No," said Forester, "I presume not. This water all comes from the
rain."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Marco, "for I don't want to go to sea in a
leaky ship."
There was a great basket of provisions on the beach, by the side of
Marco, while these preparations were making, for they were resolved not
to expose themselves, a second time, to the danger of famine. When all
was ready, the bush, the basket and the paddles were put on board, and
our adventurers, after gliding smoothly through the water to the outlet
of the cove, doubled one of the rocky points of land, and pushed boldly
out upon the waters of the pond.