THE BIG PEACH
Jack soon recovered from his remarkable experience. The terrible plant
that had nearly eaten him alive was a mass of cut-up vegetable matter
which attracted a swarm of insects. Most of them were ants, but such
large ones the boys had never seen before, and the professor said they
exceeded in size anything he had read about. Some of them were as large
as big rats. They bit off large pieces of the fallen plant and carried
them to holes in the ground which were big enough for Washington to slip
his foot into, and he wore a No. 11 shoe.
But the adventurers felt there were more important things for them to
look at than ants, so they started away again, the professor telling
them all to be careful and avoid accidents.
It was while they were strolling through a little glade, which they came
upon unexpectedly, that Washington, who was in the lead called out:
"Gracious goodness! It must be Thanksgivin'!"
"Why so?" asked Jack.
"'Cause here's th' remarkablest extraordinary and expansionist of a
pumpkin that ever I laid eyes on!" the colored man cried.
They all hurried to where Washington had come to a halt. There, on the
ground in front of him, was a big round object, about the size of a
hogshead. It was yellow in color, and was not unlike the golden
vegetable from which mothers make such delicious pies.
"I allers was fond of pumpkins," said Washington, placing his hand on
the thing, which was almost as tall as he was, "but I never thought I'd
come across such a one as this."
The professor and the two boys went closer to the monstrosity. Mr.
Henderson passed his hand over it and then, bending closer, smelled of
it.
"That's not a pumpkin!" he exclaimed.
"What is it then?" asked Washington.
"It's a giant peach," the inventor remarked. "Can't you see the fuzz,
and smell it? Of course it's a peach."
"Well I'll be horn-swoggled!" cried Washington, leaning against the big
fruit, which easily supported him.
"Hurrah!" cried Jack, drawing his knife from his pocket and opening the
largest blade. "I always did like peaches. Now I can have all I want,"
and he drove the steel into the object, cutting off a big slice which he
began to eat.
"It may be poisonous!" exclaimed Mark.
"Too late now," responded Jack, the juice running down from his mouth.
"Taste's good, anyhow."
They all watched Jack while he devoured his slice of fruit. Washington
acted as if he expected his friend to topple over unconscious, but Jack
showed no bad symptoms.
"You'd better all have some," the boy said. "It's the best I ever
tasted."
Encouraged by Jack's example, Mark thought he, too, would have some of
the fruit. He opened his knife and was about to take off some of the
peach when suddenly the thing began to roll forward, almost upon him.
"Hi! Stop your shoving!" he exclaimed. "Do you want to have the thing
roll over me, Jack?"
"I'm not shoving!" replied Jack.
"Some one is!" Mark went on. He dodged around the far side of the
immense fruit and what he saw made him cry out in astonishment.
Two grasshoppers, each one standing about three feet high, were standing
on their hind legs, and with their fore feet were pushing the peach
along the ground. They had been attracted to the fruit by some juice
which escaped from a bruise on that side, which was the ripest, and,
being fond of sweets had, evidently decided to take their find to some
safe place where they could eat it at their leisure. Or perhaps they
wanted to provide for their families if grasshoppers have them.
"Did you ever see such monsters?" asked Jack. "They're as big as dogs!"
At the sound of his voice the two grasshoppers, becoming alarmed, ceased
their endeavors to roll the peach along, and, assuming a crouching
attitude seemed to be waiting.
"They certainly are remarkable specimens," Mr. Henderson said. "If the
other animals are in proportion, and if there are persons in this new
world, we are likely to have a hard time of it."
This time the immense insects concluded the strangers were not to their
liking. With a snapping of their big muscular legs and a whirr of their
wings that was like the starting of an automobile, the grasshoppers rose
into the air and sailed away over the heads of the adventurers. Their
flight was more than an eighth of a mile in extent, and they came down
in a patch of the very tall grass.
"Let's go after them!" exclaimed old Andy. "I was so excited I forgot to
take a shot at them. Come on!"
"I think we'd better not," counseled the professor. "In the first place
we don't need them. They would be no good for food. Then we don't know
but what they might attack us, and it would be no joke to be bitten by a
grasshopper of that size. Let them alone. We may find other game which
will need your attention, Andy. Better save your ammunition."
Somewhat against his will, Andy had to submit to the professor's ruling.
The old hunter consoled himself with the reflection that if insects grew
to that size he would have some excellent sport hunting even the birds
of the inner world.
"I wonder what sort of a tree that peach grew on," Jack remarked, as he
cut off another slice, when the excitement caused by the discovery of
the grasshoppers had subsided. "It must be taller than a church steeple.
I wonder how the fruit got here, for there are no trees around."
"I fancy those insects rolled it along for a good distance," Mr.
Henderson put in. "You can see the marks on the ground, where they
pushed it. They are wonderful creatures."
"Are we going any farther?" asked Mark. "Perhaps we can find the peach
tree, and, likely there are other fruit trees near it."
At the professor's suggestion they strolled along for some distance.
They were now about three miles from the airship, and found that what
they had supposed was a rather level plain, was becoming a succession of
hills and hollows. It was while descending into a rather deep valley
that Jack pointed ahead and exclaimed:
"I guess there's our peach orchard, but I never saw one like it before."
Nor had any of the others. Instead of trees the peaches were attached to
vines growing along the ground. They covered a large part of the valley,
and the peaches, some bigger than the one they first discovered, some
small and green, rose up amid the vines, just as pumpkins do in a corn
field.
"Stranger and stranger," the professor murmured. "Peaches grow on vines.
I suppose potatoes will grow on trees. Everything seems to be reversed
here."
They made their way down toward the peach "orchard" as Jack called it,
though "patch" would have been a better name. Besides peaches they found
plums, apples, and pears growing in the same way, and all of a size
proportionate to the first-named fruit.
"Well, one thing is evident," Mr. Henderson remarked, "we shall not
starve here. There is plenty to eat, even, if we have to turn
vegetarians."
"I wonder what time it is getting to be," Jack remarked. "My watch says
twelve o'clock but whether it's noon or midnight I can't tell, with this
colored light coming and going. I wonder if it ever sets as the sun
does."
"That is something we'll have to get used to," the professor said. "But
I think we had better go back to the ship now. We have many things to do
to get it in order again. Besides, I am a little afraid to leave it
unguarded so long. No telling but what some strange beast--or persons,
for that matter--might injure it."
"I'm going to take back some slices of peaches with me, anyhow," Mark
said, and he and Jack cut off enough to make several meals, while Bill,
Tom and Washington took along all they could carry.
As they walked back toward the ship the strange lights seemed to be
dying out. At first they hardly noticed this, but as they continued on
it became quite gloomy, and an odd sort of gloom it was too, first
green, then yellow, then red and then blue.
"I believe whatever serves as a sun down here is setting," the professor
observed. "We must hurry. I don't want to be caught out here after
dark."
They hurried on, the lights dying out more and more, until, as they came
in sight of their ship, it was so black they could hardly see.
Mark who was in the rear turned around, glancing behind him. As he did
so he caught sight of a gigantic shadow moving along on top of the
nearest hill. The shadow was not unlike that of a man in shape, but of
such gigantic stature that Mark knew it could be like no human being he
had ever seen. At the same time it bore a curious resemblance to the
weird shadow he had seen slip into the _Mermaid_ that night before they
sailed.
"I wonder if it can be the same--the same thing--grown larger, just as
the peach grows larger than those in our world," Mark thought, while a
shiver of fear seemed to go over him. "I wonder if that--that thing
could have been on the ship----"
Then the last rays of light died away and there was total darkness.