I give the savage Indians a great Scare, and then gather up my
scattered Family at the end of a queer Christmas Day.
How I ever got along through the darkness and snow on my crutch I
scarce know, but in less time than it takes to say I tumbled in at the
back door of the hotel. I went directly into the kitchen and felt
about till I found a knife, which I put in my pocket. Then I stumped
on into the office, leaned against the counter, and lit the wall lamp,
took it out of its bracket, and made my way somehow to the
cellar-door. I left my crutch and fairly slid down the stairs, holding
the lamp in both hands above my head. Once down I set it on a small
box, dropped on the cellar bottom, and drew over to me the largest
pumpkin in the pile against the wall. What I thought to do was to make
the most diabolical jack-lantern that ever was, and scare the drunken
savages out of what little wit they had left.
I took the pumpkin in my lap, and with the knife cut out the top like
a cover. Then with my hands I dug out the seeds and festoons of stuff
that held them. Then I turned up one side and plugged out two eyes and
a long nose. I was going to make the corners of the mouth turn up, as
I had always done when making jack-lanterns at home, but just as I
started to cut it came to me that it would look worse if they turned
down; so thus I made it, adding most hideous teeth, and cutting half
of my fingers in my haste. Then I gave the face straight eyebrows and
a slash in each cheek just as an experiment, and looked around for a
candle.
I could see nothing of the kind, nor could I remember ever having
noticed one about the house. For a moment I knew not what to do; then
my eyes rested on the lamp, and I asked myself why that would not do
as well as a candle, or even better, since it gave more light. The
hole in the top was not big enough to take in the lamp, but I cut it
out more, and with half a dozen trials, and after burning all the
fingers I had not already cut, I got the lamp in. The cover was now
too small for the opening, but I grabbed another pumpkin and slashed
out a larger one and clapped it into place. If I had had time I
believe I should have been frightened at the thing myself, it was that
hideous and unearthly-looking; but I did not have, so I took it under
one arm, though it seemed half as big as a barrel, and pulled myself
up-stairs.
In another minute I was outdoors and hobbling along as fast as I
could. The howling of the red beasts in the cellar still came as loud
as ever. I got to the window, dropped on my knees, and took away the
board. They did not yet have a light, and were struggling and
caterwauling in the dark like, it seemed, a thousand demons. But I say
I had the worst demon with me.
The lamp was burning well. I set the thing on the ground, square in
front of the window, with the horrible face turned in and looking down
into the darkness. Then I rolled out of the way.
I had truly thought that those savages had been making a great noise
before, but it had been nothing to the sound which now came from the
cellar. Such another shrieking and screaming I never heard before nor
since. I would not have believed that any lot of human beings could
make such an uproar. Then I heard them fighting their way up the
stairs and go squawking and bellowing out the front door of the
store.
When I heard the last one go I seized up the pumpkin, took it on one
shoulder, and with my stick went hippety-hopping out through the alley
and along the sidewalk after them. They were going away in the
darkness for their ponies like the wind. I went to the end of the walk
and, holding the lantern in both hands, raised and lowered and waved
it at them. Not once did they stop their howls of terror, and I could
hear and partly see them tumbling onto their ponies in all ways and
plunging off through the drifts to the west like madmen. I longed to
be on Dick's back with my lantern to chase them, but I knew not where
Dick was, and my ankle had already borne too much, as it told me
plainly. I got back to the hotel as best I could, put up the lamp in
its place and sat down to rest.
But though I needed rest, I needed food more; so I started the fire
and looked about for something to eat. I soon found that the Indians
had left nothing except a few crusts of bread and some frozen eggs.
But I boiled the eggs and made out a sort of a meal. As I finished I
heard a yowl which I thought I knew, and, sure enough, when I looked
up, there was the cat still on the door.
This set me to laughing, and I said: "I wonder was ever a family so
scattered before on a Christmas night as is mine? There is Kaiser shut
in under a water-tank; Blossom locked in the cellar of a grocery
store; Crazy Jane, the hen, on top of the smoke-stack of a blacksmith
shop; the rest of the chickens sacked up and scattered on the ground;
Dick and Ned, the horses, I don't know where; Pawsy, the cat, on top
of the door; and Jud himself, the head of the family, here eating what
the Indians have left, with a hurt ankle and a smell of roasted
pumpkin all through his clothes."
I had a good laugh over things, and then decided that I must do what I
could for my scattered family, though my ankle seemed about ready to
go by the board. So I first got down the cat and then lit the lantern
and started out after Kaiser. Poor dog, he was beside himself to see
me, and liked to have knocked me down in showing how glad he was.
As we started back Kaiser stopped and began to growl at something out
on the prairie, and I looked, and after a time made out Dick and Ned.
They were very nervous, and would not let me come up to them, but I
toiled around them at last and started them toward their barn. I next
looked after Blossom. I found her lying down, as comfortable as you
please, chewing her cud and right at home in the cellar. She had made
a meal out of the coarse hay which came out of a crockery bale, and I
thought I would leave her for the night. So I took a big pitcher out
of the bale and milked her then and there, and took it home, and
Kaiser and Pawsy and I disposed of it without more to-do.
I was beginning to feel better about my family, and felt still more so
when I found that Dick and Ned had gone into their stalls and had
stopped their snorting, and only breathed hard when they saw me. Next
I went after Crazy Jane; but though I coaxed and shooed, and threw
chunks of frozen snow at her, while Kaiser barked his teeth loose,
almost, it did no sort of good; she only looked at me and made a funny
noise as a hen does when she sees a hawk. I could not climb up with my
hurt ankle, so I had to leave her, much against my will. The chimney,
I thought, was a good deal exposed for a sleeping-place in winter, but
there was no wind and I didn't have much fear but that she would come
out all right.
I had like to have forgotten the other chickens; they never popped
into my mind till I was back in the hotel, but I dragged myself out
after them. I found the poor things stuffed in three sacks, as if they
had been turnips, lying on the snow. I knew I could not carry them,
and felt that I could scarce drag them even; so I hit upon the plan of
taking a bit of rope from the pile of plunder and hitching Kaiser to
the sacks, and so in that way we got them, one by one, to the barn at
last and let them out, all cramped and ruffled. Kaiser was so proud of
his work that he set up a bark which started the broncos into another
fit of snorting.
I think if there had been one more member of my family lost that I
could have done nothing for it that night, my ankle was in such a
state. I tried bathing it in hot water, and before I went to bed I had
it fairly parboiled, which seemed greatly to relieve it. I was too
tired to go across the drawbridge to my room, so I stretched out on
the lounge in the office, not much caring if all the robbers in
Christendom came. But I could not help wondering at my strange
Christmas; and half the night I heard the wolves howling round the
blacksmith shop and looking up (I knew) at Crazy Jane; but I thought
they might as well howl around the gilt chicken on a weather-vane for
all the good it would do them.