"I've come to borry yer gun!" said Mrs. Gammit, appearing suddenly, a
self-reliant figure, at the open door of the barn where Joe Barron sat
mending his harness. She wore a short cotton homespun petticoat and a
dingy waist; while a limp pink cotton sunbonnet, pushed far back from
her perspiring forehead, released unmanageable tufts of her stiff,
iron-grey hair.
"What be _you_ awantin' of a gun, Mrs. Gammit?" inquired the
backwoodsman, looking up without surprise. He had not seen Mrs.
Gammit, to be sure, for three months; but he had known all the time
that she was there, on the other side of the ridge, one of his nearest
neighbours, and not more than seven or eight miles away as the crow
flies.
"It's the bears!" she explained. "They do be gittin' jest a leetle
mite _too_ sassy, down to my place. There ain't no livin' with 'em.
They come rootin' round in the garden, nights. An' they've et up the
white top-knot hen, with the whole settin' of eggs, that was to hev'
hatched out next Monday. An' they've took the duck. An' last night
they come after the pig."
"They didn't git _him_, did they?" inquired Joe Barron sympathetically.
"No, siree!" responded Mrs. Gammit with decision. "An' they ain't
agoin' to! They scairt him though, snuffin' round outside the pen,
trying to find the way in.--I've hearn tell they was powerful fond of
pork.--He set up sich a squealin' it woke me; an' I yelled at 'em out
of the winder. I seen one big black chap lopin' off behind the barn. I
hadn't nothin' but the broom fer a weapon, so he got away from me.
I'll git him to-night, though, I reckon, if I kin have the loan of
your gun."
"Sartain," assented the woodsman, laying down the breech-strap he was
mending. "Did you ever fire a gun?" he inquired suddenly, as he was
starting across the yard to fetch the weapon from his cabin.
"I can't rightly say I hev'," answered Mrs. Gammit, with a slight note
of scorn in her voice. "But from the kind of men I've seen as _kin_, I
reckon it ain't no great trick to larn."
Joe Barron laughed, and went for the weapon. He had plenty of
confidence in his visitor's ability to look out for herself, and felt
reasonably sure that the bears would be sorry for having presumed upon
her unprotected state. When he returned with the gun--an old,
muzzle-loading duck-gun, with a huge bore--she accepted it with
careless ease and held it as if it were a broom. But when he offered
her the powder-horn and a little bag of buckshot, she hesitated.
"What be _them_ for?" she inquired.
Joe Barren looked serious.
"Mrs. Gammit," said he, "I know you kin do most anything a man kin
do--an' do it better, maybe! A woman like you don't have to apologize
for nothin'. But you was not _brung up_ in the woods, an' you can't
expect to know all about a gun jest by _heftin'_ it. Folks that's been
brung up in town, like you, have to be _told_ how to handle a gun.
This here gun ain't _loaded_. And them 'ere's the powder an' buckshot
to load her with. An' here's caps," he added, producing a small, brown
tin box of percussion caps from his trousers pocket.
Mrs. Gammit felt abashed at her ignorance, but gratified, at the same
time, by the reproach of metropolitanism. This implication of
town-bred incompetency was most flattering to the seven frame houses
and one corner store of Burd Settlement, whence she hailed.
"I reckon you'd better show me how to load the thing, Mr. Barron," she
agreed quite humbly. And her keen grey eyes took in every detail, as
the woodsman rammed home the powder hard, wadded down the charge of
buckshot lightly, and pointed out where she must put the percussion
cap when she should be ready to call upon the weapon for its
services.
"Then," said he in conclusion, as he lifted the gun to his shoulder
and squinted along the barrel, "of course you know all the rest. Jest
shet one eye, an' git the bead on him fair, an' let him have it--a
leetle back of the fore-shoulder, fer choice! An' _that_ b'ar ain't
agoin' to worry about no more pork, nor garden sass. An' recollect,
Mrs. Gammit, at this time of year, when he's fat on blueberries, he'll
make right prime pork himself, ef he ain't _too_ old and rank."
As Mrs. Gammit strode homeward through the hot, silent woods with the
gun--still carrying it as if it were a broom--she had no misgivings as
to her fitness to confront and master the most redoubtable of all the
forest kindreds. She believed in herself--and not only her native Burd
Settlement, but the backwoods generally held that she had cause to. A
busy woman always, she had somehow never found time to indulge in the
luxury of a husband; but the honorary title of "Mrs." had early been
conferred upon her, in recognition of her abundant and confident
personality and her all-round capacity for taking care of herself. To
have called her "Miss" would have been an insult to the fitness of
things. When, at the age of sixty, she inherited from an only, and
strictly bachelor, brother a little farm in the heart of the
wilderness, some forty miles in from the Settlement, no one doubted
her ability to fill the role of backwoodsman and pioneer. It was
vaguely felt that if the backwoods and Mrs. Gammit should fail to
agree on any important point, so much the worse for the backwoods.
And indeed, for nearly two years and a half everything had gone
swimmingly. The solitude had never troubled Mrs. Gammit, to whom her
own company was always congenial--and, as she felt, the only company
that one could depend upon. Then she had her two young steers, well
broken to the yoke; the spotted cow, with one horn turned up and the
other down; the grey and yellow cat, with whom she lived on terms of
mutual tolerance; a turkey-cock and two turkey hens, of whom she
expected much; an assortment of fowls, brown, black, white, red, and
speckled; one fat duck, which had so far been nothing but a
disappointment to her; and the white pig, which was her pride. No
wonder she was never lonely, with all these good acquaintances to talk
to. Moreover, the forces of the wild, seeming to recognize that she
was a woman who would have her way, had from the first easily deferred
to her. The capricious and incomprehensible early frosts of the forest
region had spared her precious garden patch; cut-worm and caterpillar
had gone by the other way; the pip had overlooked her early chickens;
and as for the customary onslaughts of wildcat, weasel, fox, and
skunk, she had met them all with such triumphant success that she
began to mistake her mere good luck for the quintessence of woodcraft.
In fact, nothing had happened to challenge her infallibility, nothing
whatever, until she found that the bears were beginning to concern
themselves about her.
To be sure, there was only one bear mixed up in the matter; but he
chanced to be so diligent, interested, and resourceful, that it was no
wonder he had got himself multiplied many times over in Mrs. Gammit's
indignant imagination. When she told Joe Barron "that the bears was
gittin' so sassy there wasn't no livin' with 'em," she had little
notion that what she referred to was just one, solitary, rusty,
somewhat moth-eaten animal, crafty with experience and years. This
bear, as it chanced, had had advantages in the way of education not
often shared by his fellow-roamers of the wilderness. He had passed
several seasons in captivity in one of the settlements far south of
the Quah-Davic Valley. Afterwards, he had served an unpleasant term in
a flea-ridden travelling menagerie, from which a railway smash-up had
given him release at the moderate cost of the loss of one eye. During
his captivity he had acquired a profound respect for men, as creatures
who had a tendency to beat him over the nose and hurt him terribly if
he failed to do as they wished, and who held in eye and voice the
uncomprehended but irresistible authority of fate. For women,
however, he had learned to entertain a casual scorn. They screamed
when he growled, and ran away if he stretched out a paw at them. When,
therefore, he had found himself once more in the vast responsible
freedom of the forest, and reviving with some difficulty the
half-forgotten art of shifting for himself, he had given a wide berth
to the hunters' shacks and the cabins of lumbermen and pioneers. But
when, on the other hand, he had come upon Mrs. Gammit's clearing, and
realized, after long and cautious investigations, that its presiding
genius was nothing more formidable than one of those petticoated
creatures who trembled at his growl, he had licked his chops with
pleasant anticipation. Here, at last, was his opportunity,--the
flesh-pots of servitude, with freedom.
Nevertheless, the old bear was prudent. He would not presume too
quickly, or too far, upon the harmlessness of a petticoat, and--as he
had observed from a dense blackberry thicket on the other side of the
fence, while she was at work hoeing her potatoes--there was an air
about Mrs. Gammit which seemed to give her petticoats the lie. He had
watched her for some time before he could quite satisfy himself that
she was a mere woman. Then he had tried some nocturnal experiments on
the garden, sampling the young squashes which were Mrs. Gammit's
peculiar pride, and finding them so good that he had thought surely
something would happen. Nothing did happen, however, because Mrs.
Gammit slept heavily; and her indignation in the morning he had not
been privileged to view.
After this he had grown bolder--though always under cover of night. He
had sampled everything in the garden--the abundance of his foot-prints
convincing Mrs. Gammit that there was also an abundance of bears. From
the garden, at length, he had ventured to the yard and the barn. In a
half-barrel, in a corner of the shed, he had stumbled upon the
ill-fated white top-knot hen, faithfully brooding her eggs. Undeterred
by her heroic scolding, and by the trifling annoyance of her feathers
sticking in his teeth, he had made a very pleasant meal of her. And
still he had heard nothing from Mrs. Gammit, who, for all her
indignation, could not depart from her custom of sound sleeping. If he
had taken the trouble to return in the morning, he might have
perceived that the good lady was far from pleased, and that there was
likely to be something doing before long if he continued to take such
liberties with her. And then, as we have seen, he had found the
duck--but _her_ loss Mrs. Gammit had taken calmly enough, declaring it
to be nothing more than a good riddance to bad rubbish.
It was not until the return of moonlight nights that the bear had
discovered the white pig, and thus come face to face, at last, with a
thoroughly aroused Mrs. Gammit. True to his kind, he did like pork;
but absorbed in the easier adventures of the garden and the shed, he
had not at first noted the rich possibilities of the pig-pen, which
occupied one corner of the barn, under the loft. Suspicious of traps,
he would not, at first, enter the narrow opening of the stable door,
the wide main doors being shut. He had preferred rather to sniff
around outside at the corner of the barn, under the ragged birch-tree
in which the big turkey-cock had his perch. The wakeful and wary old
bird, peering down upon him with suspicion, had uttered a sharp _qwit,
qwit_, by way of warning to whom it might concern; while the white
pig, puzzled and worried, had sat up in the dark interior of the pen
and stared out at him in silence through the cracks between the
boards. At last, growing impatient, the bear had caught the edge of a
board with his claws, and tried to tear it off. Nothing had come
except some big splinters; but the effort, and the terrifying sound
that accompanied it, had proved too much for the self-control of the
white pig. An ear-splitting succession of squeals had issued from the
dark interior of the pen, and the bear had backed off in amazement.
Before he could recover himself and renew his assault, the window of
the cabin had gone up with a skittering slam. The white pig's appeal
for help had penetrated Mrs. Gammit's solid slumbers, and she had
understood the situation. "Scat! you brute!" she had yelled
frantically, thrusting head and shoulders so far out through the
window that she almost lost her balance in the effort to shake both
fists at once.
The bear, not understanding the terms of her invective, had sat up on
his haunches and turned his one eye mildly upon the bristling tufts of
grey hair which formed a sort of halo around Mrs. Gammit's virginal
nightcap. Then Mrs. Gammit, realizing that the time for action was
come, had rushed downstairs to the kitchen, seized the first weapon
she could lay hands upon--which chanced to be the broom--flung open
the kitchen door, and dashed across the yard, screaming with
indignation.
It was certainly an unusual figure that she made in the radiant
moonlight, her sturdy, naked legs revolving energetically beneath her
sparse nightgown, and the broom whirling vehemently around her head.
For a moment the bear had contemplated her with wonder. Then his
nerves had failed him. Doubtless, this was a woman--but not quite like
the ordinary kind. It was better, perhaps, to be careful. With a
reluctant grunt he had turned and fled, indifferent to his dignity.
And he had thought best not to stop until he found himself quite
beyond the range of Mrs. Gammit's disconcerting accents, which rang
harsh triumph across the solemn, silvered stillness of the forest.
It was, of course, this imminent peril to the pig which had roused
Mrs. Gammit to action and sent her on that long tramp over the
ridges to borrow Joe Barron's gun. In spite of her easy victory in
this particular instance, she had appreciated the inches of that
bear, and realized that in case of any further unpleasantnesses with
him a broom might not prove to be the most efficient of weapons.
With the gun, however, and her distinct remembrance of Joe Barron's
directions for its use, she felt equal to the routing of any number
of bears--provided, of course, they would not all come on together.
As the idea flashed across her mind that there might be a pack of
bears to face, she felt uneasy for a second, and even thought of
bringing the pig into the house for the night, and conducting her
campaign from the bedroom window. Then she remembered she had never
heard of bears hunting in packs, and her little apprehension vanished.
In fact, she now grew quite eager for night to bring the fray.
It was a favourite saw of Mrs. Gammit's that "a watched pot takes long
to bile"; and her experience that night exemplified it. With the
kitchen door ajar, she sat a little back from the window. Herself
hidden, she had a clear view across the bright yard. Very slowly the
round moon climbed the pallid summer sky, changing the patterns of the
shadows as she rose. But the bear came not. Mrs. Gammit began to
think, even to fear, that her impetuosity of the night before had
frightened him away. At last her reveries grew confused. She sat up
very straight, and blinked very hard, to make sure that she was quite
awake. Just as she had got herself most perfectly reassured on this
point, her head sank gently forward upon the window-sill, and she
slept deeply, with her cheek against the cold, brown barrel of the
gun.
Yes, the bear had hesitated long that night. And he came late. The
moon had swung past her zenith, and was pointing her black shadows
across the yard in quite another direction when he came. By this time
he had recovered confidence and made up his mind that Mrs. Gammit
_was_ only a woman. After sniffing once more at the cracks to assure
himself that the pig was still there, he went around to the stable
door and crept cautiously in.
As his clumsy black shape appeared in the bright opening, the pig saw
it. It filled his heart with a quite justifiable horror, which found
instant poignant expression. Within those four walls the noise was so
startlingly loud that, in spite of himself, the bear drew back--not
intending to retreat, indeed, but only to consider. As it chanced,
however, seeing out of only one eye, he backed upon the handle of a
hay rake which was leaning against the wall. The rake very properly
resented this. It fell upon him and clutched at his fur like a live
thing. Startled quite out of his self-possession, he retreated
hurriedly into the moonlight, for further consideration of these
unexpected phenomena. And as he did so, across the yard the kitchen
door was flung open, and Mrs. Gammit, with the gun, rushed forth.
The bear had intended to retire behind the barn for a few moments, the
better to weigh the situation. But at the sight of Mrs. Gammit's
fluttering petticoat he began to feel annoyed. It seemed to him that
he was being thwarted unnecessarily. At the corner of the barn, just
under the jutting limb of the birch-tree, he stopped, turned, and sat
up on his haunches with a growl. The old turkey-cock, stretching his
lean neck, glared down upon him with a terse _qwit! qwit!_ of
disapproval.
When the bear stopped, in that resolute and threatening attitude, Mrs.
Gammit instinctively stopped too. Not, as she would have explained had
there been any one to explain to, that she was "one mite scairt," but
that she wanted to try Joe Barren's gun. Raising the gun to her
shoulder, she shut one eye, looked carefully at the point of the
barrel with the other, and pulled the trigger. Nothing whatever
happened. Lowering the weapon from her shoulder she eyed it severely,
and perceived that she had forgotten to cock it. At this a shade of
embarrassment passed over her face, and she glanced sharply at the
bear to see if he had noticed her mistake. Apparently, he had not. He
was still sitting there, regarding her unpleasantly with his one small
eye.
"Ye needn't think ye're agoin to git off, jest because I made a
leetle mistake like that!" muttered Mrs. Gammit, shutting her teeth
with a snap, and cocking the gun as she raised it once more to her
shoulder.
Now, as it chanced, Joe Barren had neglected to tell her which eye to
shut, so, not unnaturally, Mrs. Gammit shut the one nearest to the
gun--nearest to the cap which was about to go off. She also neglected
to consider the hind-sight. It was enough for her that the muzzle of
the gun seemed to cover the bear. Under these conditions she got a
very good line on her target, but her elevation was somewhat at fault.
She pulled the trigger.
This time it was all right. There was a terrific, roaring explosion,
and she staggered backwards under the savage kick of the recoil.
Recovering herself instantly, and proud of the great noise she had
made, she peered through the smoke, expecting to see the bear topple
over upon his nose, extinguished. Instead of that, however, she
observed a convulsive flopping of wings in the birch-tree above the
bear's head. Then, with one reproachful "gobble" which rang loud in
Mrs. Gammit's ears, the old turkey-cock fell heavily to the ground. He
would have fallen straight upon the bear, but that the latter, his
nerves completely upset by so much disturbance, was making off at fine
speed through the bushes.
The elation on Mrs. Gammit's face gave way to consternation. Then she
reddened to the ears with wrath, dashed the offending gun to the
ground, and stamped on it. She had done her part, that she knew, but
the wretched weapon had played her false. Well, she had never thought
much of guns, anyway. Henceforth she would depend on herself.
The unfortunate turkey-cock now lay quite still. Mrs. Gammit crossed
the yard and bent over the sprawling body in deep regret. She had had
a certain affection for the noisy and self-sufficient old bird, who
had been "company" for her as he strutted "gobbling" about the yard
with stiff-trailed wings while his hens were away brooding their
chicks. "Too bad!" she muttered over him, by way of requiem; "too bad
ye had to go an' git in the road o' that blame gun!" Then, suddenly
bethinking herself that a fowl was more easily plucked while yet warm,
she carried the limp corpse, head downward, across the yard, fetched a
basket from the kitchen, sat down on the doorstep in the moonlight,
and began sadly stripping the victim of his feathers. He was a fine,
heavy bird. As she surveyed his ample proportions Mrs. Gammit murmured
thoughtfully: "I reckon as how I'm goin' to feel kinder sick o' turkey
afore I git this all et up!"
On the following day Mrs. Gammit carefully polished the gun with a
duster, removing all trace of the indignities she had put upon it, and
stood it away behind the dresser. She had resolved to conduct the
rest of the campaign against the bears in her own way and with her own
weapons. The way and the weapons she now proceeded to think out with
utmost care.
Being a true woman and a true housewife, it was perhaps inevitable
that she should think first, and, after due consideration given to
everything else, including pitchforks and cayenne pepper, that she
should think last and finally, of the unlimited potentialities of
boiling water. To have it actually boiling, at the critical moment,
would of course be impracticable; but with a grim smile she concluded
that she could manage to have it hot enough for her purpose. She had
observed that this bear which was after the pig had learned the way
into the pen. She felt sure that, having found from experience that
loud noises did not produce bodily injuries, he would again come
seeking the pig, and this time with more confidence than ever.
On this point, thanks to her ignorance of bears in general, she was
right. Most bears would have been discouraged. But this bear in
particular had learned that when men started out to be disagreeable to
bears, they succeeded only too well. He had realized clearly that Mrs.
Gammit had intended to be disagreeable to him. There was no mistaking
her intentions. But she had not succeeded. Ergo, she was not, as he
had almost feared, a man, but really and truly a woman. He came back
the next night fully determined that no squeals, or brooms, or flying
petticoats, or explosions, should divert him from his purpose and his
pork. He came early; but not, as it chanced, too early for Mrs.
Gammit, who seemed somehow to have divined his plans and so taken time
by the forelock.
The pen of the white pig, as we have already noted, was in a corner of
the barn, and under one end of the loft. Immediately above the point
where the bear would have to climb over, in order to get into the pen,
Mrs. Gammit removed several of the loose boards which formed the
flooring of the loft. Beside this opening, at an early hour, she had
ensconced herself in secure ambuscade, with three pails of the hottest
possible hot water close beside her. The pails were well swathed in
blankets, quilts, and hay, to keep up the temperature of their
contents. And she had also a pitchfork "layin' handy," wherewith to
push the enemy down in case he should resent her attack and climb up
to expostulate.
Mrs. Gammit had not time to grow sleepy, or even impatient, so early
did the bear arrive. The white pig, disturbed and puzzled by the
unwonted goings-on above his head, had refused to go to bed. He was
wandering restlessly up and down the pen, when, through the cracks, he
saw an awful black shadow darken the stable door. He lost not a
second, but lifted his voice at once in one of those ear-piercing
appeals which had now twice proved themselves so effective.
The bear paused but for a moment, to cast his solitary eye over the
situation. Mrs. Gammit fairly held her breath. Then, almost before she
could realize what he was doing, he was straight beneath her, and
clambering into the pen. The white pig's squeals redoubled,
electrifying her to action. She snatched a steaming bucket from its
wrappings, and dashed it down upon the vaguely heaving form below.
On the instant there arose a strange, confused, terrific uproar, from
which the squeals of the white pig stood out thin and pathetic.
Without waiting to see what she had accomplished, Mrs. Gammit snatched
up the second bucket, and leaned forward to deliver a second stroke.
Through a cloud of steam she saw the bear reaching wildly for the wall
of the pen, clawing frantically in his eagerness to climb over and get
away. She had given him a lesson, that was clear; but she was resolved
to give him a good one while she was about it. Swinging far forward,
she launched her terrible missile straight upon his huge hind-quarters
just as they went over the wall. But at the same moment she lost her
balance. With an indignant yell she plunged downward into the pen.
It was like Mrs. Gammit, however, that even in this dark moment her
luck should serve her. She landed squarely on the back of the pig.
This broke her fall, and, strangely enough, did not break the pig. The
latter, quite frenzied by the accumulation of horrors heaped upon him,
bounced frantically from beneath her indiscreet petticoats, and dashed
himself from one side of the pen to the other with a violence that
threatened to wreck both pig and pen.
Somewhat breathless, but proudly conscious that she had won a splendid
victory, Mrs. Gammit picked herself up and shook herself together. The
bear had vanished. She eyed with amazement the continued gyrations of
the pig.
"Poor dear!" she muttered presently, "some o' the bilin' water must
'ave slopped on to him! Oh, well, I reckon he'll git over it bime-by.
Anyhow, it's a sight better'n being all clawed an' et up by a bear, I
reckon!"
Mrs. Gammit now felt satisfied that this particular bear would trouble
her no more, and she had high hopes that his experience with hot water
would serve as a lesson to all the other bears with whom she imagined
herself involved. The sequel fulfilled her utmost expectations. The
bear, smarting from his scalds and with all his preconceived ideas
about women overthrown, betook himself in haste to another and remoter
hunting-ground. A good deal of his hair came off, in patches, and for
a long time he had a rather poor opinion of himself.
When, for over a week, there had been no more raids upon barn or
chicken-roost, and no more bear-tracks about the garden, Mrs. Gammit
knew that her victory had been final, and she felt so elated that she
was even able to enjoy her continuing diet of cold turkey. Then, one
pleasant morning when a fresh, sweet-smelling wind made tumult in the
forest, she took the gun home to Joe Barren.
"What luck did ye hev, Mrs. Gammit?" inquired the woodsman with
interest.
"I settled them bears, Mr. Barren!" she replied. "But it wasn't the
gun as done it. It was bilin' water. I've found ye kin always depend
on bilin' water!"
"I hope the gun acted right by you, however!" said the woodsman.
Mrs. Gammit's voice took on a tone of reserve.
"Well, Mr. Barren, I thank ye kindly for the loan of the weepon. Ye
_meant_ right. But it's on my mind to warn ye. Don't ye go for to
trust that gun, or ye'll live to regret it. _It don't hit what it's
aimed at._"