THE HERMIT’S HOUSE
That night after supper, when the whistle had shrilled for silence,
Happy Face Frayne, who was officer of the day, made announcement of the
evening’s program. “We still have lots of daylight left after supper, so
we have planned a few short hikes before dark. Then, after that, we’ll
gather here in the lodge around the fire and have some songs and
stories.”
“Hurray!”
“Mr. Munson will take a group up the mountain road to the Devil’s Potato
Patch. Mr. Colby will head a boating expedition to the dam at the end of
the lake, while those who want to visit Rattlesnake Joe, the hermit,
will report to Dr. Cannon. Those who stay in camp can have a rousing
game of volley ball—Long Jim Avery and Lieutenant Eames will choose
sides.”
“Hurray!”
“Dismissed!”
“Where you going, you crazy Irishman?” Blackie asked his bosom friend
Gallegher when they were outside.
“Me? I’m goin’ to start out with the bunch up the mountain, and then
lose myself. You want to come?” He winked significantly.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see, if you come with me. We’ll get away from these babies and
have a good time of our own.”
“All right. Hi, Gil!” shouted Blackie, as his patrol-leader passed by.
“Where you heading?”
“Up the lake. Say, you remember when we hiked the short way to camp the
first night we came up? You remember that house you asked me about?
Well, now’s your chance to see it closer. That’s where the hermit lives,
and he’s a queer old bird if there ever was one.”
At Gil’s words the picture of that secret, sinister house on the
mountainside, as Blackie had first glimpsed it, came back to him.
“That’s right—thanks for reminding me. I’m sorry, Irish—I’ll sneak off
with you some other time.”
He slipped away and joined the group around Dr. Cannon, the camp medico,
at the lodge steps. There were some fifteen or twenty campers who
clamored about the short, sturdy figure of the doctor, deluging him with
questions about their destination.
“The old hermit, Rattlesnake Joe, is one of the sights of this part of
the country,” he said, quieting them with a gesture. “I don’t need to
tell you anything more—you’ll see him for yourselves soon enough. Keep
together—forward, march!”
The boys straggled behind him as he led the way around behind the
kitchen and the ice-house and on past the Red Cross tent to the road.
Blackie marched in company with the Utway twins and a shock-haired
“two-striper” nicknamed “Sunfish” because he had once fallen out of a
canoe and when he was pulled up on the dock, it was discovered that he
had unwittingly trapped a good-sized sunfish in one of the pockets of
his sweater.
The hikers turned off to the right where the road turned up the
mountain, and headed down a marshy lane bounded with a stone fence on
each side. The small, stinging deer-flies swarmed about their heads, and
Jerry Utway, one of the twins, showed Blackie how to fasten a
handkerchief around his head so that it would flutter and keep the
bothersome insects at a distance.
“See that tree?” asked the Sunfish.
Blackie nodded.
“Well, that’s a black birch tree—the kind they make birch beer from.
Some time I’ll show you how to tap it and get a drink of the sap—it
tastes great. Here, take this twig and chew on it. Doesn’t it taste
something like sassafras?”
“Come on—we’ll be back with Elephant Crampton in a minute,” urged Jake,
the other of the twins. “Hurry up if you kids want to see the old hermit
before dark.”
They increased their pace, and caught up with the vanguard about Dr.
Cannon just as the mysterious house came into sight at the end of the
lane. Surrounded by the shouting company of the campers, Blackie was not
so awed by the place as he had been when, alone with Gil, he had
glimpsed it from afar on his first memorable evening in camp. There were
the same weathered shingles on the low roof, the same dirty windows and
decaying out-houses—but it did not seem so unreal and awful now.
On their approach they were announced by the furious baying and howling
of half a dozen hounds that leaped and pulled at their chains beside a
rickety kennel by the door. The campers drew back, hoping with all their
hearts that none of the dogs would break loose. The door was flung open,
and a tall old man stamped out and began quieting the hounds, beating
their heads with a stick until they subsided, whimpering. Then he turned
and gazed strangely at the group of boys, shading his eyes against the
slanting rays of sunset.
“Wal, now,” he said after a minute, “if it ain’t the Doctor and the
camp-ground boys. How be ye, Doc?” He extended a dirty and claw-like
hand. Blackie was near enough to notice that the finger-nails were all
about half an inch long, broken, ragged, and encrusted with mold.
Indeed, as Blackie watched him shake hands with Dr. Cannon and step back
to lounge in the doorway, he seemed a far from attractive personality.
He was probably sixty years old, with a tall, stoop-shouldered body. He
leaned slouchily against the rough doorpost, and the blackened fingers
of one hand nervously combed a ragged and greasy beard that was streaked
with gray. The same tangled gray prevailed in the straggling hair that
crawled from beneath his battered felt hat, and in the discouraged
mustache that drooped to mingle with the beard. The hermit’s eyes were
bleared by sitting beside a smoky fire, and were overhung by bushy
brows. Now and then, as he talked, he would profanely quiet the hounds
at his feet, who, it must be admitted, were far more intelligent and far
cleaner than their master.
“Glad ye’ve come, boys,” he drawled. “Allus glad to see boys here. Glad
to see anybody. I been livin’ all alone here five year now come fall,
sence my boy Jase left me to go over and cut ties in Pike County. Good
boy, Jase was, but him and me couldn’t get along right well together.
Say, Doc, when ye get back to camp-ground ye kin give Ellick and the
Chief my regards fer sendin’ up that sack of flour last week. Shore did
enj’y it.”
“We thought you might,” said the doctor. “These boys wanted to take a
little hike to-night, and I brought them up to call on you.”
“Thet’s fine—allus glad to see boys. Well, boys, guess ye want to see my
old thunderbolt, don’t ye? I allus show all the boys that thunderbolt——”
He entered his house and with a long knife pried up a flat flagstone,
one of those forming the hearth before his fireplace. Blackie saw him
kneeling in a shaft of sunlight beside the cold embers, and watched
until he drew forth from its hiding-place what seemed to be a long,
thin, slate-colored piece of stone or iron. The hermit brought it out
and passed it around for all to see. It was pitted and twisted, like a
short iron bar that had been exposed to rough use and rust for years.
“Thet’s my thunderbolt,” the hermit explained. “Ten year ago come August
we had a whackin’ big storm—black clouds piled high over the hills here
till it looked like midnight. All of a sudden, bang! comes a big blast
of lightnin’, and hit thet old oak tree out thar—it was a big tree then,
but it’s only a stump now. After the storm was all over I come out thar
and saw this stuck right in the middle of the tree—had to cut it out
with my old ax. Look at it close, young fellers—ye don’t get a chance to
see a reg’lar thunderbolt every day.”
The boys hurriedly passed the famous object from hand to hand, for it
was suddenly growing dark and the doctor had announced that it was time
to leave. Blackie was not at all regretful to leave the neighborhood of
that ruined house, which became more unfriendly as the long shadows of
the pines barred and striped its mouldering walls.
“How long has he lived here?” he asked Dr. Cannon as they hiked on the
return journey at a rapid pace.
“All his life, I guess,” was the reply. “He makes a poor living, cutting
railroad ties and raising a few pigs and chickens—just enough to scrape
along on. It just shows you what a life of ignorance and dirt can do to
a man.”
“Was that a true story about his thunderbolt?”
“There aren’t really any bolts thrown down during a thunderstorm. That
thing he had may be what is called a belemnite, or maybe just a piece of
meteoric iron he found, and made up the story about it afterward.”
On the return trip Jerry Utway discovered a patch of gooseberries. He
and his brother and Blackie and Sunfish clustered about and found a few
berries that had ripened.
“Well, Blackie,” said Sunfish, talking with his mouth full, “guess you
won’t feel so lively to-morrow night.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“Stuck-Ups.”
“What’s that?”
The two-striper put his thumbs in his ears and waggled his fingers
mysteriously. “You’ll see,” he said meaningly. “They initiate all the
new campers then. Big secret society; everybody tries to join, but they
don’t always stand the tortures.”
“Do they have real good tortures at this camp?” asked Jake. “We joined
up at Camp Coutrell last year, so we don’t have to get initiated here.
Oh, boy! We were black and blue for a week afterwards!”
“What do they do to a guy?” asked Blackie.
“You’ll find out. The Grand Mogul makes the neophytes—the new guys—do
all sorts of things and go through all kinds of tortures.”
“I won’t do it,” announced Blackie, with a sudden sinking of the heart.
“Oh, you’ll have to, if you want to be one of the society. After you get
in, it’s lots of fun helping to initiate the ones that join after you
do. And some day, maybe you can work up to be one of the officers, like
the Exalted Overseers of the Rabble or the Supreme Potent Inquisitors or
the Sublunary Administers of the Last Rites.”
“That sounds fine, but I don’t want to be black and blue for a week.
Can’t you get in without being tortured?”
“Oh, no!” said Sunfish. “A guy has to go through perils and trials
before he ever amounts to anything in the world. Come on—we’ll be the
last ones in camp as it is.”
The four hastened after that. A few hundred yards from camp they came
upon Fat Crampton, weary but still determined, and cheered him with the
news that the tents were not far away. Through the trees was borne the
rollicking chorus of the singers gathered about the fireplace in the
lodge, united in good fellowship and roaring out the lilting words of
the Lenape marching song:
“Oh, I’ve travelled the world from shore to shore
And sailed on every sea,
But there ain’t no spot in the whole darned lot
Like old Camp Le-na-pe!”