The wind suddenly grew very cold, and blew the trees angrily, and turned
their leaves the wrong way, until it seemed like a furious storm. It had
been still, and the sun had been hot and glaring, but suddenly the air
felt like autumn, and our friends looked around every now and then to
see the shower chasing them, and covering the hills and woods with heavy
white mist. The fragrance of the wet pine woods was very sweet, and the
coolness was delightful, but the clouds looked strangely yellow, and as
if a great deal of rain would pour out of them presently, while there
were flashes of lightning every now and then, and distant thunder began
to growl among the mountains.
"It will be here in a few minutes," said Jack, looking at his sister
anxiously. "I'm awfully sorry, Alice." And they both hurried; as if by
walking fast they could get away from the rain. "And our clothes have
all gone to North Conway! how shall we ever get dry?" he added,
ruefully; but Alice laughed.
"You know we were all drenched coming home from Gorham that day. It
wasn't very bad, and it won't be chilly like this for very long, at any
rate."
The first great drops of the rain began to spatter among the leaves, and
our friends found the shower at first very refreshing, but when their
clothes became so soaked that the weight of them was something
surprising, and streams of water began to run along the road, they did
not like it so well; but they made the best of it, and laughed heartily,
though they were both beginning to feel very tired, and wondered if
there would never be an end to the woods. It was growing darker too, and
if some one did not drive by before long, it would be most discouraging.
Early in the afternoon they had passed several loaded carts, besides
pleasure parties that were driving to or from the Glen House, but for
some time there had not been a traveller on that part of the road except
themselves.
The rain ceased falling; it had been a heavy shower, but luckily it did
not last long. They had taken shelter under a great beech-tree when it
had become altogether too hard work to walk, and Alice wrung the water
out of her skirts as well as she could, and they started on again.
The clouds looked very heavy, and the sunset was a very pale one, and it
seemed to be growing dark early. In that deep valley the twilight begins
much sooner than out in the open country, and Jack and Alice had lost so
much time already that they were a good way from the house they meant to
reach by seven o'clock, and just after that time Alice said,
despairingly:
"I don't believe I can walk much further, Jack. I'm ashamed to give in,
but I don't think I ever was so tired in all my life."
"I'm tired myself," said Jack; "it's the hardest walking I ever did; but
I suppose there is nothing to do but to go on. I think it's very odd
that it is so long since we have passed anybody."
Alice went on without saying any more for a little while, but at last
she sat down by the road-side, while Jack stood at her side and waited
uneasily.
"I think we are getting out of the track of the shower," said he.
"Suppose we go on a little further, and find a good dry place, and build
a camp fire, and get dry and rested at any rate. I begin to feel like an
old jelly-fish trying to roll along on his edge."
Alice laughed, and started out again. It was really getting to be drier
footing, and the air felt warmer, and it was not long before Jack
touched the earth with his hand, and said that he was sure there could
be nothing but dew on the ground, and they might as well stop. They
listened and listened for the sound of wheels, but even the thrushes had
stopped singing, and all they could hear was a brook tumbling over the
ledges, and the cry of a hawk or an owl far in the woods.
Jack chose a safe place at the side of a great rock, where there seemed
to be no danger of setting the woods on fire. It was so dark they could
scarcely see, but they heaped up a pile of pine-needles and dry twigs
and birch bark, and it seemed very cheerful when they had lighted it.
Jack was delighted because Alice had some little wax matches in the bag
he carried on his shoulder, and I think the first flicker of the fire
gave a great pleasure to both our friends.
"I'm going to find some larger wood," said Jack, "and then I am going to
cook the fish. I shall starve to death. We are like the Babes in the
Wood, aren't we? Get as near to the fire as you can, Alice, and you'll
soon be dry."
[Illustration: TRYING TO GET DRY.]
They had a magnificent blaze before very long, and Alice hung her jacket
and wet, heavy skirt on stakes beside it. They were in a little open
place not far from the road, and Jack began to tell stories of his
experiences the summer before when he had been off on a fishing and
camping-out excursion with some friends in the Maine woods.
Alice had heard them all before, but they were none the less
interesting. She had always wished to camp out herself, and this
experience was, after all, a great satisfaction, now that she was a
little rested, and was getting dry and comfortable. It was not so bad to
be damp even, but she hated the thought of going any further that night.
In the lunch-box there were still some hard crackers and a paper of
salt, and after Jack had baked his three trout--and he did not do it
badly either, for a guide had taught him once how to wrap them in some
leaves and dig a little place in the hot ashes for an oven--they ate
their supper, and were as jolly as possible. The fire was a great
success; they had gathered all the old dry wood they could find, and at
last they were willing to let it go down, for it was growing too hot:
the night was warm at any rate. They sat together on the slope and
leaned against the rock. The trout had been very good--they only wished
there had been more; but they were very comfortable, and they watched
the strange shadows the flickering light of the fire made among the
trees. They were neither of them a bit afraid, and presently Jack was
silent for a few moments, and his sister found that he had gone to
sleep.
She would not wake him, she thought; he might sleep a little while just
as well as not, and they could go on if they liked an hour later. By
that time the moon would be up, too. Alice looked up through the
branches at the stars; there was an old hemlock almost overhead that was
like a roof, but there seemed to be very little dew falling.
The mosquitoes were beginning to be troublesome, now that the fire was
down, and she said to herself that she would get some more wood
presently if Jack did not wake--and in three minutes more she was as
sound asleep as Jack himself.
He waked first; it was late in the night, and the moon was high in the
sky. The fire was out, and at first he could not think where he was; but
Alice was there, sure enough, and the hemlock-tree, and the rest of the
woods. He felt a little stiff and chilly, and he started to his feet to
look around, and suddenly he heard two or three roosters crowing, and at
that sound he began to laugh.
"Alice! Alice!" said he; and his sister waked quickly, but was even more
bewildered at first than he had been.
"I never slept better in my life," she said, sleepily. "There's nothing
the matter, is there, Jack? Ought we to go on, do you think? I am as
stiff as Rip Van Winkle, and my arm is sound asleep." And she sat up and
rubbed her eyes.
"Will you listen to those old roosters?" asked Jack, going into fits of
laughter, and Alice laughed too. "There must be a house close by," he
told her, "and we thought we were cast away. I suppose if we had walked
ten minutes longer, we must have seen it." And they gathered up their
possessions and took the road again. I do not think they cared to take
another nap on the ground. Jack said that the mosquitoes had had their
Christmas dinner in summer that year, and though he did not confess it,
his neck was very stiff, and they both began to sneeze with great
energy.
There was really a small house about an eighth of a mile away, and our
friends walked about it and surveyed it in the moonlight. A sleepy
little yellow dog appeared and barked at them, and after Jack had
pounded at the door for some minutes, some one opened a window and asked
what he wanted.
"Can you take two people in for the night?"
"'Deed I can't," said the woman, snappishly. "We don't keep tavern.
Young fellows like you better be to home this time o' night. Trampin', I
s'pose, ain't ye? The men-folks is all to home here, so ye needn't try
to scare me."
"I'm not a tramp," mentioned Jack, with great dignity and politeness.
"We started to walk through from the Glen, but the shower stopped us a
while, and it got dark, and we didn't know we were near any houses until
we heard your roosters crowing. We've been asleep in the woods."
"Oh!" said the woman, in a different tone. And after a minute's
meditation, she added: "Well, you kin go into the barn, I s'pose, and
sleep on the hay--on your right hand 's you go in; it's new hay. We
ain't got a spare bed in the house. I do' know's I kin do any better for
ye."
Alice was in the shadow, and at some little distance from the house, and
she and Jack laughed as they went to the barn. "She said there was some
new hay, didn't she?" Alice asked. And as they laid themselves down in
it, it seemed a most luxurious bed. There was an old horse in the barn,
who looked at them with astonishment as they opened the door, and the
dim light shone in upon him. The dust made Alice sneeze worse than ever,
and she watched the moon shining through the cracks of the barn, and
after a good while she went to sleep again.
Early in the morning somebody came to the door, and our friends waked
unwillingly.
"My good land sakes alive!" said the woman who had talked to them from
the window. "Why didn't ye say there was a lady with ye? I looked round
for your mate, and I couldn't see nothing o' nobody. I took it for
granted ye were two young fellows, and I was all sole alone. My man's
gone down to North Conway, and I thought I wouldn't bother to get up and
let ye in. Well, I am mortified and ashamed. You should ha' had the best
I got. I hope ye ain't got your death o' cold. 'Twas a warm night,
though. Wan't ye eat up with 'skeeters? Why hadn't ye spoke, young man?"
"I don't know," said Jack. "I supposed you knew. I didn't think. My
sister was right out in the yard there." And they all laughed.
"I'll get ye some breakfast anyway," said the woman, who seemed very
good-natured that morning, though she had been so cross the night
before. "I've got a nice young fowl picked all ready, and I'll have her
fried with a bit o' pork in no time at all. Come into the house now,
won't ye?"
Such a breakfast as our friends ate that morning! and such a pleasant
ride as they had to North Conway afterward! for Mrs. Dummer, their
hostess, was going there to meet her husband, who had gone down some
days before. It was too hot, they thought, to walk the rest of the way,
and yet there was a fine breeze blowing. I think they were a little
tired after their experience the night before, but they were young and
strong, and the wetting did not do them a bit of harm after all.
Mrs. Dummer brushed and cleaned Alice's dress for her--at least they did
it together. It was blue flannel, and made short in the skirt, and so,
after it had its crumples taken out by a little ironing, it looked as
well as ever.
Mrs. Dummer seemed much excited by their adventures, and she was sorry
to part with her guests. She had not been married very long, she said;
she had lived at North Conway in a boarding-house for several years, and
it was a great deal livelier there in the summer-time. She did not know
how she was going to like living 'way up in the woods on that lonely
farm after cold weather came. But she said, shyly, that "he" was real
good company, and that her sister was going to spend part of the winter
with her.
"If you would come and stop a while some time, he'd take you off
fishing," she told Jack; "he's a great hand to go off for trout." And
Jack promised to remember the invitation the next summer.
It seemed an uncommon adventure at the time, and our friends enjoyed it
on the whole, only they were sorry afterward they had not walked all the
way to North Conway, and poor Jack never has ceased to mourn because
nobody can ever know how much his big trout weighed.