BEARS--AND OTHER THINGS
"Ye see," drawled Jerry, "my marm was alive in them days--bless her
heart! Dad was killed on the boom down Rolling River when I was a
little shaver; but marm hung on till I got growed. Ya-as! I mean till
I got clean through growin' and that was long after I voted fust
time," and he chuckled and wagged his head.
"Wal, mebbe I was sixteen; mebbe seventeen. Boys up here in the
woods have to cut their own vittles pretty airly. I was doin' a man's
labor when I was 'leven. Ya-as, Miss! Had to work for me an' marm.
"And marm worked, too. One day I started for Drownville with a big
bundle of aperns marm had sewed for Mis' Juneberry that kep' store at
Drownville. She got two bits a dozen for makin' them aperns, I
remember. Wal, it was a wilder country then than it is now, and I
never see a soul, nor heard the sound of an axe in walking four
miles. Just at the end o' them four miles," continued Long Jerry, his
eyes twinkling, "there was a turn in the road. I swung around it--I
was travelin' at a good clip--and come facin' up an old she b'ar
which riz up on her hind laigs an' said: 'How-d'-do, Jerry Todd!'
jest as plain as ever a bear spoke in its e-tar-nal life!
"Why," said Long Jerry, almost choking with his own laughter, "by
the smile on thet thar b'ar's face and the way she spread her arms
wide to receive me, it was plain enough how glad she was ter see me."
"I should think you'd have been scared to death!" gasped Ruth,
looking down at him.
"Wal, I calculate I was some narvous. I was more narvous in them
days than I be now. Hadn't seen so much of the world. And sure hadn't
seen so much o' b'ars," cackled Jerry. "Not bein' used to b'ar
sassiety I natcherly balked when that ol' she b'ar appeared so
lovin'. I had pretty nigh walked right into her arms and there wasn't
much chance to make any particular preparations. Fact was, I didn't
have nothin' with me more dangerous than a broken jack-knife, and I
don't know how it might strike you, Miss, but to me that didn't seem
to be no implement with which to make a b'ar's acquaintance."
"I should think not!" giggled Ruth. "What _did_ you do?"
"Wal, first of all I give her marm's bundle--ya-as I did! I pitched
that there bundle of aperns right at her, and the way she growled an'
tore at 'em was a caution, now I tell ye! I seen at once what she'd
do to me if she got me, so I left them parts, an' left 'em quick! I
started off through the woods, hittin' only the high spots, and
fancied I could beat the old gal runnin'. But not on your tin-type!
No, sir-ree! The old gal jest give a roar, come down on all four
feet, and started after me at a pace that set me a-thinkin' of my sins.
"Jest as sure as you live, if I'd kept on running she'd had me
within thirty yards. An' I knew if I climbed a big tree she'd race me
to the top of it and get me, too. Ye see, a small-round tree was my
only chance. A b'ar climbs by huggin' their paws around the trunk,
and it takes one of right smart size to suit them for climbin'.
"I see my tree all right, and I went for it. Missus B'ar, she come
cavortin' an' growlin' along, and it did seem to me as though she'd
have a chunk out o' me afore I could climb out o' reach. It was jest
about then, I reckon," pursued Long Jerry, chuckling again, "when I
believe I began to grow tall!
"I stretched my arms up as fur as I could, an' the way I shinnied up
that sapling was a caution to cats, now I tell ye! She riz up the
minute she got to the tree and tried to scrape me off with both paws.
She missed me by half a fraction of an infinitessimal part of an inch
--that's a good word, that 'infinitessimal'; ain't it, Miss? I got it
off of a college perfesser what come up here, and he said he got it
straight-away out of the dictionary."
"It's a good word, Mr. Todd," laughed Ruth, highly delighted at the
man and his story.
"Wal!" chuckled Jerry, "we'll say she missed me. I was so scar't
that I didn't know then whether she had missed me or was chawin' of
me. I felt I was pretty numb like below my waist. And how I did
stretch up that tree! No wonder I growed tall after that day," said
Jerry, shaking his head. "I stretched ev'ry muscle in my carcass,
Miss--I surely did!
"There was that ol she b'ar, on her hind legs and a-roarin' at me
like the Mr. Bashan's Bull that they tell about, and scratchin' the
bark off'n that tree in great strips. She cleaned the pole, as far up
as she could reach, as clean as a bald man's head. She jumped as far
as she could, gnashed her teeth, and tried her best to climb that
sapling. Every time she made a jump, or howled, I tried to climb
higher. An', Miss, that was the time I got stretched out so tall, for
sure.
"The bear, with wide-open mouth, kept on a-jumpin' an' ev'ry time
she jumped I clumb a little higher, I was so busy lookin' down at her
that I never looked up to see how fur I was gettin' toward the top,
so, all of a suddent-like, the tree top begun to bend over with me
an' sumpin' snapped. 'Twarn't my galluses, neither!" crowed Long
Jerry, very much delighted by his own tale. "I knowed that, all
right. Sna-a-ap! she went again, and I begun to go down.
"I swanny! but that was a warm time for me, Miss--it sure was. There
was that ol' she b'ar with her mouth as wide open as a church door--
or, so it looked to Jerry Todd. They say a feller that's drowndin'
thinks over all his hull endurin' life when he's goin' down. I
believe it. Sure I do. 'Twarn't twenty feet from the top o' that tree
to the ground, but I even remembered how I stole my sister Jane's rag
baby when I couldn't more'n toddle around marm's shanty--that's
right!--an' berried of it in the hog-pen. Every sin that was
registered to my account come up before me as plain as the wart on
Jim Biggle's nose!"
"Oh, Mr. Todd!" cried Ruth. "Falling right on that awful bear?"
"That's what I was doin', Miss--and it didn't take me long to do it,
neither, I reckon. Mebbe the b'ar warn't no more ready to receive me
than I was to drap down on her. I heard her give a startled _whuff_,
and she come on all four paws. The next thing I done was to land
square on her back--I swanny! that was a crack. Purty nigh drove my
spine up through the top of my head, it did. And the ol' b'ar must ha'
been mighty sorry arterwards that she was right there to receive me.
She give a most awful grunt, shook me off onto the ground and kited
out o' that as though she'd been sent for in a hurry! I swanny! I
never did see a b'ar run so fast," and Long Jerry burst into an
uproarious laugh.
"But that, I reckon, is the time I got so stretched out an' begun to
grow so tall, Miss," he added. "Stretchin' an' strainin' to git away
from that ol' she b'ar was what done it."
Ruth was delighted with the guide; but she was very tired, too, and
when the maids came in she was only too glad to fall in with the
suggestion of bed. She was put to sleep in a great, plainly furnished
room, where there were three other beds--a regular dormitory. It was
like one of the Prime sleeping rooms at Briarwood Hall.
And how Ruth did sleep that night after her adventurous day! The sun
shone broadly on the clearing about the camp when she first opened
her eyes. Mary put her head in at the door and said:
"Your breakfast will be spoilt, Miss Ruth, or I wouldn't disturb
you. All the men's ate long ago and Janey's fussin' in the kitchen.
Besides, the folks will be over from Scarboro in an hour. Mr. Cameron
just telephoned and asked how you were."
"Oh, I feel fine!" cried the girl from the Red Mill, joyfully.
But when she hopped out of bed she found herself dreadfully stiff
and lame; the jouncing she had received while riding with the boy
calling himself Fred Hatfield, and the catamount, on the timber cart,
and later her first long walk on snow-shoes, had together strained
her muscles and lamed her limbs to a degree. Old Aunt Alvirah's
oft-repeated phrase fitted her condition, and she grimly repeated it:
"Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"
But the prospect of the other girls, coming--and Tom and his
friends, too--and the fun in store for them all at Snow Camp, soon
made Ruth Fielding forget small troubles. Besides, the muscles of
youth are elastic and the weariness soon went out of her bones.
Before the party arrived from Scarboro she had opportunity of going
all about the great log lodge, and getting acquainted with all it
held and all that surrounded it.
The great hall on the lower floor was arranged so as to have a broad
open fireplace at either end. These fires were kept burning day and
night and the great heaps of glowing logs made the hall, and most of
the upper rooms, very comfortable indeed. The walls of this hall were
hung with snowshoes, Canadian toboggans--so light, apparently, that
they would not hold one man, let alone four, but very, very strongly
built--guns, Indian bows and sheaf of arrows, fish-spears, and a
conglomeration of hunting gear for much of which Ruth Fielding did
not even know the names, let alone their uses.
Outside the snow had been cleared away immediately around the great
log house and a wide path was cut through the drifts down to a small
lake, or pond. In coming from Rattlesnake Hill the night before with
the old hermit, and the boy who called himself Fred Hatfield, they
had come down a long incline in sight of the camp. Now, Ruth saw that
a course had been made level upon that hillside, banked up on either
side with dykes of snow, and water poured over the whole to make a
perfect slide. There was a starting platform at the top and the
course was more than half a mile in length, Long Jerry told her.
But when she had seen all these things sleigh bells were heard and
Ruth ran out to welcome her friends.