HOW FRANK BAKER SPENT THE FOURTH
AT PAWPAW BOTTOM, AND SAW
THE FOURTH OF JULY BOY
It was the morning of the Fourth, and Frank was so anxious to get through
with his wood-sawing, and begin celebrating with the rest of the boys,
that he hardly knew what to do. He had a levvy (as the old Spanish _real_
used to be called in southern Ohio) in his pocket, and he was going to buy
a pack of shooting-crackers for ten cents, and spend the other two cents
for powder. He had no pistol, but he knew a fellow that would lend him his
pistol part of the time, and he expected to have about the best Fourth he
ever had. He had been up since three o'clock watching the men fire the old
six-pounder on the river-bank; and he was going to get his mother to let
him go up to the fireworks in the court-house yard after dark.
But now it did not seem as if he could get wood enough sawed. Twice he
asked his mother if she thought he had enough, but she said "Not near,"
and just as Jake Milrace rode up the saw caught in a splinter of the tough
oak log Frank was sawing and bumped back against Frank's nose; and he
would have cried if it had not been for what Jake began to say.
He said he was going to Pawpaw Bottom to spend the Fourth at a fellow's
named Dave Black, and he told Frank he ought to go too; for there were
plenty of mulberries on Dave's father's farm, and the early apples were
getting ripe enough to eat, if you pounded them on a rock; and you could
go in swimming, and everything. Jake said there was the greatest
swimming-hole at Pawpaw Bottom you ever saw, and they had a log in the
water there that you could have lots of fun with. Frank ran into the house
to ask his mother if he might go, and he hardly knew what to do when she
asked him if there was wood enough yet to get dinner and supper. But his
Aunt Manda was spending the summer with his mother, and she said she
reckoned she could pick up chips to do all the cooking they needed, such
a hot day; and Frank ran out to the cow-house, where they kept the pony,
because the Bakers had no stable, and saddled him, and was off with Jake
Milrace in about a minute.
The pony was short and fat and lazy, and he had to be whipped to make him
keep up with Jake's horse. It was not exactly Jake's horse; it was his
sister's husband's horse, and he had let Jake have it because he would not
be using it himself on the Fourth of July. It was tall and lean, and it
held its head so high up that it was no use to pull on the bridle when it
began to jump and turn round and round, which it did every time Frank
whipped his pony to keep even with Jake. It would shy and sidle, and dart
so far ahead that the pony would get discouraged and would lag back, and
have to be whipped up again; and then the whole thing would have to be
gone through with the same as at first. The boys did not have much chance
to talk, but they had a splendid time riding along, and when they came to
a cool, dark place in the woods they pretended there were Indians; and at
the same time they kept a sharp eye out for squirrels. If they had seen
any, and had a gun with them, they could have shot one easily, for
squirrels are not afraid of you when you are on horseback; and, as it was,
Jake Milrace came pretty near killing a quail that they saw in the road by
a wheat-field. He dropped his bridle and took aim with his forefinger, and
pulled back his thumb like a trigger; and if his horse had not jumped, and
his finger had been loaded, he would surely have killed the quail, it was
so close to him. They could hear the bob-whites whistling all through the
stubble and among the shocks of wheat.
Jake did not know just where Dave Black's farm was, but after a while they
came to a blacksmith's shop, and the blacksmith told them to take a lane
that they would come to on the left, and then go through a piece of woods
and across a field till they came to a creek; then ford the creek and keep
straight on, and they would be in sight of the house. It did not seem
strange to Frank that they should be going to visit a boy without knowing
where he lived, but afterwards he was not surprised when Dave Black's
folks did not appear to expect them. They kept on, and did as the
blacksmith told them, and soon enough they got to a two-story log-cabin,
with a man in front of it working at a wheat-fan, for it was nearly time
to thresh the wheat. The man said he was Dave Black's father; he did not
act as if he was very glad to see them, but he told them to put their
horses in the barn, and he said that Dave was out in the pasture hauling
rails.
Frank thought that was a queer way of spending the Fourth of July, but he
did not say anything, and on their way out to the pasture Jake explained
that Dave's father was British, and did not believe much in the Fourth of
July, anyway. They found Dave easily enough, and he answered Jake's
"Hello!" with another when the boys came up. He had a two-horse wagon, and
he was loading it with rails from a big pile; there were two dogs with
him, and when they saw the boys they came towards them snarling and
ruffling the hair on their backs. Jake said not to mind them--they would
not bite; but they snuffed so close to Frank's bare legs that he wished
Dave would call them off. They slunk away, though, when they heard him
speak to the boys; and then Jake Milrace told Dave Black who Frank was,
and they began to feel acquainted, especially when Jake said they had come
to spend the Fourth of July with Dave.
He said, "First rate," and he explained that he had his foot tied up the
way they saw because he had a stone-bruise which he had got the first day
he began to go barefoot in the spring; but now it was better. He said
there was a bully swimming-hole in the creek, and he would show them where
it was as soon as he had got done hauling his rails. The boys took that
for a kind of hint, and they pulled off their roundabouts and set to work
with him.
Frank thought it was not exactly like the Fourth, but he did not say
anything, and they kept loading up the rails and hauling them to the edge
of the field where Dave's father was going to build the fence, and then
unloading them, and going back to the pile for more. It seemed to Frank
that there were about a thousand rails in that pile, and they were pretty
heavy ones--oak and hickory and walnut--and you had to be careful how you
handled them, or you would get your hands stuck full of splinters. He
wondered what Jake Milrace was thinking, and whether it was the kind of
Fourth he had expected to have; but Jake did not say anything, and he
hated to ask him. Sometimes it appeared to Frank that sawing wood was
nothing to it; but they kept on loading rails, and unloading them in piles
about ten feet apart, where they were wanted; and then going back to the
big pile for more. They worked away in the blazing sun till the sweat
poured off their faces, and Frank kept thinking what a splendid time the
fellows were having with pistols and shooting-crackers up in the Boy's
Town; but still he did not say anything, and pretty soon he had his
reward. When they got half down through the rail-pile they came to a
bumblebees' nest, which the dogs thought was a rat-hole at first. One of
them poked his nose into it, but he pulled it out quicker than wink and
ran off howling and pawing his face and rubbing his head in the ground or
against the boys' legs. Even when the dogs found out that it was not rats
they did not show any sense. As soon as they rubbed a bee off they would
come yelping and howling back for more; and hopping round and barking; and
then when they got another bee, or maybe a half-dozen (for the bees did
not always fight fair), they would streak off again and jump into the air,
and roll on the ground till the boys almost killed themselves laughing.
The boys went into the woods, and got pawpaw branches, and came back and
fought the bumblebees till they drove them off. It was just like the
battle of Bunker Hill; but Frank did not say so, because Dave's father was
British, till Dave said it himself, and then they all pretended the bees
were Mexicans; it was just a little while after the Mexican War. When they
drove the bees off, they dug their nest out; it was beautifully built in
regular cells of gray paper, and there was a little honey in it; about a
spoonful for each boy.
Frank was glad that he had not let out his disappointment with the kind of
Fourth they were having; and just then the horn sounded from the house for
dinner, and the boys all got into the wagon, and rattled off to the barn.
They put out the horses and fed them, and as soon as they could wash
themselves at the rain-barrel behind the house, they went in and sat down
with the family at dinner. It was a farmer's dinner, as it used to be in
southern Ohio fifty years ago: a deep dish of fried salt pork swimming in
its own fat, plenty of shortened biscuit and warm green-apple sauce, with
good butter. The Boy's Town boys did not like the looks of the fat pork,
but they were wolf-hungry, and the biscuit were splendid. In the middle of
the table there was a big crock of buttermilk, all cold and dripping from
the spring-house where it had been standing in the running water; then
there was a hot apple-pie right out of the oven; and they made a pretty
fair meal, after all.
After dinner they hauled more rails, and when they had hauled all the
rails there were, they started for the swimming-hole in the creek. On the
way they came to a mulberry-tree in the edge of the woods-pasture, and it
was so full of berries and they were so ripe that the grass which the
cattle had cropped short was fairly red under the tree. The boys got up
into the tree and gorged themselves among the yellow-hammers and
woodpeckers; and Frank and Jake kept holloing out to each other how glad
they were they had come; but Dave kept quiet, and told them to wait till
they came to the swimming-hole.
It was while they were in the tree that something happened which happened
four times in all that day, if it really happened: nobody could say
afterwards whether it had or not. Frank was reaching out for a place in
the tree where the berries seemed thicker than anywhere else, when a
strong blaze of light flashed into his eyes, and blinded him.
"Oh, hello, Dave Black!" he holloed. "That's mean! What are you throwin'
that light in my face for?"
But he laughed at the joke, and he laughed more when Dave shouted back, "I
ain't throwin' no light in your face."
"Yes, you are; you've got a piece of look-in'-glass, and you're flashin'
it in my face."
"Wish I may die, if I have," said Dave, so seriously that Frank had to
believe him.
"Well, then, Jake Milrace has."
"I hain't, any such thing," said Jake, and then Dave Black roared back,
laughing: "Oh, I'll tell you! It's one of the pieces of tin we strung
along that line in the corn-field to keep the crows off, corn-plantin'
time."
The boys shouted together at the joke on Frank, and Dave parted the
branches for a better look at the corn-field.
"Well, well! Heigh there!" he called towards the field. "Oh, he's gone
now!" he said to the other boys, craning their necks out to see, too. "But
he _was_ doing it, Frank. If I could ketch that feller!"
"Somebody you know? Let's get him to come along," said Jake and Frank, one
after the other.
"I couldn't tell," said Dave. "He slipped into the woods when he heard me
holler. If it's anybody I know, he'll come out again. Don't seem to notice
him; that's the best way."
For a while, though, they stopped to look, now and then; but no more
flashes came from the corn-field, and the boys went on cramming themselves
with berries; they all said they had got to stop, but they went on till
Dave said: "I don't believe it's going to do us any good to go in swimming
if we eat too many of these mulberries. I reckon we better quit, now."
The others said they reckoned so, too, and they all got down from the
tree, and started for the swimming-hole. They had to go through a piece of
woods to get to it, and in the shadow of the trees they did not notice
that a storm was coming up till they heard it thunder. By that time they
were on the edge of the woods, and there came a flash of lightning and a
loud thunder-clap, and the rain began to fall in big drops. The boys saw a
barn in the field they had reached, and they ran for it; and they had just
got into it when the rain came down with all its might. Suddenly Jake
said: "I'll tell you what! Let's take off our clothes and have a
shower-bath!" And in less than a minute they had their clothes off, and
were out in the full pour, dancing up and down, and yelling like Indians.
That made them think of playing Indians, and they pretended the barn was a
settler's cabin, and they were stealing up on it through the tall shocks
of wheat. They captured it easily, and they said if the lightning would
only strike it and set it on fire so it would seem as if the Indians had
done it, it would be great; but the storm was going round, and they had to
be satisfied with being settlers, turn about, and getting scalped.
It was easy to scalp Frank, because he wore his hair long, as the town
boys liked to do in those days, but Jake lived with his sister, and he had
to do as she said. She said a boy had no business with long hair; and she
had lately cropped his close to his skull. Dave's father cut his hair
round the edges of a bowl, which he had put on Dave's head for a pattern;
the other boys could get a pretty good grip of it, if they caught it on
top, where the scalp-lock belongs; but Dave would duck and dodge so that
they could hardly get their hands on it. All at once they heard him call
out from around the corner of the barn, where he had gone to steal up on
them, when it was their turn to be settlers: "Aw, now, Jake Milrace, that
ain't fair! I'm an Indian, now. You let go my hair."
"Who's touchin' your old hair?" Jake shouted back, from the inside of the
barn. "You must be crazy. Hurry up, if you're ever goin' to attack us. I
want to get out in the rain, myself, awhile."
Frank was outside, pretending to be at work in the field, and waiting for
the Indians to creep on him, and when Jake shouted for Dave to hurry, he
looked over his shoulder and saw a white figure, naked like his own, flit
round the left-hand corner of the barn. Then he had to stoop over, so that
Dave could tomahawk him easily, and he did not see anything more, but Jake
yelled from the barn: "Oh, you got that fellow with you, have you? Then
he's got to be settler next time. Come on, now. Oh, do hurry up!"
Frank raised his head to see the other boy, but there was only Dave Black,
coming round the right-hand corner of the barn.
"You're crazy yourself, Jake. There ain't nobody here but me and Frank."
"There is, too!" Jake retorted. "Or there was, half a second ago."
But Dave was busy stealing on Frank, who was bending over, pretending to
hoe, and after he had tomahawked Frank, he gave the scalp-halloo, and Jake
came running out of the barn, and had to be chased round it twice, so that
he could fall breathless on his own threshold, and be scalped in full
sight of his family. Then Dave pretended to be a war-party of Wyandots,
and he gathered up sticks, and pretended to set the barn on fire. By this
time Frank and Jake had come to life, and were Wyandots, too, and they all
joined hands and danced in front of the barn.
"There! There he is again!" shouted Jake. "Who's crazy _now_, I should
like to know?"
"Where? Where?" yelled both the other boys.
"There! Right in the barn door. Or he _was_, quarter of a second ago,"
said Jake, and they all dropped one another's hands, and rushed into the
barn and began to search it.
They could not find anybody, and Dave Black said: "Well, he's the quickest
feller! Must 'a' got up into the mow, and jumped out of the window, and
broke for the woods while we was lookin' down here. But if I get my hands
onto him, oncet!"
They all talked and shouted and quarrelled and laughed at once; but they
had to give the other fellow up; he had got away for that time, and they
ran out into the rain again to let it wash off the dust and chaff, which
they had got all over them in their search. The rain felt so good and cool
that they stood still and took it without playing any more, and talked
quietly. Dave decided that the fellow who had given them the slip was a
new boy whose folks had come into the neighborhood since school had let
out in the spring, so that he had not got acquainted yet; but Dave allowed
that he would teach him a few tricks as good as his own when he got at
him.
The storm left a solid bank of clouds in the east for a while after it was
all blue in the western half of the sky, and a rainbow came out against
the clouds. It looked so firm and thick that Dave said you could cut it
with a scythe. It seemed to come solidly down to the ground in the woods
in front of the hay-mow window, and the boys said it would be easy to get
the crock of gold at the end of it if they were only in the woods. "I'll
bet that feller's helpin' himself," said Dave, and they began to wonder
how many dollars a crock of gold was worth, anyhow; they decided about a
million. Then they wondered how much of a crock full of gold a boy could
get into his pockets; and they all laughed when Jake said he reckoned it
would depend upon the size of the crock. "I don't believe that fellow
could carry much of it away if he hain't got more on than he had in front
of the barn." That put Frank in mind of the puzzle about the three men
that found a treasure in the road when they were travelling together: the
blind man saw it, and the man without arms picked it up, and the naked man
put it in his pocket. It was the first time Dave had heard the puzzle, and
he asked, "Well, what's the answer?" But before Frank could tell him, Jake
started up and pointed to the end of the rainbow, where it seemed to go
into the ground against the woods.
"Oh! look! look!" he panted out, and they all looked, but no one could see
anything except Jake. It made him mad. "Why, you must be blind!" he
shouted, and he kept pointing. "Don't you see him? There, there! Oh, now,
the rainbow's going out, and you can't see him any more. He's gone into
the woods again. Well, I don't know what your eyes are good for, anyway."
He tried to tell them what he had seen; he could only make out that it
must be the same boy, but now he had his clothes on: white linen
pantaloons and roundabout, like what you had on May day, or the Fourth if
you were going to the Sunday-school picnic. Dave wanted him to tell what
he looked like, but Jake could not say anything except that he was very
smiling-looking, and seemed as if he would like to be with him; Jake said
he was just going to hollo for him to come over when the rainbow began to
go out; and then the fellow slipped back into the woods; it was more like
melting into the woods.
"And how far off do you think you could see a boy smile?" Dave asked,
scornfully.
"How far off can you say a rainbow is?" Jake retorted.
"I can say how far off that piece of woods is," said Dave, with a laugh.
He got to his feet, and began to pull at the other boys, to make them get
up. "Come along, if you're ever goin' to the swimmin'-hole."
[Illustration: "VERY SMILING-LOOKING"]
The sun was bright and hot, and the boys left the barn, and took across
the field to the creek. The storm must have been very heavy, for the creek
was rushing along bank-full, and there was no sign left of Dave's
swimming-hole. But they had had such a glorious shower-bath that they did
not want to go in swimming, anyway, and they stood and watched the yellow
water pouring over the edge of a mill-dam that was there, till Dave
happened to think of building a raft and going out on the dam. Jake said,
"First rate!" and they all rushed up to a place where there were some
boards on the bank; and they got pieces of old rope at the mill, and tied
the boards together, till they had a good raft, big enough to hold them,
and then they pushed it into the water and got on it. They said they were
on the Ohio River, and going from Cincinnati to Louisville. Dave had a
long pole to push with, like the boatmen on the keel-boats in the early
times, and Jake had a board to steer with; Frank had another board to
paddle with, on the other side of the raft from Dave; and so they set on
their journey.
The dam was a wide, smooth sheet of water, with trees growing round the
edge, and some of them hanging so low over it that they almost touched it.
The boys made trips back and forth across the dam, and to and from the
edge of the fall, till they got tired of it, and they were wanting
something to happen, when Dave stuck his pole deep into the muddy bottom,
and set his shoulder hard against the top of the pole, with a "Here she
goes, boys, over the Falls of the Ohio!" and he ran along the edge of the
raft from one end to the other.
Frank and Dave had both straightened up to watch him. At the stern of the
raft Dave tried to pull up his pole for another good push, but it stuck
fast in the mud at the bottom of the dam, and before Dave knew what he was
about, the raft shot from under his feet, and he went overboard with his
pole in his hand, as if he were taking a flying leap with it. The next
minute he dropped into the water heels first, and went down out of sight.
He came up blowing water from his mouth, and holloing and laughing, and
took after the raft, where the other fellows were jumping up and down, and
bending back and forth, and screaming and yelling at the way he looked
hurrying after his pole, and then dangling in the air, and now showing his
black head in the water like a musk-rat swimming for its hole. They were
having such a good time mocking him that they did not notice how his push
had sent the raft swiftly in under the trees by the shore, and the first
thing they knew, one of the low branches caught them, and scraped them
both off the raft into the water, almost on top of Dave. Then it was
Dave's turn to laugh, and he began: "What's the matter, boys? Want to help
find the other end of that pole?"
Jake was not under the water any longer than Dave had been, but Frank did
not come up so soon. They looked among the brush by the shore, to see if
he was hiding there and fooling them, but they could not find him. "He's
stuck in some snag at the bottom," said Dave; "we got to dive for him";
but just then Frank came up, and swam feebly for the shore. He crawled out
of the water, and after he got his breath, he said, "I got caught, down
there, in the top of an old tree."
"Didn't I tell you so?" Dave shouted into Jake's ear.
"Why, Jake was there till I got loose," said Frank, looking stupidly at
him.
"No, I wasn't," said Jake. "I was up long ago, and I was just goin' to
dive for you; so was Dave."
"Then it was that other fellow," said Frank. "I thought it didn't look
overmuch like Jake, anyway."
"Oh, pshaw!" Dave jeered. "How could you tell, in that muddy water?"
"I don't know," Frank answered. "It was all light round him. Looked like
he had a piece of the rainbow on him, or foxfire."
"I reckon if I find him," said Dave, "I'll take his piece of rainbow off'n
him pretty quick. That's the fourth time that feller's fooled us to-day.
Where d'you s'pose he came up? Oh, _I_ know! He got out on the other side
under them trees, while we was huntin' for Frank, and not noticin'. How'd
he look, anyway?"
"I don't know; I just saw him half a second. Kind of smiling, and like he
wanted to play."
"Well, I know him," said Dave. "It's the new boy, and the next time I see
him--Oh, hello! There goes our raft!"
It was drifting slowly down towards the edge of the dam, and the boys all
three plunged into the water again, and swam out to it, and climbed up on
it.
They had the greatest kind of a time, and when they had played castaway
sailors, Frank and Jake wanted to send the raft over the edge of the dam;
but Dave said it might get into the head-race of the mill and tangle
itself up in the wheel, and spoil the wheel.
So they took the raft apart and carried the boards on shore, and then
tried to think what they would do next. The first thing was to take off
their clothes and see about drying them. But they had no patience for
that; and so they wrung them out as dry as they could and put them on
again; they had left their roundabouts at Dave's house, anyway, and so had
nothing on but a shirt and trousers apiece. The sun was out hot after the
rain, and their clothes were almost dry by the time they got to Dave's
house. They went with him to the woods-pasture on the way, and helped him
drive home the cows, and they wanted him to get his mother to make his
father let him go up to the Boy's Town with them and see the fireworks;
but he said it would be no use; and then they understood that if a man was
British, of course he would not want his boy to celebrate the Fourth of
July by going to the fireworks. They felt sorry for Dave, but they both
told him that they had had more fun than they ever had in their lives
before, and they were coming the next Fourth and going to bring their guns
with them. Then they could shoot quails or squirrels, if they saw any, and
the firing would celebrate the Fourth at the same time, and his father
could not find any fault.
It seemed to Frank that it was awful to have a father that was British;
but when they got to Dave's house, and his father asked them how they had
spent the afternoon, he did not seem to be so very bad. He asked them
whether they had got caught in the storm, and if that was what made their
clothes wet, and when they told him what had happened, he sat down on the
wood-pile and laughed till he shook all over.
Then Frank and Jake thought they had better be going home, but Dave's
mother would not let them start without something to eat; and she cut them
each a slice of bread the whole width and length of the loaf, and spread
the slices with butter, and then apple-butter, and then brown sugar. The
boys thought they were not hungry, but when they began to eat they found
out that they were, and before they knew it they had eaten the slices all
up. Dave's mother said they must come and see Dave again some time, and
she acted real clever; she was an American, anyway.
They got their horses and started home. It was almost sundown now, and
they heard the turtle-doves cooing in the woods, and the bob-whites
whistling from the stubble, and there were so many squirrels among the
trees in the woods-pastures, and on the fences, that Frank could hardly
get Jake along; and if it had not been for Jake's horse, that ran whenever
Frank whipped up his pony, they would not have got home till dark. They
smelt ham frying in some of the houses they passed, and that made them
awfully hungry; one place there was coffee, too.
When they reached Frank's house he found that his mother had kept supper
hot for him, and she came out and said Jake must come in with him, if his
family would not be uneasy about him; and Jake said he did not believe
they would. He tied his horse to the outside of the cow-house, and he came
in, and Frank's mother gave them as much baked chicken as they could hold,
with hot bread to sop in the gravy; and she had kept some coffee hot for
Frank, so that they made another good meal. They told her what a bully
time they had had, and how they had fallen into the dam; but she did not
seem to think it was funny; she said it was a good thing they were not all
drowned, and she believed they had taken their deaths of cold, anyway.
Frank was afraid she was going to make him go up stairs and change his
clothes, when he heard the boys begin to sound their call of "Ee-o-wee" at
the front door, and he and Jake snatched their hats and ran out. There
was a lot of boys at the gate; Hen Billard was there, and Archy Hawkins
and Jim Leonard; there were some little fellows, and Frank's cousin Pony
was there; he said his mother had said he might stay till his father came
for him.
Hen Billard had his thumb tied up from firing too big a load out of his
brass pistol. The pistol burst, and the barrel was all curled back like a
dandelion stem in water; he had it in his pocket to show. Archy Hawkins's
face was full of little blue specks from pouring powder on a coal and
getting it flashed up into his face when he was blowing the coal; some of
his eye-winkers were singed off. Jim Leonard had a rag round his hand, and
he said a whole pack of shooting-crackers had gone off in it before he
could throw them away, and burned the skin off; the fellows dared him to
let them see it, but he would not; and then they mocked him. They all said
there had never been such a Fourth of July in the Boy's Town before; and
Frank and Jake let them brag as much as they wanted to, and when the
fellows got tired, and asked them what they had done at Pawpaw Bottom, and
they said, "Oh, nothing much; just helped Dave Black haul rails," they set
up a jeer that you could hear a mile.
Then Jake said, as if he just happened to think of it, "And fought
bumblebees."