WINN ASSUMES A RESPONSIBILITY.
It was during one of these conversations with the boy's mother that
Major Caspar decided to take Winn with him on his raft voyage down the
Mississippi.
"If I find a good chance to place the boy in a first-class school in
one of the large cities after the voyage is ended I shall do so," said
the Major. "It is only fair, though, that he should have a chance to
see and learn something of the world first. After all, there is
nothing equal to travel as an educator. I honestly believe that the
war did more in four years towards educating this nation by stirring
its people up and moving large bodies of them to sections remote from
their homes than all our colleges have in fifty."
"But you mean that Winn shall go to college, of course?" said Mrs.
Caspar, a little anxiously.
"If he wants to, and shows a real liking for study," was the reply;
"but not unless he does. College is by no means the only place where a
boy can receive a liberal education. He may acquire just as good a one
in practical life if he is thoroughly interested in what he is doing
and has an ambition to excel. I believe Winn to be both ambitious and
persevering; but he is impulsive, easily influenced, and impatient of
control. He has no idea of that implicit obedience to orders that is
at the foundation of success in civil life as well as in the army; and,
above all, he is possessed of such an inordinate self-conceit that if
it is not speedily curbed by one or more severe lessons, it may lead
him into serious trouble."
"Oh, John!" expostulated the mother. "Do you realize that you are
saying these horrid things about our own boy--our Winn?"
"Indeed I do, dear," answered the Major, smiling; "and it is because he
is our boy, whom I love better than myself, that I am analyzing his
character so carefully. He has the making of a splendid fellow in him,
together with certain traits that might easily prove his ruin."
"Well," replied Mrs. Caspar, in a resigned tone, "perhaps it will do
him good to go away and be alone with you for a while. It is very hard
to realize, though, that my little Winn is sixteen years old and almost
a man. But, John, you won't let him run any risks, or get into any
danger, will you?"
"Not knowingly, my dear, you may rest assured," answered the Major.
But he smiled as he thought how impossible it was to keep boys from
running risks and getting into all sorts of dangerous positions.
So it was decided that Winn should form one of the crew of the
_Venture_ whenever the raft should be ready to start on its long
voyage; and ever since learning this decision the boy had been in a
fever of impatience to be off. So full was he of anticipations
concerning the proposed journey that he could talk and think of nothing
else. Thus, after a month of tiresome delay, he was in such an
uncomfortable frame of mind that it was a positive trial to have him
about the house. For this reason he was encouraged to spend much of
his time aboard the raft, and was even allowed to eat and sleep there
whenever he chose. At length he reached the point of almost
quarrelling with his sister, whom he loved so dearly; but he had hardly
plunged into the woods, after leaving her on the raft, before he
regretted his unkind words and heartily wished them unsaid. He
hesitated and half turned back, but his "pride," as he would have
called it, though it was really nothing but cowardice, was too strong
to permit him to humble himself just yet. So, feeling very unhappy, he
tramped moodily on through the woods, full of bitter thoughts, angry
with himself and all the world. Yet if any one had asked him what it
was all about, he could not have told.
Winn took a long circuit through the silent forest, and by the time he
again reached the river-bank, coming out just above the mill, he had
walked himself tired, but into quite a cheerful frame of mind. The
mill was shut down for the night, its workers had gone home, and not a
sound broke the evening stillness. The boy sat on a pile of slabs for
a few minutes, resting, and watching the glowing splendor of sunset as
reflected in the waters of the stream at his feet. At length he
started up and was about to go to the house, where, as he had decided,
his very first act would be to ask Elta's forgiveness. The house stood
some distance from the river-bank, and was hidden from it by the trees
of a young apple orchard. As Winn rose to his feet and cast a
lingering glance at the wonderful beauty of the water, he noticed a
familiar black object floating amid its splendor of crimsons and gold.
"I wonder how that log got out of the boom?" he said, half aloud.
"Why, there's another--and another! The boom must be broken."
Yes, the boom of logs, chained together end to end and stretched
completely across the creek to hold in check the thousands of saw-logs
that filled the stream farther than the eye could see, had parted near
the opposite bank. The end thus loosened had swung down-stream a
little way, and there caught on a snag formed of a huge, half-submerged
root. It might hold on there indefinitely, or it might get loose at
any moment, swing wide open, and set free the imprisoned wealth of logs
behind it. As it was, they were beginning to slip through the narrow
opening, and those that had attracted Winn's attention were sliding
downstream as stealthily as so many escaped convicts.
The boy's first impulse was to run towards the house, calling his
father and the mill-hands as he went. His second, and the one upon
which he acted, was to mend the broken boom and capture the truant logs
himself. "There is no need of troubling father, and I can do it alone
better than any number of those clumsy mill-hands," he thought.
"Besides, there is no time to spare; for if the boom once lets go of
that snag, we shall lose half the logs behind it."
Thus thinking, Winn ran around the mill and sprang aboard the raft that
lay just below it. Glancing about for a stout rope, his eye lighted on
the line by which the raft was made fast to a tree. "The very thing!"
he exclaimed. "While it's aground here the raft doesn't need a cable
any more than I need a check-rein, and I told father so. He said there
wasn't any harm in taking a precaution, and that the water might rise
unexpectedly. As if there was a chance of it! There hasn't been any
rain for two months, and isn't likely to be any for another yet to
come."
While these thoughts were spinning through the boy's brain, he was
casting loose the cable at both ends and stowing it in his own little
dugout that was moored to the outer side of the raft. Then with strong
deep strokes he paddled swiftly upstream towards the broken boom.
After fifteen minutes of hard work he had secured one end of the cable
to that part of the boom resting against the snag, carried the other to
and around a tree on the bank, back again to the boom, and then to the
inshore end of the broken chain. Thus he not only secured the boom
against opening any wider, but closed the exit already made.
[Illustration: "Winn secured one end of the cable to that part of the
boom resting against the snag."]
"That's as good a job as any of them could have done," he remarked to
himself, regarding his work through the gathering gloom with great
satisfaction. "Now for the fellows that got away."
It was a much harder task to capture and tow back those three truant
logs than it had been to repair the boom. It was such hard work, and
the darkness added so much to its difficulties, that almost any other
boy would have given it up in despair, and allowed the three logs to
escape. But Winn Caspar was not inclined to give up anything he had
once undertaken. Having determined to do a certain thing, he would
stick to it "like a dog to a root," as one of the mill-hands had said
of him. So those logs had to go back inside of that boom, because Winn
had made up his mind that they should; but they went so reluctantly,
and gave him so much trouble, that it was long after dark and some
hours past supper-time before the job was completed.
When Winn at length returned to the raft he was wet, tired, and hungry,
though very proud of his accomplished task. He was shivering too, now
that his violent exertions were ended, for the sky had become overcast,
and a chill wind was moaning through the pine-trees.
"I wonder if I can't find something to eat here?" he said to himself.
"I'm good and hungry, that's a fact, and they must have had supper up
at the house long ago." Entering the "shanty," and feeling carefully
about, the boy at length found matches and lighted a lamp.
Hello! There was plenty to eat; in fact, there was a regular spread at
one end of the table, with plate, cup and saucer, knife, fork, and
napkin, all neatly arranged as though he were expected. "What does it
mean?" thought Winn; and then his eye fell on a bit of folded paper
lying in the plate. It was a note which read as follows:
"DEAR BROTHER,--As you didn't come home to supper, I thought perhaps
you were going to spend the night on the raft, and so brought yours
down here. You can heat the tea on the stove. I'm awfully sorry I
said anything to make you feel badly. Please forget it, and forgive
your loving sister,----ELTA."
"Bless her dear heart!" cried the boy. "She is the best sister in the
world. The idea of her asking my forgiveness, when it is I who should
ask hers. And I will ask it, too, the very minute I see her; for I
shall never be happy until we have kissed and made up, as we used to
say when we were young ones. I guess, though, I'll eat the supper she
has brought me first. And that's a good idea about heating the tea,
too. I can get dry by the stove at the same time. I'll have a chance
to see Elta before bedtime, and she'd feel badly if I didn't eat her
supper anyway."
All of which goes to show how very little we know of what even the
immediate future may bring forth, and that if we put off for a single
hour doing that which ought to be done at once, what a likelihood there
is that we may never have a chance to do it.