WEARY WAITING.
The days seemed very long to Tom and Joe and little Judie after Sam left
on his journey. They had nothing to do but to sit still in their corners
among the roots all day, and time always drags very slowly when people
are doing nothing. Their provisions, as we know, were already
cooked,--enough of them at least, to last a week, and before Sam left he
had made them bring more than a bushel of sweet potatoes and all the
corn they could find which was still soft enough to eat, and store it
away for use if his return should be delayed in any way. The result was
that their legs got no stretching, and they became moody, dispirited and
unhappy before the second day of Sam's absence had come to an end. They
found doing nothing the hardest and the dullest work they ever had done
in their lives. Joe managed to sleep most of the time, but Tom was
nervous, and poor little Judie, without Sam to depend upon, grew
low-spirited and began to fear all sorts of evil things. Finally Sam's
week was up and Sam had not appeared. The little people were now fairly
frightened. What had become of him? they wondered. Had he fallen into
the hands of the Indians? And if so, what were they to do now? They had
never before known how dependent they were upon him. Even during his
absence they had been regulating their lives by his minute instructions,
and depending upon him for guidance after he should return. But what if
he should never return? And why hadn't he come already? These thoughts
were too much for them. Judie sat in her corner brooding over her
trouble, and crying a little now and then. Joe was simply frightened,
and his eyes grew bigger and rounder than ever. Tom was sustained in
part by the thought that the burden of responsibility was now on him,
and so he suppressed all manifestations of uneasiness, as well as he
could, and gave himself up to the duty of studying the situation,
calculating his resources and trying to decide what was the best thing
to be done if Sam should not come back at all. He hit upon several
excellent ideas, but made up his mind that before trying to put any of
them into practice he would wait at least a fortnight longer for Sam's
return. Their stock of provisions, eaten raw, would last much longer
than that, and the fields were full of sweet potatoes, wherefore he
wisely thought it best not to lose any chance of having Sam to do the
thinking and planning. He was so anxious for his brother's return that
he spent the greater part of his time on the drift-pile where he had
built himself a little observatory, so arranged that he could see in
every direction without the possibility of being seen in his turn.
Sitting there in his look-out, watching for Sam, he had time to think of
many things. His thinking was not always wise, as a matter of course,
but for a boy of his age it did very well, certainly, and one day he hit
upon a really valuable idea.
The way it came about was this. He fell into a reverie, and remembered
the happy old days at home, and one day in particular, when he was busy
all day making a little wagon in which to give Judie a ride, and he
remembered how very short that day seemed, although it was in June. Just
then it popped into his head to think that there was a reason for
everything, and that that day had seemed so short only because he had
been very busy as its hours went by. If he had known what
"generalization" means, he would have generalized this truth as
follows:--
"Time passes rapidly with busy people." He did nothing of the kind,
however. He only thought.
"If poor little Judie had something to keep her busy all the time, she
wouldn't be so miserable."
And so he cudgelled his brains to invent some plan or other by which to
set Judie at work and keep her at it all the time.
When he returned to the fortress towards night, he said to the little
woman; "Judie, I reckon poor Sam's foot is troubling him again, and
that's the reason he hasn't got back yet. He'll work along slowly and
get here after a while, but I'm afraid he'll be dreadfully tired and
sick when he comes. We must have a good soft bed ready for him so that
he can get a good rest."
To this Judie assented, though in her heart she feared she should never
see Sam again, as indeed Tom did too, though neither would admit the
fact to the other.
"Now I've been thinking," said Tom, "that it wont do, if he comes back
half sick, to let him lie on green moss with all the outside on. Let me
show you."
And taking a strand of the long moss he scraped the greenish gray
outside off, leaving a black strand like a horse hair.
"There," he said, "Sam told me once that it's the soft outside part that
holds water, while the inside is dry almost always. Now why can't we
scrape the outside off of a great deal of moss and have the dry inside
ready for Sam to sleep on when he comes back? It'll surprise him and
he'll be glad too. He never cared for himself much, but he'll be glad to
see that we care for him."
The plan pleased little Judie wonderfully well. She was always delighted
to do anything for Sam, and now that she was uneasy about him, and kept
thinking of him as dead or dying or sick somewhere, and could hardly
keep her tears back, nothing could have pleased her so well as to work
for his comfort. Tom and Joe went out after dark, and brought in a large
lot of moss, and the next morning all went to work, Judie made very
little progress with her scraping, but she kept steadily at it, and it
served its purpose in making her less miserable than before. The days
passed more rapidly to Tom and Joe, too, and the whole party grew more
cheerful under the influence of work. It was now ten days, however,
since Sam had gone away, and his non-appearance was really alarming.
When work stopped for the night, the thought of Sam was uppermost in the
minds of all three, and for the first time they talked freely of the
matter.
Tom was disposed to cheer himself by cheering the others, and so he
explained:
"It's about forty-five miles to where Fort Mims stood, so Sam told me,
and he said he might go nearly that far, if he didn't see Indians. If he
went only thirty-five miles it would take him four or five nights; say
five nights, and five more to come back would make ten. But may be his
foot got sore, or Indians got in the way, and so it has taken him longer
than he thought. I don't think we ought to be uneasy even if he should
stay two weeks in all."
That was all very well as a theory, and true enough too, but Tom was
uneasy, nevertheless, and so were Joe and Judie. The worst of it was
that none of them could hide the fact. The eleventh day came, and with
it came an excitement. Tom was the first to wake, and without waiting
for the others, he proceeded to make his breakfast off an ear of raw
corn, which was almost hard enough to grind, and altogether too hard to
be eaten as green corn at any well-regulated table. Tom ate it, however,
having nothing better, and when Judie waked he offered her a softer ear,
which he had carefully selected and laid aside. Judie tried but couldn't
eat it. She was faint and almost sick, and found it impossible to
swallow the raw corn.
"Poor little sister," said Tom. "If I had any fire I'd roast a potato
for you to-day anyhow, but the fire's all out and I can't."
"Mas' Tom!" said Joe, "I'll tell you what! I dun see a heap o' fox
grapes down dar by de creek, an' I'se gwine to git some for Miss Judie
quicker'n you kin count ten." And so saying Joe ran first to the
look-out, to make a preliminary reconnoissance. The boys rarely ever
left the trees during the daytime, and when they did so they were
careful first to satisfy themselves that there were no savages in the
neighborhood. The creek, of which Joe spoke, emptied into the river a
short distance above the root fortress, and, along its banks was a dense
mass of undergrowth, which skirted the river below, all the way to the
drift-pile. Joe had seen the grapes from the look-out, and had planned
an excursion after them. He could follow the river bank to the creek,
keeping in the bushes and moving cautiously, and if any Indians should
appear he could retreat in the same way, without discovery. Tired of raw
corn and sweet potatoes, the grapes had tempted him sorely, and it only
needed Judie's longing for a change of diet to induce him, to make this
foraging expedition.