THE SPRING-KEEPER
"Isn't this grand?" were the last words both of our girls uttered
as they rolled into the bunks that had been made up with fresh,
lavender-scented linen. The brigands had captured them certainly and
their adventure was complete. The boys were sleeping on the porch in
hammocks. Mr. McRae always slept on the porch unless weather drove him
in, and Tom Tit had a little room that he loved, where he kept his
treasures, all those he did not put in the hole in the mountain.
Dawn found the babes in the wood much refreshed. The boys were up and
out early, helping Tom Tit milk the cow and chop wood. Mr. McRae had
started the cooking of breakfast when Lucy and Lil appeared.
"We are so ashamed to be late but we almost slept our heads off," they
apologized. "Now let us help!"
"All right, set the table and skim the milk and get the butter out of
the dairy." The dairy was a cave dug in the side of the mountain where
all their food was kept cool in summer and warm in winter. "We shall
breakfast on the porch."
The girls made all haste and set the table with great care.
"Let's get him to tell us all about himself this morning," whispered
Lucy. "I'm dying to hear about him. Isn't he romantic?"
"I'm crazy about him. Don't you reckon he'll go to the camp with us? Nan
would be wild over him."
"Yes, but he's ours. We certainly found him."
"You sound like Tom Tit," laughed Lil.
"I hope the people at the camp won't laugh at poor Tom Tit," said Lucy.
"If we could only get there a little ahead and prepare them for his pink
pants."
She need not have worried, as the wise Mr. McRae knew how to manage Tom
Tit so that he discarded his pink pants when he was to go among
strangers.
"Now, Tom Tit, we must hurry with all of our duties so we can make an
early start to walk home with our guests; and we must put on our
corduroys for such a long tramp, as the brambles might tear your lovely
new trousers."
So poor Tom Tit did the outside chores with the help of the boys, while
the girls assisted Mr. McRae in the house.
Having breakfasted a little after dawn, by seven o'clock they were ready
for their ten mile tramp back to the camp. The boys shouldered their
guns and the sacks of fox grapes and squirrels. Mr. McRae took with him
a small spade while Tom Tit carried a hoe.
"I can't help thinking both of them are a bit loony," Skeeter whispered
to Lucy. "Why on earth do they want to carry garden tools on a ten mile
tramp?"
"Loony yourself! I reckon they want to dig something."
The old gentleman, as though divining Skeeter's thoughts, remarked:
"Tom Tit and I have a little duty to attend to today, so we are taking
our implements. There are several springs I have not been able to visit
this summer and I am going to combine duty with pleasure and look after
them today."
"Look after springs! What for?" from Skeeter.
"I thought I told you that I am a spring-keeper. Perhaps you don't know
what a spring-keeper is."
"N--o! Not exactly!" said Skeeter.
"Well, every country child knows that in every spring there is or should
be a spring-keeper to keep the water clear. It is a kind of crawfish.
It may be a superstition that he really does purify water. At any rate,
it is a pleasing idea that he can. Whether he can or not, I know I can
help a great deal by digging out of the springs the old dead roots and
vegetable matter that decays there, so my self-appointed job is to keep
the springs of Albemarle county in condition. I am sure I have saved
many families from typhoid in the last years. That is something.
"I was born in the mountains, born in a cabin that stands just where the
one I live in now stands, in fact the chimney is the same one that has
always been there, but the house is new. When I was a mere lad, about
twelve years old, there was a terrible epidemic of typhoid fever in the
mountains. My whole family was wiped out by it, my father, mother and
two sisters dying of it. I just did escape with my life and was nursed
back to health by Tom Tit's granny, as good a woman as ever lived.
Afterwards, having no home ties, I drifted to the city where I was
successful financially. We of the mountains had not known in the old
days what caused typhoid, but afterwards, when I learned it was the
water we drank, I determined to come back to my county whenever I could
and make some endeavor to better the conditions. Would God that I might
have been sooner! My poor boy had an attack of the dread disease just
the year before I got my affairs in condition to leave New York, and
that is what caused his brain trouble."
Tom Tit was ahead of the party, gazing up into the air as his old friend
spoke. He had a rapt expression on his face that made him for the moment
look like Guido Reni's Christ.
"Sometimes," continued the old man, "in typhoid, the temperature is so
high that certain brain tissue seems to be burned out. I am afraid that
is what has happened to my boy."
"All of us have been inoculated against typhoid," said Lucy. "Dr. Wright
insisted on it--every member of the family. Helen kicked like a steer
but she had to do it, too."
"Well named, well named, that young doctor! I try to get the friends in
the mountains to submit to it, too, but it is a difficult matter. I keep
the virus on hand all the time, a fresh supply. If I can't persuade them
to let me give them the treatment, I can at least keep their springs
clean for them. Sometimes they even object to that," he laughed, "but
they can't help it, as I do it without their leave. They say I take all
the taste out of the water."
Their way lay around the mountain instead of over it, the course they
had taken the day before, and much to the amazement of the young people,
they went to the left instead of to the right.
"But Greendale is that way!" declared Frank, pointing to the east.
"Greendale is really due north of us, but I thought you wanted to go by
Jude Hanford's cabin to do your errand. We could go either way to the
camp from here, but if we go east, we will miss Jude."
"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" exclaimed Frank.
Mr. McRae laughed. "What would you have done last night if Tom Tit had
not found you and brought you home?"
"I was going to lie right down and let the robins cover me up," said
Lil.
"I was going to climb the highest tree and look out and see if I could
spy a light, like the cock in the 'Musicians of Bremen,'" said Lucy.
"I was going to follow the path from the spring," said Frank. "I felt
sure from the cleanliness of the spring that we were near some house."
"And I was going to build a fire and skin the squirrels and have
supper," declared Skeeter. "I was just about famished and I knew that
food was what Lil and Lucy needed to put heart in them."
"Yes, it wouldn't!" laughed Lil. "Much good burnt squirrel without any
salt would do a bruised heel. That was all that was the matter with me."
That ten miles back to the camp seemed much shorter than it had the day
before, and in fact it was, as they made no digressions on the homeward
trip.
"We must really have walked twenty miles yesterday. Just think how many
times we doubled on our tracks," said Frank when they finally came to a
familiar spot.
They found Jude Hanford's yard running over with frying-sized chickens
and on his door step a water bucket full of eggs all ready to take to
the store. Of course he was pleased to sell them without having to take
off the commission for the middleman. He joined their procession, with
his eggs and three dozen chickens distributed among the bearers.