FIRE!
The other schoolboys found Lee in the private room that had been set
apart for him, propped up with pillows in a big easy chair and wrapped
snugly in a bathrobe. His face was pale from his illness, but it lighted
up when he saw his visitors.
“I was just wishing you fellows would drop in,” he said, as they shook
hands with him and pulled their chairs up close.
“It must get awful poky cooped up in the room so long,” said Bobby
sympathetically.
“It sure does,” rejoined the boy from the South. “Of course I have books
to read that help to pass away the time, but that isn’t like being with
the fellows. Not that I’ve read very much this afternoon,” he went on,
“because I’ve been too busy looking at the snow. Do you know that this
is the first real snow storm I have ever seen?”
“Is that so?” queried Fred in astonishment. “We see so much of it every
year that it gets to be an old story with us.”
“You’ve got an awful lot of fun coming to you,” put in Sparrow. “There’s
skating and ice sailing and coasting and snowballing and lots of
things.”
“Not forgetting muskratting and fishing through the ice,” added Fred.
“Maybe we didn’t have a lot of fun the winter we spent up in Snowtop
Camp, eh, fellows?”
“You bet we did,” agreed Sparrow, and launched into a long description
of that memorable winter holiday in the Big Woods, not forgetting the
bear and the wildcat and the snowslide that buried the house, and other
adventures, to all of which Lee Cartier listened with the most rapt
attention and interest.
“It must have been great,” he murmured with a sigh of envy. “I can see
that I’ve got a lot of fun waiting for me as soon as I can get outdoors
again. And I hope it won’t be long till then. The doctor said to-day
that I could probably be outdoors in a week.”
“That’s bully,” said Bobby. “But do you really mean, Lee, that you’ve
never seen snow before?”
“Oh, I’ve seen little flurries of it once or twice,” replied Lee, “but
it’s never amounted to anything, and it’s melted just as soon as it
struck the ground. Down in Louisiana, where I come from, it’s
practically summer all the year round. While it’s been snowing here
to-day, people have been going in swimming down there. The darkeys are
going round barefooted, women are fanning themselves, and men are going
round on the shady side of the street.”
“Nobody getting sunstruck, is there?” queried Fred with a grin.
“Well, perhaps not as bad as that,” smiled Lee, “but take it altogether
it’s almost as different there from what it is here as day is from
night.”
“I saw a picture the other day of some boys shinning up cocoanut trees
somewhere in the middle of January,” remarked Sparrow. “It seems funny
to think there should be such differences in the same country.”
“I’d like to spend some time down South,” said Bobby. “I’ve been out
West and almost everywhere else in the country except the South. Of
course we had a taste of what it was like when we went to Porto Rico.
But I’d like to be somewhere in the South for weeks at a time, and learn
just how different things are from what they are here up North.”
“You’d enjoy it all right,” affirmed Lee. “You can fairly live outdoors
all the year round, and you’d find lots of things that would be strange
and interesting. I’d like to have you on my place where I could go round
with you and show you the sights.”
“That would be fine,” agreed Bobby. “What town in Louisiana do you live
in, Lee?”
“I don’t live in any town,” replied Lee. “The nearest town is Raneleigh,
and that isn’t much more than a store and a railroad station. Mother and
I live on a plantation. My folks have lived there for generations. My
great-grandfather had the property in the old days when Louisiana
belonged to France.”
“I guessed you were French or of French descent because of the name,”
said Bobby. “Let’s see, wasn’t there a Cartier who had something to do
with the discovery of America?”
“There was a Cartier who discovered parts of America in 1534,” replied
Lee, “and he, I believe, was an ancestor of mine. That’s one bit of
history that’s been pretty well dinned into me,” he added with a smile.
“Our people, you know, put a lot of value on their ancestry, though I
never cared much for it. My mother too was of French descent, as one can
tell from her first name, Celeste.”
“Is the plantation a big one?” asked Bobby.
“Pretty big,” replied Lee, “though not as big as it was before the Civil
War. That was in the days when people kept slaves, and our folk had a
lot of them and thousands of acres of land. But after the war was over,
a lot of the land was sold, and now we have only a few hundred acres.
And I don’t know how long we’ll have that,” he added, a shadow coming
over his brow.
“What do you mean?” asked Fred with ready sympathy.
“Oh, we’re having trouble about the boundary lines of the property,”
explained Lee. “Some of the stones that mark the lines are missing, and
there’s a neighbor of ours named Boolus who’s claiming part of the
property. We’re sure he is wrong, but we’re not able to prove it, and
he’s making us lots of trouble. He’s one of the meanest men in the
parish and everybody hates and despises him. But he’s got lots of money
and tricky lawyers, and it looks as though he were going to get the best
of us. But I don’t want to bother you about my troubles,” Lee added,
brightening up. “I only wish I had you fellows down with me on the
plantation while we still own it. I think I might be able to show you
lots of things that would make you open your eyes, such as alligators
and—”
“Alligators!” exclaimed Fred. “Do you have them down there?”
“You see you’ve made Fred open his eyes already,” said Bobby with a
laugh.
“There are lots of them,” said Lee, “and big ones too. There’s a big
swamp on the edge of our property that they say is full of them. It’s
lots of fun hunting them.”
“Have you ever hunted them?” asked Sparrow with intense interest.
“I’ve never gone after them alone,” replied Lee, “but I’ve gone along
with hunting parties and seen them caught.”
“How do they do it?” asked Fred.
“They dig them out of their holes,” explained Lee, pleased that he could
tell the boys something outside the range of their experience. “You see
the alligators have holes or burrows in the neighborhood of the water,
where they crawl in at times. The hunters go along until they spy one of
these burrows, which are not very deep below the surface of the ground.
Then one of them takes a stout rope, makes a noose in it and hangs this
over the entrance to the hole. Others take a sharp spear or stake, and
prod into the ground above where they know the alligator is lying. That
stirs him up and he crawls out of his hole to see what’s the matter. As
he comes out he sticks his head into the noose, and the man above
tightens it before he can back out. The brute tries to pull back into
his burrow, but all hands get hold of the rope and yank him out. As his
body appears, other ropes are passed around him, and by the time he’s
all out he’s pretty well trussed up. Sometimes though, he puts up an
awful fight and breaks the ropes, and then you have to look out. If you
ever come within reach of his jaws or the swish of his tail, it’s all up
with you.”
“It must be awfully exciting,” exclaimed Fred.
“It is that all right,” agreed Lee. “Then we have lots of other sports
in which there’s plenty of fun. There’s badger hunting, and coon hunting
with the dogs at night, and once in a while a panther comes round, and
take it altogether there isn’t much dullness on the plantation. I only
wish you fellows could share the fun with me.”
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Bobby, and his companions nodded
assent. “But Louisiana’s a long way off, and I guess we’ll have to take
it out in wishing. I suppose we’ll have to go now,” he added, reaching
for his cap, “though I’d like to stay for hours and hear you tell us
things about the South.”
“It’s done me a lot of good to have you fellows drop in,” said Lee. “The
days seem mighty long here with no one but the doctor and the nurse to
see and talk to. Come in again just as often as you can.”
“We sure will,” replied Bobby, “and you must hurry and get well so as to
be around with us again.”
That night Bobby found it hard to get to sleep. The talk with Lee had
brought novel ideas into his mind, and he lay awake for a long time,
conjuring up visions of what life must be on a plantation.
When at last he did fall asleep, he dreamed that he was pushing a
flatboat along a Louisiana lagoon. On the shores about him were a number
of what seemed to be logs of wood. Suddenly one of them moved and
slipped into the water, and he saw that it was an alligator. One after
the other, things that looked like logs did the same. The presence of so
many of the ugly brutes made him uneasy, and he made his craft move
faster to get out of the vicinity as soon as possible. Just as he was
congratulating himself that he had gotten out of the danger zone, the
water broke at the side of the boat, and a pair of great jaws appeared,
above which were the menacing eyes of a big alligator. The brute made a
lunge at the boat and nearly overturned it. Bobby tried to beat him off
with the pole, and while he was doing so, another alligator appeared on
the other side of the boat. A moment more and the water was fairly alive
with the fearsome creatures, and Bobby was surrounded by a circle of
open jaws and frightful teeth and flaming eyes. He struck out
desperately, but to no avail. The circle closed around him, and one of
the brutes with a blow of his tail stove in the side of the boat. He
felt himself sinking, saw a terrible pair of jaws reach out to seize him
and—woke up to find himself sitting bolt upright in bed while a cold
sweat bedewed his forehead.
It was a minute or so before he could realize that it had been only a
dream, and then with a feeling of immense relief he adjusted his pillow
and burrowed his head into its soft folds.
The snow was beating against the windows, and the contrast between the
wintry storm and the hot lagoon of his dream brought a smile to his
lips.
“Gee!” he said to himself. “If any alligators were up this way they’d
freeze to death sure.”
He lay listening in dreamy content, when he became conscious of another
noise that was not like that of the snow on the windows. It sounded more
like a crackling. He sat up in bed and listened. The sound became more
distinct. And then to his nostrils came the odor of smoke.
He was out of bed in a twinkling. He opened the door of his room and the
odor grew stronger. He traced it along the hall to the door of a
storeroom at the end of the corridor.
He flung open the door and fell back appalled. The storeroom was a
seething mass of fire!