HANTS.
"Help! Help!" The call was followed by a blood-curdling shriek that
drowned the noise of tree frogs and whip-poor-wills.
Douglas and Nan both awoke with a start and Helen stirred in her sleep.
Lewis, over at the men's tent, made a mental note that he must go out
with a gun early in the morning and try to shoot that screech owl.
Bill, whose passion next to soldiering was base ball, muttered an
unintelligible something about: "Ball two! Strike one! Rotten umpire!"
Oscar heard it, and remembering the terrible tales Josh had been
telling, drew his blanket up close over his wool. "Walls don't keep
hants out no better'n canvas, but all the same I'd like to know they was
somethin' more substantiated around this nigger than jist a dog tent.
I's gonter git some cotton to stuff in my years 'ginst anudder night,"
he said to himself.
"Help! Help!" again rang out. "The debble is got me! Gawd in Hebben help
me!"
"Susan!" gasped the three older girls. They were out of their cots and
into kimonos by the help of a flash light Helen had under her pillow,
before the call came again. The three-quarter moon had set but the stars
gave light enough for them to see the two young men in full tilt, coming
to their assistance, rifles in hand and striped bath gowns flapping
around bare legs.
"Help! My sweet Gawd, help!"
Miss Somerville had more fear of germs than anything else, so slept
with her door wide open. Being a very thorough person in anything she
undertook whether it was solitaire, knitting scarves, chaperoning or
sleeping, Miss Somerville was now sleeping with all her might. She had
pitched her--what would be called a snore in a plebeian person, but we
will call it her breathing,--she had pitched her breathing in harmony
with the tree frogs and katydids and was now hitting off a very pretty
tune.
Up the chicken steps the young folks trooped, Lewis in front with the
flash light, Miss Somerville still sleeping the sleep of the virtuous
and just. Poor Susan was lying on her shelf-like bed, her head covered
up, having emerged only for yelling purposes and then quickly covering
herself again. Her great feet were sticking out at the bottom and on
them were perched three large hornets, stinging at their ease. A
kerosene lamp, turned down too low and smelling at an unseemly rate,
was on the box that served as a table. The windows were tightly closed
because of her weak lungs and the air could almost have been cut with
its combination of odors, cheap-scented soap, musk and just plain Susan.
"Susan, Susan! What is the matter?" demanded Douglas.
"Oh, little Mistis! That English hant has got me by the toe. I was
expecting him after what that there po' white boy done tol' me, but I
thought maybe he would be held off by Miss Lizzie Somerville. Hants
ain't likely to worry the quality."
"Nonsense, Susan, nothing has you by the toe," said Helen sternly. "You
must have had nightmare."
"But look at the hornets!" exclaimed Nan. "Why, the room is full of
them."
Then such an opening of windows and tumbling down that trap door as
ensued! Susan had bounced out of bed to join them, regardless of the
young men, but since she was enveloped in a high-necked, very thick pink
outing flannel gown she was really more clothed than any of them.
"I'd fight 'em if I had on more clothes," declared Bill, as he landed on
the floor below.
"Ouch! One got me on the shin then," from Lewis.
"One's down my neck!" squealed Helen.
"Shut the trap door so they won't disturb Cousin Lizzie," commanded
Douglas.
They got out of doors without Miss Somerville's even dropping a stitch
from the raveled sleeve of care she was so industriously knitting. "You
could almost two-step to it," drawled Nan, nursing a stung finger.
Bill went off into one of his uncontrollable bursts of laughter and the
peaceful sleeper stirred.
"Shh! Bill, you must dry up," warned Lewis. "I'll get out another cot
and Susan can finish the night in Aunt Lizzie's room."
"Oh, Mr. Lewis, please don't make me go back in yonder. The debble will
git me sho next time. I's safter out under the ferment of the stars."
"You can come into our tent, Susan," said Helen kindly. "We are not
going to have you scared to death." So the extra cot was brought and
room was made for the poor, trembling vision in pink outing flannel.
"Tell us what it was that got you scared," asked Nan when they had once
more settled themselves and the young men had gone back to their
quarters, much relieved at the way things had turned out.
"Well, that there low-flung Josh was tellin' me 'bout a English hant
what had suffered with a buzzin' an' roarin' in his haid ter that
extent he done los' his reason an' one dark night he up'n kilt hissef.
An' they do say that the po' man still ain't got no rest from the
buzzin' an' he hants these parts, and sometimes them what is 'dicted ter
hants kin hear de buzzin' and roarin', 'cause even though the hant is
laid the buzzin' an' roarin' roams the mountings lak a lost soul. Whin I
gits in the baid, I was plum tuckered out so I didn' wase no time but
was soon sleepin' the sleep that falls alike on the jest an' the onjest.
I wuck up with a smotherin' feelin'."
"I should think you would, with not a bit of air in your room!"
"I wuck up, as I say, kinder smotherin' like an' then I hears the
English hant as plain as day. Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Brrrr! Brrrr! 'My Gawd,'
says I, 'pertect me.' I tun over in the baid an' then the buzzin'
sounded lak the rushin' of mighty water. 'Mebbe he will pass on by me
an' go to Uncle Oscar,' thinks I. 'He was the one what scoffed at Josh's
tellin' of the tale.' I kivered my haid an' then that hant got me by the
toe."
"But, Susan," laughed Douglas, "of course you know it was a hornet that
had you by the toe."
"You mought think it, Miss Douglas, but hants is powerful slick the way
they kin change theysefs ter natural things. That debble jes' changed
ter hornesses ter mysterfy all of you white folks. He was a debble hant
up ter the physological moment all of you appeared. I knows lots about
hants from my books."
"Well, I know a lot about hornets from experience," said Helen, trying
to reach the stung place between her shoulders.
"Me, too," drawled Nan. "My finger is twice its natural size."
"Well, let's all of us go to sleep now," said Douglas. "You are not
afraid in here, are you, Susan?"
"No'm----" and the girl was off asleep in less time than it had taken
her to arouse most of the campers.
"Helen," whispered Douglas, "I am afraid Josh is responsible for the
hornets. It sounds as though he had prepared his way to scare Susan by
telling the ghost story first."
"I am afraid it is so. We will have to see to that youngster."
"I think Lewis can handle him. I'll ask him in the morning. In the
meantime, I will tell Susan not to mention the 'hants' and maybe Josh
will give himself away with curiosity."
It was a hard task her young mistresses had set Susan.
"Thain't nothin' 'tall ter hants if you cyarn't tell about 'em," she
grumbled.
"Well, just wait a day, Susan, and then you can tell all you've a mind
to."
At breakfast that morning Miss Somerville complained that her rest had
been very much broken but that she had slept much better than she had
ever expected to.
"I am at best a light sleeper," she remarked. "The smallest thing
disturbs me. Now I distinctly heard Mr. Tinsley laugh, although he must
have been in his own tent."
This was too much for poor Bill, who went off into one of his
specialties.
"I'd ruther to laugh like that than sing like Robinson Crusoe in the
victrola," said Bobby. "I kin holler real loud but I ain't nothin' of a
big laugher. Josh, he don't make no noise 'tall when he laughs. He jist
shakes his innards. He was shakin' em this morning 'cause Susan said she
had a bee sting on her toe, the reason she is a-limpin' so."
Helen and Douglas exchanged glances with the young men, whom they had
informed of their suspicions regarding the humorous Josh.
"Douglas," said Miss Somerville, "I can't see why Bobby should use the
language of a negro. He is quite old enough to begin to speak properly."
"Well, you see, Cousin Lizzie, he is really nothing but a baby, and
Mother and Father have never corrected him because Father said he would
drop it soon enough and he thinks it is so amusing."
"Baby, your grandmother! I am 'most a man an' Josh is goin' ter learn
me how to say we uns an' you uns like he does. He says his teacher an'
Gwen is tryin' to make him talk properer, but he ain't goin' to talk no
way but what his four bears talks. I wish I had four bears what could
talk. I forgot to ask Josh to tell me about them bears but I will, some
time."