Kitabı oku: «Caleb in the Country», sayfa 4

“'Samuel,' said he, 'I have built a bridge.'

“'A bridge!' said Samuel.

“'Yes,' said he, 'a sort of a bridge; and now I am going to try to lead you over.'

“'But, father, I am afraid.'

“'You said you would trust yourself entirely to me, and go wherever I should say.'

“'Well, father,' said Samuel, 'I will. You know best, after all.'

“So Samuel took hold of his father's hand, and, with slow, and very careful steps, he got over the roaring torrent, and then they soon came out into a broad smooth road, and so got safely home.”

“Now, Caleb,” continued Madam Rachel, after she had finished her story, “do you remember what I meant to teach you by this story?”

“Yes, Grandmother; you said that I was like blind Samuel, and that God knew what was best for me, and that I must let him lead me wherever he pleases.”

“Yes; and what was it that you said that reminded me to tell you the story?”

“I said that I wished that I was well and strong, like the other boys.”

“Yes,” said his grandmother, “I do not think you said it in a fretful or impatient spirit; but I thought that this story of Samuel would help to keep you patient and contented.”

“Yes, grandmother, it does,” said Caleb.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CART RIDE

A week after this, Caleb had his whip to mend. He had broken off the lash, by whipping in sticks and little pieces of drift-wood to the mole. David and Dwight worked a little every day upon the mole, and had carried it out pretty far into the stream, and had almost finished the lower branches of the Y. So, one morning, after the boys had gone to school, and Caleb had had his reading lesson, he sat down upon the steps of the door, behind the house, and began to tie on his lash with a piece of twine which Mary Anna had given him.

Behind the house where Caleb's grandmother lived, there was a lane which led to the pasture. At the head of the lane, where you entered it from the yard, were a pair of bars. While Caleb was mending his whip, he accidentally looked up, and noticed that the bars were down.

“There, Mr. Raymond,” said Caleb, talking to himself, as he went on winding his twine round and round the whip-handle; “for once in your life, you have been careless. You have left your bars down. Now we shall have the cattle all let out, unless I go and stop the mischief.”

Caleb thought he would go and put the bars up again, as soon as he had tied the ends of his twine; but before he got quite ready, he heard a noise, as of something coming in the lane. He could not see down the lane far, from the place where he sat, for the barn was in the way. But he wondered what could be coming, and he looked towards the bars, and sat waiting for it to appear.

In a moment, the head and horns of a great ox came into view, and, immediately after, the body of the ox himself, walking slowly along towards the bars.

“There now,” said Caleb, “there comes Lion, and he'll get away.” So he jumped up, and ran towards the ox a few steps, brandishing his whip, and shouting out to drive him back. Old Lion, however, seemed to pay no attention, but came steadily forward, stepping carefully over the ends of the bars, and then, advancing a little way into the yard, began quietly to feed upon the grass. Before Caleb got over his surprise at the entire indifference which old Lion seemed to feel towards him and his whip, he heard the bars rattling again, and looking there, he saw Star, Lion's mate, following on.

“O dear me,” said Caleb, “what shall I do? All our oxen are getting away. I'll run and call Raymond.”

So he began to shout out “Raymond,” as loud as he could call; and immediately afterwards, he heard Raymond's voice answering just down the lane and, looking that way, he saw him coming over the bars himself, as if he had been following the oxen along up the lane.

“Raymond, Raymond,” he cried out, “come quiet; all your oxen are getting away.”

“O, no,” said Raymond, quietly, as he was putting up the bars after the oxen, “they cannot get away—I have fastened the outer gate.”

Then Caleb looked around and observed that the outer gate was fastened, so that they could not get out of the yard.

“O, very well,” said he. “I did not know you were driving them up;” and so he quietly returned to his seat, and went on playing with his whip. Raymond, in the mean time, proceeded to yoke up the cattle.

“Raymond,” said Caleb, at length, “where are you going with the cattle?”

“Out into the woods,” said Raymond.

“What are you going to do in the woods?” said Caleb.

“I am going to make a piece of fence.”

“May I go with you?”

“I don't think you can help me much about the fence,” said Raymond.

“I can pull bushes along,” said Caleb.

Raymond made no reply, but began to drive the oxen towards a cart that was standing in a corner of the yard, and, after a few minutes, Caleb renewed his request.

“Raymond, I wish you would let me go with you.”

“Well—it is just as your grandmother says,” replied Raymond.

So Caleb ran to ask his grandmother; and she came to the window, and enquired of Raymond how long he expected to be gone. He said it would take him more than half a day to make the piece of fence, and he was going to take his dinner with him. This was an objection to Caleb's going; but yet his grandmother concluded on the whole to consent. So they put up some bread and butter, and some apples, with Raymond's dinner, for Caleb. These things were all put in paper parcels, and the parcels put into a bag, which was thrown into the bottom of the cart.

Then Caleb wanted to take his hatchet.

His grandmother thought it would not be safe.

“I'll be very careful,” said he: “and if I don't have my hatchet, how can I help to make the fence?”

Raymond smiled, and Madam Rachel seemed at a loss to know what to say.

“It won't do,—will it Raymond?” said she.

“He might cut himself,” said Raymond.

“But there is a small key-hole saw in the barn, that I filed up the other day. Perhaps he might have that, to saw the bushes down with.”

“Can you saw, Caleb?” said his grandmother.

“Not very well,” said Caleb, looking somewhat disappointed; “the saw sticks so.”

“I can set it pretty rank,” said Raymond, speaking to Madam Rachel at the window, “and then, I think, he can make it run smooth.”

Madam Rachel did not understand what Raymond meant by setting it rank, and so she said,

“How will that help it, Raymond?”

“Why, then it will cut a wide kerf,” said Raymond, “and so the back will follow in easily.”

She did not understand from this much better than she did before; but, as she had great confidence in Raymond, she concluded to let him manage in his own way. She accordingly told him that he might fix the saw, and take Caleb with him.

So Raymond went out into the barn, and took down the saw from a nail. The teeth looked bright and sharp.

“Why, Raymond, how sharp it looks. And the teeth are of different shape from what they were before.”

“Yes,” said Raymond, “I have made a cutting saw of it.”

“A cutting saw?” said Caleb. “Can you cut with a saw? I thought they always sawed with a saw.”

“I mean, cut across the grain,” said Raymond, smiling. “When a saw is filed so as to saw along the board, then it is called a splitting saw; but when it is to saw across the board, then I call it a cutting saw.”

Caleb looked carefully at the teeth, so as to see how the teeth of a cutting saw were shaped. And while he looked on, he observed that Raymond had a little instrument in his hand, and he took hold of the first tooth of the saw with it, and bent it over a little to one side, and then he took hold of the next one, and bent it over to the other side; and so he went on, bending them alternately to the right and left, until he passed along from one end of the saw to the other.

“There,” said he, “that is set pretty rank.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Caleb, as he followed Raymond out of the barn.

“Why, the teeth are set off, a good way, each side, and it will cut a good wide kerf; and so your saw will run easy.”

By this time they had reached the cart. Raymond took hold of Caleb under the arms, and jumped him up into the cart behind, and then handed him his saw. Then he put in an axe and an iron bar for himself, and one or two spare chains; and then he went to open the great gate. Just at this moment, Mary Anna appeared at the window, and said,

“Caleb, are you going into the woods?”

“Yes,” said Caleb.

“Then, if you see any good, smooth birch bark, won't you bring me home some!”

“I will,” said Caleb; and then Raymond opened the gate, and started the oxen on. Caleb stood up in front, holding on by a stake, and wondering all the while what Raymond could mean by a kerf.

One would think that he might have known by the connection in which Raymond used it,—for he said that he had bent the teeth out so as to make the saw cut a good wide kerf, and so he might have supposed that the kerf was the cut in the wood which a saw makes in going in. The reason why boys find it so difficult to saw, is because the teeth do not generally spread very much, and so the kerf is narrow. Still, the back of the saw would run in it well enough, without sticking, if they were to saw perfectly straight. But they generally make the saw twist or wind a little, and then the back of the saw rubs upon one side or the other; and sticks. Now, Raymond's plan was to make the teeth set off, each side, so far as to make the kerf very wide, and then he thought that Caleb would be able to make it go, especially as the saw was very narrow.

Raymond got into the cart, and took his seat upon a board which passed across from side to side, and they rode along.

They reached, at length, a place where there was a small cart path leading off from the main road into the woods. Raymond turned off into this path; but it was so narrow that both he and Caleb had sometimes to lean away to one side or the other to avoid the bushes. At length he stopped and unfastened the oxen from the tongue. When all was right he started the oxen on before him, Caleb trotting on behind with his saw in his hand.

Presently they struck off from the cart path directly into the woods, and in a few minutes came to the place where the fence was to be made.

CHAPTER IX.
THE FIRE

Raymond let the cattle browse about, while he went to work, cutting down some small, but yet pretty tall and bushy trees. He then brought up the team, and hooked a long chain into the ring which hung down from the middle of the yoke, upon the under side. The end of the chain trailed upon the ground, as the oxen came along, and Caleb was very much interested to see how they would trample along, any where, among the rocks, roots, mire, logs, bushes, stumps, and, in fact, over and through almost any thing, chewing their cud all the time, patient and unconcerned. When they were brought up near to one of the trees that had been cut down, Raymond would hook the chain around the butt end of it, and then, at his command, they would drag it out of its place in the line of the fence. After looking on for some time, Caleb began to think that he would go to work; and he went to a little tree, with a stem about as big round as his arm, and began to saw away upon it. He found that the saw would run very well indeed; and in a short time, he got the tree off, and then undertook to drag it to the fence.

Raymond was always a very silent man; he seldom spoke, unless to answer a question; and while Caleb had been watching him, when he first began to work, instead of talking with Caleb, as Caleb would have desired, he was all the time singing,

“Do, Re, Mi, Fa Sol, La, Si, Do.”

The truth was, that Raymond had just begun to go to a singing school, and he was taking this opportunity to rise and fall the notes, as he called it. When Caleb asked him any question about his work, he would just answer it in a few words, and then, a minute after, begin again with his 'Do, Re, Mi,' and all the rest.

Caleb became tired of this singing; and when, at length, his tree got wedged fast, so that he could not move it any farther, he sat down discouraged upon a log, and looked anxiously towards Raymond, as if he wished that he would come and help him.

Raymond had just hooked his chain to another tree, and taking up his goad stick, called out,

“Ha', Star! ha', Lion!” and then as his oxen started on, he followed them with his—

“Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do.”

“Dear me!” said Caleb, with a deep sigh.

“Do, Si, La, Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, Do,” sang Raymond, coming down the scale.

Caleb got up, and walked along towards Raymond a little way, and called out,

“Raymond?”

“What?” said Raymond.

“When do you think you shall be done singing that tune?”

Raymond smiled, and asked “Why?”

“Why,” said Caleb, in rather a timid voice, “I don't think it is a very pretty tune.”

“Don't you?” said Raymond. “Well, I don't admire it much myself.”

“Then what do you sing it so much, for, Raymond?”

“O, that's my lesson,” said Raymond, “but how does your saw do, Caleb?”

“Very well; only I can't get my tree along.”

“Where do you want to get it?”

“O, out to the fence,” said Caleb.

“You had better not try to make a fence. You had better build a fire.”

“But I have not got any fire to light it with?”

“Yes,” said Raymond, “I brought a tinder-box, because I thought you would want a fire; and I forgot to give it to you.”

So Raymond pointed to a place among some rocks off at a little distance before him, near the line in which he was coming along with his fence, and advised Caleb to make a fire there. Caleb liked this plan very much. He said he would play “camp out,” and so build a camp, and have a fire before the camp. Raymond told him that so soon as he should get his pile of sticks ready, he would come and strike fire for him.

Caleb went to the place and began to work. He cut down bushes, and placed them up against the rocks, in such a manner as to make a little hut which he should get into. He then collected a pile of sticks in front of it. First, he picked up all the dry sticks he could find near, and then he sawed off branches from the old dead trees which were lying around in the forest.

In an hour, with Raymond's help in lighting his fire, Caleb had a very good camp. His hut was quite a comfortable one, with a blazing fire near it, and three large apples roasting before the fire. By and by, Caleb saw Raymond coming towards him, with the bag over his arm. He opened it, and took out one parcel after another, and then laying the mouth of the bag down upon the ground, he took hold of the bottom of it, and raised it in the air; while Caleb watched to see what was coming out. It proved to be potatoes; and Raymond told Caleb he might roast them in his fire.

“Cover them up well with hot ashes and coals, Caleb, and then build a fire upon the top.”

So Caleb dug out the bottom of his fire with a pole;—for the fire had pretty much burnt down to ashes;—and he put the potatoes in. There were five of them. Raymond helped him to cover them up, and then he put more sticks upon the top. When that was done, and just as he was going back to his work, Raymond said, “See there, Caleb;—there is a fine chimney for you to burn out.”

Caleb looked where Raymond pointed, and saw a very tall and large hollow tree, or rather trunk of a tree,—for the top had long since decayed and dropped away. There it stood, desolate, with a great hole in the side near the bottom, and the bark hanging loosely about it all the way up to the top. The boys always liked to find such hollow trees in the woods, to build fires in; they called it “burning out a chimney.”

“Now,” said Raymond, “all you have got to do is to go to work while your potatoes are roasting, and fill up that old hollow tree at the bottom with sticks and brush, and old pieces of bark. Pack them in close; then, when I come to dinner, I will help you to light it.”

Raymond then went back to the fence, and Caleb began his work as Raymond had directed. He got all the dried branches that he could find, and carried them to the foot of the tree. Others he sawed; and he packed all the pieces in the hollow of the tree as closely as he could.

By this time Caleb saw Raymond coming along towards the camp, and he went there to meet him. They raked open the fire, and took out the potatoes. Raymond turned a stone upon its edge, towards the fire, so as to keep them warm. He also cut some square pieces of birch bark from a neighbouring tree, for plates, and gave one to Caleb, and took one himself, and then they both sat down upon a smooth log which Raymond drew up to the fire, and took their birch bark plates in their lap.

Raymond took a little paper of salt out of his pocket, and poured the salt out upon another square piece of birch bark, which he placed upon a stone between himself and Caleb, so that both could reach it.

“What shall I do for a spoon?” said Caleb.

“O, you don't need a spoon,” said Raymond; and he took up a potatoe himself, broke it in two, sprinkled some salt upon it, and began to eat it as a boy would eat an apple.

“O, I can't eat my potatoes so,” said Caleb.

“Why not,” said Raymond, putting a little more salt upon his own potatoe.

“It is too hot,” said Caleb.

“Then you must wait until it cools.”

“But I want a spoon very much,” said Caleb.

“Well,” said Raymond, “I will make you one.”

So Raymond took out his knife and cut off a piece from a dry pine branch, which lay near him. He split this so as to get a flat piece out of it, which he fashioned into a rude sort of spoon, that answered Caleb's purpose very well. But before Caleb had much more than begun his dinner, Raymond had finished his, and, rising, said that he must go back to his work.

“But, first, I will set your chimney a-fire,” said he.

“No,” said Caleb, “I want you to let me kindle it.”

“You can't.”

“Yes, I can,” said Caleb; “I can get some birch bark.”

“Very well; only if I go away to my work now, you must not come and trouble me to come back again, because you can't get the fire a-going.”

“No,” said Caleb, “I won't.”

So Raymond went back to his work, and Caleb finished his dinner.

At length, however, his potatoes and bread and butter were all gone, and his apple cores he had pretty thoroughly scraped with his wooden spoon, and thrown into the fire. So he got up from his seat, and prepared to light his chimney. He took his plate for a slow match. It was pretty large and stiff, and he thought it would burn long enough for him to carry it from the fire to his chimney. He accordingly took hold of it by one corner, and held the other corner into the flame, which was curling up from a brand by the side of his fire.

But before the birch bark took fire, the flame of the brand went out, and then Caleb looked around for another. The fire had, however, burnt nearly down, so as to leave a great bed of embers, with the brands all around it, the burnt ends pointing inwards, Caleb pushed some of these into the fire, and soon made a blaze again, and then once more attempted to set the corner of his plate on fire.

He succeeded. The corner began to blaze and curl, and Caleb rose and moved along carefully, lest the wind should blow it out. This precaution was, however, scarcely necessary, for the little wind that his motion occasioned, only fanned the flame the more, and the part which was on fire curled round upon that which was not, and thus formed a round and solid mass, which burned fiercely.

Caleb walked along, the bark blazing higher and higher, and curling in upon itself more and more, until, at length, he began to be afraid it would reach his fingers before he could get to his chimney. He walked faster and faster, and presently began to run. This fanned the fire the more, until, just as he came within a few steps of his chimney, the curling bark reached his fingers, and he tripped over a great root at the very instant when he was dropping the piece of bark from his hands. He came down upon all-fours, and the bark which was now a compact roll, rolled down a little slope, crackling and blazing by the way.

Caleb got up and looked at the blazing mass a minute or two, in despair; but finding that it kept on burning, his eye suddenly brightened, and he said aloud,

“I'll poke it up.”

So he looked around for a stick. He readily found one, and began to push the blazing roll up the acclivity; but as fast as he pushed it up, it rolled down again, and all his efforts were consequently vain.

“O dear me!” said Caleb, at length throwing down his stick, “what shall I do?”

In the meantime the roll continued blazing, and Caleb, looking at it steadily, observed that it was hollow.

“Ah,” said he, “I'll stick him.”

So he took up his stick again, and tried to thrust the end of the stick into the roll. After one or two ineffectual attempts, he succeeded, though by this time the bark was pretty well burnt through, and was all ready to fall to pieces. He, however, succeeded in raising it into the air, upon the end of his pole; but before he got it to the hollow tree, it dropped off again in several blazing fragments, which continued to burn a moment upon the ground, and then went out entirely.

Caleb then went to Raymond, and told him that he could not make his fire burn.

“O you must not come to me, youngster; you promised not to trouble me with it,” said Raymond, as he hooked the chain around the butt-end of another tree.

“But I thought I could make it burn.”

“Well, what's the matter with it? But stand back, for I am going to start this tree along.”

“Why the bark all curls up and burns my hand,” said Caleb, retreating at the same time out of the way of the top of Raymond's tree.

The oxen started along, dragging the tree, and Caleb followed, trying to get an opportunity to speak once more to Raymond. Raymond, however, went calling aloud to his oxen, and directing them here and there with his “Gee, Star,” and his “Ha, Lion,” and his “Wo up, Whoa”.

At length, however, he had the tree in its place, and seeing Caleb standing at a little distance patiently, he asked him again,

“What do you say is the matter with your fire, Caleb?”

“Why, the birch bark curls up and burns me: I wish you would come and set it a-fire.”

“No,” said Raymond, walking along by the side of his oxen; “I must not leave my work to help you play; but I will tell you three ways to carry the fire, and you can manage it in one or the other of them.”

So saying, he took out his knife, and cut down a small, slender maple, which was growing near him, and trimmed off the top and the few little branches which were growing near the top. It made a slender pole about five feet long, with smooth but freckled bark, from end to end. He then made a little split in one end.

“There, Caleb,” said he, “take that, and stick a piece of birch bark in the split end; then you can carry it, and let it curl as much as it pleases. Or, if that fails, put a large piece of birch bark directly upon the fire. Then, as soon as it begins to burn, it will begin to curl, and then you must put the end of the stick down to it, in such a manner that the bark will curl over and grasp it, and then you can take it up and carry the roll upon the end of your pole.”

“Very well,” said Caleb, “there are two ways.”

“There are two ways,” repeated Raymond.

“Now, if both these fail, you must put on a good many fresh sticks upon the fire, with one end of each of them out. Then, as soon as the ends which are in the fire have got burnt through, take up two of them by the ends that were out of the fire and lay them down at the foot of the hollow tree, close to the wood you have got together there. Then come back and get two more brands, and lay them down in the same way, and be careful to have the burnt ends all together. So you must keep going back and forth, until you find that the brands are beginning to burn up freely in the new place.”

Caleb took the maple pole and went back to his fire. He tore the salt-cellar in two, and this made two very good small strips of bark. He pulled open the split end of his pole, and carefully inserted one of them, and then, holding it over a little flame which was rising from a burning brand, he set it on fire. The bark was soon in a blaze, and it writhed and curled as if it were struggling to get away; but it only clung to the end of the pole more closely; and Caleb, much pleased at the success of his experiment, waved it in the air, and shouted to Raymond to look and see.

He then walked slowly along, stopping every moment to wave his great flambeau, and shout; and so, when at last he reached the hollow tree, the bark was nearly burnt out, and the fragments were beginning to fall off from the end of the pole. He then thrust it hastily under the heap of fuel, which had been collected in the tree; but it was too late. It flickered and smoked a minute or two, and finally went out altogether.

“I don't care,” said Caleb to himself, “for I have got the other half of the salt-cellar;” and he went back for that. It happened unluckily, however, this time, that, in pulling open the cleft which Raymond had made in his maple pole, he pulled too hard, and split one side off. Here was at once an end to all attempts to communicate fire to his chimney by this method. So, after refitting the split part of his stick to its place, once or twice, and finding that the idea of uniting it again was entirely out of the question, he threw the broken piece away, and said to himself that he must try Raymond's second plan.

He accordingly took the other large piece of bark, which was the one which Raymond had used for his plate, and laid it upon the fire. As soon as it began to curl, he laid the end of the stick close to it, on the side towards which it seemed to be bending,—and in such a way that it curled over upon it, and soon clasped it tight, as Raymond had predicted that it would do. He then raised it in the air, and set out to run with it, so that it should not burn out before he reached the place. But he ought not to have run. It would have been far safer and better to have walked along carefully and slowly; for as he ran on, jumping over logs and stones, and scrambling up and down the hummocks, the top of the pole, with the blazing roll of bark, was jerked violently about in the air, until, at length, as he was wheeling around a tree, he accidentally held the top of the pole so far that it wheeled round through the air very swiftly, and threw the birch bark off by the centrifugal force: and away it went, rolling along upon the ground.

The centrifugal force is that which makes any thing fly off when it is whirled round and round.

Caleb did not understand this very well, but he was surprised to see his roll flying off in that manner. He immediately took two sticks, and tried to take up the roll with them, as one would with a pair of tongs; but he could not hold it with them.

“Well, then,” said he, “I must try the third way.”

So he began to gather sticks, and put the ends of them upon the fire. When they began to burn, he took up one; but as soon as he got it off the fire, it began to go out, and he said that he knew that way to kindle a fire never would do. In fact, he began to get out of patience. He threw down the stick, and went off again after Raymond.

“Raymond,” said he, “I cannot make my fire burn; and I wish you would come and kindle it for me.”

“Have you tried the ways I told you about?”

“Yes,” said Caleb.

“Have you tried all of them faithfully?”

“All but the last,” said Caleb, “and I know that won't do.”

“You must try them all, faithfully, or else I can't come.” So saying, Raymond went on with his work.

Caleb went back a good deal out of humour with himself, and saying that he wished Raymond was not so cross. He took up two of the sticks, which were now pretty well on fire, and carried them along, swinging them by the way, to make fiery rings and serpents in the air. When he reached the chimney, he threw them down carelessly, and stood watching them, to see if they were going to burn. Instead, however, of setting the other wood on fire, they only grew dimmer and dimmer themselves; and he said to himself, “I knew they would not burn.” Then he sat down upon a log, in a sad state of fretfulness and dissatisfaction.