Two Little Savages Part 19

"Well, I say that's mighty inter-est-in'," said Sam--he had listened attentively--"an' I'd like nothin' better than to try it myself if I had a gun an' there was lots of game."

"Pooh, who wouldn't?"

"Mighty few--an' there's mighty few who _could_."

"I could."

"What, make everything with just a knife? I'd like to see you make a teepee," then adding earnestly, "Sam, we've been kind o' playing Injuns; now let's do it properly. Let's make everything out of what we find in the woods."

"Guess we'll have to visit the Sanger Witch again. She knows all about plants."

"We'll be the Sanger Indians. We can both be Chiefs," said Yan, not wis.h.i.+ng to propose himself as Chief or caring to accept Sam as his superior. "I'm Little Beaver. Now what are you?"

"b.l.o.o.d.y-Thundercloud-in-the-Afternoon."

"No, try again. Make it something you can draw, so you can make your totem, and make it short."

"What's the smartest animal there is?"

"I--I--suppose the Wolverine."

"What! Smarter'n a Fox?"

"The books say so."

"Kin he lick a Beaver?"

"Well, I should say so."

"Well, that's me."

"No, you don't. I'm not going around with a fellow that licks me. It don't fit you as well as 'Woodp.e.c.k.e.r,' anyhow. I always get _you_ when I want a nice tree spoiled or pecked into holes," retorted Yan, magnanimously ignoring the personal reason for the name.

"Tain t as bad as _beavering_," answered Sam

"Beavering" was a word with a history. Axes and timber were the biggest things in the lives of the Sangerites. Skill with the axe was the highest accomplishment. The old settlers used to make everything in the house out of wood, and with the axe for the only tool. It was even said that some of them used to "edge her up a bit" and shave with her on Sundays. When a father was setting his son up in life he gave him simply a good axe. The axe was the grand essential of life and work, and was supposed to be a whole outfit. Skill with the axe was general. Every man and boy was more or less expert, and did not know how expert he was till a real "greeny" came among them. There is a right way to cut for each kind of grain, and a certain proper way of felling a tree to throw it in any given direction with the minimum of labour. All these things are second nature to the Sangerite. A Beaver is credited with a haphazard way of gnawing round and round a tree till somehow it tumbles, and when a chopper deviates in the least from the correct form, the exact right cut in the exact right place, he is said to be "beavering"; therefore, while "working like a Beaver" is high praise, "beavering" a tree is a term of unmeasured reproach, and Sam's final gibe had point and force that none but a Sangerite could possibly have appreciated.

XI

Yan and the Witch

The Sanger Witch hated the Shanty-man's axe And wildfire, too, they tell, But the hate that she had for the Sporting man Was wuss nor her hate of h.e.l.l!

--Cracked Jimmie's Ballad of Sanger.

Yan took his earliest opportunity to revisit the Sanger Witch.

"Better leave me out," advised Sam, when he heard of it. "She'd never look at you if I went. You look too blame healthy."

So Yan went alone, and he was glad of it. Fond as he was of Sam, his voluble tongue and ready wit left Yan more or less in the shade, made him look sober and dull, and what was worse, continually turned the conversation just as it was approaching some subject that was of deepest interest to him.

As he was leaving, Sam called out, "Say, Yan, if you want to stay there to dinner it'll be all right--we'll know why you hain't turned up." Then he stuck his tongue in his cheek, closed one eye and went to the barn with his usual expression of inscrutable melancholy.

Yan carried his note-book--he used it more and more, also his sketching materials. On the road he gathered a handful of flowers and herbs. His reception by the old woman was very different this time.

"Come in, come in, G.o.d bless ye, an' hoo air ye, an' how is yer father an' mother--come in an' set down, an' how is that spalpeen, Sam Raften?"

"Sam's all right now," said Yan with a blush.

"All right! Av coorse he's all right. I knowed I'd fix him all right, an' he knowed it, an' his Ma knowed it when she let him come. Did she say onything about it?"

"No, Granny, not a word."

"The dhirty hussy! Saved the boy's life in sphite of their robbin' me an' she ain't human enough to say 'thank ye'--the dhirty hussy!

May G.o.d forgive her as I do," said the old woman with evident and implacable enmity.

"Fwhat hev ye got thayer? Hivin be praised, they can't kill them all off. They kin cut down the trees, but the flowers comes ivery year, me little beauties--me little beauties!" Yan spread them out. She picked up an Arum and went on. "Now, that's Sorry-plant, only some calls it Injun Turnip, an' I hear the childer call it Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Don't ye never put the root o' that near yer tongue. It'll sure burn ye like fire. First thing whin they gits howld av a greeny the bhise throis to make him boite that same. Shure he niver does it twicet. The Injuns b'ile the pizen out o' the root an' ates it; shure it's better'n starvin'."

Golden Seal (_Hydrastis canadensis_), the plant she had used for Sam's knee, was duly recognized and praised, its wonderful golden root, "the best goold iver came out av the ground," was described with its impression of the seal of the Wise King.

"Thim's Mandrakes, an' they're moighty late, an' ye shure got _thim_ in the woods. Some calls it May Apples, an' more calls it Kingroot. The Injuns use it fur their bowels, an' it has cured many a horse of pole evil that I seen meself.

"An' Blue Cohosh, only I call that Spazzum-root. Thayer ain't nothin'

like it fur spazzums--took like tay; only fur that the Injun women wouldn't live in all their thrubles, but that's something that don't consarn ye. Luk now, how the laves is all spread out like wan wid spazzums. Glory be to the Saints and the Blessed Virgin, everything is done fur us on airth an' plain marked, if we'd only take the thruble to luk.

"Now luk at thot," said she, clawing over the bundle and picking out a yellow Cypripedium, "that's Moccasin-plant wid the Injuns, but mercy on 'em fur bloind, miserable haythens. They don't know nothin' an'

don't want to larn it. That's Umbil, or Sterrick-root. It's powerful good fur sterricks. Luk at it! See the face av a woman in sterricks wid her hayer flyin' an' her jaw a-droppin'. I moind the toime Larry's little gurrl didn't want to go to her 'place' an' hed sterricks. They jest sent fur me an' I brung along a Sterrick-root. First, I sez, sez I, 'Get me some b'ilin' wather,' an' I made tay an' give it to her b'ilin' hot. As share as Oi'm a livin' corpse, the very first spoonful fetched her all right. Oh, but it's G.o.d's own gift, an' it's be His blessin' we know how to use it. An' it don't do to just go an' dig it when ye want it. It has to be grubbed when the flower ain't thayer. Ye see, the strength ain't in both places to oncet. It's ayther in the flower or in the root, so when the flower is thayer the root's no more good than an ould straw. Ye hes to Hunt fur it in spring or in fall, just when the divil himself wouldn't know whayer to find it.

"An' fwhat hev ye thayer? Good land! if it ain't Skunk's Cabbage! Ye sure come up by the Bend. That's the on'y place whayer that grows."

"Yes," replied Yan; "that's just where I got it. But hold on, Granny, I want to sketch all those and note down their names and what you say about them."

"Shure, you'd hev a big book when I wuz through," said the old woman with pride, as she lit her pipe, striking the match on what would have been the leg of her pants had she been a man.

"An' shure ye don't need to write down what they're good fur, fur the good Lord done that Himself long ago. Luk here, now. That's Cohosh, fur spazzums, an' luks like it; that's Moccasin, fur Highsterricks, an' luks like it; wall, thar's Skunk-root fur both, an' don't it luk like the two o' thim thigither?"

Yan feebly agreed, but had much difficulty in seeing what the plant had in common with the others.

"An' luk here! Thayer ye got Lowbelier, that some calls Injun tobaccer. Ye found this by the crick, an' it's a little airly--ahead o' toime. That's the shtuff to make ye throw up when ye want to. Luk, ain't that lafe the livin' shape of a shtummick?

"Thayer's the Highbelier; it's a high hairb, an' it's moighty foine fur the bowels when ye drink the dry root.

"Spicewood" [Spicebush, _Lindera benzoin_], "or Fayverbush, them twigs is great fur tay--that cures shakes and fayver. Shure an' it shakes ivery toime the wind blows.