When Life Was Young Part 3

"Halstead sees lots of bears," said Theodora, laughing. "I suppose there are a few about, yet," she added. "They come down out of the Great Woods once in awhile. But Gramp says there is no danger in our going out in the pastures and the woods around the farm, except perhaps a little while in the spring, when they first come out of their winter dens and are very gaunt and hungry."

"Gram doesn't like to have us go off into the woods," said Wealthy.

"I have been all over the pasture and through all these woods here, and those on the west side of the farm; and once, last November, I went up to Mud Pond in the Great Woods, with Ad, after beaver-lily root, and I never saw any bears," said Theodora.

"Nor I either," said Ellen. "But Gram never likes to have us go off far."

"Where is the 'Great Woods'?" I asked.

"Oh, away off to the north and the west of the farms," replied Theodora.

"Most anything may come out of the Great Woods! It's a realm of mystery.

It extends off to the White Mountains and to the Lakes and toward Canada. There are deer and moose in it, and 'lucivees.'"

"What are they?" I asked.

"It's a kind of big woods cat," Ellen said. "Some hunters brought out three which they had shot, last winter; they were as large as dogs and had pretty little black tufts on their ears, and such great, round, silvery eyes and such paws, too, with toe-nails an inch long!"

"Addison thinks that there are valuable minerals up in the Great Woods,"

Theodora remarked; "silver and amethysts and tourmalines. The day he and I and Kate Edwards went after the beaver-lily root, we climbed part way up a high mountain and on the side of it Ad found rock crystals. Oh, such beautiful ones! as large as a pear. He says he is going to explore all those mountains, by and by."

"Are there mountains in the Great Woods?" I inquired.

"Yes, and ponds and brooks full of trout and I don't know what else. I would like to explore it myself. Addison said that some time, when the work is well along, we can get up a party and go up there, to explore and fish and camp out a week. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"But it isn't often that the work is well along," remarked Ellen. "There is always lots to do here."

"Well, now we must go down to the 'Little Sea,'" said Theodora; and we descended through the pasture, a large tract of grazing land, partly bushy, overgrown in many places by high, rank brakes, and at length came to a brook, running over a sandy bed. Here at a bend was an artificial pond, formed by a dam, built of stones laid up in a broad wall across the course of the brook. In one place the wall was six or seven feet in height; and through a little sluice-way of planks, the water ran in a slender stream over the dam and fell into a pool below it. The pond was perhaps a hundred feet in length by forty or fifty in width; a part of the bottom was sandy and in one place it was over a boy's head in depth.

"This is the famous Little Sea," said Theodora. "Isn't it an extensive sheet of water?"

"Who built the dam?" I inquired.

"Oh, your father and mine and all the rest of our uncles, grandfather's first boys, when they were young."

"What did they build it for?" I asked.

"To wash the sheep. They hold the sheep under the stream of water where it falls over the sluice-way below the dam here," replied Ellen.

"And to learn to swim in," said Wealthy. "They used to swim here when they were boys; and Ad and Halstead come down here now, Sat.u.r.day evenings, for a bath. Doad and Nell and I are going to have us some bathing suits and come down here, too, so that if ever we go to the seash.o.r.e, we may know how to swim."

The older girls laughed indulgently at Wealthy for thus ingenuously informing me of their projects.

"Well, you needn't laugh," said Wealthy, coloring. "He's our cousin, isn't he?"

This made me feel so awkward that, to change the subject, I began skipping stones, and was very glad to have Ellen ask me whether I knew how to make "whistles." I did not. "I do," said she. "If you will lend me your pocket-knife, I will show you how."

"But it is Sunday, Nell," said Theodora, smiling.

"So 'tis!" exclaimed Ellen. "I forgot."

"I guess it need be no harm to make just one, now you've spoken of it,"

said Theodora. So the knife being opened, I was instructed how to cut a stick of green osier, or maple, shape the end, cut and loosen the bark; and having slipped the bark off, how further to make the requisite notches, so that the hollow cylinder of bark being replaced, there would be a whistle of keen, shrill note.

This bit of sylvan handicraft having been explained to me, in detail, Theodora announced that it was time to return to the house. "Gram does not approve of our taking too long strolls on Sunday," said she. "But so long as we do right, I can see no harm in it. Besides, our new cousin had never seen the farm before and to-morrow he will have to go to work, I suppose."

"But there's lots more to show him," said Ellen. "He hasn't seen the house-leek rocks, nor the old cider mill, nor the artichoke flat, nor the sap-house, nor the colts."

"Nor the other trout brook where Ad caught the mink, nor the wood-chuck wall, nor the bog where the big mud-turtle lives, nor the blackberry hill, nor 'the fort.' Why, he hasn't seen hardly anything, yet," Wealthy added.

"O well, he will have time to see it all, for he is going to live here, you know," said Theodora. "But now we really ought to go home, for we must help Gram get up the dinner, and it is past noon already, I think."

We took our way leisurely up through the fields where the wild strawberries were in bloom, great patches of them, half an acre in extent, white with the lowly blossoms. The girls carefully marked certain places, so as to know where to come early in July, when the gra.s.s was grown tall.

"Gramp does not quite like to have us come into the tall gra.s.s, after strawberries," Theodora remarked, "because we trample the gra.s.s down and make it difficult to mow; but Gram always sends us out and sometimes goes herself."

"And when she goes, I tell you the gra.s.s has to catch it!" exclaimed Wealthy. "She just creeps along and crushes down a whole acre of it at one time!"

"Yes, Gramp scolded a little about it one day," said Ellen. "He came in at noon and said to grandma, 'Ruth Ann, I should think that the Millerites had been creeping through my east field.' He said that to tease her, because Gram doesn't approve of the Millerites at all.

"'Joseph,' said Gram, pretty short for her, 'I'm afraid your memory's failing you.'

"'What's my memory got to do with it?' said Gramp.

"'Didn't I put it in the bargain when I married you, that I should be allowed to go strawberrying in the hay fields just when I wanted to?'

Gram said.

"At that, Gramp began to laugh and said, that if his memory was failing, there certainly was nothing the matter with grandma's memory; and he never said another word about the gra.s.s; so I guess he did make some such promise when they were married."

The girls went into the house; and feeling pretty warm from our walk, I lay down beneath one of the large old Balm o' Gileads. Addison came out of the sitting-room and asked where we had been. "I was going to ask you to go down to the 'Little Sea,'" he added, "for a swim before dinner.

But if you have been down there and back, you would be too warm to go into the water; so I'll lend you a book to read."

He brought me from his room _Cudjo's Cave_, saying that the Old Squire and Gram might not consider it wholly proper reading for Sunday, but that it was his most interesting book, in the way of a story.

"Do you call grandfather the 'Old Squire'?" I asked.

"Yes, that is what the folks around here mostly call him," replied Addison. "So I do. It doesn't sound quite so childish as to be always saying grandfather, or grandpa.

"Of course," Addison continued, "we expect girls, or little boys, to say 'grandfather,' or 'gramp'; but we boys when we are out among other boys, have to say the 'Old Squire,' or the 'old man,' or else they would be laughing at us for milksops. It doesn't do for a boy to seem too childish, you know.

"But I never like the sound of 'the old man,'" Addison went on coaching me confidentially. "Sounds disrespectful and sort of rowdy. I don't like 'old gent,' either. But I sometimes speak of grandfather as the old gentleman and of grandmother, generally, as 'Gram.' So do the girls. She likes that, too; for some reason she doesn't like to be called grandmother very well. I guess it makes her feel too old. For fun I called her 'Ruth' one day. That is her given name, you know. She looked at me and laughed. 'Addison,' she exclaimed, 'you are getting to be quite a young man!'

"But I guess if the truth were known," Addison continued sapiently, "that no oldish people like to be called grandpa and grandma very well, till they get to be as much as eighty years old. Then they seem to enjoy it."

Grandmother provided but two meals on Sunday: breakfast at about eight in the morning, and dinner at three in the afternoon. Consequently we were sitting down to dinner, with very good appet.i.tes, judging the others by my own, when one seat was seen to be vacant.

"Where's Halstead?" the Old Squire asked.

There was an expectant hush; and again I saw Theodora and Addison glance across to each other. As no one seemed to know, nothing further was said. We were half through dinner, when the absent one came quickly into the kitchen, looking very red and much heated. With a stealthy glance through the open door into the dining-room, he hastily bathed his face in cold water, then came in and took his place. His hair was wet, his collar limp, and altogether he looked like a boy fresh from a hot run.