A Busy Year at the Old Squire's Part 25

She set the chair under the skylight again, and then, while Theodora held it steady, climbed upon it--no easy matter with the vehicle rocking so violently--and tried to raise the skylight. But that, too, had jammed. At last, by pus.h.i.+ng hard against it, she succeeded in raising it far enough to let her peer out over the flat roof.

There, in the moonlight, she saw a strange-looking creature,--a man,--who rolled and ambled rather than walked; he was leading a white horse by the bit, and the horse was dragging the "saloon" down the road.

The man was a truly terrifying spectacle. He seemed to be a giant; his head projected far forward between his shoulders, and on his back was what looked like a camel's hump! His feet were not like human feet, but rather like huge hoofs; and the man, if he was one, wabbled forward on them in a way that turned Catherine quite sick with apprehension. All she could think of was the picture of Giant Despair in her grandmother's copy of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Unable to imagine who or what he could be, Catherine stood for some moments and stared at him, fascinated. All the while Theodora was anxiously whispering:

"Who is it? Who is it? Oh, let me see!"

"Don't try to look," Catherine answered earnestly, as she leaped to the floor. "Doad, we must get out if we can."

She threw herself at the door again and tried to pull it open; Theodora joined her, but even together they could not stir it.

Meanwhile the "saloon" swayed and jolted over the rough road; to keep from pitching headlong from side to side the girls had to sit down on the sacks. Their one consoling thought was that, if they could not get out, their captor, whoever he was, could not get in.

They were a little cheered, too, when they realized that the wagon was apparently following the road that led toward home. But when they had gone about three or four miles and had come to the branch road that led to Lurvey's Mills, they felt the old "saloon" turn off from the main road. With sinking hearts they struggled again to open the door, until, weak and exhausted, they gave up.

Theodora was limp with terror at their plight. Catherine, more resolute, tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own courage began to weaken.

At last they came to a ford that led across a muddy brook. As the horse entered the water, the forward end of the rickety old "saloon" pitched sharply downward. The prop that had held the door fast loosened and the door flew open!

Needless to say, the girls lost little time in getting out of their prison. Before the "saloon" had topped the other bank, they jumped out and ran into the alder bushes that bordered the stream.

Their captor was evidently not aware of their escape, for the "saloon"

kept on its course. As soon as it was out of sight the girls waded the brook and, hastening back to the fork of the road, took the homeward trail.

About four o'clock in the morning grandmother Ruth heard them knocking at the door. They were still much excited, and told so wild and curious a story of their adventure that after breakfast the old Squire and Addison drove over to Lurvey's Mills to investigate.

Almost the first thing they saw when they reached the Mills was that old "daguerreotype saloon," standing beside the road near the post office, and pottering about it a large, ungainly man--a hunchback with club feet.

A few minutes' conversation with him cleared up the mystery. This was the first he had heard that two girls had ridden in his "saloon" the night before! His name, he told them, was Duchaine, and he said that he came from Lewiston, Maine.

"Maybe you've heard of me," he said to Addison, with a somewhat painful smile. "The boys down there call me Big Pumplefoot."

Unable to do ordinary work, he had learned to take ambrotypes and set up as an itinerant photographer. But ere long his mother, who was a French Canadian, had gone back to live at Megantic in the Province of Quebec; and in June the year before he set off to visit her. Thinking that he might find customers at Megantic, he had taken his "saloon" along with him; but when he got to Dresser's Lonesome he found the road so much obstructed that he left the "saloon" behind, and went on with his horse and the forward wheels.

An accident had laid him up at Megantic during the winter and spring, but later in the season he started for Maine. On the way down the old road from Canada he got belated, and had not reached Dresser's Lonesome with his horse and wheels until late at night; but as there was no place where he could put up, and as the moon was s.h.i.+ning, he had decided to hitch up to his "saloon" and continue on his way to the Mills.

Thus the mystery was cleared up; but although the explanation was simple enough, Theodora and Catherine were little inclined to laugh over their adventure.

CHAPTER XXII

"RAINBOW IN THE MORNING"

That was the year noted for a celestial phenomenon of great interest to astronomers.

We were taking breakfast rather earlier than usual that morning in August, for a party of us had planned to go blackberrying up at the "burnt lots."

Three or four years before, forest fires had burned over a large tract up in the great woods to the north of the old Squire's farm. We had heard that blackberries were very plentiful there that season; and now that haying was over, Addison and I had planned to drive up there with the girls, and Catherine and Thomas Edwards, who wished to go with us.

So far as Addison and I were concerned, the trip was not wholly for blackberries; we had another motive for going--one that we were keeping a profound secret. One afternoon late in the preceding fall we had gone up there to shoot partridges; and Addison, who was much interested in mineralogy, had come across what he believed to be silver in a ledge.

Every one knows that there is silver in Maine. Not a few know it to their sorrow; for there is nothing more discouraging than a mine that yields just a little less than enough to pay running expenses. But to us boys Addison's discovery suggested the possibilities of vast fortunes.

Addison felt very sure that it was silver, but we decided to say nothing to any one until we were certain. All that winter, however, we cherished rosy hopes of soon being wealthy. At the first opportunity we meant to make a quiet trip up there with hammer and drill to obtain specimens for a.s.say, but for one reason or another we did not get round to it until August, when we planned the blackberrying excursion.

While we were at the breakfast table that morning there came a thundershower, and a thundershower in the early morning is unusual in Maine. The sun had risen clear, but a black cloud rose in the west, the sky darkened suddenly, and so heavy a shower fell that at first we thought we should have to give up the trip.

But the shower ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun shone out again. Ellen, who had gone to the pantry for something, called to us that there was a bright rainbow in the northwest.

"Do come here to the back window!" she cried. "It's a lovely one!"

Sure enough, there was a vivid rainbow; the bright arch spanned the whole northwestern sky over the great woods.

"Rainbow in the morning, Good sailors take warning,"

the old Squire remarked, smiling. "Better take your coats and umbrellas with you to-day."

We did not know then how many times during that day our thoughts would go back to the rainbow and the old superst.i.tion.

After breakfast we hitched up Old Sol, drove round by the Edwardses' to pick up Tom and Kate, and from there followed the lumber road into the great woods, to Otter Brook. The "burnt lots" were perhaps a mile beyond the brook.

Addison and I picked blackberries for a while with the others; then, watching our chance, we stole away and made for the ledges, a mile or two to the northeast.

I had managed to bring a drill hammer along in my basket, wrapped up in my jacket; and Addison had brought a short drill in his pocket. We found the ledge where Addison had made his discovery and had no great trouble in chipping off some specimens. I may add here that the specimens later proved to contain silver--in small quant.i.ties. I still have a few of them--mementos of youthful hopes that faded early in the light of greater knowledge.

We followed the ledges off to the northeast over several craggy hills.

At one place we found many exfoliating lumps of mica; we cleaved out sheets of it nearly a foot square, which Addison believed might prove valuable for stove doors.

While pottering with the mica, I accidentally broke into a kind of cavity, or pocket, in the ledge, partly filled with disintegrated rock; and on clearing out the loose stuff from this pocket we came upon a beautiful three-sided crystal about two inches long, like a prism, green in color, except at one end, where it shaded to pink.

It was a tourmaline crystal, similar to certain fine ones that have been found some miles to the eastward, at the now world-famous Mount Mica. At that time we did not know what it was, but, thinking that it might be valuable, we searched the pocket for other crystals, but found no more.

We had both become so much interested in searching for minerals that we had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north of us during the summer.

But presently, as Addison was thumping away with the hammer, I noticed that it was growing dark. At first I thought that it was merely a darker cloud above the smoke that had drifted over the sun, and said nothing; but the sky continued to darken, and soon Addison noticed it.

"Another shower coming, I guess," he said, looking up. "Don't see any particular clouds, though. I wonder what makes it so dark?"

"It seems just like night coming on," said I. "But it isn't so late as all that, is it?"

"No!" exclaimed Addison. "It isn't night yet, I know!" And he hastily took out Theodora's watch, which she had intrusted to him to carry that day, so that we should know when to start for home. "It's only half past three, and the sun doesn't set now till after seven o'clock."

We hammered at the ledge again for a while; but still it grew darker.

"Well, this beats me!" Addison exclaimed; and again he surveyed the sky.