A Little Maid of Old Maine by Alice Turner Curtis (best mobile ebook reader .TXT) 📗
- Author: Alice Turner Curtis
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The sun was high in the heavens when the little party came in sight of the falls dashing over the rocks.
Mr. Weston led the way to a big flat rock above the mill, and where two large beech trees cast a pleasant shade.
“You can rest here while I look over the mill,” he said, “and then I will see if I can spear a salmon for our dinner.”
The girls were quite ready to rest, and Rebby set the basket carefully on the rock beside them.
“Would it not be fine if we could catch a salmon and have it all cooked when Father comes back?” Anna suggested, but Rebby shook her head.
“We haven’t any salmon spear, and it is quick and skilful work,” she responded. “Father will be better pleased if we obey him and rest here.”
From where the girls were sitting they could look some distance up the quiet stream, and it was Anna who first discovered a canoe being paddled close to the opposite shore.
“Look, Rebby,” she said, pointing in the direction139 of the slow-moving craft. “Isn’t that an Indian?”
Rebby looked, and after a moment answered: “Why, I suppose it is, and after salmon. But he won’t come down so near the falls.” But the girls watched the slow-moving canoe rather anxiously until it drew close in to the opposite shore, and was hidden by the overhanging branches of the trees.
Rebby decided that she would gather some dry grass and sticks for the fire, and asked Anna to go down near the mill and bring up some of the bits of wood lying about there.
“Then when Father does bring the salmon we can start a blaze right away,” she said.
Anna ran off toward the mill yard, and Rebby left the shade of the big beeches to pull handfuls of the sun-dried grass.
Rebby had gone but a few steps when she heard a queer singing murmur that seemed to be just above her head. She looked up, but the sky was clear; there was no bird flying low, as she had imagined; but as she walked along the murmur became louder, and Rebby began to look about her more carefully. A short distance from the flat rock was a huge stump of a broken tree, and140 Rebby soon realized that the noise came from the stump, and she approached it cautiously.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It’s a honey-tree! It is! It is!” for she had seen the bees as they went steadily in a dark murmuring line, direct to the old stump.
“A honey-tree” was a fortunate discovery at any time, for it meant a store of delicious wild honey. It was, as in this case, usually a partially decayed tree where the wild bees had swarmed, and where stores of honey were concealed. Sometimes the bees had filled the cavities of the tree so full that they were forced to desert it and find new quarters; but it was evident that here they were very busy indeed.
“They will have to be smoked out,” decided Rebby, who had often heard her father tell of the way in which such stores were captured. “I wish I could do it, and get some honey for dinner,” she exclaimed aloud.
“Well, why not?” she heard someone say from behind her, and she turned quickly to find Paul Foster, looking so much like an Indian boy in his fringed leggins and feathered cap that it made her jump quickly.
Paul laughed at her surprise.141
“I came up-stream in my canoe after salmon,” he explained, “and I have speared three beauties; I saw you from across the stream, so I paddled over. You’ve made a great find,” and he nodded toward the old stump.
“Could we smoke out the bees and get some honey, Paul?” Rebby asked eagerly. She and Paul were nearly of an age, and Paul was a friendly boy, always ready to make bows and arrows or toy boats for his little sister and her girl playmates.
“I don’t see why not,” he responded, as if smoking out a hive of wild bees was a very usual undertaking; “but I haven’t a flint and steel,” he added.
“I have, in my basket,” declared Rebecca; and in a few minutes Paul and Rebecca had gathered a mass of sticks and grass, heaping it a short distance from the stump.
“Mustn’t get a blaze, only a heavy smoke,” said Paul as he struck the flint and steel together, and carefully sheltered the spark which the dry grass instantly caught.
At the sight of the smoke Mr. Weston came running from the mill, and with his assistance the bees were speedily disposed of.142
The old stump proved well filled with honey.
“I have a bucket in my canoe,” said Paul, and it was decided to fill the bucket and take home all it would hold, and to return the next day in Paul’s canoe with tubs for the rest of the honey.
Paul insisted that Mr. Weston should accept one of his fine salmon to broil for their midday meal, and then Rebby exclaimed:
“Where is Danna? She went to the mill after wood before we found the honey-tree, and she isn’t back yet.”
“Oh! She is probably playing that she is an explorer on a journey to the South Seas,” laughed Mr. Weston. “I will go after her,” and he started off toward the mill, while Rebecca added wood to the fire, and Paul prepared the salmon to broil.
Mr. Weston called “Danna!” repeatedly, but there was no answer. He searched the yard and the shore, but there was no trace of his little daughter. He went through the big open mill, and peered into shadowy corners, but Anna was not to be found. And at last he hurried back to tell Paul and Rebby, and to have them help him in his search for the missing girl.
Anna had gathered an armful of dry wood and was just starting back when a queer little frightened cry made her stop suddenly and look quickly around. In a moment the noise was repeated, and she realized that it came from a pile of logs near the river bank. Anna put down the wood, and tiptoed carefully in the direction of the sound.
As she came near the logs she could see a little gray creature struggling to get loose from a coil of string in which its hind legs were entangled.
“Oh! It’s a rabbit!” Anna exclaimed. “Perhaps it is Trit,” and she ran quickly forward. But the little creature was evidently more alarmed at her approach than at the trap that held him, and with a frantic leap he was off, the string trailing behind him; but his hind feet were still hampered by the twisting string, and he came to a sudden halt.144
“Poor Trit! Poor Trit!” called the little girl pityingly, as she ran after him. Just as she was near enough to touch him another bound carried him beyond her reach. On leaped the rabbit, and on followed Anna until they were some distance below the mill and near the river’s sloping bank, over which the rabbit plunged and Anna after him. A small boat lay close to the shore, and Bunny’s plunge carried him directly into the boat, where, twisted in the string, he lay struggling and helpless.
Anna climbed into the boat and picked up “Trit,” as she called the rabbit, and patiently and tenderly untied the string from the frightened, panting little captive, talking gently as she did so, until he lay quiet in her hands.
The little girl was so wholly absorbed in her task that she did not notice that the boat was not fastened, or that her spring into it had sent it clear from the shore. Not until Trit was free from the string did she look up, and then the little boat was several feet from the shore, and moving rapidly downstream.
If Anna had stepped overboard then she could easily have waded ashore and made her way back to the mill; but she was so surprised that such a145 course did not come into her thoughts, and in a few moments the boat was in deep water and moving with the current downstream.
On each side of the river the woods grew down to the shore, and now and then the wide branches of overhanging trees stretched for some distance over the stream. A blue heron rose from the river, making its loud call that drowned Anna’s voice as she cried: “Father! Father!” Even had Mr. Weston been near at hand he could hardly have distinguished Anna’s voice. But Anna was now too far downstream for any call to reach her father or Rebby and Paul, who were all anxiously searching for her.
At first the little girl was not at all frightened. The river ran to Machias, and, had it not been that she was sure her father and sister would be worried and sadly troubled by her disappearance, Anna would have thought it a fine adventure to go sailing down the stream with her captured rabbit. Even as it was, she had a gleeful thought of Luretta’s surprise and of Melvina’s admiration when she should tell them the story.
She soon discovered that the boat leaked, and, holding the rabbit tightly in one hand, she took off her round cap and began to bail out the water,146 which had now risen to her ankles. Very soon the little cap was soggy and dripping; and now Anna began to wonder how long the leaky little craft could keep afloat.
Both Anna and Rebby could swim; their father had taught them when they were very little girls, and Anna knew that if she would leave the rabbit to drown that she could reach the shore safely; but this seemed hardly to be thought of. She now resolved to clutch at the first branch within reach, hoping in that way to scramble to safety with Trit. But the boat was being carried steadily along by the current, although the water came in constantly about her feet.
“I mustn’t get frightened,” Anna said aloud, remembering how often her father had told her that to be afraid was to lose the battle.
The boat swayed a little, and then Anna found that the board seat was wabbling.
“I never thought of the seat,” she whispered, slipping down to her knees and pulling the seat from the loose support on which it rested. It was hard work to use the board as a paddle with only one hand, but Anna was strong and resolute, and managed to swing the boat a little toward the shore, so when a turn of the river came, bringing147 the boat close toward a little point of land, she quickly realized that this was her opportunity, and holding Trit close she sprang into the shallow water and in a moment was safe on shore.
The old boat, now half-filled with water, moved slowly on, and Anna knew that it would not be long afloat. She looked about her landing-place with wondering eyes. Behind the little grassy point where she stood the forest stretched close and dark; the curve of the river shut away the course by which she had come, but she could look down the smooth flowing current, and toward the wooded shores opposite.
The rabbit moved uneasily in her hands, and the little girl smoothed him tenderly. “I don’t know who will ever find me here, unless it should be Indians,” she said aloud, remembering the canoe that she and Rebby had noticed as they sat on the big rock.
Anna felt a little choking feeling in her throat at the remembrance. It seemed so long ago since she had seen Rebby and her father. “And it’s all your fault, Trit,” she told the rabbit; “but you could not help it,” she added quickly, and remembered that the rabbit must be hungry and148 thirsty, and for a little while busied herself in finding tender leaves and buds for Trit to eat, and in holding him close to the water’s edge so that he could drink. Then she wandered about the little clearing and to the edge of the dark forest. She began to feel hungry, and knew by the sun that it was well past noon.
“Oh! If that Indian we saw in the canoe would only come downstream,” she thought longingly. For Anna well knew that when night came she would be in danger from the wild beasts of the wilderness, but that almost any of the Indians who fished and hunted
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