A SUMMER IN A CAÑON & POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM (Illustrated). Kate Douglas Wiggin
built a fine, strong dam of stones across the brook, wading to and fro without the bother of taking off his shoes and stockings, and filled his hat with rocks and sunk it to the bottom for a wharf, keeping his hat-band to tie an unhappy frog to a bit of bark, and setting him afloat as the captain of a slave-ship. When, at length, the struggling creature freed himself from his bonds and leaped into the pool, Dicky played that he was a drowning child, and threw Lubin into the water to rescue him.
In these merry antics the hours flew by unnoticed; he had never been happier in his life, and it flashed through his mind that if he were left entirely to himself he should always be good.
‘Here I’ve been a whole day offul good by my lone self; haven’t said one notty word or did one notty fing, nor gotted scolded a singul wunst, did I, Lubin? I guess we better live here; bettent we, Lubin? And ven we wunt git stuck inter bed fur wettin’ our feets little teenty mites of wet ev’ry singul night all the livelong days, will we, Lubin?’
But this was a long period of reflection for Master Dicky, and he capered on, farther and farther, the water sozzling frightfully in his little copper-toed boots. At length he sat down on a stone to rest himself, and, glancing aimlessly about, his eyes fell on a white string, which he grasped with alacrity, pulling its end from beneath the stone on which he sat.
‘Luby Winship, the anjulls gaved me this string fur ter make an offul splendid tight harness for you, little Luby; and you can drag big heavy stones. Won’t that be nice?’
Lubin looked doubtful, and wagged his tail dissentingly, as much as to say that his ideas of angel ministrations were a trifle different.
But there was no end to the string! How very, very curious! Dicky wound and wound and crept and crept along, until he was thoroughly tired but thoroughly determined to see it through; and Lubin, meanwhile, had seized the first convenient moment, after the mention of the harness, to retire to the camp.
At length, oh joy! the tired and torn little man, following carefully the leading-string, issued from the scratching bushes into a clean, beautiful, round place, with a great restful-looking stump in the centre, and round its base a small forest of snowy toadstools. What could be a lovelier surprise! Dicky clapped his hands in glee as he looked at them, and thought of a little verse of poetry which Bell had taught him:
‘Some fairy umbrellas came up to-day
Under the elm-tree, just over the way,
And as we have had a shower of rain,
The reason they came is made very plain:
To-night is the woodland fairies’ ball,
And drops from the elm-tree might on them fall,
So little umbrellas wait for them here,
And under their shelter they’ll dance without fear.
Take care where you step, nor crush them, I pray,
For fear you will frighten the fairies away.’
‘Oh!’ thought Dicky, in a trance of delight, ‘now I shall go to the fairies’ ball, and see ’em dance under the cunning little teenty umberells; and wunt they be mad at home when nobuddy can’t see ’em but just only me! And then if that potry is a big whopper, like that there uvver one—’laddin-lamp story of Bell’s—I’ll just pick evry white toadstool for my papa’s Sunday dinner, and she sha’n’t never see a singul fairy dance.’
But he waited very patiently for a long, long time that seemed like years, for Lubin had disappeared; and all at once it grew so dark in this thickly-wooded place that Dicky’s courage oozed out in a single moment, without any previous warnings as to its intention. The toadstools looked like the ghosts of little past-and-gone fairy umbrellas in the darkness, and not a single fairy couple came to waltz under their snowy canopies, or exchange a furtive kiss beneath their friendly shadows.
Dicky thought the situation exceedingly gloomy, and, without knowing it, followed the example of many older people, who, on being deserted by man, experienced their first desire to find favour with God. He was not in the least degree a saintly child, but he felt instinctively that this was the proper time for prayer; and not knowing anything appropriate to the occasion, he repeated over and over again the time-worn plaint of childhood:—
‘Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.’
Like older mortals of feeble faith, he looked for an immediate and practical answer, in the shape, perhaps, of his mother, with his little night-gown and bowl of bread and milk.
‘My sakes alive!’ he grumbled between his sobs, ‘they’re the meanest fings I ever saw. How long do they s’pose I’m goin’ to wait for ’em in this dark? When the bears have et me up in teenty snips, then they’ll be saterfied, I guess, and wisht they’d tookened gooder care of me—a little speck of a boy, lefted out in this dark, bear-y place, all by his lone self. O—oo—oo—oh!’ and he wound up with a murderous yell, which had never failed before to bring the whole family to his side.
His former prayer seeming to be in vain, he found a soft place, brushed it as clean as possible, and with difficulty bending his little stiff, scratched body into a kneeling position, he prayed his nightly postscript to ‘Now I lay me’: ‘God bless papa, ’n’ mamma, ’n’ Bell, ’n’ Jack, ’n’ Madge, ’n’ Polly, ’n’ Phil, ’n’ Geoff, ’n’ Elsie.’ Then, realizing that he was in a perilous position, and it behoved him to be as pious as possible, he added: ‘And please bless Pancho, ’n’ Hop Yet, ’n’ Lubin, ’n’ the goat—not the wild goat up on the hill, but my goat, what got sick to his stummick when I painted him with black letters.’
What a dreadful calamity, to be sure, if the wrong goat had been blessed by mistake! His whole duty performed, he picked the toadstools for his papa’s Sunday dinner, and, leaning his head against the lone stump, cried himself to sleep.
But relief was near, though he little suspected it as he lay in the sound, dreamless sleep which comes only to the truly good. There was a crashing sound in the still darkness, and Bell plunged through the thick underbrush with a cry of delight.
‘He is here! Dear, dear Geoff, he is all here! I knew it, I knew it! Hurrah!—no, I mean—thank God!’ she said softly as she stooped down to kiss her mischievous little brother.
‘But what a looking creature!’ exclaimed Geoff, as he stooped over the recovered treasure. ‘See, Bell, his curls are glistening with pitch, his dress is torn into ribbons, and his hands—ugh, how dirty!’
‘Poor little darling, he is thoroughly used up,’ whispered Bell, wiping tears of joy from her brown eyes. ‘Now, I’ll run home like lightning to blow the horn; and you carry Dicky, for he is too sleepy and stiff to walk; and, Geoff’—(here she laid an embarrassed hand on his shoulder)—‘I’m afraid he’ll be awfully cross, but you’ll not mind it, will you? He’s so worn-out.’
‘Not I,’ laughed Geoff, as he dropped a brotherly kiss on Bell’s pale cheek. ‘But I’ve no idea of letting you go alone; you’re tired to death, and you’ll miss the path. I wish I could carry you both.’
‘Tired—afraid!’ cried Bell, with a ringing laugh, while Dicky woke with a stare, and nestled on Geoffrey’s shoulder as if nothing had happened. ‘Why, now that this weight is lifted off my heart, I could see a path in an untravelled forest! Good-bye, you dear, darling, cruel boy! I must run, for every moment is precious to mamma.’ And with one strangling hug, which made Dicky’s ribs crack, she dashed off.
Oh how joyously, how sweetly and tunefully, the furious blast of the old cracked dinner-horn fell on the anxious ears in that cañon. It seemed clearer and more musical than a chime of silver bells.
In a trice the wandering couples had gathered