"So has most people," said Mrs. Stebbins; "and it"s well they have, for it"s only a root of bitterness now, and it ort not to be dug up for ever and ever. But that first winter after the war begun was an awful cold one, up hereaway. Leastwise, there kem a bitter snap, like the one we"re having now; and somehow it seemed as if we never missed all those young men so much, not even in the fall work, as we did after winter sot in.
There was a good many fire-places like this all over the country, where the folks missed the best face they had, for the one that isn"t there always kind o" seems to be the best; and old Mrs. Lucas she counted on Alvin, most likely, a good deal as I do on Vosh. He was away down on the Potomac with his company, and there hadn"t been a man of "em hurt up to the time of that cold snap, and they sent letters home as reg"lar as clock-work; and people thought the war wasn"t sech a dreadful thing, after all, so long as n.o.body got killed from Benton Valley and Cobbleville. Your folks lived right here, and mine away over on the other hill, nigh the dividing-line into the Sanders school-district; and your grandfather and grandmother Farnham were alive, and Susie Farnham she hadn"t married Reuben Hudson and gone to the city, and Judith she was a young woman; and those two gals was at home with the old folks one evening"--
Just then Deacon Farnham got up from his chair, and sat down again; and aunt Judith rubbed her spectacles very hard indeed, and Mrs. Farnham looked at her, sidling, as if to see if she were interested in the story; and Pen looked around at every one, for she knew that Mrs.
Stebbins must be getting pretty near the wolf now.
"It was one bitter cold night, and all the Lucases were at home, except, of course, Alvin; and there were four younger than he was; but he was the likeliest, as well as the oldest, and his next brother didn"t go into the war till the second year. Old Mrs. Lucas wasn"t nervous generally, but that night there seemed to be something the matter with her; and it was as dark as a pocket, as well as being so cold you could hardly keep the hens from freezing. She kept a-going to the window; and her husband, I heard him tell my mother about it, how she seemed to be listening for something, and all of a sudden she broke out, "John, it"s a wolf! Hear him! He"s out there in the road! Something"s happened to Alvin!" Now, I ain"t a mite superst.i.tious, and she wasn"t, and John Lucas wasn"t; but there was a charge of buckshot in his gun, and he took it up, and went right out"--
"Was the wolf there?" asked Pen with widely open eyes; for Mrs. Stebbins paused a moment, as if for breath, and aunt Judith"s knitting had dropped into her lap, and she was staring hard at the fire.
"Yes, Pen," went on Mrs. Stebbins, "and he was nigher the house, and he howled again; and he sot still, and held his head up to howl, till John Lucas and his next son--Roger, his name was--got within shot of him; for he was crazed with the frost, jest as wolves will get in sech times."
"Did they kill him?" asked Corry.
"Dead as a mackerel," said Mrs. Stebbins. "And he was the biggest kind; but it didn"t seem to comfort Mrs. Lucas a mite, and it was the strangest kind of a thing, after all. There isn"t any superst.i.tion in me: but, when the next letters kem from the war, there"d been a scrimmage on the Potomac that very night; and Capt. Alvin Lucas, and four men from Benton Valley, and twice as many from Cobbleville, had been killed in it."
"I don"t believe the wolf knew a word about the skirmish," said Port.
"He couldn"t, you know."
"Besides," said Pen, "they shot him; and he couldn"t go all around the valley, and over to Cobbleville, and howl for the other folks."
Susie was just going to say something to aunt Sarah about it; but she and aunt Judith had suddenly arisen, and were walking out into the kitchen. Mrs. Stebbins looked down at her knitting, just the same, and finished her story as she toed out the last half-inch of that stocking.
"It kem awful hard on John Lucas, and he sold out his farm that next spring, and went West; and Levi Stebbins bought it as soon as his army time was ended, and he could come home again; and Joshaway he staid in till it was all over. Old Mrs. Lucas, it took her awful; but she was a good woman, for she said she couldn"t get her mind right about losing Alvin till she could feel to sympathize with the mothers of men that was killed on the other side. I never had no trouble about that, for Levi he always spoke well of the Southern soldiers, and so did your uncle Joshaway; and mothers are mothers, no matter where you find "em."
Mrs. Stebbins was quiet for a moment, and then remarked,--
"Lavawjer, it"s time we was a-going home."
"I guess it is, mother."
It was while she was getting on her things that Deacon Farnham beckoned Susie Hudson away into the parlor entry for a moment, and whispered to her,--
"You are old enough to know some things, Susie. Don"t say any thing more about that story. Speak to Port, and I will to Corry. Your aunt Sarah"s elder brother was the first man killed in that skirmish: that was what came to her."
"And aunt Judith?"
"Capt. Lucas. They were engaged."
"O uncle Joshua!"
"That is what the war meant to both sides, my dear."
"I"m glad it was ever so long ago, and we don"t know any thing about it," said Susie; and that was about what Port said when they spoke to him. It was not much of a wolf-story, after all, but it had helped away a winter evening, and perhaps it had done something more; for the boys and girls of one generation should not be ignorant, altogether, of the sufferings and sacrifices of those who have lived and died before they came to take their turn at it.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BEAR-TRAP.
When the family came down to breakfast the next morning, it looked as if every thing but the venison-steaks and johnnycake and hot coffee had been forgotten. The steaks were capital; and as for the johnnycake, n.o.body in all Benton Valley could beat aunt Judith at that sort of thing. She was proud of her skill, and liked to see its products eaten; but even as Porter Hudson was helping himself to his third slice, she said to him,--
"Once, when I was a girl, I remember being out of bread for a whole week."
"O aunt Judith!" exclaimed Pen, "didn"t you eat any thing?"
"We had plenty of milk and pork and eggs and poultry, and we didn"t starve. We pounded corn in a mortar and made samp, and we hulled some corn and made hominy, and ate it, and did capitally well."
"I think I could live a while on such starvation as that," remarked Susie, "especially if I had maple-sugar to melt down, and pour on the samp."
"We had some," said aunt Judith; "but we were just about out of flour and meal, when there came a thaw and a freshet; and the mill-dams all gave way, as if they"d agreed to go down together; and we had to wait till the mills got to running again. It wasn"t easy to get a grist ground, even then; but we didn"t suffer any. Folks sent ever so far for flour; but there wasn"t any railroad then, and the roads were awful for a few weeks. There used to be great freshets in those days."
"That"s a thing that might come any time after the bears turn over,"
said Mr. Farnham; and Port instantly asked him,--
"After the bears turn over! What have they to do with it?"
"Didn"t you know that? Well, well! You"re a city boy, and don"t have any bears at home. Every bear hunts up a hollow tree as soon as it"s too cold for him to get around in the woods comfortably, and sits down before it till there"s a heavy snow. Then he creeps in, and gets the hole snowed up, and goes to sleep. He never dreams of waking up till spring; but, as soon as the sun is hot enough to warm the tree on one side, it makes him comfortable on that side of him, and he turns over in his sleep to warm the other. It"s a sure sign of a thaw; and the snow melts pretty fast after that, till it"s time for him to creep out and get something to eat."
"How hungry he must be!" said Pen.
"When is the best time to hunt for bears?" asked Port, with a dim idea that he would like to boast of having killed a few.
"Along in the fall, when the nuts are coming down. They"re fattest then.
They trap "em every year all through the mountain country north."
"Trap "em! Is there any trap big enough to catch a bear in?" asked Port.
"Big enough! I"d say so. And sometimes it"s a wolf, or a wildcat, or a panther, instead of a bear; and I know of a man getting caught in one once."
"Did he get out?" asked Pen.
"I won"t tell you about it now; but when we get into the sitting-room this evening, I"ll let you know just how one man made a bear of himself away up on Sawbuck Mountain."
That was something to look forward to; but not long after Corry and Pen had gone to school, Porter Hudson took his gun, and marched away to the woods, all alone by himself. The crust was still as firm as ever, and there had been no snow worth mentioning since the great storm.
"I don"t know exactly what I"m going to kill," he said to himself; "but I"m ready for any thing that comes."
His first call for Ponto had been obeyed somewhat fatly and sluggishly; but, the moment the old dog saw the gun, he was another and a more willing animal. He led the way, head and tail up, until he came to the spot in the road where the wolves had pulled down the buck. The new snow, thin as it was, covered all traces of that adventure. But Ponto"s memory, or nose, made him precisely accurate. Port was quite willing to stop a moment, and recall how that spot had looked in the moonlight, and how uncommonly loud and sharp had seemed to be the reports of the guns.
All the hills had echoed them; and it occurred to him, that, if he should now meet a pack of wolves, he would have but two loads of buckshot, instead of eight.
"And no slugs," he added. "I should have brought some along. I don"t care, though. I could climb a small tree, and fire away."
He afterwards noted quite a number of small trees well adapted to such business. So were some lower limbs of several larger trees, and he stood for a few minutes under one of these. He imagined himself sitting on that great projecting branch, climbing out to where it was ten feet above the snow, with a large pack of very ferocious and hungry wolves raging around below him, while he loaded and fired until the last of them had keeled over.
"Wolves can"t climb," he remarked to himself; and he felt that such an affair would be grand to tell of when he should get back to the city. It would make a sort of hero of him, and the wolves could be skinned right there. He enjoyed it mentally; but that particular pack of wild beasts, killed off, in his imagination, under that tree, were all the game, of any kind, that he obtained that day. Ponto did better, for he discovered innumerable tracks in the snow, and they seemed to answer his purposes admirably. He could sniff and bark, and run and come back again, and look up into Port"s face as if he were saying, "There, I"ve had another hunt."