A Busy Year at the Old Squire's Part 24

Grabbing Addison playfully by the shoulder he said, "I will put you up."

But at first Addison held back. "They'll sting me to death!" he protested.

"Wait!" Uncle Hannibal cried. "We will rig you up for it!" And leaning over the front rail of the gallery, he shouted, "Has any lady got a veil--two or three veils?"

Several women gave their veils, which Uncle Hannibal tied over Addison's hat; then the Senator put his own large gloves on Addison's hands. By that time the gallery was full of people--all laughing and giving advice. A man produced some string, and with it they tied Addison's trouser legs down and fastened his jacket sleeves tight round the wrists. Then Uncle Hannibal lifted him up as if he had been a child and at one boost shoved him up through the scuttle hole. When Addison had got to his feet in the loft, the Senator pa.s.sed him a wicker lunch basket and a tin pail.

Tiptoeing his way perilously over the scantlings, laths and plaster, Addison made his way back to the rear end of the meetinghouse. The honeycombs were mostly on a beam against the boards of the outer wall.

The punk smoke was so dense up there that he could hardly get his breath. The bees, nearly torpid from the smoke, were crawling sluggishly along on the underside of the roof, and offered no resistance when Addison broke off the combs.

With his basket and pail well filled, he tiptoed back to the scuttle and handed the spoils to Uncle Hannibal, who instantly led the way down the back stairs and outdoors.

"We have despoiled the Egyptians!" he cried. "I didn't do much myself, but a younger hero has appeared. Now for a sweet time!" And he pa.s.sed the pail and basket round.

There was as much as twenty pounds of honey, and every one got at least a taste. The old Squire and I had now stopped puffing smoke, and we joined the others outside. To this day I remember just how Uncle Hannibal looked as he stood there on the meetinghouse platform, with a chunk of white, dripping comb in his hand. He took a big bite from it; and I said to myself that, if he took many more bites like that one, there would not be much honey left for the old Squire and me. But we got a taste of it, and very good honey it was.

Our victory over the Egyptians, however, was not yet complete. Either because the smoke was now clearing up, or because they smelled the honey that we were eating, they began to come round to the front end of the house, where they hovered over the people and darted down savagely at them. Outcries arose; men and women tried frantically to brush the insects away. Horses out at the sheds began to squeal. More bees were coming round every moment--the angriest bees I have ever seen! They stung wherever they touched. Judge Peters and Mr. Bliss were fighting the insects with both hands; and Uncle Hannibal, too, was pawing the air, with guffaws of laughter.

"The Egyptians are getting the best of us!" he cried. "We had better retire in as good order as we can--or it will be another Bull Run!"

Retreat was clearly the part of discretion, and so the whole gathering streamed away down the road to a safe distance. In fact, there was a pretty lively time before all of the people had unhitched their teams and got away. But in spite of many bee stings it had been a very hilarious meeting; and it is safe to say that all who were at the Methodist chapel that afternoon wanted Uncle Hannibal for Senator.

The old Squire drove home with his guests to supper; Addison and I gathered up our brooms and bee smoker and followed them.

At supper Uncle Hannibal asked us to tell him more about those Egyptian bees, of which he had never heard before; and after the meal he went out to see the colonies in the garden. He walked up to a hive and boldly caught one of the bees between his thumb and forefinger. Holding it fast, he picked up a pea pod for it to sting, so that he could see how long a stinger it had.

"Ah, but that is a cruel chap!" he said. "You'll have to use brimstone, I guess, to get those Egyptians out of the meetinghouse."

In point of fact, brimstone was what two of the church stewards did use, a few weeks later, before there were services at the chapel again; but they did not find much honey left.

CHAPTER XXI

THAT MYSTERIOUS DAGUERREOTYPE SALOON

For two years our young neighbor Catherine had been carrying on a little industry that had proved fairly lucrative--namely, gathering and curing wild herbs and selling them to drug stores in Portland. Her grandmother had taught her how to cure and press the herbs. One season she sold seventy dollars' worth.

Catherine took many long jaunts to gather her herbs--thoroughwort, goldthread, catnip, comfrey, skullcap, pennyroyal, lobelia, peppermint, old-man's-root, snakehead and others of greater or less medicinal value.

She soon came to know where all those various wild plants grew for miles round. Naturally she wished to keep her business for herself and was rather chary about telling others where the herbs she collected grew.

She had heard that thoroughwort was growing in considerable quant.i.ty in the old pastures at "Dresser's Lonesome." She did not like to go up there alone, however, for the place was ten or eleven miles away, and the road that led to it ran for most of the distance through deep woods; a road that once proceeded straight through to Canada, but had long since been abandoned. Years before, a young man named Abner Dresser had cleared a hundred acres of land up there and built a house and a large barn; but his wife had been so lonely--there was no neighbor within ten miles--that he had at last abandoned the place.

Finally Catherine asked my cousin Theodora to go up to "Dresser's Lonesome" with her and offered to share the profits of the trip. No one enjoyed such a jaunt better than Theodora, and one day early the previous August, they persuaded me to harness one of the work horses to the double-seated buckboard and to take them up there for the day.

It was a long, hard drive, for the old road was badly overgrown; indeed we were more than two hours in reaching the place. What was our amazement when we drew near the deserted old farmhouse to see a "daguerreotype saloon" standing before it: one of those peripatetic studios on wheels, in which "artists" used to journey about the country taking photographs. Of course, card photographs had not come into vogue then; but there were the daguerreotypes, and later the tintypes, and finally the ambrotypes in little black-and-gilt cases.

Those "saloons" were picturesque little contrivances, not much more than five feet wide by fifteen feet long, and mounted on wheels. On each side was a little window, and overhead was a larger skylight; a flight of three steps led up to a narrow door at the rear. The door opened into the "saloon" proper, where the camera and the visitor's chair stood; forward of that was the cuddy under the skylight, in which the photographer did his developing.

The photographer was usually some ambitious young fellow who, after learning his trade, often made and painted his "saloon" himself.

Frequently he slept in it, and sometimes cooked his meals in it. If he did not own a horse, he usually made a bargain with some farmer to haul him to his next stopping place in exchange for taking his picture. When business grew dull in one neighborhood, he moved to another. He was the true Bohemian of his trade--the gypsy of early photography.

The forward wheels of this one were gone, and its front end was propped up level on a short piece of timber; but otherwise the "saloon" looked as if the "artist" might at that moment be developing a plate inside.

On closer inspection, however, we saw that weeds had sprung up beneath and about it, and I guessed that the wagon had been standing there for at least a month or two; and on peeping in at the little end door we saw that birds or squirrels had been in and out of the place. All that we could make of it was that the photographer, whoever he was, had come there, left his "saloon" and gone away--with the forward wheels.

We gathered a load of herbs and drove home again, much puzzled by our discovery. The story of the "daguerreotype saloon" at Dresser's Lonesome soon spread abroad, but no one was able to furnish a clue to its history. Of course all manner of rumors began to circulate; some people declared that the owner of the "saloon" must be a naturalist who had journeyed up there to take pictures of wild animal life; others thought that the photographer had lost his way and perished in the woods.

When Willis Murch pa.s.sed along the old road in October that fall, the mysterious "saloon" was still standing there; and lumbermen spoke of seeing it there during the winter. That next August, a year after we had first discovered it, Catherine and Theodora again went up to Dresser's Lonesome to gather herbs; and still the "daguerreotype saloon" was there.

It was Halstead who carried the girls up on that trip. The weather had been threatening when they started, and showers soon set in; rain fell pretty much all the afternoon, so that the girls were badly delayed in gathering their herbs. When Halstead declared that it was high time to start for home, Catherine proposed that they stay there overnight and finish their task the next day. The roof of the old farmhouse was now so leaky that they could find no shelter there from the rain; but Catherine suggested that the deserted "daguerreotype saloon" would be a cosy place to camp in.

Theodora did not like the idea very well, for the region was wild and lonely, and Halstead thought he ought to return to the farm.

"Why, this old saloon is just as good as a house!" Catherine said. "We can fasten the door, and then nothing can get in. And we have plenty of lunch left for our supper."

At last Theodora reluctantly agreed to stay. Promising to return for them by noon the next day, Halstead then started for home. After he had gone, the girls gathered a quart or more of raspberries, to eat with their supper. When they had finished the meal, they made, with the sacks of herbs, a couch on the floor of the "saloon," and Catherine fastened the door securely by leaning a narrow plank from the floor of the old barn against it.

For a while the girls lay and talked in low tones. Outside everything was very quiet, and scarcely a sound came to their ears. All nature seemed to have gone to rest; not a whippoorwill chanted nor an owl hooted about the old buildings. Before long Catherine fell peacefully asleep. Theodora, however, who was rather ill at ease in these wild surroundings, had determined to stay awake, and lay listening to the crickets in the gra.s.s under the "saloon." But crickets make drowsy music, and at last she, too, dropped asleep.

Not very much later something b.u.mped lightly against the front end of the "saloon" outside; the noise was repeated several times. Oddly enough, it was not Theodora who waked, but Catherine. She sat up and, remembering instantly where she was, listened without stirring or speaking. Her first thought was that a deer had come round and was rubbing itself against the "saloon."

"It will soon go away," she said to herself, and did not rouse her companion.

The queer, b.u.mping, jarring sounds continued, however, and presently were followed by a heavy jolt. Then for some moments Catherine heard footsteps in the weeds outside, and told herself that there must be two or three deer. She was not alarmed, for she knew that the animals would not harm them; but she hoped that they would not waken Theodora, who might be needlessly frightened.

But presently she heard a sound that she could not explain; it was like the jingling of a small chain. Rising quietly, she peeped out of one of the little side windows, and then out of the other. The clouds had cleared away, and bright moonlight flooded the place, but she could not see anywhere the cause of the disturbance. Whatever had made the sounds was out of sight in front; there was no window at that end of the "saloon."

Still not much alarmed, Catherine stepped up on the one old chair of the studio and cautiously raised the hinged skylight. At that very instant, however, the "saloon" started as if of its own accord and moved slowly across the yard and down the road!

The wagon started so suddenly that Catherine fell off the chair.

Theodora woke, but before she could speak or cry out Catherine was beside her.

"Hush! Hush!" she whispered, and put her hand over her companion's mouth. "Don't be scared! Keep quiet. Some one is drawing the old saloon away!"

That was far from rea.s.suring to Theodora. "Oh, what shall we do?" she whispered in terror.

Catherine was still begging her to be silent, when a terrific jolt nearly threw her off her feet. In great alarm the girls sprang to the little rear door to get out and escape.

But as a result probably of the rocking and straining of the frail structure, the plank that Catherine set against the door had settled down and stuck fast. Again and again she tried to pull it away, but she could not move it. Theodora also tugged at it--in vain. They were imprisoned; they could not get out; and meanwhile the old "saloon" was b.u.mping over the rough road.

"Oh, who do you suppose it is?" Theodora whispered, weak from fear.

"Where do you suppose he is going with us?"

"We must find out. Hold the chair steady, Doad, if you can, while I get up and look out."