The Jungle Fugitives Part 35

"All right; just as you say," and up went the p.r.o.nged pieces and were caught with the same skill as before. Then he essayed a more difficult feat and failed. Maggie clapped her hands with delight, and leaned forward to catch up the bits and try her hand.

At that instant something like a tornado or incipient cyclone struck the barn. They felt the structure swaying, heard the ripping of shingles, and casting his eyes aloft, Tim saw the shingles and framework coming down upon their heads.

It was an appalling moment. If they remained where they were, both would be crushed to death. The door was too far away for both to reach it; though it was barely possible that by a quick leap and dash he might get to the open air in the nick of time, but he would die a hundred times over before abandoning his sister. The open window was too high to be reached from the floor without climbing, and there was no time for that.

The action of a cyclone is always peculiar. Resistless as is its power, it is often confined to a very narrow s.p.a.ce. The one to which I am now referring whipped off a corner of the roof, so loosening the supports that the whole ma.s.s of shingles and rafters covering the larger portion came down as if flung from the air above, while the remainder of the building was left unharmed, the terrified horses not receiving so much as a scratch.

There was one awful second when brother and sister believed that the next would be their last. Then Tim threw his arm around the neck of Maggie and in a flash drew her forward so that she lay flat on her face and he alongside of her; but the twinkling of an eye before that he had seized the block of wood, rejected some time before as a chair, and stood it on end beside his shoulder, keeping his right arm curved round it so as to hold it upright in position, while the other arm prevented Maggie from rising.

"Don't move?" he shouted amid the crashing of timbers and the roaring of the gale; "lie still and you won't be hurt."

She could not have disobeyed him had she tried, for the words were in his mouth when the fearful ma.s.s of timber descended upon them.

CHAPTER III.

Do you understand what Tim Hunter did? Had the ma.s.s of timber descending upon him and his sister been unchecked, they would not have lived an instant. Had it been shattered into small fragments by the cyclone, the ingenious precaution which a wonderful presence of mind enabled hint to make, would have been of no avail.

Take a block of seasoned oak, six inches through, and two feet in height, and interpose it squarely against an approaching body and it is almost as powerful in the way of resistance as so much metal. It would take an ironclad to crush it to pulp, by acting longitudinally or along its line of length. This block stood upright, and received a portion of the rafters, covered by the shingles and held them aloft as easily as you can hold your hat with your outstretched arm. From this point of highest support, the debris sloped away until it rested on the floor, but the open s.p.a.ce, in which the brother and sister lay, was as safe as was their situation, before the gale loosened the structure.

Tim called to his sister and found that not so much as a hair of her head had been harmed, and it was the same with himself. All was darkness in their confined quarters, but the wrenched framework gave them plenty of air to breathe.

Who can picture the feelings of the father, when he saw the collapse of the roof of the barn and knew that his two children were beneath? He rushed thither like a madman, only to be cheered to the highest thankfulness the next moment at hearing their m.u.f.fled a.s.surances that both were all right. A brief vigorous application of his axe and the two were helped out into the open air, neither the worse for their dreadful experience.

The parent could hardly believe what had been done by his boy, when Maggie told him, until an examination for himself showed that it was true. He declared that neither he nor anyone would have thought of the means and applied it with such lightning quickness. It certainly was an extraordinary exhibition of presence of mind and deserved all the praise given to it. The Brereton _Intelligencer_ devoted half a column to a description of the exploit and prophesied that that "young man"

would be heard from again. For weeks and months there was nothing at the disposal of Mr. Hunter which was too good for his boy and it is probable that the indulgence of that period had something to do with making Tim dissatisfied with the prospect of spending all his life as a "hewer of stone."

Gradually as the effects of the remarkable rescue wore off, the impatience of the parent grew until we have seen him on the point of calling to account the boy who had really been the means of saving two lives, for his own was as much imperilled as the sister's. Once more she appealed to that last recourse, and once more it did not fail her.

When he recalled that dreadful scene, he could not help feeling an admiring grat.i.tude for his boy. Although silent and reserved some time later, when the three gathered round the table for their evening meal, nothing unpleasant was said by the parent, though the sharp-witted Tim felt a strong suspicion of the cause of his father's reserve.

Later in the evening, the latter sat down by the table in the sitting room and took up his copy of the Brereton _Intelligencer_, which had arrived that afternoon. He always spent his Thursday evenings in this manner, unless something unusual interfered, the local news and selected miscellany affording enough intellectual food to last him until retiring time.

While he was thus occupied, Tim and Maggie played checkers, there being little difference in their respective skill. They were quiet, and when necessary to speak, did so in low tones, so as not to disturb the parent.

An hour had pa.s.sed, when he suddenly turned, with his spectacles on his nose, and looked at the children. The slight resentment he still felt toward Tim caused him to address himself directly to his sister:

"Maggie, do you know who has been writing these articles in the paper for the last few weeks?"

She held a king suspended as she was on the point of jumping a couple of Tim's and asked in turn:

"What articles?"

"They are signed 'Mit' and each paper for the last two or three months has had one of them."

"No, sir; I do not know who wrote them."

"Well, whoever he is he's a mighty smart fellow."

"Maybe it's a 'she,'" suggested Maggie, as she proceeded to sweep off the board the two kings of Tim that had got in the path of her single one.

"Fudge! no woman can write such good sense as that. Besides, some of them have been on the tariff, the duties of voters, the Monroe Doctrine and politics: what does any woman know about such themes as those?"

"Don't some women write about them?"

"I haven't denied that, but that doesn't prove that they know anything of the subjects themselves."

The miss could make no suitable response to this brilliant remark and did not attempt to do so, while Tim said nothing at all, as if the subject had no attraction to him.

By and by the parent uttered a contemptuous sniff. He was reading "Mit's" contribution, and for the first time came upon something with which he did not agree.

"He's 'way off there," remarked the elder, as if speaking to himself.

"What is it, father?" asked Maggie, ceasing her playing for the moment, for her affection always led her to show an interest in whatever interested him.

"The article is the best I have read until I get toward the end.

Listen: 'No greater mistake can be made than for a parent to force a child into some calling or profession for which he has no liking. The boy will be sure to fail.' Now, what do you think of _that_?"

"The latter part sounds very much like what you said to me this afternoon."

"It isn't that, which is true enough, but the idea that a boy knows better than his father what is the right profession for him to follow.

That doctrine is too much like Young America who thinks he knows it all."

"Read on, father; let me hear the rest."

The father was silent a minute or two, while he skimmed through the article.

"It isn't worth reading," he remarked impatiently, thereby proving that he had been hit by the arguments which he found difficult to refute.

Maggie made no comment, but smiled significantly at Tim across the board, as they resumed their game.

In truth, Mr. Hunter had come upon some sentiments that set him to thinking, such, for instance, as these: "It may be said with truth in many cases, that the father is the best judge of what the future of his son should be. In fact no one can question this, but the father does not always use that superior knowledge as he should. Perhaps he has yielded to the dearest wish of the mother that their son should become a minister. The mother's love does not allow her to see that her boy has no gifts as a speaker and no love for a clergyman's life. He longs to be a lawyer or doctor. Will any one deny that to drive the young man into the pulpit is the greatest mistake that can be made?

"Sometimes a father, with an only son, perhaps, intends that he shall be trained to follow in his footsteps. The boy has a dislike for that calling or profession,--a dislike that was born with him and which nothing can remove. His taste runs in a wholly different channel; whatever talent he has lies there. While it may be convenient for him to step into his parent's shoes, yet he should never be forced to do so, but be allowed to select that for which he has an ability and toward which he is drawn. Parents make such sad mistakes as these, and often do not awake to the fact until it is too late to undo the mischief that has been done. Let them give the subject their most thoughtful attention and good is sure to follow."

It was these words, following on the talk he had had with Maggie a short time before that set Mr. Hunter to thinking more deeply than he had ever done over the problem in which his son was so intimately concerned. After his children had retired and he was left alone, he turned over the paper and read the article again. It stuck to him and he could not drive it away. Laying the journal aside, he lit his pipe and leaned back in his chair.

"It is not pleasant," he mused, "to give up the idea of Tim becoming my successor, for he is the only one I have ever thought of as such. But there is force in what 'Mit' says about driving a boy into a calling or profession that he hates; he will make a failure of it, whereas he might become very successful if left to follow his own preferences. I wonder who 'Mit' is; his articles are the best I have ever read in the _Intelligencer_; I must ask the editor, so I can have him out here and talk over this question which is the biggest bother I ever had."

Before Maggie and Tim separated to go to their rooms, and while at the top of the stairs they whispered together for a few minutes. The parent had got thus far in his musings, when he heard the voice of Maggie calling from above:

"Father, do you think 'Mit' is a smart fellow?"

"Of course, even though I may not agree with all his views," replied the parent, wondering why his child was so interested.

"Would you like to know who he is?"

"Of course, but you told me you didn't know."