The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 19

As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, a redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored to [v]solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.

This idea [v]buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his [v]constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into those dread depths beneath.

His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The messenger had been even more [v]dilatory than he was prepared to expect.

Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson clouds and an [v]opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines on the ledge.

And now there were only frowning ma.s.ses of dark clouds in the west; and there were frowning ma.s.ses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.

And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head.

The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious brightness within,--too bright for human eyes.

He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was full of that wild [v]symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill tones.

Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail.

George Birt had indeed forgotten him,--forgotten even the promised "whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.

To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.

As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top of a large pincushion.

At home, he found the elders unreasonable,--as elders usually are considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair his appet.i.te for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for bed when a small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement and stimulated his memory.

"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."

"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild tur-r-key's whings like he promised."

"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his friend.

"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."

"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for generosity.

"Waal,"--there was an expression of embarra.s.sment on the important freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory manner,--"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings--I mean, he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened a--leetle--while--arter dinner-time."

"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarra.s.sment. "Waal,"--the youngster balanced this word judicially,--"I forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar yit."

"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed Pete, appalled and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that boy is ter put him on the fire fur a back-log."

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the well, asked the [v]crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.

By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so [v]intermittent that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.

"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to himself, in one of these [v]eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all night."

The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the crag. He identified the spot by the ma.s.s of broken vines, and more positively by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He called, but received no response.

"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as though the speaker had just awaked.

"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and flung it over the bluff.

At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to his feet.

He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath.

Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the crag.

And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar mounting, from a b'ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."

And Ethan was silent.

"What's this hyar thing at the end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.

"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly, "I tied her ter the e-end o'

the rope afore I kem up."

"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.

And George, for duty performed, was [v]remunerated with the two "whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan whether or not he deserved them.

CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial?

Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains--Charles Egbert Craddock.

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come--John Fox, Jr.

June--John Fox, Jr.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in the warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The gra.s.shopper's among some gra.s.sy hills.

JOHN KEATS.