Part 8 (1/2)
VII
TWICE IN JEOPARDY
COOL and sparkling after its morning rain-bath, and showing along its green ridges those first, faint signs of yellow that foretell a coming ripeness, the gra.s.s-mantled prairie lay beneath the warm noon sun. The little girl, cantering over it toward the sod shanty on the farther river bluffs, frightened the trilling meadow-larks, as she pa.s.sed, from their perch on the dripping sunflowers, and scattered the drops on the wild wheat-blades with the hoofs of her blind black pony.
The storm had wept so copiously upon the fading plains that the furrows, turned along the edge of the broad wheat-field to check fires, ran full and swift down the gentle slope that the little girl was crossing and almost kept pace with her pony. Every hollow in her path was filled to the brim, and the chain of sloughs to the south, now resounding with the joyous quacks of bluewings and mallards, were swelling their waters with the feeding of countless streams. And the drenched ground, where the flowers bent their clean faces as if worn with the heavy downpour, sent up that grateful essence that follows in the wake of a shower.
The blind, black pony felt the new life in the springy turf and the fresh air and flirted his unshod heels dangerously near to a tracking wolf-dog as he splashed through runlet and pool. _Pluff-et-y-pluff, pluff-et-y-pluff, pluff-et-y-pluff_, he drummed softly, and the panting hound, muzzle down, followed with a soft _swish, swish_. But to the little girl, thinking of the bounty for gopher brushes that her big brothers had offered her the day before, the galloping echoed a different song: _A-cent-for-a-tail, a-cent-for-a-tail, a-cent-for-a-tail_, it sang in her ears, till she struck the pony a welt on the flanks with the ends of her long rope reins, and jerked his head impatiently toward the shallow ford that led to the home of the Swede boy.
THE morning before, the little girl's mother and the three big brothers had held an indignation meeting in the timothy meadow, which, once the choicest bit of hay land on the farm, was now so thickly strewn with wide, brown gopher-mounds, that the little girl, with a good running start down the barren corn strip, could cross it without touching a spear of gra.s.s, by bopping from one hillock to another. But while this amused her very much, for she pretended that the knolls were muskrat houses in a deep, deep slough, it only enraged her mother and the big brothers. For the gray gophers had intrenched themselves so well in the timothy, and had thrown up such damaging earthworks, that only a scythe could save what little hay remained; and they had not only taken into their burrows--as had been discovered the week before--all the freshly dropped seed from the barren corn strip, but had dug up kernels all over the field when they were sprouting into stalks.
The meadow had lain fallow the summer before, and had served no further use than the grazing of some picketed cows. Then, one parching July day it had been cut, to kill the thistles and pigweed that overran it, and in the following May had been plowed, dragged, and sown to wild timothy.
The few mounds dotting it had been turned under with the belief that, between the fallow and the new plowing, the gophers would be driven out.
Instead, they had kept to their burrows and, all in good time, had tripled their number.
So, as the little girl's mother and the big brothers stood on the edge of the timothy and viewed the concave stretch that should have showed green and waving from its rim to the boggy center, they planned the destruction of the rodents, and declared that if any escaped death by poison, the little girl should snare them and receive a cent for each tail.
When her mother's calico slat-sunbonnet and the big hats of her big brothers had bobbed out of sight across the corn, the little girl sat down upon a hillock and counted gophers. But there were so many and they ran about so much that she could not keep track of them; so she gave it up soon and began to think over all the things she would buy from the thick catalogue with the money she would get when she had snared a great number.
And she was still sitting there, watching the gophers covetously, when she saw the eldest brother returning. He had a salmon-can full of poisoned wheat in one hand, and when he reached the meadow he made a circuit and left a pinch of grain at the mouths of a score of burrows, where the greedy animals could find it and cram it into their cheek-pouches, and then crawl into their holes to die. When he had distributed all the grain, he threw the salmon-can away, wiped his fingers on his overalls, and started for the watermelon patch.
The little girl had silently withdrawn into the corn-field at his approach, but now she came out and, after satisfying herself that he was out of sight, picked up the can and also made a circuit of the meadow.
Strangely enough, she stopped at the very burrows he had visited. When she was done, she went to the boggy center, found a deep cow track that was half full of water, and carefully emptied the can into it. Then she took it back to where the eldest brother had thrown it, and, with a look toward the watermelon patch, went home.
On his way back to the farm-house, the eldest brother paused in the timothy to see if the gophers had eaten of the poisoned grain. He was delighted to find, on going from hill to hill, that not a single kernel was visible! He imparted the good news to the family at the dinner-table, and it was received with rejoicing. The little girl alone was silent. But, doubtless, she had not heard what he said, for she was intent upon a huge piece of dried-prune cobbler.
That afternoon she went out to the barn to get some hair for a slipping-noose. Kate, the raw-boned cultivator horse, standing idle in her stall, turned her head and nickered when she heard the door creak open, expecting a nibble of sugar-bread. But the little girl had nothing for her. Instead, she rolled a dry-goods box into an adjoining stall, climbed upon it, and, reaching over the rough board side, got hold of Kate's long black tail.
The mare flattened her ears back, stamped crossly, and swayed her hind quarters against the opposite part.i.tion. But the little girl only clung the tighter and, unmindful in her security, chose and pulled out a dozen of the longest hairs she could find. Then, jumping down, she arranged them, ends together, hooked them over a nail at their center, and plaited them. And when she had tied a piece of stout, dark string to the end of the braid, she slipped it through the hair loop. The next moment, with a stick in one hand and the snare in the other, she started happily for the meadow.
When she reached it, saucy _chur-r-rs_ from all over the timothy announced her. And as she paused on its edge to decide which burrow she would attack first, a dozen gophers sat up on their haunches to look at her, or frisked gaily from mound to mound.
She caught sight of a gray back at a near-by hole, and, running forward, chased the animal out of sight, stooped and carefully arranged the noose around the opening, and, after covering it with dirt, straightened the string to its full length. Then she crept back noiselessly to the hole to take a last peep before she threw herself down flat upon her stomach, grasped the end of the string, and lay very still.
For a moment there was no movement at the burrow. But soon the tip end of a gopher's nose appeared, the whiskers moving inquiringly, and disappeared. When it came again, the little girl whistled a note softly, and the nose came out so far that two sharp black eyes showed. The eyes saw her, too, and the gopher, growing bolder and more inquisitive, raised himself higher on his fore paws to take a better look. Presently all of his white throat was visible, and the little girl knew that it was time to act. With one quick, vigorous jerk of her extended right arm, she tightened the loop around him. And, amid a whirl of dirt, gray tail, and tawny back, the gopher was pulled out into the timothy.
The little girl sat upon her knees and looked at him. Her heart was beating wildly, and she was almost as scared as the panting creature at the end of her string. He held the snare taut as he crouched in a bunch of gra.s.s and watched her. Finally, she pulled at it a little. It brought him toward her, reluctantly sliding along on his feet, which he braced stiffly. Then, as she pulled again, he began to tug madly, and clattered in alarm.
”_Seek--seek!_” he cried, twisting and turning his lithe body; ”_seek--seek--seek!_” The next instant he took the string into his mouth and bit it ferociously.
The little girl paled at the sight, and arose trembling to her feet.
This shortened the snare, and the gopher came nearer, tumbling over and over through the gra.s.s. Remembering her stick, the little girl backed slowly toward it, not taking her eyes off him for an instant. But, as she retreated, the string tightened again, and the gopher advanced as before. The little girl, still too far from the stick, trembled more than ever at his wild cries, and her hand shook so that she could hardly hold the snare. He was attacking it with all his might, bounding into the air and, blindly fearless in his danger, coming toward her faster than she could step backward.
A moment she paused, shaking her ap.r.o.n to try to scare him. But as, hissing and fighting, he rolled against her bare feet, she dropped the string, turned her face from the meadow--and fled!