Part 5 (1/2)
Everybody now began to talk at once. Harry's father was so delighted to find his boy again, that he did not care to explain anything, and he and Harry walked off together.
But Captain Caseby told Tony all about it. How he, Mr. Loudon, and old Mr. Wagner, had set out to look for Harry; how Mr. Wagner soon became so tired that he had to give up, and go home, and how Mr. Loudon had gone through the woods to the north, while he kept down by the creek, searching on both sides of the stream, and how they had both walked, and walked, and walked all night, and had met at last down by the river.
”How did you manage to meet Mr. Loudon?” asked Tony.
”I heard him hollerin',” said the captain.
”He hollered pretty near all night, he told me.”
”Why didn't you holler?” Tony asked.
'Oh, I never exercise my voice in the night air,' said the captain.
”It's against my rules.”
”Well, you'd better break your rules next time you go out in the woods where Harry is,” said the turkey-hunter, ”or he'll pop you over for a turkey or a musk-rat. He's a sharp shot, I kin tell ye.”
”You don't really mean he was after me last night with a gun!” exclaimed Captain Caseby.
”He truly was,” declared Tony; ”he was a-trackin' you his Sunday best.
It was bad for you that it was so dark that he couldn't see what you was; but it might have been worse for ye if it hadn't been so dark that he couldn't find ye at all.”
”I'm glad I didn't know it,” said the captain earnestly; ”thoroughly and completely glad I didn't know it. I should have yelled all the skin off my throat, if I'd have known he was after me with a gun.”
After Harry had been home an hour or two, and Kate had somewhat recovered from her transports of joy, and everybody in the village had heard all about everything that had happened, and Captain Caseby had declared, in the bosom of his family, that he would never go out into the woods again at night without keeping up a steady ”holler,” Harry remembered that he had left his sumac-bag somewhere in the woods. Hard work for a whole day and a night, and nothing to show for it! Rather a poor prospect for Aunt Matilda.
CHAPTER VII.
AUNT MATILDA'S CHRISTMAS.
When Harry and Kate held council that afternoon, their affairs looked a little discouraging. Kate's sumac was weighed, and it was only seven pounds! Seven whole cents, if they took it out in trade, or five and a quarter cents, as Kate calculated, if they took cash. A woman as large as Aunt Matilda could not be supported on that kind of an income, it was plain enough.
But our brave boy and girl were not discouraged. Harry went after his bag the next day, and found it with about ten pounds of leaves in it.
Then, for a week or two, he and his sister worked hard and sometimes gathered as much as twenty-five pounds of leaves in a day. But they had their bad days, when there was a great deal of walking and very little picking.
And then, in due course of time, school began and the sumac season was at an end, for the leaves are not merchantable after they begin to turn red, although they are then a great deal prettier to look at.
But then Harry went out early in the morning, and on Sat.u.r.days, and shot hares and partridges, and Kate began to sell her chickens, of which she had twenty-seven (eighteen died natural deaths, or were killed by weasels during the summer), they found that they made more money than they could have made by sumac gathering.
”It's a good deal for you two to do for that old woman,” said Captain Caseby, one day.
”But, didn't we promise to do it?” said Miss Kate, bravely. ”We'd do twice as much, if there were two of her.”
It was very fortunate, however, that there were not two of her.
Sometimes they had extraordinary luck. Early one November morning Harry was out in the woods and caught sight of a fat wild-turkey.
Bang!--one dollar.