Читать книгу Grain - Robert James Campbell Stead - Страница 4

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By all the rules upon which insurance companies base what they call the expectation of life Gander should have been dead long before he reached his tenth anniversary. In that brief decade he had piloted his little ship, quite without medical interference, through the seas of those infantile diseases, measles, whooping cough, and scarlet fever. Gander regarded these as mere incidents, annoying for the few days during which they enforced his confinement in the house, but otherwise without significance. His attack by a malady known locally as the prairie itch was a more serious matter; it flourished in winter, when he wore his heavy woolens, and subjected him to genuine discomfort when he sat by the kitchen stove after being out in the cold. There he would scratch and squirm until it was time to go to bed. His mother gave him sulphur and molasses, and, when one of his numerous colds threatened to rasp the tonsils out of his throat, fed him on a concoction of onions boiled in vinegar.

Gander had not at that time read Genesis, nor, for that matter, has he yet, so far as I am aware, but he believed with our first parents that all the fruits of the field were given to man for his subsistence, and he conducted himself accordingly. Strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, currants, chokeberries, rose-haws, "buffalo beans"—not commonly regarded as edible—found their way into his capacious little maw with no more serious results than may be set right by timely administrations of that well-known lubricant which every adult considers indispensable to the health of children, but which no one takes on his own account after he has reached the age of self-determination. He ate the leaves of every flower of the prairie, but was particularly partial to rose leaves and the purple blooms of the so-called prairie crocus. He gnawed the bark from the toothsome red willow, and he dug up "snake" root and ate it moist and earthy as it came from its natural element. He chewed the rank weeds and cattails that grew in the marsh at the head of the lake, and, under cover of the deepest secrecy, he smoked sections of porous cane which he cut from the shanks of discarded buggy whips.

His adventures with disease and foodstuffs by no means covered the range of Gander's hazards. Before he was ten he twice had fallen into the lake; once in summer, from a log upon which he had improvised a raft, and once in winter, when he skated into a fishing hole. In each case he managed to get out again, and, in the former instance, did not bother to go home to report the occurrence.

His winter plunge was more serious. By much coaxing Gander had persuaded his father to exchange the price of four bushels of wheat for a pair of skates. In those days the luxury of special skating boots, with the blades securely screwed to the soles, was unknown, at least in Gander's circles, or perhaps this adventure would not have taken place. Ten bushels of wheat for boots and skates would have seemed prohibitive to even so indulgent a father as Jackson Stake. The skates of that day could be attached to any stout farm boot, provided the heel or sole were not too badly worn away. Adjustments were made by means of a key, in the genial neighborhood of the kitchen stove; then one walked to the ice with his skates flung over his shoulder, and snapped them to place as he sat on a stone or a stump by the edge of the lake. Gander had done all this, and was swinging up and down the lake in great exhilaration of spirit, the ice ringing under his steel blades, when pop! into the hole he went. Some one had made the hole the previous day for spearing fish, and the tissue of ice which had formed during the night was not strong enough to bear the child's weight. He splashed over his head, but bobbed up again in an instant; flung out his arms, and managed to find hand-hold on some of the rough chopped ice about the hole.

"O-o-h!" said Gander, "it's cold!" his teeth already chattering. His first impulse was to shout for help, but it was a mile and a half to his father's house, and there was not a chance in a thousand of any one being within reach of his voice. No one—but Queenie! The dog had come down to the lake with him, and was off in the bush, hunting rabbits.

"Oh, Queenie, Queenie!" he called, and then, because he was essentially religious, he began to pray. "Oh, God, make Queenie hear me," he cried, "and I won't——" But before he had made any indiscreet commitments the dog appeared, racing toward him.

"All right, God," he said, his assurance returning. "I guess Queenie an' me can make it."

The dog came close to the black hole in the ice, now slopping water over its edge, and Gander, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, during which he was almost at the point of praying again, managed to slip one hand through her leather collar. "Now, Queenie, pull!" he threatened. "You pull me out or I'll pull you in."

The dog pulled, and Gander had enough presence of mind not to expect to be pulled out perpendicularly. He threw his body into a horizontal position, as in swimming. This brought one of his feet into contact with the solid ice at the opposite side of the hole. A thrust, a lurch, a scramble, and he was up in safety again. He whipped his skates from his boots and started on a run for home.

"Well, for the soul or sake o' me!" his mother exclaimed as Gander plunged through the door, panting to exhaustion, with Queenie at his heels. "What you been up to?... My land, did you fall in the lake?" She was on her knees beside him then, her heart suddenly choked with concern. Gander's outer clothes were a thick icy film, but his run had kept his body warm. The buttons were frozen fast in their buttonholes, so his mother ripped the trousers down the outside of the leg until they could be drawn off him. In a few minutes she had him in bed with a hot stove-lid at his feet and a glass of hot chokeberry wine in his stomach. Gander experienced a sense of delicious comfort, and presently fell asleep. When he awoke it was morning, and he was as fit as ever.

By the time Gander was eight he was shooting gophers with a muzzle-loading shotgun that had been in the family for at least a generation. He carried his powder and shot in old-fashioned horns made for the purpose, and reloaded the gun himself, out alone on the prairies. First he would pour a charge of powder into the barrel—a barrel so long (and the boy so short) that he had to stand it at a slope in order to reach its muzzle—then force it down with a crumpled lump of paper in front of his ramrod. The powder must be well pounded down, after which the charge of shot is poured in, and held to place by another wad of paper, which need not be pounded down quite so hard as the first. Then you turn the gun end for end, raise the hammer, and examine the nipple cautiously, to make sure that the powder has come down all the way. If not, you will do well to drop a few grains of powder from your horn straight into the nipple; it may save you a mis-fire, and the annoyance of having to do it afterward. Having made sure that the powder has come down all right you take the box of percussion caps out of your pants pocket—the little box with the lid which never comes off easily and never goes on straight—and you press a cap home on the nipple. Then you let the hammer carefully down to place, and you are ready for the next gopher.

"A dangerous business!" you say. "Incredibly dangerous for a boy of eight!" Not so dangerous as dodging street cars and automobiles, which, we may remember, were not among the menaces threatening young Gander's life.

As a matter of fact, Gander met with only one mishap in all his shooting experiences. That was the summer he was ten. He had been hunting plover, and was walking homeward with his empty gun swung across his shoulder, when, cresting a ridge that commanded a small pond, he was astonished to see a dozen or more grey geese resting at the water's edge. It is an unusual thing for the wild goose to rest without sentries on guard, but fancied security may be the undoing of even a goose. The boy sank as silently as an Indian into the grass; then drew himself gently back over the ridge and out of sight. There he quickly reloaded his gun, pouring in twice the charges he would have used for plover, and then, his heart thumping like a drum, he wormed his way like a snake back up to the crest of the ridge.

Gander never had shot a goose; this was his chance of sudden glory. Steady, Gander, steady! What will they say at home when you carry in a great grey goose—maybe two of them? What will they say at school? What will that detested brother Jackie say, who is forever belittling your marksmanship? Gander raised his gun slowly. The blood was swirling in his head, but his hand was steady. There were two geese sitting right in a row; a long shot but a good target. Gander lined them with his sight, being careful to keep his eye close down to the breech. There they are, covered by it! Gander hugged the stock to his shoulder and fired the left barrel—he had grown into the habit of always firing the left barrel first, because that was the rear trigger, and his little arm was too short to reach the other trigger with comfort.

What happened next Gander never knew. When he awoke the sun was just setting—and it was mid-afternoon when he fired! He arose on his left arm, but a stab of pain flattened him again on the grass. His right arm seemed paralyzed. There was something clammy and sticky about his face. He rubbed his cheek and found a cut now choked with a plaster of dried blood. The discovery sent a strange creepy feeling up his spine. Had he shot himself? Was he dying? The tears came into his eyes—he was only ten—and the thought of dying alone on the prairie came as near to terrifying him as anything ever had done. He wished Queenie were there, but he had forbidden her to come on this trip, because, with all her amiable qualities, she had an annoying habit of racing in among the plover at inopportune moments. She was a collie, not a bird dog. Once again his religious subconsciousness asserted itself, and he began to pray. Then his eye fell on his gun, lying some paces away, and the sight stirred him to action.

He arose slowly. He got up on his knees, he stood on his legs. To his surprise and joy they did not collapse under him. Then he experimented with his right arm. It was stiff and sore, but he could hold it out. He even could swing it a little.

"I guess it ain't broke, or I couldn't do that," he consoled himself. And suddenly his heart was very light as he realized that he was not about to die, after all.

He picked up his gun and examined it. It appeared to be none the worse; it was docile in his hands. He stroked the long, lean barrel; it gave no hint of its recent treachery.

"Just a kick," he soliloquized, a little sheepish now over his scare. "But gee—didn't it spill me! Wonder what made it kick like that? I held it good an' tight." Then, his mind suddenly connecting up with recent events—"Wonder if I got a goose!"

He raced down to the water's edge, all his injuries forgotten. There were the tracks, right there in the mud. He hunted around. Just as he was about convinced that he had missed his mark he almost fell over a stout body in a clump of grass. He seized it. A grey goose—a great big grey goose! When he lifted it by the head it seemed almost as long as himself. With a whoop he gathered up his gun and started on a run for home.

"Pretty late out shootin', ain't yuh?" his father challenged, as he stood in the door. "Got your mother scared half—jumpin' jack rabbits, what's that? A goose!" His father was beside him with a great stride. "A dandy, ain't he? Good boy, Bill! But you're all over blood—should be more careful carryin' it. Good boy!"

It was the proudest moment in Gander's life. What were a cut face and a bruised arm to glory like this?

"Gun kicked a bit," he explained. "Nothin' much. Cut my face a bit."

"You might ha' been killed," his mother commented. "I'm scared to death some day you'll come home dead. Well, there's another goose to pluck an' clean an' stuff an' cook——"

"Gee, we ain't had a goose for a dog's age," Gander protested. He resented his mother's lack of enthusiasm. Hadn't he shot a goose, and he was only ten? He was beginning to feel that mothers didn't understand. His father did.

"What did you do—fire both barrels at once?" his father asked him. He had the gun in his hands, examining it.

"No—just the left. Look out for it—the right's loaded."

His father was dropping the ramrod down the barrels. "'Tain't!" he said at length. "No charge in this gun!"

The two men looked at each other for a full minute.

"Sure you loaded both barrels?"

"Sure. I came up on the geese sudden, with the gun emp'y. Then I dodged back behind the ridge an' loaded 'er—double charge in both barrels. But I only fired one—I'm sure o' that."

His father hung the gun on its two nails over the door before he spoke. "Guess you rammed both charges into one barrel, Bill," he said, solemnly. "It's a God's mercy you ain't killed."

Two days later Jackson Stake brought a new breech-loading shotgun home from Plainville. "Take that, Bill," he said, "an' throw that ol' gopher-duster in the bone-yard."

Gander's eyes jumped, and he committed one of those rare indiscretions in the Stake household—he gave evidence of affection. He actually put his arms around his father. And Jackson Stake absent-mindedly rested his hand in the boy's tousled hair for a fraction of a moment.

"Well of all things!" said Susie Stake. "I bet that weepon cost the price of a load o' wheat."

"May be cheaper 'n a funeral at that," was her husband's dry rejoinder.