Read Ebook: Suicide Command by Mullen Stanley

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Ebook has 356 lines and 12901 words, and 8 pages

"Not very long after that a woman in a neighboring settlement heard her children scream one day in the woods near the house. She rushed out, and saw a bear actually lugging off her youngest.

"She was a sickly, feeble sort of woman, but such a sight was enough to give her the strength and courage of a man. She ran and caught up an axe. Luckily she had a big dog. They two went at the bear.

"The old fellow had no notion of losing his dinner just for a woman and a mongrel cur. But she struck him a tremendous blow on the back; at the same time the pup got him by the leg. He dropped the young one to defend himself. She caught it up and ran, leaving the two beasts to have it out together.

"The bear made short work with the cur, but instead of following the woman and child, he skulked off into the woods.

"The settlers got together for a grand hunt; but Old Two Claws--for the tracks showed that he was the scoundrel--escaped into the mountains, and lived to make more trouble another day.

"The child? Oh, the child was scarcely hurt! It had got squeezed and scratched a little in the final tussle; that was all.

"As to the bear, he was next heard of in our settlement."

"A brother-in-law of my uncle, a man of the name of Rush, was one day chopping in the woods about half a mile from his house, when his wife went out to carry him his luncheon.

"She left two children at home, a boy about five years old, and a baby just big enough to toddle around.

"The boy had often been told that if he strayed into the woods with his brother a bear might carry them off, and she charged him again that forenoon not to go away from the house; but he was an enterprising little fellow, and when the sun shone so pleasant, and the woods looked so inviting, he wasn't one to be afraid of bears.

"The woman stopped to see her husband fall a big beech he was cutting, and then went back to the house; but just before she got there, she saw the oldest boy coming out of the woods on the other side. He was alone. He was white as a sheet, and so frightened at first that he couldn't speak.

"'Johnny,' says she, catching hold of him, 'what is the matter?'

"'A bear!' he gasped out at last.

"'Where is your little brother?' was her next question.

"'I don't know,' said he, too much frightened to know anything just then.

"'Where did you leave him?' says she.

"Then he seemed to have gotten his wits together a little. 'A bear took him!' said he.

"You can guess what sort of an agony the mother was in.

"'O Johnny, tell me true! Think! Where was it?'

"'In the woods,' he said. 'Bear come along,--I run.'

"She caught him up and hurried with him into the woods. She begged him to show her where he was with his little brother when the bear came along. He pointed out two or three places. In one of them the earth was soft. There were fresh tracks crossing it,--bear tracks. There was no doubt about it.

"It was a terrible situation for a poor woman. Whether to follow the bear and try to recover her child, or go at once for her husband, or alarm the neighbors, what to do with Johnny meanwhile,--all that would have been hard enough for her to decide even if she had had her wits about her.

"She hardly knew what she did, but just followed her instinct, and ran with Johnny in her arms, or dragging him after her, to where her husband was chopping.

"Well," continued the one-eyed hostler, "I needn't try to describe what followed. They went back to the house, and Rush took his rifle and started on the track of the bear, vowing that he would not come back without either the child or the bear's hide.

"The news went like wildfire through the settlement. In an hour half-a-dozen men with their dogs were on the track with Rush. It was so much trouble for him to follow the trail that they soon overtook him with the help of the dogs.

"But in spite of them the bear got into the mountains. Two of the dogs came up with him, and one, the only one that could follow a scent, had his back broken by a stroke of his paw. After that it was almost impossible to track him, and one after another the hunters gave up and returned home.

"At last Rush was left alone; but nothing could induce him to turn back. He shot some small game in the mountains, which he cooked for his supper, slept on the ground, and started on the trail again in the morning.

"Along in the forenoon he came in sight of the bear as he was crossing a stream. He had a good shot at him as he was climbing the bank on the other side.

"The bear kept on, but it was easier tracking him after that by his blood.

"That evening a hunter, haggard, his clothes all in tatters, found his way to a backwoodsman's hut over in White's Valley. It was Rush. He told his story in a few words as he rested on a stool. He had found no traces of his child, but he had killed the bear. It was Old Two Claws. He had left him on the hills, and came to the settlement for help.

"The hunt had taken him a round-about course, and he was then not more than seven miles from home. The next day, gun in hand, with the bear-skin strapped to his back,--the carcass had been given to his friend the backwoods-man,--he started to return by an easier way through the woods.

"It was a sad revenge he had had, but there was a grim sort of satisfaction in lugging home the hide of the terrible Old Two Claws.

"As he came in sight of his log-house, out ran his wife to meet him, with--what do you suppose?--little Johnny dragging at her skirts, and the lost child in her arms.

"Then, for the first time, the man dropped; but he didn't get down any further than his knees. He clung to his wife and baby, and thanked God for the miracle.

"But it wasn't much of a miracle, after all.

"Little Johnny had been playing around the door, and lost sight of the baby, and maybe forgotten all about him, when he strayed into the woods and saw the bear. Then he remembered all that he had heard of the danger of being carried off and eaten, and of course he had a terrible fright. When asked about his little brother, he didn't know anything about him, and I suppose really imagined that the bear had got him.

"But the baby had crawled into a snug place under the side of the rain-trough, and there he was fast asleep all the while. Then he woke up two or three hours after, and the mother heard him cry; her husband was far away on the hunt.

"True,--this story I've told you?" added the one-eyed hostler, as some one questioned him. "Every word of it!"

"But your name is Rush, isn't it?" I said.

The one eye twinkled humorously.

"My name is Rush. My uncle's brother-in-law was my own father."

"And you?" exclaimed a bystander.

"I," said the one-eyed hostler, "am the very man who warn't eaten by the bear when I was a baby!"

RECONCILIATION.

We crown the unconscious brew with wreath of bays We press in pulseless hands the sweetest flowers. When all unneeded any grace of ours We find a voice for all the loving praise For which, perhaps, through weary, unblessed days The heart had hungered. We are slow to prove The tenderness we feel, till some dark day We can do naught but bow our head and pray That Heaven may teach us how to show our love. May it not be that on the other side They wait for us, and, like us, long to make The sad wrongs right, ready to give and take The hand-clasps and the kisses here denied? Carlotta Perry.

For the Companion. CUSPADORES.

There is probably no human weakness that awakens more derisive contempt than a false assumption of superior knowledge. The vanity of young people frequently leads them into ludicrous positions, and sometimes even into serious difficulties, through a pretence of knowing things of which they are really ignorant. The experience of one of my young friends is a case in point.

Silvia Morden is a girl of sixteen. She is both bright and pretty. Her worst fault was the one I have mentioned,--a most ridiculous mania for wishing to appear well acquainted with all subjects.

The flattery of her companions at Miss Hall's "Young Ladies' Academy" no doubt had something to do with this folly; for she was generous, end a great favorite with her schoolmates. It often led her into difficulties, as falsehood in any form always does, and Silvia was really becoming a confirmed liar when the little episode I am about to relate, checked her on the very brink of the precipice.

But the Atwood girls did what they could to follow the fashions. Old ginger-jars were dragged down, covered with paint, and pasted over with beetles, and birds, and flowers, in utter disregard of the unities. Here Egyptian scarabaei were perched on an Alpine mountain; there a clay amphora, of the shape of the Greeks or Romans, was adorned with gaudy plates cut out of fashion magazines.

Silvia's decorations were rather better than those of her acquaintances. She read everything she could on the subject, but, with her usual self-conceit, refused to ask any questions of those who might have enlightened her, and in fact, set herself up as an oracle on art decorations.

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