272 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



fAPRiL 81, 1887. 



to come from everywhere and could be located nowhere. 

 One moment she was so vexed and impatient that if she 

 had come upon the little wanderer her first impulse would 

 have been to give her a scolding; the next she was chok- 

 ing with a swelling ache of dread that she would have 

 given the world to have cured by a sight of the yellow- 

 polled pet and tease, whom if she'might but find alive and 

 well she would never scold again. So she hurried on in 

 her fruitless search till she came to the tipper end of the 

 half-cleared field where the lofty branches of the great 

 trees linteled the doorway of the ancient forest, whose 

 depths and darkness and mystery she feared but would 

 dare to enter if there was one promised chance of her 

 finding the lost child there. Yes, lost. The fact with all 

 its terrible possibilities forced itself upon her, and horri- 

 ble visions floated in swiftly returning procession before 

 her misty eyes of the little form lying dead at the foot of 

 a precipice, or drowned in a brook pool, or torn by wild 

 beasts, or at best stumbling blindly onward in a craze of 

 fright perhaps to a worse death by starvation and terror. 

 It would be only a waste of precious time for her to go 

 into the woods; there was nothing for her to do but to 

 hasten home and rouse the neighborhood for the search. 

 She mounted a great boulder for one more unrewarded 

 look, and to make another unanswered call. She could 

 see her home basking in the August sun with such a rest- 

 ful air as if it was never to shelter the sorrow that was 

 soon to enter it; and a wood thrush filled the cloisters of 

 the woods with his sweet chiine of silver bells as if there 

 was naught but peace and happiness there. Huldah was 

 no saint, and she felt an angry resentment of this mock- 

 ery of her trouble. She could have wrung the thrush's 

 neck to end the song so ill attuned to her feelings, and it 

 would have been a slight relief to see some token of dis- 

 turbance about the house, though it would not have qui- 

 eted her self-reproach. If this wrathful feeling had not 

 been overpowered by the stronger emotion of grief before 

 she reached home, it might have been somewhat appeased 

 by the pervading air of anxiety that brooded over the 

 household. Her father, watching for her as he smoked 

 his after-dinner pipe, came out to meet her, questioning 

 her with a troubled face. She only halted to say in a 

 choked voice, "Oh, father, she's lost! Hurry, an' raout 

 aout everybody!" and answered the inquiring" look of the 

 hired men who stopped their meditative whittling and 

 arose from the doorstep at her approach with, "Polly's 

 lost! Go an' tell 'em all tu come an' help find her!" Her 

 mother, meeting her at the door, heard this, and retreat- 

 ing to the nearest chair, sat down, spreading a helpless 

 hand on either knee. "0 dear me suz! Huldy, I don't 

 see haow on airth vou ever, ever come tu let her go!" 



"O mother, don't! Is the' any tea left? I'm a chokin', 

 an' tuckered." She poured out a cupful from the teapot, 

 swallowed it at a draught, and went quickly out. " I 'm a 

 goin' tu Joel's an' Solon's an' Hiilses' an' that way 's fur 

 's I can tu tell 'em," she said to her father, who was hur- 

 riedly consulting with the men. "You an' John an' Lije 

 go t' other ways. I searched and hollered all over the 

 stump lot, an' never seen nothin' on her but her track 

 where she crossed the brook, a goin'," and she hastened 

 down the road. 



"Thee don't say so!" Jemima Bartlett said, her placid 

 face full of pity when Huldah briefly told her errand. 

 "The poor little precious! I'll call the men folks right off 

 up aouten the medder. They'll come tu rights when 

 they hear the horn. Thee 'd better come in an' sed daown 

 an' rest thee a spell, thee does look so beat aout. poor 

 child." 



But Huldah sped on while the blasts of the conch shell 

 were echoing from the hills, and when she looked back 

 as she turned into Solon Briggs's yard, she saw Joel and 

 his hired man trudging along the road toward her home. 



Solon happened to be mending his "hay-riggin'," and, 

 dropping his tools in the door-yard chips, he hastened 

 away as soon as he heard her message, stopping only to 

 ask if it would be "more essif actions for him tu go an' 

 help her raise a human-cry?" 



Joseph Hill came to the door in his stockings trying to 

 rub and gape away the left-over sleepiness of an after 

 dinner nap. When he had slowly ptdled on his boots he 

 was ready to go; he hardly knew which way till he had 

 "told M'ri," who came with the youngest baby in her 

 arms, and two a-f oot tugging at her skirts and peeping 

 from behind them, while she offered her condolences. 

 The whistling growl of Gran'ther Hill came from where 

 he sat in his armchair at the back door, asking many 



guestions: "What is 't yer a talkin' 'baout M'rier? Some- 

 ody lost? Who is it? Purin't'ns' young un? Don't 

 Purin't'ns' folks know no better 'n tu let a baby gwoff 

 int' the woods? Why didn't they chuck her int' the 

 cisfc'n? Then they 'd ha' knowed where she was! Wal, I 

 s'pose we all got tu turn aout an' sarch arter her," and he 

 came stamping through the house with his hat on and 

 his cane in his hand. "You needn't talk to me M'rier!" 

 he said, glowering fiercely at his daughter in-law when 

 she mildly protested against his going, "I haint ol' nuther, 

 I tell ye. Eighty-five year haint nothin' tu a man 'ats 

 ben where I ben, when the's babies lost in the woods! 

 I've tracked Injins, an' I guess I c'n track a foolish little 

 young un!" and he marched off with his sou with as 

 much alacrity as he had responded to Ethan Allen's call 

 in the long past May of his youth. 



Presently Huldah was at Uncle Lisha's telling her 

 sympathizing old friend, Aunt Jerusha, of the loss of the 

 child, and she added as she had not before, "It's all my 

 fault — I let her go a baryin'!" The old man was in the 

 shop mending a piece of harness, and the door between 

 the shop and the house being open, as it usually was when 

 he had no visitors, his ears caught the girl's voice and 

 something of her story. 



"Good airth an' seas! Huldy, what's that you're a 

 sayin'? Sissy lost? Haow? Where?" he shouted as he 

 suddenly appeared in the doorway with the tug in' his 

 hand. Then she told him all she could, repeating that it 

 was all her fault, for she found a little comfort in making 

 this confession now. 



"Wal," pitching the tug back into the shop, and un- 

 tying his apron and sloughing it off on the threshold, "I'll 

 go an' du what I can. I c'n waddle 'raound in the woods 

 arter a fashion, an' I c'n holler c'nsid'able, an' I tell ye 

 hollerin' caounts sech times. Fust I'll go an' holler fer 

 Tanmus. Say, Huldy, I'll tell ye," he said, turning to- 

 ward her while one upstretched hand groped along the 

 pegs for his hat, "the's one man in Dan vis 'at I druther 

 hev a sarchin' for Sissy 'an all the hull caboodle on us, 

 ol" an' young, big an' little. He knows the woods julluk 

 a book, an' c'n read every sign hi 'em— an' that 'ere man 



is Samwill Lovel ! You're spryer 'n I be, 'n' some spryer 

 'n Jerushy, I guess. You cut over to his haouse an' start 

 him I" 



"O, Uncle Lisher! 1 can't!" Huldah gasped, her hot 

 tired face paling an instant, then burning redder with 

 blushes, "I can't ! Someb'dy else '11 tell him. You go 

 an' tell him !" 



"I tell ye Huldy, you mus' go ! The' haint no time for 

 me tu turkle over there, an' you comin' this way they'll 

 depend on your tellin' on him 1 Good airth an' seas! gal, 

 this haint no time for stinkin' pride 'f you be aout with 

 him. He'd sarch tu the eend o' the airth if you ast him 

 — he warships the graound you tread ! Go right stret, 

 an' clipper, tu !" and having got his hat on he took her 

 by the shoulders and gently pushed her outdoors, and 

 as far as the gate, facing her the desired way. She 

 went on, accelerating her pace till she was running when 

 she came to the door of the Lovel homestead, caring 

 for nothing now so much as the finding of her lost sister. 



Mrs. Lovel, Sam's stepmother, a gaunt, hard-featured 

 woman, came to the open door beating the threshold 

 with a broom to frighten away some intruding chickens. 

 "Shoo ! you pesterin' torments ! I wish 't the aigs o' yer 

 breed was destr'yed ! Why, massy sakes alive ! Huldy 

 Pur'n't'n ! What be you in sech a pucker 'baout ?" she 

 cried in astonishment when Huldah's swift approach 

 diverted her attention from the objects of her displeasure. 

 "Why, you look 's 'ough you'd ben dragged through a 

 a brush heap, an' scairt aouten your seben senses !" 



"O, Miss' Lovell, Polly 's lost in the woods. Where's 

 Samwell? I want him tu help find her. Where is he?" 



"Polly lost!" Mrs. Lovell repeated, regarding Huldah 

 with a reproachful severity in her countenance that the 

 poor girl felt she deserved. "Up back o' your haouse? 

 Wal, I shouldn't wonder a mite 'f you never faound her a 

 livin'. Like 's any ways she'll tumble off 'in the rocks an' 

 break her neck, 'f the' don't suthin' nuther ketch her 

 afore. Some on 'em was a tellin' o' hearin' a wolf a 

 haowlin' an' a haowlin' t' other night, an' some thinks 

 the' 's a painter a hantin' 'raound. The' 's alius bears, an' 

 they du say 'at the' haint nothin' 'at bears likes better t' 

 eat 'n child'n. There 's them young ones 'at sassed Lijer, 

 want it? Ye know the' was three bears, on'y jest three, 

 come aouten the woods an' eat forty on em!" 



Huldah, rejecting such consolation with raised hands 

 and averted face, asked again for Sam. 



"Sam! Humph! Sure 'nough, where is he? You tell. 

 Him an' his father finished up hayin' yist'd'y, an' of 

 course he bed tu put off a bee huntin' the fust thing arter 

 breakfus this mornin'; nob'dy knows which way. He'd 

 a 'tarnal sight better ben a fencin' the stacks so 't the 

 kyows c'ld be turned int' the medder. An' Lovel, he's a 

 putterin' 'raound daown in the back lot 'baout suthin' 't 

 haint no vally, I'll warrant. O, my eyes an' Betty Martin! 

 If these men haint 'nough tu drive any womern dis- 

 traced! Haow ol' was Polly?" as if the bright little life 

 was assuredly ended. 



"Six, the twenty-fourth o' June," Huldah answered, 

 and turning away went wearily homeward, half the hope 

 dying out of her heart now that there was no hope of 

 finding Sam. 



When Joel Bartlett arrived he went in and shook hands 

 with Mrs. Purington as solemnly as he performed the 

 same ceremony when he "broke the nieetin' " on First 

 and Fifth Days. "I wanter tell thee, Mary Pur'n't'n, tu 

 keep quiet in thy mind," he said. "Aour Heavenly 

 Father withaout whose knowledge not a sparrer falls tu 

 the graound will ta' keer of a precious little child; an' I 

 feel it bore in upon me 'at thy little darter will be restored 

 tu thee. Sech poor insterments as we be o' His'n, we wil 1 

 du aour best indivours. An' naow, Mary, keep quiet in 

 thy niind, an' seek for stren'th in Him tu help thee tu 

 bear this grievious trial o' waitin' on His will." 



The rescue party had been quickly mustered, and the 

 plan of search agreed upon. It heartened Huldah when 

 she reached home to know that twenty-five or thirty 

 stalwart men were already ranging the woods in quest of 

 her lost sister, all so inspired with neighborly kindness 

 that they would spare themselves no pain or hardship in 

 the search. 



But 0, if the keenest and bravest woodsman among all 

 these hills were only on the same quest! Why of all the 

 days in the year must he have chosen this most anxious 

 one of a lifetime wherein to go bee hunting? Huldah 

 mentally relegated the bees to that limbo whither she had 

 long before in like manner banished the foxes. 



Away up on the mountain side where some hopeful 

 pioneer had hewn out of the wilderness a few acres with 

 slight and remote possibilities of a future pasture, Sam 

 Lovel was wallowing at noon among the golden rods, wil- 

 low-herbs and asters that filled this wild garden with yel- 

 low and pink and blue and white bloom, yet more varied 

 with the hightening and deepening of their colors by sun- 

 light and shadow, and contrast. The bees were making 

 the most of such bountiful pasturage; the clearing droned 

 with their incessant hum. and the drowsy murmur of 

 their toil seemed to have lulled the forest to sleep, so still 

 were all its depths. Sam had no trouble to imprison one 

 of the busy horde in his bee box, but more to line his 

 liberated captive and the mates returning with her, for 

 the little square of sunlit sky was flecked with hundreds 

 of hurrying brown specks. But his sharp eyes were not 

 easily foiled when he set them fairly to their work, and 

 he had not lain long on his back among the ferns before 

 he caught the airy trail of the bees that carried their bur- 

 dens of sweets from his box set on the nearest tall stump. 

 He did not follow far into the woods before he found the 

 great tree where they were hoarding their wealth. "Tu 

 easy faound for fun," he said, as he lighted his pipe and 

 began to cut his initials on the trunk of the old 

 maple, "but bee huntin' 's better 'n no huntin', an' 

 more fun 'n fencin' stacks 'at c'n jes' 's well wait 

 a spell while the rowen grows, er a hearin' ever- 

 lastin' tewin' an' scoldin'. An' it helps tol'able well 

 ter keep a feller's mind off 'm onprofitable thinkin'. 

 Wal, there you be, Mister L.," slowly pushing Ms knife 

 shut against his thigh as he critically regarded his carv- 

 ing, "an' you 're the best letter I got in my name, for the' 

 's an 1 in Huldy. I sh'd like tu put tew more on ye in 

 her'n. Ho huni! Wal, come, you dum'd ol' long-laigged 

 fool of a S. L., le's go an' find another bee tree." And he 

 took himself back to the clearing. He captured a bee on 

 the first "yaller top" he came to, and soon established 

 another line, but it took much longer to trace it to the 

 bee's home, and when he had set his mark on this, it was 



time to be going to his own home. He took his unerring- 

 course through the pathless woods, stopping now and 

 then to rest on a log or knoll that seemed to be set with 

 its cushion of moss on purpose for him. During one of 

 these halts, when half way through the woods, he heard 

 a cry, so strange that he paused to listen for a repetition 

 of it while his lighted match went out before it reached his 

 pipe, or the pipe his mouth. Once more the distressful 

 wail struck his ear, whether far away or only faint and 

 near he could not tell. "Wal," letting out his held breath 

 and striking another match, " 'f I've got another painter 

 on my hands, I wish 't I bed the ol' Ore Bed long. But like 

 'nough 'tain't nothin' but a blue jay 'at's struck a new 

 noise— I thought theyhed'em all a'ready, though." And 

 he went on, pausing a little at times to listen to and locate 

 the voice, which presently ceased. " 'F I bed a gun I'd 

 go an' see what kind of a critter 's a makin' on't," he 

 said, and then half forgot it. He had come to where he 

 got glimpses of the broad daylight through the palisades 

 of the forest's western border, and where long glints of 

 the westering sun gilded patches of fems and wood 

 plants and last year's sear leaves, when his quick wood- 

 sight, glancing everywhere and noting everything, fell 

 upon a little bright-colored Indian basket overset in a tuft 

 of ferns, with a few blackberries in it and others spilled 

 beside it. "Why," he said, picking it up and examining 

 it, "that's the baskit I gin' little Polly Pur'n't'n last year 

 when the Injins was here! It haint ben dropped long, for 

 the baries is fresh, V there's a leaf 't aint wilted scacely. 

 She dropped it, for there's some puckerbaries, an' the' 

 wouldn't nob'dy but a young un pick tkein. Haow com' 

 that little critter here?" Then he heard men's voices call- 

 ing and answering in the woods far away at his left. 

 "God A'mighty, she's lost!" he exclaimed, as he quickly 

 formulated the sounds he heard and the signs he saw. 

 "That was her 'at I hearn! What a dum'd fool I be!" He 

 dropped his bee-box, marking the spot with a glance, and 

 sped back into the heart of the forest so swiftly that the 

 inquisitive chickadees which had gathered about him 

 knew not what way he had gone. He spent no time in 

 looking for traces of the child's passage here, but made 

 his way as rapidly as possible to the place which the cry 

 had seemed to come from, Hstening intently as he glided 

 silently along, for he knew that if she had not sunk down 

 exhausted with wandering and fright, she would be cir- 

 cling away after the manner of lost persons, from where 

 he had heard her. Moving more slowly now and 

 scanning every foot of forest floor about him, he at 

 last saw a broken down stalk of ginseng, its red berries 

 crushed by a footstep, and noting which way it was 

 swept and how recently, found on a bush beyond it a 

 thread of calico, then a small shoe-print in the mold, and 

 further on a little garter hanging to a broken branch of 

 a fallen tree. According to established usage in such 

 cases he should have put this in his breast, for he knew 

 that Huldah had knit it, but he only placed it in his 

 pocket, saying, "If* she haint never faound it'll be a 

 sorter comfort tu 'em tu see this — but I'm a goin' tu find 

 her — I got tu!" He was assured of her course now, and 

 thought she could not be far off, but he did not call, for 

 he knew with what unreasoning terror even men are 

 sometimes crazed when lost in the woods, when familiar 

 sounds as well as familiar scenes are strange and terrible. 

 While for a moment he stood listening he heard the dis- 

 tant halloos of the searching party — then rushing away 

 from them, a sudden swish of leaves and crash of under- 

 growth, and then caught a glimpse of a wild little form 

 scurrying and tumbling through the green and gray haze 

 of netted shrubs and saplings. He had never stalked a 

 November partridge so stealthily as he went forward 

 now. Not a twig snapped imder his foot, nor branch 

 sprung backward with a swish louder than the beat of 

 an owl's wing, and there was no sign in glance or motion 

 that he saw as he passed it, the terror stricken little face 

 that stared out from a sprangly thicket of mountain 

 yew. Assured that she was within reach, he turned 

 slowly and said softly, "Why, Sis! is this you? Don't ye 

 know me. Sam Lovel? Here's yer little baskit 'at you 

 dropped daown yunder, but I'm af eared the baries is all 

 spilt!" and then he had her sobbing and moaning in his 

 strong arms. 



"This is the best day's huntin' ever I done," he said, his 

 voice shaking with the full thankfulness of his heart. 

 He called again and again to let the searchers know that 

 the lost child was found, but if they heard they did not 

 heed or understand his calls. 



When he came to Stony Brook with his burden asleep 

 on his shoulders, he seated her on the bank and bathed 

 her hot face and gave her grateful draughts from a dipper 

 that he made in five minutes with a sheet of birch bark 

 folded and fastened in a cleft stick, and here he shouted 

 lustily again, but got no answer. 



"Come, Sis," after listening, stooping and reaching out 

 his arm3, "we must be a moggin' !" 



"I be awful heavy, Samwell, but I can't step a step," 

 she said apologetically, as he took her up, "O, how good 

 you be !" 



Sam's long shadow had ceased following him, and was 

 blurred out in the twilight when he crossed the door-yard 

 chips that his feet had not trodden since that Thanks- 

 giving Day. Polly was asleep again in his arms when he 

 entered the open door of the kitchen which bore a funereal 

 air, with a dozen neighboring women sitting against its 

 walls speaking to each other in hushed solemn voices, 

 one standing beside Mrs. Purington, ready with a harts- 

 horn bottle when she should take her apron from her 

 face. The poor woman was reaching out blindly with 

 one hand for the comforting salts when Sam, unseen by 

 any till now, set Polly in her lap, and then casting a 

 longing look along the line of gaping, speechless women, 

 he disappeared before the feminine chorous of "Ob's!" 

 and "My's!" and little shrieks had swelled to its height. 



Huldah was out in the back yard trying to comfort her- 

 self with listening to the faint halloos of the searchers, 

 and with watching the occasional glimmer of their lan- 

 terns and torches, dim stars of hope to her now, when she 

 heard the indoor stir, and hurried in expecting to find 

 her mother in a fainting fit. But there was her little sis- 

 ter with her mother crying over her and scolding her in 

 the same breath, and all the other women letting out 

 their pent-up speech in a hail storm of words, wherewith 

 fell a shower of tears. When she had hugged Polly and 

 kissed her, and sprinklad her with the first tears she had 

 shed that day, she asked, "Who fetched her?" and out 

 of the confusion got this answer: "Sam Lovel, an' the 

 great good-for-nothin' cleared right aout an' never said 

 one word!" 



