Hiram looked round, amazed and stunned, his ear tingling and burning, and saw the gaunt apparition of his father, standing silent and black-browed by the bare bed-head. For a moment those two glared at one another mutely and defiantly.
At last Hiram spoke: Wal! he said simply.
Wal! the deacon answered, with smothered wrath. Hiram, I am angry and sin not. What do you go an take them bad books up to read for? Who give em you? Whar did you get em? Oh, you sinful, bad boy, whar did you get em? And he administered another sound cuff upon Hirams other ear.
Hiram put his hand up to the stinging spot, and cried a minute silently: then he answered as well as he was able: This aint a bad book: this is called The Complete Dramattic Works of William Shakespeare. Sam lent it to me, an its Sams book, an ther aint no harm in it, anyhow.
The deacon was plainly staggered for a moment, for even he had dimly heard the name of William Shakespeare; and though he had never made any personal acquaintance with that gentlemans works, he had always understood in a vague, indefinite fashion that this here Shakespeare was a perfectly respectable and recognised writer, whose books were read and approved of even by Hopkinsite ministers edoocated at Bethabara Seminary. So he took the volume in his hand incredulously and looked it through casually for a few minutes. He glanced at a scene or two here or there with a critical eye, and then he flung the volume from him quickly, as a man might fling and crush some loathsome reptile. By this time Sam was half-awake, and sat up in bed to inquire sleepily, what all thik ther row could be about at thik time of evenin? The deacon answered by going savagely to Sams box, and taking out, one by one, for separate inspection, the volumes he found there. He held up the candle (stuck in an empty blacking-bottle) to each volume in succession, and, as soon as he had finally condemned them each, he flung them down in an untidy pile on the bare floor of the little bedroom. Most of them he stood stoically enough; but the Vicar of Wakefield was at last quite too much for his stifled indignation. Sitting down blankly on the bed he fired off his volley at poor Hirams frightened head, with terrible significance.
Hiram Winthrop, he said solemnly, you air a son of perdition. You air more amost n I kin manage with. Satans openin the door for you on-common wide, I kin tell you, sonny. It makes me downright scart to see you in company along of sech books. Your motherll be awful took back about it. I dont mind this ere about the Pirates of the Caribbean Sea, so much; thats kinder histry, that is, and maynt do you much harm: but sech things as this Peter Simple, an Wakefield, and Pickwicks Papers why, I wonder the roof dont fall in on em an crush us in the lot altogether. Im durned ef I could have thought youd bin wicked enough to read em, sech on-principled literatoor. I shant chastise you to-night, sonny; its late, now, and weve read chapter: but to-morrer, Hiram, to-morrer, you shall pay for them thar books, take my word for it. You shall be chastened in the manner thats appinted. Ef I was you, I should spend the rest of the evenin in wrestlin for forgiveness for the sin youve committed.
And yet in the chapter the deacon had read at family worship that evening there was one little clause which said: Quench not the Spirit.
Hiram slept but little that night, with the vague terror of to-morrows whipping overshadowing him through the night watches. But he had at least one comfort: Sam Churchill had got out and gathered up his books, and locked them carefully in his box again.
If the boss tries to touch they books again, I tell ee, Hiram, he said bi-lingually (for absorbent America was already beginning to assimilate him), ell vind isself a-lyin longways on the vloor, afore he do know it, I promise ee. Hiram heard, and was partly comforted. At least he would still have the books to read, somehow, at some time. For in his own heart, unregenerate or otherwise, he couldnt bring himself to believe that there could be really anything so very wicked in Henry the Fourth or Peter Simple.
CHAPTER IV. PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY
The deacons cowhide cut deep; but the thrashing didnt last long: and after it was all over, Hiram wandered out aimlessly by himself, down the snowclad valley of Muddy Creek, and along to the wooded wilds and cranberry marshes near the Ontario debouchure, to forget his troubles and the lasting smart of the weals in watching the beasts and birds among the frozen lowlands. He had never been so far from home before, but the weather and the ice were in his favour, enabling him to get over an amount of ground he wouldnt have tried to cover in the dry summer time. He had his skates with him, and he skated where possible, taking them off to walk over the intervening land necks or drifted snow-sheets. The ice was glare in many places, so that one could skate on it gloriously; and before he had got half-way down to Nine-Mile Bottom he had almost forgotten all about the deacon, and the sermon, and the beating, and the threatened ten chapters of St. John (the Gospel of Love the deacon called it) to be learned by heart before next Lords day, in expiation of the heinous crime of having read that pernicious work the Vicar of Wakefield. It was the loveliest spot he had ever seen in all his poor unlovely little existence.
Close under the cranberry trees, by a big pool where the catfish would be sure to live in summer, Hiram heard mens voices, whispering low and quiet to one another. A great joy filled his soul. He could see at once by their dress and big fur caps what they were. They were trappers! One piece of romance still survived in Geauga County, among the cranberry swamps and rush beds where the flooded creek flowed sluggishly into the bosom of Ontario; and on that one piece of romance he had luckily lighted by pure accident. Trappers! Yes, not a doubt of it! He struck out on his skates swiftly but noiselessly toward them, and joined the three men without a word as they stood taking counsel together below their breath on the ice-bound marshland.
Hello, sonny! one of the men said in a low undertone. Say whar did you drop from? What air you comin spyin out a few peaceable surveyors for, eh? Tell me.
I didnt think you was surveyors, Hiram answered, a little disappointed. I thought you was trappers. And at the same time he glanced suspiciously at the peculiar little gins that the surveyors held in their great gauntleted hands, for all the world like Oneida traps for musk-rats.
The man noticed the glance and laughed to himself a smothered laugh the laugh of a person accustomed always to keep very quiet. The young un has spotted us, an no mistake, boys, he said, laughing, to the others. Hes a bit too cute to be took in with the surveyor gammon. What do you call this ere, sonny?
I calclate thats somewhar near a mink trap, Hiram answered, breathless with delight.
Wal, it is a mink trap, the trapper said slowly, looking deep into the boys truthful eyes. Now, who sent you down here to track us out and peach upon us; eh, Bob?
Nobody sent me, Hiram replied, with his blue eyes looking deep back into the trappers keen restless grey pair. I kem out all o my own accord, cos father gave me a lickin this mornin, an Ive kem out jest to get away for a bit alone somewhar.
Whos your father? asked the man still suspiciously.
Deacon Winthrop, down to Muddy Creek Deepo.
Whos your father? asked the man still suspiciously.
Deacon Winthrop, down to Muddy Creek Deepo.
Deacon Winthrop! Oh, I know him, ruther. A tall, skinny, dried-up kind of fellow, aint he, who looks as if most of his milk was turned sour, an the Hopkinsite Confession was a settin orful heavy on his digestion?
Hiram nodded several times successively, in acknowledgment of the general accuracy of this brief description. Thats him, you bet, he answered with unfilial promptitude. I guess youve seed him somwhar, for thats him as like as a portrait. Look here, say, Ill draw him for you. And the boy, taking his pencil from his pocket, drew as quickly as he was able on a scrap of birch-bark a humorous caricature of his respected parent, as he appeared in the very act of offering an unctuous exhortation to the Hopkinsite assembly at Muddy Creek meeting-house. It was very wrong and wicked, of course a clear breach of the Fifth Commandment but the deacon hadnt done much on his own account to merit honour or love at the hands of Hiram Winthrop.
The man took the rough sketch and laughed at it inwardly, with a suppressed chuckle. There was no denying, he saw, that it was the perfect moral of that thar freezed-up old customer down to the Deepo. He handed it with a smile to his two companions. They both recognised the likeness and the little additions which gave it point, and one of them, a Canadian as Hiram conjectured (for he spoke with a dreadful English accent so stuck-up), said in the same soft undertone: Do you know where any mink live anywhere hereabouts?
A little higher up stream, Hiram answered, overjoyed, I know every spot whar thers any mink stirrin for five miles round, anyhow.
The Canadian turned to the others.
Boys, he said, you can trust the youngster. He wont peach on us. Hes game, you may be sure. Now, youngster, were trappers, as you guessed correctly. But you see, farmers dont love trappers, because they go trespassing, and overrunning the fields: and so we dont want you to say a word about us to this father of yours. Do you understand?
Hiram nodded.
You promise not to tell him or anybody?
Yes, I promise.
Well, then, if you like, you can come with us. Were going to set our traps now. You dont seem a bad sort of little chap, and you can see the fun out if youve a mind to.
Hirams heart bounded with excitement. What a magnificent prospect! He promised to show the trappers every spot he knew about the place where any fur-bearing animal, from ermine to musk-rat, was likely to be found. In ten minutes, all four were started off upon their skates once more, striking up the river in the direction of the deacons, and setting traps by Hirams advice as they went along, at every likely run or corner.
You drew that picture real well, the Canadian said, as they skated side by side: I could see it was the old man at a glance.
Hirams face shone with pleasure at this sincere compliment to his artistic merit. I could hev done it a long sight better, he said simply, ef my hands hadnt been numbed a bit with the cold, sos I could hardly hold the pencil.
It was a grand day, that day with the trappers the gipsies of half-settled America; the grandest day Hiram had ever spent in his whole lifetime. How many musk-rats burrows he pointed out to his new acquaintance along the bank of the creek; how many spots where the mink, that strange water-haunting weasel, lurks unseen among the frozen sedges! Here and there, too, he showed them the points where he had noticed the faint track of the ermine on the lightly fallen snow, and where they might place their traps across the path worn by the coons on their way to and from the Indian corn patch. It was cruel work, to be sure, setting those murderous snapping iron jaws, and perhaps if Hiram had thought more about the beasts themselves (whom after all he loved in his heart) he wouldnt have been so ready to aid their natural enemies in thus catching and exterminating them: but what boy is free from the aboriginal love of hunting something? Certainly not Hiram Winthrop, at least, to whom this one glimpse of a delightful wandering life among the woods and marshes a life that wasnt all made up of bare fields and fall wheat and snake fences and cross-ploughing seemed like a stray snatch of that impossible paradise he had read about in Peter Simple and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean Sea.
Say, Bob, the Canadian muttered to him as they were half-way through their work (in Northern New York every boy unknown is ex officio addressed as Bob), we shall be back in these diggings in the spring again, looking after the summer furs, you see. Now, dont you go and tell any other trappers about these places weve set, because trappers generly (present company always excepted) is a pretty dishonest lot, and theyll poach on other trappers grounds and even steal their furs and traps as soon as look at em. You stand by us and well stand by you, and take care you dont suffer by it.
Whenll you come? Hiram asked in the thrilling delight of anticipation.
When the first spring days are on, the Canadian answered. Ill tell you the best sign: its no use going by days o the month we dont remember em mostly; but itll be about the time when the skunk cabbage begins to flower.
Hiram made a note of the date mentally, and treasured it up in safety on the lasting tablets of his memory.
At about one oclock the trappers sat down upon the frozen bank and ate their dinner. It would have been cold work to men less actively engaged; but skating and trapping warms your blood well. Got any grub? one of the men asked Hiram, still softly. Your trapper seems almost to have lost the power of speaking above a whisper, and he moves stealthily as if he thought a spectral farmer was always dogging his steps close behind him.
No, I aint, Hiram answered.
Then, thunder, pitch into the basket, his new friend said encouragingly.
Hiram obeyed, and made an excellent lunch off cold hare and lake ship-biscuit.
Are you through? the men asked at last.
Yes, Hiram replied.
Then come along and see the fun out.
They skated on, still upward, in the general direction of the blackberry bottom. When they got there, Hiram, now quite at home, pointed out even more accurately than ever the exact homes of each individual mink and ermine. So the men worked away eagerly at their task till the evening began to come over. Then Hiram, all aglow with excitement and wholly oblivious of all earthly considerations, became suddenly aware of a gaunt figure moving about among the dusky brushwood and making in the direction of his friends the trappers. Hello, he cried to his new acquaintances in a frightened tone, youd best cut it. Thars the deacon.