There, Malleville, said Phonny, when she came where she could see the cavern, that is what I call a discovery. We will play that we are savages, and that we live in a cavern.
Phonny rolled two large stones into the cavern, and placed them in the back part of it, where he intended to build his fire. These stones were for andirons. Then he began to bring in logs, and sticks, and branches of trees, such as he found lying upon the ground dead and dry. These he piled up inside of the cavern in a sort of corner, where there was a deep recess or crevice, which was very convenient for holding the wood.
Malleville helped him do all this. When a sufficient supply of wood was gathered, Phonny laid some of it across his stone andirons, and then prepared to light the fire.
He rubbed one of his matches against a dry log, and the match immediately kindled. Phonny looked at the blue flame a moment, and then, as if some sudden thought had struck him, he blew it out again, and said,
On the whole, I will go and ask Beechnut. We may as well be sure.
So he ran down from the entrance of the cavern, and thence along by the way that they had come, through the thicket, until he came in sight of Beechnut.
Beechnut, said he, calling out very loud, we have found a cavern; may we build a fire in it?
Yes, said Beechnut.
Then Phonny went back, and telling Malleville that Beechnut had said yes, he proceeded to kindle his fire.
It happened that there were two large stones, tolerably square in form, each of them, and flat upon the upper side, which were lying in the cavern in such places as to be very convenient for seats. When the fire began to burn, Phonny sat down upon one of these seats, and gave Malleville the other. The fire blazed up very cheerily, and the smoke and sparks, winding their way up the side of the rock, which formed the back of the cavern, escaped out through the opening at the top in a very satisfactory manner.
There, said Phonny, this is what I call comfortable. If we only now had something to eat, it is all I should want.
Ill tell you what, said he again, after a moments pause, we will send home by Beechnut, when he goes with his next load, to get us something to eat.
Well, said Malleville, so we will.
Beechnut very readily undertook the commission of bringing Phonny and Malleville something to eat. Accordingly, when his cart was loaded he went away, leaving Phonny and Malleville in their cavern. While he was gone the children employed themselves in bringing flat stones, and making a fireplace by building walls on each side of their fire.
In due time Beechnut returned, bringing with him a large round box, which he said that Mrs. Henry had sent to Phonny and Malleville. It was too heavy for Phonny to lift easily, and so Beechnut drove his cart along until it was nearly opposite the cavern. Then he took the box out of the cart and carried it into the cavern, and laid it down upon Mallevilles seat.
Phonny opened it, and he found that it contained a variety of stores. There were four potatoes and four apples, each rolled up in a separate paper. There were also two crackers. These crackers were in a tin mug, just big enough to hold them, one on the top of the other. The mug, Phonny said, was for them to drink from, and as there was a spring by the side of the cavern they had plenty of water.
One cracker is for me, said Phonny, and the other for you, Malleville. I mean to split my cracker in two, and toast the halves.
At the bottom of the box there was half a pie.
Beechnut stopped to see what the box contained, and then he went away to his work again. As he went away, he told the children that Mrs. Henry said that they need not come home to dinner that day, unless they chose to do so, but might make their dinner, if they pleased, in the cavern, from what she had sent them in the box.
The children were very much pleased with this plan. They remained in the cavern a long time. They roasted their potatoes in the fire, and their apples in front of it. They toasted their crackers and warmed their pie, by placing them against a stone between the andirons; and they got water, whenever they were thirsty, in the dipper from the spring.
At length, about the middle of the afternoon, when their interest in the cavern was beginning to decline, their thoughts were suddenly turned away from it altogether, by the news which Beechnut announced to them on his return from the house, after his eighth load, that Wallace had arrived.
And has my brother Stuyvesant come too? asked Malleville.
I suppose so, said Beechnut, there was a boy with him, about as large as Phonny, but I did not hear what his name was.
Oh, it is he! it is he! said Malleville, clapping her hands.
Phonny and Malleville mounted upon the top of the load as soon as Beechnut got it ready, and rode home. They ran into the house, while Beechnut went to unload his wood. Just as Beechnut was ready to go out of the yard again with his empty cart, Phonny came out.
Cousin Wallace has really come, said Phonny.
Ah! said Beechnut, and what does he have to say?
Why, he says, replied Phonny, that he is going to make a man of me.
Is he? said Beechnut. Well, I hope he will take proper time for it. I have no great opinion of the plan of making men out of boys before their time.
So saying, Beechnut drove away, and Phonny went in.
Chapter II
Boyishness
Two or three days after Wallace arrived at Franconia, he and Phonny formed a plan to go and take a ride on horseback. They invited Stuyvesant to go with them, but Stuyvesant said that Beechnut was going to plow that day, and had promised to teach him to drive oxen. He said that he should like better to learn to drive oxen than to take a ride on horseback.
There was another reason which influenced Stuyvesant in making this decision, and that was, that he had observed that there were only two horses in the stable, and although he knew that Beechnut could easily obtain another from some of the neighbors, still he thought that this would make some trouble, and he was always very considerate about making trouble. This was rather remarkable in Stuyvesant, for he was a city boy, and city boys are apt to be very inconsiderate.
So Wallace and Phonny concluded to go by themselves. They mounted their horses and rode together out through the great gate.
Now, said Phonny, when they were fairly on the way, we will have a good time. This is just what I like. I would rather have a good ride on horseback than any thing else. I wish that they would let me go alone sometimes.
Wont they? asked Wallace.
No, not very often, said Phonny.
Do you know what the reason is? asked Wallace.
I suppose because they think that I am not old enough, replied Phonny, but I am.
I dont think that that is the reason, said Wallace. Stuyvesant is not quite so old as you are, and yet I shall let him go and ride alone whenever he pleases.
What is the reason then? asked Phonny.
Because you are not man enough I suppose, said Wallace. You might be more manly, without being any older, and then people would put more trust in you, and you would have a great many more pleasures.
Phonny was rather surprised to hear his cousin Wallace speak thus. He had thought that he was manly very manly; but it was evident that his cousin considered him boyish.
I do not know, continued Wallace, but that you are as manly as other boys of your years.
I do not know, continued Wallace, but that you are as manly as other boys of your years.
Except Stuyvesant, said Phonny.
Yes, except Stuyvesant, said Wallace, I think that he is rather remarkable. I do not think that you are very boyish, but you are growing up quite fast and you are getting to be pretty large. It is time for you to begin to evince some degree of the carefulness, and considerateness, and sense of responsibility, that belong to men.
There are two kinds of boyishness, continued Wallace. One kind is very harmless.
What kind is that? asked Phonny.
Why if a boy continues, said Wallace, when he is quite old, to take pleasure in amusements which generally please only young children, that is boyishness of a harmless kind. For example, suppose we should see a boy, eighteen years old, playing marbles a great deal, we should say that he was boyish. So if you were to have a rattle or any other such little toy for a plaything, and should spend a great deal of time in playing with it, we should say that it was very boyish or childish. Still that kind of boyishness does little harm, and we should not probably do any thing about it, but should leave you to outgrow it in your own time.
What kind of boyishness do you mean then, that is not harmless? asked Phonny.
I mean that kind of want of consideration, by which boys when young, are always getting themselves and others into difficulty and trouble, for the sake of some present and momentary pleasure. They see the pleasure and they grasp at it. They do not see the consequences, and so they neglect them. The result is, they get into difficulty and do mischief. Other people lose confidence in them, and so they have to be restricted and watched, and subjected to limits and bounds, when if they were a little more considerate and manly, they might enjoy a much greater liberty, and many more pleasures.
I dont think that I do so, said Phonny.
No, rejoined Wallace, I dont think that you do; that is I dont think that you do so more than other boys of your age. But to show you exactly what I mean, I will give you some cases. Perhaps they are true and perhaps they are imaginary. It makes no difference which they are.
Once there was a boy, continued Wallace, who came down early one winter morning, and after warming himself a moment by the sitting-room fire, he went out in the kitchen. It happened to be ironing day, and the girl was engaged in ironing at a great table by the kitchen fire. We will call the girls name Dorothy.
The boy seeing Dorothy at this work, wished to iron something, himself. So Dorothy gave him a flat-iron and also something to iron.
What was it that she gave him to iron? said Phonny.
A towel, said Wallace.
Well, said Phonny, go on.
The boy took the flat-iron and went to work, continued Wallace. Presently, however, he thought he would go out into the shed and see if the snow had blown in, during the night. He found that it had, and so he stopped to play with the drift a few minutes. At last he came back into the kitchen, and he found, when he came in, that Dorothy had finished ironing his towel and had put it away. He began to complain of her for doing this, and then, in order to punish her, as he said, he took two of her flat-irons and ran off with them, and put them into the snow drift.
Yes, said Phonny, that was me. But then I only did it for fun.
Was the fun for yourself or for Dorothy? asked Wallace.
Why, for me, said Phonny.
And it made only trouble for Dorothy, said Wallace.
Yes, said Phonny, I suppose it did.
That is the kind of boyishness I mean, said Wallace, getting fun for yourself at other peoples expense; and so making them dislike you, and feel sorry when they see you coming, and glad when you go away.
Phonny was silent. He saw the folly of such a course of proceeding, and had nothing to say.
There is another case, said Wallace. Once I knew a boy, and his name was Ill call him Johnny.
What was his other name? asked Phonny.
No matter for that, now, said Wallace. He went out into the barn, and he wanted something to do, and so the boy who lived there, gave him a certain corner to take charge of, and keep in order.
What was that boys name? asked Phonny.
Why, I will call him Hazelnut, said Wallace.
Ah! exclaimed Phonny, now I know you are going to tell some story about me and Beechnut. Here Phonny threw back his head and laughed aloud. He repeated the words Johnny and Hazelnut, and then laughed again, until he made the woods ring with his merriment.
Wallace smiled, and went on with his story.
Hazelnut gave him the charge of a corner of the barn where some harnesses were kept, and Johnnys duty was to keep them in order there. One day Hazelnut came home and found that Johnny had taken out the long reins from the harness, and had fastened them to the branches of two trees in the back yard, to make a swing, and then he had loaded the swing with so many children, as to break it down.
Yes, said Phonny, that was me too; but I did not think that the reins would break.
I know it, said Wallace. You did not think. That is the nature of the kind of boyishness that I am speaking of. The boy does not think. Men, generally, before they do any new or unusual thing, stop to consider what the results and consequences of it are going to be; but boys go on headlong, and find out what the consequences are when they come.
While Wallace and Phonny had been conversing thus, they had been riding through a wood which extended along a mountain glen. Just at this time they came to a place where a cart path branched off from the main road, toward the right. Phonny proposed to go into this path to see where it would lead. Wallace had no objection to this plan, and so they turned their horses and went in.
The cart path led them by a winding way through the woods for a short distance, along a little dell, and then it descended into a ravine, at the bottom of which there was a foaming torrent tumbling over a very rocky bed. The path by this time became quite a road, though it was a very wild and stony road. It kept near the bank of the brook, continually ascending, until at last it turned suddenly away from the brook, and went up diagonally upon the side of a hill. There were openings in the woods on the lower side of the road, through which Wallace got occasional glimpses of the distant valleys. Wallace was very much interested in these prospects, but Phonnys attention was wholly occupied as he went along, in looking over all the logs, and rocks, and hollow trees, in search of squirrels.
At last, at a certain turn of the road, the riders came suddenly upon a pair of bars which appeared before them, directly across the road.
Well, said Wallace, here we are, what shall we do now?
It is nothing but a pair of bars, said Phonny. I can jump off and take them down.
No, said Wallace, I think we may as well turn about here, and go back. We have come far enough on this road.
Just then Phonny pointed off under the trees of the forest, upon one side, and said in a very eager voice,
See there!
What is it? said Wallace.
A trap, said Phonny. It is a squirrel trap! and it is sprung! Theres a squirrel in it, Ive no doubt. Let me get off and see.
Well, said Wallace, give me the bridle of your horse.