Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/266

 out of my window, when what should I see with these mortial eyes but a gre't bull moose, as big as two yoke o' oxen, comin' along toward the house. He sort o' staggered along, and then give a gre't sigh I could hear from my room—I was on the ground floor—fell down on his knees, and laid his head on the ground 's if he was too beat out to go another step. Wa'al, sir, I never waited, not long enough even to fetch a holler to wake the folks. I just dove out o' the window, and made for him as fast as I could lick in. As I went by the wood-pile, I grabbed up a big stick of wood" "What kind of wood?" everybody asked in chorus.

Twas a big stick of birch-wood, with the white bark on it as clean as writin'-paper. I grabbed that up for a club—'twas the only thing in sight and when I got to the moose I hit him a clip on the side of the head as hard as I could lay on. He didn't so much as open an eye, but I saw he was still breathin', and I climbed up on his back so's to get a good whack at the top of his head. And then, sir, by Jupiter! he riz right up like a earthquake under me, and started off at forty miles an hour. He throwed his head back as he run, and ketched me right between his horns, like a nut in a nutcracker. I couldn't have got out of them horns—no, sir, a charge of powder couldn't scarcely have loosened me."

There was another pause at this place for the outcries of astonishment and marvel which were never lacking. Then Jed went on, mumbling his toothless gums in delight over his importance.

"Wa'al, sir, I dassent tell ye how long we careered around them woods and pastures, for, after a while, he