Way Down East, or, Portraitures of Yankee Life/Chapter III

Chapter III The Tough Yarn

Major Grant of Massachusetts was returning home from Moosehead Lake, where he had been to look after one of his newly-purchased townships, and to sell stumpage to the loggers for the ensuing winter, when he stopped for the night at a snug tavern in one of the back towns in Maine, and having been to the stable, and seen with his own eyes that his horse was well provided with hay and grain, he returned to the bar-room, laid aside his cloak, and took a seat by the box stove, which was waging a hot war with the cold and raw atmosphere of November.

The major was a large, portly man, well to do in the world, and loved his comfort. Having called for a mug of hot flip, he loaded his long pipe, and prepared for a long and comfortable smoke. He was also a very social man, and there being but one person in the room with him, he invited him to join him in a tumbler of flip. This gentleman was Doctor Snow, an active member of a temperance society, and therefore he politely begged to be excused; but having a good share of the volubility natural to his profession, he readily entered into conversation with the major, answered many of his inquiries about the townships in that section of the State, described minutely the process of lumbering, explained how it might be made profitable, and showed why it was often attended with great loss. A half hour thus passed imperceptibly away, and the doctor rose, drew his wrapper close about him, and placed his cap on his head. The major looked round the room with an air of uneasiness.

"What, going so soon, Doctor? No more company here to-night, think? Dull business, Doctor, to sit alone one of these long tedious evenings. Always want somebody to talk with; man wasn't made to be alone, you know."

"True," said the doctor, "and I should be happy to spend the evening with you; but I have to go three miles to see a patient yet to-night, and it's high time I was off. But luckily, Major, you won't be left alone after all, for there comes Jack Robinson, driving his horse and wagon into the yard now; and I presume he'll not only spend the evening with you, but stop all night."

"Well, that's good news," said the Major, "if he'll only talk. Will he talk, Doctor?"

"Talk? yes! till all is blue. He's the greatest talker you ever met. I'll tell you what 'tis, Major, I'll bet the price of your reckoning here to-night, that you may ask him the most direct simple question you please, and you shan't get an answer from him under half an hour, and he shall keep talking a steady stream the whole time, too."

"Done," said the major; "'tis a bet. Let us understand it fairly, now. You say I may ask him any simple, plain question I please, and he shall be half an hour answering it, and talk all the time too; and you will bet my night's reckoning of it."

"That's the bet exactly," said the doctor.

Here the parties shook hands upon it, just as the door opened, and Mr. Jack Robinson came limping into the room, supported by a crutch, and with something of a bustling, care-for-nothing air, hobbled along toward the fire. The doctor introduced Mr. Jack Robinson to Major Grant, and after the usual salutations and shaking of hands, Mr. Robinson took his seat upon the other side of the stove, opposite the major.

Mr. Jack Robinson was a small, brisk man, with a grey twinkling eye, and a knowing expression of countenance. As he carefully settled himself into his chair, resting his lame limb against the edge of the stove-hearth, he threw his hat carelessly upon the floor, laid his crutch across his knee, and looked round with a satisfied air, that seemed to say, "Now, gentlemen, if you want to know the time of day, here's the boy that can tell ye."

"Allow me, Mr. Robinson, to help you to a tumbler of hot flip," said the major, raising the mug from the stove.

"With all my heart, and thank ye too," said Robinson, taking a sip from the tumbler. "I believe there's nothing better for a cold day than a hot flip. I've known it to cure many a one who was thought to be in a consumption. There's something so"---

"And I have known it," said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders, "to kill many a one that was thought to have an excellent constitution and sound health."

"There's something so warming," continued Mr. Robinson, following up his own thoughts so earnestly that he seemed not to have heard the remark of the doctor, "there's something so warming and so nourishing in hot flip, it seems to give new life to the blood, and puts the insides all in good trim. And as for cold weather, it will keep that out better than any double-milled kersey or fearnot great coat that I ever see.

"I could drive twenty miles in a cold day with a good mug of hot flip easier than I could ten miles without it. And this is a cold day, gentlemen, a real cold day, there's no mistake about it. This norwester cuts like a razor. But tain't nothing near so cold as 'twas a year ago, the twenty-second day of this month. That day, it seemed as if your breath would freeze stiff before it got an inch from your mouth. I drove my little Canada grey in a sleigh that day twelve miles in forty-five minutes, and froze two of my toes on my lame leg as stiff as maggots. Them toes chill a great deal quicker than they do on t'other foot. In my well days I never froze the coldest day that ever blew. But that cold snap, the twenty-second day of last November, if my little grey hadn't gone like a bird, would have done the job for my poor lame foot. When I got home I found two of my sheep dead, and they were under a good shed, too. And one of my neighbors, poor fellow, went into the woods after a load of wood, and we found him next day froze to death, leaning up against a beech tree as stiff as a stake. But his oxen was alive and well. It's very wonderful how much longer a brute critter will stan' the cold than a man will. Them oxen didn't even shiver."

"Perhaps," said the doctor, standing with his back towards Mr. Robinson, "perhaps the oxen had taken a mug of hot flip before they went into the woods."



By this time Major Grant began to feel a little suspicious that he might lose his bet, and was setting all his wits to work to fix on a question so direct and limited in its nature, that it could not fail to draw from Mr. Robinson a pretty direct answer. He had thought at first of making some simple inquiry about the weather; but he now felt convinced that, with Mr. Robinson, the weather was a very copious subject. He had also several times thought of asking some question in relation to the beverage they were drinking; such as, whether Mr. Robinson preferred flip to hot sling. And at first he could hardly perceive, if the question were put direct, how it could fail to bring out a direct yes or no. But the discursive nature of Mr. Robinson's eloquence on flip had already induced him to turn his thoughts in another direction for a safe and suitable question. At last he thought he would make his inquiry in reference to Mr. Robinson's lameness. He would have asked the cause of his lameness, but the thought occurred to him that the cause might not be clearly known, or his lameness might have been produced by a complication of causes, that would allow too much latitude for a reply. He resolved, therefore, simply to ask him whether his lameness was in the leg or in the foot. That was a question which it appeared to him required a short answer. For if it were in the leg, Mr. Robinson would say it was in his leg; and if it were in his foot, he would at once reply, in his foot; and if it were in both, what could be more natural than that he should say, in both? and that would seem to be the end of the story.

Having at length fully made up his mind as to the point of attack, he prepared for the charge, and taking a careless look at his watch, he gave the doctor a sly wink. Doctor Snow, without turning or scarce appearing to move, drew his watch from beneath his wrapper so far as to see the hour, and returned it again to his pocket.

"Mr. Robinson," said the major, "if I may presume to make the inquiry, is your lameness in the leg or in the foot?"

"Well, that reminds me," said Mr. Robinson, taking a sip from the tumbler, which he still held in his hand, "that reminds me of what my old father said to me once when I was a boy. Says he, `Jack, you blockhead, don't you never tell where anything is, unless you can first tell how it come there.' The reason of his saying it was this: Father and I was coming in the steamboat from New York to Providence; and they was all strangers on board---we didn't know one of 'em from Adam; and on the way, one of the passengers missed his pocket-book, and begun to make a great outcry about it. He called the captain, and said there must be a search. The boat must be searched, and all the passengers and all on board must be searched. Well, the captain he agreed to it; and at it they went, and over-hauled everything from one end of the boat to t'other; but they couldn't find hide nor hair of it. And they searched all the passengers and all the hands, but they couldn't get no track on't. And the man that lost the pocket-book took on and made a great fuss. He said it wasn't so much on account of the money, for there wasn't a great deal in it; but the papers in it were of great consequence to him, and he offered to give ten dollars to any body that would find it. Pretty soon after that, I was fixin' up father's berth a little, where he was going to sleep, and I found the pocket-book under the clothes at the head of the berth, where the thief had tucked it away while the search was going on. So I took it, tickled enough, and run to the man, and told him I had found his pocket-book. He catched it out of my hands, and says he, `Where did you find it?' Says I, `Under the clothes in the head of my father's berth.'

"`In your father's berth, did you?' says he, and he give me a look and spoke so sharp, I jumped as if I was going out of my skin.

"Says he, `Show me the place.'

"So I run and showed him the place.

"`Call your father here,' says he. So I run and called father.

"`Now Mister,' says he to father, `I should like to know how my pocket-book come in your berth.'

"`I don't know nothin' about it,' says father.

"Then he turned to me and says he, `Young man, how came this pocket-book in your father's berth?'

"Says I, `I can't tell. I found it there, and that's all I know about it.'

"Then he called the captain and asked him if he knew us. The captain said he didn't. The man looked at us mighty sharp, first to father, and then to me, and eyed us from top to toe. We wasn't neither of us dressed very slick, and we could tell by his looks pretty well what he was thinking. At last he said he would leave it to the passengers whether, under all the circumstances, he should pay the boy the ten dollars or not. I looked at father, and his face was as red as a blaze, and I see his dander begun to rise. He didn't wait for any of the passengers to give their opinion about it, but says he to the man, "Dod-rot your money! if you've got any more than you want, you may throw it into the sea for what I care; but if you offer any of it to my boy, I'll send you where a streak of lightning wouldn't reach you in six months."

"That seemed to settle the business; the man didn't say no more to father, and most of the passengers begun to look as if they didn't believe father was guilty. But a number of times after that, on the passage, I see the man that lost the pocket-book whisper to some of the passengers, and then turn and look at father. And then father would look gritty enough to bite a board-nail off. When we got ashore, as soon as we got a little out of sight of folks, father catched hold of my arm and gave it a most awful jerk, and says he, "Jack you blockhead, don't you never tell where any thing is again, unless you can first tell how it come there."

"Now it would be about as difficult," continued Mr. Robinson after a slight pause, which he employed in taking a sip from his tumbler, "for me to tell to a certainty how I come by this lameness, as it was to tel how the pocket-book come in father's berth. There was a hundred folks aboard, and we knew some of 'em must a put it in; but which one 'twas, it would have puzzled a Philadelphia lawyer to tell. Well, it's pretty much so with my lameness. This poor leg of mine has gone through some most awful sieges, and it's a wonder there's an inch of it left. But it's a pretty good leg yet; I can almost bear my weight upon it; and with the help of a crutch you'd be surprised to see how fast I can get over the ground."

"Then your lameness is in the leg rather than in the foot?" said Major Grant, taking advantage of a short pause in Mr. Robinson's speech.

"Well, I was going on to tell you all the particulars," said Mr. Robinson. "You've no idea what terrible narrow chances I've gone through with this leg."

"Then the difficulty is in the leg, is it not?" said Major Grant.

"Well, after I tell you the particulars," said Mr. Robinson, "you can judge for yourself. The way it first got hurt was going in a swimming, when I was about twelve years old. I could swim like a duck, and used to be in Uncle John's mill-pond along with his Stephen half the time. Uncle John, he always used to keep scolding at us and telling of us we should get sucked into the floome bime-by, and break our plaguy necks under the water-wheel. But we knew better. We'd tried it so much we could tell jest how near we could go to the gate and get away again without being drawn through. But one day Steeve, jest to plague me, threw my straw hat into the pond between me and the gate. I was swimming about two rods from the gate, and the hat was almost as near as we dared to go, and the stream was sucking it down pretty fast; so I sprung with all my might to catch the hat before it should go through and get smashed under the water-wheel. When I got within about half my length of it, I found I was as near the gate as we ever dared to go. But I hated to lose the hat, and I thought I might venture to go a little nearer, so I fetched a spring with all my might, and grabbed the hat and put it on my head, and turned back and pulled for my life. At first I thought I gained a little, and I made my hands and feet fly as tight as I could spring. In about a minute I found I didn't gain a bit one way nor t'other; and then I sprung as if I would a tore my arms off; and it seemed as if I could feel the sweat start all over me right there in the water. I begun to feel all at once as if death had me by the heels, and I screamed for help. Stephen was on the shore watching me, but he couldn't get near enough to help me. When he see I couldn't gain any, and heard me scream, he was about as scared as I was, and turned and run towards the mill, and screamed for uncle as loud as he could bawl. In a minute uncle come running to the mill-pond, and got there jest time enough to see me going through the gate feet foremost. Uncle said, if he should live to be as old as Methuselah, he should never forget what a beseeching look my eyes had as I lifted up my hands towards him and then sunk guggling into the floome. He knew I should be smashed all to pieces under the great water-wheel: but he run round as fast as he could to the tail of the mill to be ready to pick up my mangled body when it got through, so I might be carried home and buried. Presently he see me drifting along in the white foam that came out from under the mill, and he got a pole with a hook to it and drawed me to the shore. He found I was not jammed all to pieces as he expected, though he couldn't see any signs of life. But having considerable doctor skill, he went to work upon me, and rolled me over, and rubbed me, and worked upon me, till bime-by I began to groan and breathe. And at last I come to, so I could speak. They carried me home and sent for a doctor to examine me. My left foot and leg was terribly bruised, and one of the bones broke, and that was all the hurt there was on me. I must have gone lengthways right in between two buckets of the water-wheel, and that saved my life. But this poor leg and foot got such a bruising I wasn't able to go a step on it for three months, and never got entirely over it to this day."

"Then your lameness is in the leg and foot both, is it not?" said Major Grant, hoping at this favorable point to get an answer to this question.

"Oh, it wasn't that bruising under the mill-wheel," said Mr. Jack Robinson, "that caused this lameness, though I've no doubt it caused a part of it and helps to make it worse; but it wasn't the principal cause. I've had tougher scrapes than that in my day, and I was going on to tell you what I s'pose hurt my leg more than anything else ever happened to it. When I was about eighteen years old I was the greatest hunter there was within twenty miles round. I had a first-rate little fowling-piece; she would carry as true as a hair. I could hit a squirrel fifty yards twenty times running. And at all the thanksgiving shooting-matches I used to pop off the geese and turkeys so fast, it spoilt all their fun; and they got so at last they wouldn't let me fire till all the rest had fired round three times a piece. And when all of 'em had fired at a turkey three times and couldn't hit it, they would say, `well, that turkey belongs to Jack Robinson.' So I would up and fire and pop it over. Well, I used to be almost everlastingly a gunning; and father would fret and scold, because whenever there was any work to do, Jack was always off in the woods. One day I started to go over Bear Mountain, about two miles from home, to see if I couldn't kill some raccoons; and I took my brother Ned, who was three years younger than myself, with me to help bring home the game. We took some bread and cheese and doughnuts in our pockets, for we calculated to be gone all day, and I shouldered my little fowling-piece, and took a plenty of powder and shot and small bullets, and off we started through the woods. When we got round the other side of Bear Mountain, where I had always had the best luck in hunting, it was about noon. On the way I had killed a couple of grey squirrels, a large fat raccoon, and a hedge-hog. We sot down under a large beech tree to eat our bread and cheese. As we sot eating, we looked up into the tree, and it was very full of beechnuts. They were about ripe, but there had not been frost enough to make them drop much from the tree. So says I to Ned, Let us take some sticks and climb this tree and beat off some nuts to carry home. So we got some sticks, and up we went. We hadn't but jest got cleverly up into the body of the tree, before we heard something crackling among the bushes a few rods off. We looked and listened, and heard it again, louder and nearer. In a minute we see the bushes moving, not three rods off from the tree, and something black stirring about among them. Then out come an awful great black bear, the ugliest-looking feller that ever I laid my eyes on. He looked up towards the tree we was on, and turned up his nose as though he was snuffing something. I begun to feel pretty streaked; I knew bears was terrible climbers, and I'd a gin all the world if I'd only had my gun in my hand, well loaded. But there was no time to go down after it now, and I thought the only way was to keep as still as possible, and perhaps he might go off again about his business. So we didn't stir nor hardly breathe. Whether the old feller smelt us, or whether he was looking for beechnuts, I don't know; but he reared right up on his hind legs and walked as straight to the tree as a man could walk. He walked round the tree twice, and turned his great black nose up, and looked more like Old Nick than anything I ever see before. Then he stuck his sharp nails into the sides of the tree, and begun to hitch himself up. I felt as if we had got into a bad scrape, and wished we was out of it. Ned begun to cry. But, says I to Ned, `It's no use to take on about it; if he's coming up we must fight him off the best way we can.' We climb'd up higher into the tree, and the old bear come hitching along up after us. I made Ned go up above me, and, as I had a pretty good club in my hand, I thought I might be able to keep the old feller down. He didn't seem to stop for the beechnuts, but kept climbing right up towards us. When he got up pretty near I poked my club at him, and he showed his teeth and growled. Says I, `Ned, scrabble up a little higher.' We clim up two or three limbs higher, and the old bear followed close after. When he got up so he could almost touch my feet, I thought it was time to begin to fight. So I up with my club and tried to fetch him a pelt over the nose. And the very first blow he knocked the club right out of my hand, with his great nigger paw, as easy as I could knock it out of the hand of a baby a year old. I begun to think then it was gone goose with us. However, I took Ned's club, and thought I'd try once more; but he knocked it out of my hand like a feather, and made another hitch and grabbed at my feet. We scrabbled up the tree, and he after us, till we got almost to the top of the tree. At last I had to stop a little for Ned, and the old bear clinched my feet. First he stuck his claw into 'em, and then he stuck his teeth into 'em, and begun to naw. I felt as if 'twas a gone case, but I kicked and fit, and told Ned to get up higher; and he did get up a little higher, and I got up a little higher too, and the old bear made another hitch and come up higher, and begun to naw my heels again. And then the top of the tree begun to bend, for we had got up so high we was all on a single limb as 'twere; and it bent a little more, and cracked and broke, and down we went, bear and all, about thirty feet, to the ground. At first I didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I guess we all lay still as much as a minute before we could make out to breathe. When I come to my feeling a little, I found the bear had fell on my lame leg, and give it another most awful crushing. Ned wasn't hurt much. He fell on top of the bear, and the bear fell partly on me. Ned sprung off and got out of the way of the bear; and in about a minute more the bear crawled up slowly on to his feet, and began to walk off, without taking any notice of us, and I was glad enough to see that he went rather lame. When I come to try my legs I found one of 'em was terribly smashed, and I couldn't walk a step on it. So I told Ned to hand me my gun, and to go home as fast as he could go, and get the horse and father, and come and carry me home.

"Ned went off upon the quick trot, as if he was after the doctor. But the blundering critter---Ned always was a great blunderer---lost his way and wandered about in the woods all night, and didn't get home till sunrise next morning. The way I spent the night wasn't very comfortable, I can tell ye. Jest before dark it begun to rain, and I looked round to try to find some kind of a shelter. At last I see a great tree, lying on the ground a little ways off, that seemed to be holler. I crawled along to it, and found there was a holler in one end large enough for me to creep into. So in I went, and in order to get entirely out of the way of the spattering of the rain, and keep myself dry, I crept in as much as ten feet. I laid there and rested myself as well as I could, though my leg pained me too much to sleep. Some time in the night, all at once, I heerd a sort of rustling noise at the end of the log where I come in. My hair stood right on eend. It was dark as Egypt; I couldn't see the least thing, but I could hear the rustling noise again, and it sounded as if it was coming into the log. I held my breath, but I could hear something breathing heavily, and there seemed to be a sort of scratching against the sides of the log, and it kept working along in towards me. I clinched my fowling-piece and held on to it. 'Twas well loaded with a brace of balls and some shot besides. But whether to fire, or what to do, I couldn't tell. I was sure there was some terrible critter in the log, and the rustling noise kept coming nearer and nearer to me. At last I heerd a low kind of a growl. I thought if I was only dead and decently buried somewhere I should be glad; for to be eat up alive there by bears, or wolves, or catamounts, I couldn't bear the idea of it. In a minute more something made a horrible grab at my feet, and begun to naw 'em. At first I crawled a little further into the tree. But the critter was hold of my feet again in a minute, and I found it was no use for me to go in any farther. I didn't hardly dare to fire; for I thought if I didn't kill the critter, it would only be likely to make him fight the harder. And then again I thought if I should kill him, and he should be as large as I fancied him to be, I should never be able to shove him out of the log, nor to get out by him. While I was having these thoughts the old feller was nawing and tearing my feet so bad, I found he would soon kill me if I laid still. So I took my gun and pointed down by my feet, as near the centre of the holler log as I could, and let drive. The report almost stunned me. But when I come to my hearing again, I laid still and listened. Everything round me was still as death; I couldn't hear the least sound. I crawled back a few inches towards the mouth of the log, and was stopt by something against my feet. I pushed it. 'Twould give a little, but I couldn't move it. I got my hand down far enough to reach, and felt the fur and hair and ears of some terrible animal.

"That was an awful long night. And when the morning did come, the critter filled the holler up so much, there was but very little light come in where I was. I tried again to shove the animal towards the mouth of the log, but I found 'twas no use,---I couldn't move him. At last the light come in so much that I felt pretty sure it was a monstrous great bear that I had killed. But I begun to feel now as if I was buried alive; for I was afraid our folks wouldn't find me, and I was sure I never could get out myself. But about two hours after sunrise, all at once I thought I heered somebody holler "Jack." I listened and I heered it again, and I knew 'twas father's voice. I answered as loud as I could holler. They kept hollering, and I kept hollering. Sometimes they would go further off and sometimes come nearer. My voice sounded so queer they couldn't tell where it come from, nor what to make of it. At last, by going round considerable, they found my voice seemed to be some where round the holler tree, and bime-by father come along and put his head into the holler of the tree, and called out, `Jack, are you here?' `Yes I be,' says I, `and I wish you would pull this bear out, so I can get out myself.' When they got us out, I was about as much dead as alive; but they got me on to the horse, and led me home and nursed me up, and had a doctor to set my leg again; and it's a pretty good leg yet."

Here, while Mr. Robinson was taking another sip from his tumbler, Major Grant glanced at his watch, and, looking up to Doctor Snow, said, with a grave, quiet air, "Doctor, I give it up; the bet is yours."