CHAPTER I

THE THUNDER-SQUALL.

ON a high, hilly pasture, occupying the northeast corner of Peach Hill Farm, a man and two boys were one afternoon clearing the ground of stones.

The man—noticeable for his round shoulders, round puckered mouth, and two large, shining front teeth—wielded a stout iron bar called a “crow,” with which he pried up the turf-bound rocks, and helped to tumble them over upon a drag, called in that region a “stun-boat.” The larger of the boys—a bright, active lad of about fourteen years—lent a hand at the heavy rocks, and also gathered up and cast upon the drag the smaller stones, on his own account. The second lad—nearly as tall, and perhaps quite as old as the other—helped a little about the stones, but divided his attention chiefly between the horse that drew the drag, and a shaggy black dog that accompanied the party.

“Come, boy!” said the man,—enunciating the _m_ and _b_ by closing the said front teeth upon his nether lip,—“ye better quit fool’n’, an’ ketch holt and help. ’S go’n’ to rain.”

“Ain’t I helping?” retorted the smaller boy. “Don’t I drive the horse?”

“A great sight,—long’s the reins are on his back, an’ I haf to holler to him half the time to git up an’ whoa. Git up, Maje! there! whoa!—Jack’s wuth jest about six of ye.”

“O, Jack’s dreadful smart! Beats everything! And so are you, Phi Pipkin!” said the boy, sneeringly. “You feel mighty big since you got married, don’t ye?—I bet ye Lion’s got a squirrel under that big rock! I’m going to see!” And away he ran.

“That ’ere Phin Chatford ain’t wuth the salt in his porridge,—if I do say it!” remarked Mr. Pipkin. “I never did see sich a shirk; though when he comes to tell what’s been done, you’d think he was boss of all creation. Feel as if I’d like to take the gad to him sometimes, by hokey!”

“O Jack!” cried Phin, who had mounted a boulder much too large for Mr. Pipkin’s crow-bar, “you can see Lake Ontario from here,—’way over the trees there! Come and get up here; it’s grand!”

“I’ve been up there before,” replied Jack. “Haven’t time now. We shall have that shower here before we get half across the lot.”

“Come, Phin!” called out Mr. Pipkin, “there’s reason in all things! We’ll onhitch soon’s we git this load, an’ dodge a wettin’.”

“Seems to me you’re all-fired ’fraid of a wetting, both of ye,” cried Phin. “’T won’t hurt me! Let it come, and be darned to it, I say!”

This last exclamation sounded so much like blasphemy to the boy’s own ears, and it was followed immediately by so vivid a flash of lightning and so terrific a peal of thunder, from a black cloud rolling up overhead, that he jumped down from the rock and crouched beside it, looking ludicrously pale and scared; while the dog, dropping ears and tail, and whining and trembling with fear, ran first for Jack’s legs, then for Mr. Pipkin’s, and finally crouched by the boulder with Phin.

“You’re a perty pictur’ there!” cried Mr. Pipkin, with a loud, hoarse laugh. “Who’s afraid now?”

“Lion, I guess,—I ain’t,” said Phin, with an unnatural grin. “Only thought I’d sit down a spell.”

“It’s as cheap settin’ as standin’,—as the old hen remarked, arter she’d sot a month on rotten eggs, an’ nary chicken,” said Mr. Pipkin, whose spirits rose with the excitement of the occasion.

“There’s a good reason for the dog’s skulking,” said Jack. “He’s afraid of thunder, ever since Squire Peternot fired the old musket in his face and eyes. Hello! another crack!”

“I never see sich thunder!” exclaimed Mr. Pipkin. “Look a’ them rain-drops! big as bullets!”

“It’s coming!” cried Jack; and instantly the heavy thunder-gust swept over them.

“Onhitch!” roared out Mr. Pipkin, in the sudden tumult of rain and wind and thunder. “I must look out for my rheumatiz! Put for the house!”

“We shall get drenched before we are half-way to the house,” replied Jack, dropping the trace-chains. “I go for the woods!”

“I’ll take Old Maje, then,” said Mr. Pipkin.

But before he could mount, Phin, darting from the imperfect shelter of the rock, ran and leaped across the horse’s back. As he was scrambling to a seat, holding on by mane and harness, kicking, and calling out, “Give me a boost, Phi!” Mr. Pipkin gave him a boost, and lost his hat by the operation. That was quickly recovered; but before the owner, clapping it on his head, could get back to the horse’s side, the youthful rider, using the gathered-up reins for a whip, had started for the barn.

“Whoa! hold on! take me!” bellowed Mr. Pipkin.

“He won’t carry double—ask Jack!”

Flinging these parting words over his shoulder, the treacherous Phin went off at a gallop, leaving Mr. Pipkin to follow, at a heavy “dog-trot,” over the darkened hill, through the rushing, blinding storm.

Jack was already leaping a wall which separated the pasture from a neighboring wood-lot. Plunging in among the reeling and clashing trees, he first sought shelter by placing himself close under the lee of a large basswood; but the rain dashed through the surging mass of foliage above, and trickled down upon him from trunk and limbs.

Looking hastily about to see if he could better his situation, he cast his eye upon a prostrate tree, which some former gale had broken and overthrown, and from which the branches had mostly rotted and fallen away. It appeared to be hollow at the butt, and Jack ran to it, laughing at the thought of crawling in out of the rain. He put in his head, but took it out again immediately. The cavity was dark, and a disagreeable odor of rotten wood, suggestive of bugs and “thousand-legged worms,” repelled him.

“Never mind!” thought he. “I can clap my clothes in the hole, and have ’em dry to put on after the shower is over.”

He stripped himself in a moment, rolled up his garments in a neat bundle, and placed them, with his hat and shoes, within the hollow log.

“Now for a jolly shower-bath!” And, seeing an opening in the woods a little farther on, he capered towards it, laughing at the oddness of his situation, and at the feeling of the rain trickling down his bare back. A few more lightning flashes and tremendous claps of thunder, then a steady, pouring rain for about five minutes, in which Jack danced and screamed in great glee,—and the storm was over.

“What a soaking Phi and Phin must have got!” thought he. “And now won’t they be surprised to see me come home in dry clothes!”

The wind had gone down before; and now a flood of silver light, like a more ethereal shower, broke upon the still woods, brightening through its arched vistas, glancing from the leaves, and glistening in countless drops from the dripping boughs. A light wind passed, and every tree seemed to shake down laughingly from its shining locks a shower of pearls. Jack was filled with a sense of wonder and joy as he walked back through the beautiful, fresh, wet woods to his hollow log. He waited only a minute or two for his skin to dry, and for the boughs to cease dripping; then put in his hand where he had left his clothes. His clothes were not there!

Jack was startled: in place of the anticipated triumph of going home in dry garments, here was a chance of his going home in no garments at all! Yet who could have taken them? how was it possible that they could have been removed during his brief absence? “Maybe this isn’t the log!” He looked around. “Yes, it is, though!”

No other fallen trunk at all resembling it was to be seen in the woods. Then he stooped again, and thrust his hand as far as he could into the opening. He touched something,—not what he sought, but a mass of hair, and the leg of some large animal. He recoiled instinctively, with—it must be confessed—a start of fear.