CHAPTER IV.

A HOME IN THE WOODS.

Having taken time to cool off and recover his breath, George once more lifted his bundle to his shoulder and resumed his journey. He had not more than two miles to go now, and as he followed the beach, where the walking was good, it took him but a short time to cover the distance.

The next time he threw down his bundle it was in front of a snug little cabin, built of rough logs, and situated on a little rise of ground that commanded a fine view of the lake.

“Things are all right outside,” said George to himself, as he took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the padlock with which the heavy slab door was secured; “and that is something to wonder at. There are lots of mean boys in the village, and I was afraid that some of them had been up here during my absence. Everything seems to be all right inside, too,” he added, as the door swung open and the interior of the cabin was disclosed to view.

George stepped across the threshold as he spoke, and this was what he saw: A room twelve or thirteen feet square, with a heavy, ungainly-looking scow turned bottom upward in the middle of it; a wide fire-place with a stick chimney and a stone hearth; over it a rough mantelpiece, on which stood a lamp and several books; at the opposite end an open cupboard piled with bright tin dishes; under the cupboard a table and two or three stools, all made of slabs—and neatly made, too; in a corner, near the door, a pair of oars and a small sprit-sail made of unbleached muslin; and lastly, a cord hammock, with two quilts, as many blankets, and a pillow in it.

There was no floor in the cabin, and neither were there any windows. The ground, which was almost as hard as the stone that formed the hearth, was easily kept clean, and the door, being allowed to stand open during the daytime, except in very stormy weather, admitted all the light that was necessary.

Some boys would have thought this a very cheerless and uninviting home, and so it was, but it was the only one George had. He had lived in the hope of some day being able to provide himself with a better.

“There’s one thing about it,” thought the boy, as he placed several sticks of round wood upon the ground and made preparations to roll the heavy scow out of the cabin, “I am my own master. There is no one to tell me what I shall do and what I shall not do, and all the money I make is my own. If I had agreed to Uncle Ruben’s proposition, I should have to go hungry and half clad, listen to a scolding from Aunt Polly Ann every hour in the day, and now and then I’d have to take a cowhiding from Uncle Ruben. I’d much rather live here alone than with them, and I don’t care if I never see—”

George’s soliloquy was interrupted by a sound that startled him—the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the gravelly beach. He looked out at the door, and was astonished to see Uncle Ruben riding toward the cabin.

If one might judge by the expression of his face he was in very good humor about something. Dismounting, he drew the bridle-rein over his horse’s head, and dropped it to the ground so that the animal could not stray away, at the same time greeting his nephew with:

“Well, George, I don’t reckon you expected to see me ag’in so soon, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” replied the boy.

And Uncle Ruben would have been dull, indeed, if he had not been able to see that he was not wanted there.

“I didn’t expect to see you, nuther,” continued the man, seating himself on the scow, which had been rolled part way through the door. “But I thought mebbe I’d better have another leetle talk with you—”

“It’s of no use,” said George—“of no use whatever. If I had to live in the same house with you, I would not work for you for fifty dollars a month—”

—“another leetle talk with you,” repeated Uncle Ruben, paying no heed to the interruption, “for I think you will be willin’ to listen to me now.”

“Well, you are mistaken. I shall never agree to your proposition. I know you too well.”

“I wouldn’t git up on a high hoss, if I was in your place. ’Tain’t becomin’,” said Uncle Ruben, in a significant tone. “Hold on now,” he added, seeing that George’s face began to flush with indignation. “I ain’t speakin’ of what your father’s done. I’m speakin’ of what you have done yourself.”

“I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have tried to behave myself, and to deserve the respect of those around me. I have always made an honest living—”

“Have you, though? Well, there’s them right here in this town as says you hain’t,” interrupted Uncle Ruben, with a triumphant air.

“Oh, I know that there are those who make a business of saying all sorts of unkind things about me,” answered George, in a voice that was choked with indignation, “but all they can say will not alter the facts of the case. I say now, and I don’t care who disputes it—”

He suddenly paused, for there was an expression in his uncle’s eyes that he could not understand. He looked steadily at him for a moment, and then seated himself on the other end of the scow.

“There, now!” said Uncle Ruben, in a tone of satisfaction. “I kinder thought that mebbe you’d be willin’ to listen to reason after while. It’s the gospel truth, an’ folks do say it.”

“What do they say?”

“They say they don’t know where you got the money you used to spend at the store for the oranges an’ trash you used to buy for your mother.”

“Well, if you hear anybody asking any questions about it, you can just tell them, for me, that it’s none of their business!” replied George, angrily.

“But folks’ll make it their business. You can’t expect that they’ll stand by an’ let their stores be broke into an’ robbed, an’ their butter an’ chickens stole, without making a fuss about it. Don’t stand to reason.”

“Uncle Ruben, explain yourself,” said George, jumping to his feet. “You don’t mean to tell me—”

“Yes, I do,” broke in the man, who knew what his nephew was about to say. “Everybody knows that you have been spendin’ a heap of money sence your father was locked up, an’ that you didn’t make it by sellin’ fish an’ berries.”

“How did I make it, then?” asked George, who was utterly bewildered.

“How can I tell? I don’t know where all that nice butter an’ them fine chickens an’ silk goods went to. True, that’s jest what folks say about you,” continued Uncle Ruben, who saw that George was almost overwhelmed by the hints he had thrown out, “an’ they’ll keep on sayin’ it as long as you live up here in this wild Injun fashion. Your Aunt Polly Ann, who sets a heap of store by you, has been to the trouble of fixin’ up a nice bedroom for you, an’ I promised her, sure, that I’d bring you home with me.”

“Well, when you see her again, tell her that the reason that you didn’t keep your promise was because I wouldn’t go home with you,” said George.

“You won’t? You’d better. Jest see how people are talkin’ about you.”

“Let them talk until they get tired, and then, perhaps they will stop. I’ll not go,” declared George, shortly.

“But you must. I’ve set my heart on it, an’ so has your Aunt Polly Ann.”

“I can’t help that.”

“The constable might come up here an’ arrest you for a thief.”

“I know he might, but he won’t. At any rate, I’ll take the risk. Now, Uncle Ruben, you might as well understand, first as last, that you can’t scare me into going home with you. Let me shove the boat out, please. There is a storm coming up, and I want to go out on the lake and catch some fish for supper before it gets here.”

“Well, George,” said Uncle Ruben, as he arose to his feet, “I have tried to do my duty by you. I have offered you a good home, an’ give you fair warnin’ of what will be sartin to happen to you if you hold to your fool notion of livin’ up here all alone by yourself. Folks will think there’s something wrong somewhere.”

“They needn’t trouble themselves about me. Let them attend to their own business, and I will attend to mine.”

“If you git into trouble through your mulishness, you mustn’t blame me for it.”

“I won’t. Good-by!”

“He’s a bad boy—a monstrous bad boy!” soliloquized Uncle Ruben, as he mounted his horse and rode away; “an’ he’ll surely come to some bad end, jest as his father did before him. He shan’t stay up here wastin’ his time when he had oughter be at work, an’ that’s all there is about it.”

George watched his uncle as long as he remained in sight, and then went to work to get his scow into the water. He was surprised and bewildered, but he was not frightened, for he could not bring himself to believe that the man had told him the truth. What reason could anybody have for saying that he was the thief whose depredations had caused so great an excitement in the village?

“Uncle Ruben made it all up out of his own head,” said George to himself, as he pushed the scow into the water and made the painter fast to a convenient tree, “and it is only one of the many mean tricks of which I know him to be guilty. The village people know where I live, and if they suspect me, let them come up here and find some of the stolen goods in my possession. That’s a thing they can’t do.”

Consoling himself with this reflection, George went into the cabin again, and when he came out he brought out with him the oars belonging to the scow, and also a stout fishing-rod. It was not a jointed lancewood rod, with German-silver mountings, wound butt, and nickel-plated reel-seat, but simply a hickory sapling he had cut in the bushes.

George could not afford a fancy outfit, and this rod, which had cost him nothing at all, answered the purpose for which it was intended, and if he chanced to break it while playing a heavy fish, he could in five minutes provide himself with another just as good.

Having filled his box with bait, which he found under a log behind the cabin, George stepped into his scow and pushed her off from the beach.

Just then a loud peal of thunder echoed among the hills, and the smooth surface of the lake was ruffled by the first breath of the oncoming storm. A thick, black cloud which had been hanging in the horizon all day long, was now rising rapidly, and, during the five minutes that George had been employed in getting his boat into the water and digging his bait, it had covered the whole sky.

It was growing dark, and the lake looked black and threatening. It was a treacherous body of water—a capful of wind was enough to raise a sea that would try almost any boat—and George knew better than to trust himself upon it while a gale was raging.

“I guess I don’t want any fish for supper,” said he, as he shifted his oar to the other side of the boat, and pushed her back toward the beach. “I shall have to be satisfied with what I brought with me in my bundle. It’s going to be a hard one,” he added, as a strong gust of wind lifted his hat from his head and carried it toward the cabin; “and I thank my lucky stars that I have a tight roof to shelter me. What in the world was that?”

Having drawn his scow high up on the beach, and fastened the painter securely to a tree, George ran to recover his hat; and just then, something that sounded like a cry for help came faintly to his ears.

Believing that the appeal came from the woods, George listened intently, and in a few seconds the cry was repeated. This time the wind brought it to him very plainly, and he caught the words:

“Help! help! Our boat is sinking!”

George looked in the direction from which the voice sounded, and was greatly astonished as well as alarmed, to see a cockle-shell of a boat dancing about among the waves, which had already grown to formidable proportions. While he gazed, she sank out of sight, and nothing but the top of the little shoulder-of-mutton sail she carried in the bow remained in view to show that she was still above water.