University of Virginia Library

3. 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.”