"Cracked in my life well-nigh on to fifty bushel, I guess," he explained, in answer to our wonder at his skill.

And so the evening pa.s.sed, around the genial old fireplace; and before the children retired they smacked their lips over sirup sweet enough to satisfy them.

The following morning--Sat.u.r.day--I vibrated between the sugar-camp and the barn and other out-buildings, giving, however, most of the time to the help of my wife in getting the house more to her mind, and in planning some work that would require a brief visit from a carpenter; for I felt that I must soon bestow nearly all my attention on the outdoor work. I managed to keep Bobsey under my eye for the most part, and in the afternoon I left him for only a few moments at the sugar-bush while I carried up some sap. A man called to see me on business, and I was detained. Knowing the little fellow's p.r.o.neness to mischief, and forgetfulness of all commands, I at last hastened back with a half guilty and worried feeling.

I reached the brow of the hill just in time to see him throw a stick into the creek, lose his balance, and fall in.

With an exclamation of terror, his own cry forming a faint echo, I sprang forward frantically, but the swift current caught and bore him away.

CHAPTER XIX

JOHN JONES, JUN

My agonized shout as I saw Bobsey swept away by the swollen current of the Moodna Creek was no more prompt than his own shrill scream. It so happened, or else a kind Providence so ordered it, that Junior was further down the stream, tapping a maple that had been overlooked the previous day. He sprang to his feet, whirled around in the direction of the little boy's cry, with the quickness of thought rushed to the bank and plunged in with a headlong leap like a Newfoundland dog. I paused, spellbound, to watch him, knowing that I was much too far away to be of aid, and that all now depended on the hardy country lad. He disappeared for a second beneath the tide, and then his swift strokes proved that he was a good swimmer. In a moment or two he caught up with Bobsey, for the current was too swift to permit the child to sink. Then, with a wisdom resulting from experience, he let the torrent carry him in a long slant toward the sh.o.r.e, for it would have been hopeless to try to stem the tide. Running as I never ran before, I followed, reached the bank where there was an eddy in the stream, sprang in up to my waist, seized them both as they approached and dragged them to solid ground.

Merton and Winnie meanwhile stood near with white, scared faces.

Bobsey was conscious, although he had swallowed some water, and I was soon able to restore him, so that he could stand on his feet and cry: "I--I--I w-won't d-do so any--any more."

Instead of punishing him, which he evidently expected, I clasped him to my heart with a nervous force that almost made him cry out with pain.

Junior, meanwhile, had coolly seated himself on a rock, emptied the water out of his shoes, and was tying them on again, at the same time striving with all his might to maintain a stolid composure under Winnie's grateful embraces and Merton's interrupting hand-shakings. But when, having become a.s.sured of Bobsey's safety, I rushed forward and embraced Junior in a transport of grat.i.tude, his lip began to quiver and two great tears mingled with the water that was dripping from his hair. Suddenly he broke away, took to his heels, and ran toward his home, as if he had been caught in some mischief and the constable were after him. I believe that he would rather have had at once all the strappings his father had ever given him than to have cried in our presence.

I carried Bobsey home, and his mother, with many questionings and exclamations of thanksgiving, undressed the little fellow, wrapped him in flannel, and put him to bed, where he was soon sleeping as quietly as if nothing had happened.

Mrs. Jones came over, and we made her rubicund face beam and grow more round, if possible, as we all praised her boy. I returned with her, for I felt that I wished to thank Junior again and again. But he saw me coming, and slipped out at the back door. Indeed, the brave, bashful boy was shy of us for several days. When at last my wife got hold of him, and spoke to him in a manner natural to mothers, he pooh-poohed the whole affair.

"I've swum in that crick so often that it was nothin' to me. I only had to keep cool, and that was easy enough in snow water, and the swift current would keep us both up. I wish you wouldn't say anything more about it. It kinder makes me feel--I don't know how--all over, you know."

But Junior soon learned that we had adopted him into our inmost hearts, although he compelled us to show our good-will after his own off-hand fashion.

Sunday was ushered in with another storm, and we spent a long, quiet, restful day, our hearts full of thankfulness that the great sorrow, which might have darkened the beginning of our country life, had been so happily averted.

On Sunday night the wind veered around to the north, and on Monday morning the sky had a clear metallic hue and the ground was frozen hard. Bobsey had not taken cold, and was his former self, except that he was somewhat chastened in spirit and his b.u.mp of caution was larger.

I was resolved that the day should witness a good beginning of our spring work, and told Winnie and Bobsey that they could help me.

Junior, although he yet avoided the house, was ready enough to help Merton with the sap. Therefore soon after breakfast we all were busy.

Around old country places, especially where there has been some degree of neglect, much litter gathers. This was true of our new home and its surroundings. All through the garden were dry, unsightly weeds, about the house was shrubbery that had become tangled ma.s.ses of unpruned growth, in the orchard the ground was strewn with fallen branches, and I could see dead limbs on many of the trees.

Therefore I said to my two little helpers: "Here in this open s.p.a.ce in the garden we will begin our brush-pile, and we will bring to it all the refuse that we wish to burn. You see that we can make an immense heap, for the place is so far away from any buildings that, when the wind goes down, we can set the pile on fire in safety, and the ashes will do the garden good."

During the whole forenoon I pruned the shrubbery, and raked up the rubbish which the children carried by armfuls to our prospective bonfire. They soon wished to see the blaze, but I told them that the wind was too high, and that I did not propose to apply the match until we had a heap half as big as the house; that it might be several days before we should be ready, for I intended to have a tremendous fire.

Thus with the lesson of restraint was given the hope of something wonderful. For a long time they were pleased with the novelty of the work, and then they wanted to do something else, but I said: "No, no; you are gardeners now, and I'm head gardener. You must both help me till dinner-time. After that you can do something else, or play if you choose; but each day, even Bobsey must do some steady work to earn his dinner. We didn't come to the country on a picnic, I can tell you. All must do their best to help make a living;" and so without scruple I kept my little squad busy, for the work was light, although it had become monotonous.

Mousie sometimes aided her mother, and again watched us from the window with great interest. I rigged upon the barrow a rack, in which I wheeled the rubbish gathered at a distance; and by the time my wife's mellow voice called, "Come to dinner"--how sweet her voice and summons were after long hours in the keen March wind!--we had a pile much higher than my head, and the place began to wear a tidy aspect.

Such appet.i.tes, such red cheeks and rosy noses as the outdoor workers brought to that plain meal! Mousie was much pleased with the promise that the bonfire should not be lighted until some still, mild day when she could go out and stand with me beside it.

Merton admitted that gathering the sap did not keep him busy more than half the time; so after dinner I gave him a hatchet, and told him to go on with the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g out of the fallen branches in our wood lot--a task that I had begun--and to carry all wood heavy enough for our fireplace to a spot where it could be put into a wagon.

"Your next work, Merton, will be to collect all your refuse tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and the brush lying about, into a few great heaps; and by and by we'll burn these, too, and gather up the ashes carefully, for I've read and heard all my life that there is nothing better for fruit then wood-ashes. Some day, I hope, we can begin to put money in the bank; for I intend to give all a chance to earn money for themselves, after they have done their share toward our general effort to live and thrive. The next best thing to putting money in the bank is the gathering and saving of everything that will make the ground richer. In fact, all the papers and books that I've read this winter agree that as the farmer's land grows rich he grows rich."

CHAPTER XX

RASPBERRY LESSONS

It must be remembered that I had spent all my leisure during the winter in reading and studying the problem of our country life. Therefore I knew that March was the best month for pruning trees, and I had gained a fairly correct idea how to do this work. Until within the last two or three years of his life, old Mr. Jamison had attended to this task quite thoroughly; and thus little was left for me beyond sawing away the boughs that had recently died, and cutting out the useless sprouts on the larger limbs. Before leaving the city I had provided myself with such tools as I was sure I should need; and finding a ladder under a shed, I attacked the trees vigorously. The wind had almost died out, and I knew I must make the most of all still days in this gusty month.

After playing around for a time, Winnie and Bobsey concluded that gathering and piling up my prunings would be as good fun as anything else; and so I had helpers again.

By the middle of the afternoon Mr. Jones appeared, and I was glad to see him, for there were some kinds of work about which I wanted his advice. At one end of the garden were several rows of blackcap raspberry bushes, which had grown into an awful snarl. The old canes that had borne fruit the previous season were still standing, ragged and unsightly; the new stalks that would bear the coming season sprawled in every direction; and I had found that many tips of the branches had grown fast in the ground. I took my neighbor to see this briery wilderness, and asked his advice.

"Have you got a pair of pruning-nippers?" he asked.

Before going to the house to get them, I blew a shrill whistle to summon Merton, for I wished him also to hear all that Mr. Jones might say. I carried a little metallic whistle one blast on which was for Merton, two for Winnie, and three for Bobsey. When they heard this call they were to come as fast as their feet could carry them.

Taking the nippers, Mr. Jones snipped off from one-third to one-half the length of the branches from one of the bushes and cut out the old dead cane.

"I raise these berries myself for home use," he said; "and I can tell you they go nice with milk for a July supper. You see, after taking off so much from these long branches the canes stand straight up, and will be self-supporting, no matter how many berries they bear; but here and there's a bush that has grown slant-wise, or is broken off. Now, if I was you, I'd take a crow-bar 'n' make a hole 'longside these weakly and slantin' fellers, put in a stake, and tie 'em up strong. Then, soon as the frost yields, if you'll get out the gra.s.s and weeds that's started among 'em, you'll have a dozen bushel or more of marketable berries from this 'ere wilderness, as you call it. Give Merton a pair of old gloves, and he can do most of the job. Every tip that's fast in the ground is a new plant. If you want to set out another patch, I'll show you how later on."

"I think I know pretty nearly how to do that."

"Yes, yes, I know. Books are a help, I s'pose, but after you've seen one plant set out right, you'll know more than if you'd 'a' read a month."

"Well, now that you're here, Mr. Jones, I'm going to make the most of you. How about those other raspberries off to the southeast of the house?"

"Those are red ones. Let's take a look at 'em."

Having reached the patch, we found almost as bad a tangle as in the blackcap patch, except that the canes were more upright in their growth and less full of spines or briers.

"It's plain enough," continued Mr. Jones, "that old man Jamison was too poorly to take much care of things last year. You see, these red raspberries grow different from those black ones yonder. Those increase by the tips of the branches takin' root; these by suckers. All these young shoots comin' up between the rows are suckers, and they ought to be dug out. As I said before, you can set them out somewhere else if you want to. Dig 'em up, you know; make a trench in some out-of-the-way place, and bury the roots till you want 'em. Like enough the neighbors will buy some if they know you have 'em to spare. Only be sure to cut these long canes back to within six inches of the ground."

"Yes," I said, "that's all just as I have read in the books."

"So much the better for the books, then. I haven't lived in this fruit-growin' region all my life without gettin' some ideas as to what's what. I give my mind to farmin'; but Jamison and I were great cronies, and I used to be over here every day or two, and so it's natural to keep comin'."

"That's my good luck."

"Well, p'raps it'll turn out so. Now Merton's just the right age to help you in all this work. Jamison, you see, grew these raspberries in a continuous bushy row; that is, say, three good strong canes every eighteen inches apart in the row, and the rows five feet apart, so he could run a horse-cultivator between. Are you catchin' on, Merton?"

"Yes, sir," said the boy, with much interest.