The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 15

"All right. I'll crack him!" he promised.

"Now, for the Lord's sake, don't you miss 'im!" Dennis warned. "I don't want Tom ter have the laugh on us."

The Boy promised, and Dennis called his dogs and hurried into the bottoms toward the Salt Lick. In half an hour the dogs opened on a hot trail that grew fainter and fainter in the distance until they could scarcely be heard. They stopped altogether for a moment and then took up the cry gradually growing clearer and clearer. The deer had run the limit of his first impulse and taken the back track, returning directly over the same trail.

Nearer and nearer the pack drew, the trail growing hotter and hotter with each leap of the hounds.

The Boy was trembling with excitement. He c.o.c.ked his gun and stood ready. Boney lay on a pile of leaves ten feet away quietly dozing.

Louder and louder rang the cry of the hounds. They seemed to be right back of the hill now. The deer should leap over its crest at any moment.

His gun was half lifted and his eyes flaming with excitement when a beautiful half grown fawn sprang over the hill and stood for a moment staring with wide startled eyes straight into his.

The savage yelp of the hounds close behind rang clear, sharp and piercing as they reared the summit. The panting, trembling fawn glanced despairingly behind, looked again into the Boy's eyes, and as the first dog leaped the hill crest made his choice. Staggering and panting with terror, he dropped on his knees by the Boy's side, the bloodshot eyes begging piteously for help.

The Boy dropped his gun and gathered the trembling thing in his arms. In a moment the hounds were on him leaping and tearing at the fawn. He kicked them right and left and yelled with all his might:

"Down, I tell you! Down or I'll kill you!"

The hounds continued to leap and snap in spite of his kicks and cries until Boney saw the struggle, and stepped between his master and his tormenters. One low growl and not another hound came near.

When Dennis arrived panting for breath he couldn't believe his eyes. The Boy was holding the exhausted fawn in his lap with a glazed look in his eyes.

"Well, of all the dam-fool things I ever see sence G.o.d made me, this takes the cake!" he cried in disgust. "Why didn't ye shoot him?"

"Because he ran to me for help--how could I shoot him?"

Dennis sat down and roared:

"Well, of all the deer huntin', this beats me!"

The Boy rose, still holding the fawn in his arms.

"You can take the gun and go on. Boney and me'll go back home----"

"You ain't goin' ter carry that thing clean home, are you?"

"Yes, I am," was the quiet answer. "And I'll kill any dog that tries to hurt him."

Dennis was still laughing when he disappeared, Boney walking slowly at his heels.

He showed the fawn to his mother and told Sarah she could have him for a pet. The mother watched him with s.h.i.+ning eyes while he built a pen and then lifted the still trembling wild thing inside.

Next morning the pen was down and the captive gone. The Boy didn't seem much surprised or appear to care. When he was alone with his mother she whispered:

"Didn't you go out there last night and let it loose when the dogs were asleep?"

He was still a moment and then nodded his head.

His mother clasped him to her heart.

"O my Boy! My own--I love you!"

XII

The second winter in the wilderness was not so hard. The heavy work of clearing the timber for the corn fields was done and the new cabin and its furniture had been finished except the door, for which there was little use.

The new neighbors had brought cheer to the mother's heart.

An early spring broke the winter of 1818 and clothed the wilderness world in robes of matchless beauty.

The Boy's gourds were placed beside the new garden and the noise of chattering martins echoed over the cabin. The toughened muscles of his strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task.

The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no value in its elemental struggle. Character, skill, strength and manhood only counted. Poverty was teaching him the first great lesson of human life, that man shall eat his bread in the sweat of his brow and that industry is the only foundation on which the moral and material universe has ever rested or can rest.

Solitude and the stimulus of his mother's mind were slowly teaching him to think--to think deeply and fearlessly, and think for himself.

Entering now in his ninth year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown, consciously awkward, homely and ill clad--he grew so rapidly it was impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his age. His mother saw and understood.

A child in years and yet he had already learned the secrets of the toil necessary to meet the needs of life. He swung a woodman's axe with any man. He could plow and plant a field, make its crop, harvest and store its fruits and cook them for the table. He could run, jump, wrestle, swim and fight when manhood called. He knew the language of the winds and clouds, and spoke the tongues of woods and field.

And he could read and write. His mother's pa.s.sionate yearning and quenchless enthusiasm had placed in his hand the key to books and the secrets of the ages were his for the asking.

He would never see the walls of a college, but he had already taken his degree in Industry, Patience, Caution, Courage, Pity and Gentleness.

The beauty and glory of this remarkable spring brought him into still closer communion with his mother's spirit. They had read every story of the Bible, some of them twice or three times, and his stubborn mind had fought with her many a friendly battle over their teachings. Always too wise and patient to command his faith, she waited its growth in the fulness of time. He had read every tale in "aesop's Fables" and brought a thousand smiles to his mother's dark face by his quaint comments. She was dreaming now of new books to place in his eager hands. Corn was ten cents a bushel, wheat twenty-five, and a cow was only worth six dollars.

Whiskey, hams and tobacco were legal tender and used instead of money.

She had ceased to dream of wealth in goods and chattels until conditions were changed. Her one aim in life was to train the minds of her children and to this joyous task she gave her soul and body. It was the only thing worth while. That G.o.d would give her strength for this was all she asked.

And then the great shadow fell.

The mother and children were walking home from the woods through the glory of the Southern spring morning in awed silence. The path was hedged with violets and b.u.t.tercups. The sweet odor of grapevine, blackberry and dewberry blossoms filled the air. Dogwood and black-haw lit with white flame the farthest shadows of the forest and the music of birds seemed part of the mingled perfume of flowers.

The boy's keen ear caught the drone of bees and his sharp eye watched them climb slowly toward their storehouse in a towering tree. All nature was laughing in the madness of joy.

The Boy silently took his mother's hand and asked in subdued tones:

"What is the pest, Ma, and what makes it?"

"n.o.body knows," she answered softly. "It comes like a thief in the night and stays for months and sometimes for years. They call it the 'milk-sick' because the cows die, too--and sometimes the horses. The old Indian women say it starts from the cows eating a poison flower in the woods. The doctors know nothing about it. It just comes and kills, that's all."

The little hand suddenly gripped hers with trembling hold:

"O Ma, if it kills you!"

A tender smile lighted her dark face as the warmth of his love ran like fire through her veins.

"It can't harm me, my son, unless G.o.d wills it. When he calls I shall be ready."

All the way home he clung to her hand and sometimes when they paused stroked it tenderly with both his.