The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 6

"No, less don't do that."

"Why?"

"'Cause Ma don't 'low me to go in the creek till June--says I might ketch my death o' cold."

"Shucks! I've been in twice already!"

"Have ye?"

"Yep!"

"And ye didn't get sick?"

"Do I _look_ sick?"

"Not a bit."

"Well, then?"

"All right--we'll go."

The spirit of freedom born of the fields and woods had grown into something more than an att.i.tude of mind. He was ready for the deed--the positive act of adventure. He didn't like to disobey his mother. But he couldn't afford to let Austin think that he was a molly-coddle, a mere babe hanging to her skirts. He was doing a man's work. It was time he took a few of man's privileges.

He revelled in the situation of adventure that night and saw himself the hero of stirring scenes.

Next morning on Austin's arrival he asked his mother to let him stay at home and play.

"Don't you want to go to meeting and hear the new preacher?" she asked persuasively.

"No, I'm tired."

The mother smiled indulgently. He was young--far too young yet to know the meaning of true religion. She was a Baptist, and the first principle of her religion was personal faith and direct relations of the individual soul with G.o.d. She remembered her own hours of torture in childhood.

"All right, Boy," she said graciously. "Be good now, while we're gone."

His big toe was digging in the dirt while he murmured:

"Yes'm."

The wagon had no sooner disappeared than he and Austin were flying with swift bare feet along the path that led to the creek. It was the hottest day of the spring--a close air and broiling sun to be remembered longer than the hottest day of August.

They ran for a mile without a pause, rolled in the sand on the banks of the creek and shouted their joy in perfect freedom. They explored the deep cane brakes and stalked imaginary buffaloes and bears without number, encountering nothing bigger than a grey fox and a couple of muskrats.

"Let's cross over!" Austin cried. "I saw a bear track on that side one day. We can trail him to his den and show him to your Pap when he comes home. Here's a log!"

The Boy looked dubiously, measured it with his eye, and shook his head.

"Nope--it's too little and too high in the air--it'll wobble," he declared.

"But we can c.o.o.n it over!" Austin urged. "We can grab hold of a limb over there and slide down--it's easy--come on!"

Before he could make further objection, the young adventurer quickly straddled the swaying pole, and, with the agility of a cat, hopped across, grasped one of the limbs and slipped to the sand.

"Come on!" he shouted. "See how easy it is!"

The Boy looked doubtfully at the swaying sapling and wished he had gone to hear that preacher after all. It would never do to say he was afraid.

The other fellow had done it so quickly. And it was no use to argue with Austin that his legs were shorter, his body more compact and so much easier to hold his balance. The idea of cowardice was something too vile for thought. The Boy felt that he was doomed to fall before he moved but he waved a brave little hand in answer:

"All right, I'm comin'!"

Half way across the pole began to tear its roots from the bluff. He felt it sinking, stopped and held his breath as it suddenly broke with a crash and fell.

"Look out! Hold tight!" Austin yelled.

He did his best, but lost his balance and toppled head downward into the deep still water.

His mouth flew open at the first touch of the chill stream; he gasped for breath and drew into his lungs a strangling flood. The blood rushed to his brain in a wild explosion of terror. He struck out madly with his long arms and legs, fighting with desperation for breath and drinking in only the agony and fear of death. His mother's voice came low and faint and far away in some other world, saying softly:

"Be good now, while we're gone!"

Again he struck out blindly, fiercely, madly into the darkness that was slowly swallowing him body and soul.

His hand touched something as he sank, he grasped it with instinctive terror and knew no more until he waked in the infernal regions with the Devil sitting on his stomach glaring into his eyes and holding him by the throat trying to choke him to death. His head was down a steep hill.

With a mighty effort he threw the Devil off, loosed his hold and sucked in a tiny breath of air, and then another and another, coughing and spluttering and wheezing foam and water from his mouth and ears and nose and eyes.

At last a voice gasped:

"Is--that--you--Austin?"

"You bet it's me! I got ye a breathin' all right now--who'd ye think it wuz?"

The Boy coughed again and squeezed his lungs clear of water.

"Why--I was afraid I was dead and you was the Old Scratch and had me."

"Well, I thought you was a goner sh.o.r.e nuff till yer hand grabbed the pole I stuck after ye. Man alive, but you did hold onto it! I lakened ter never got yer hand loose so's I could pull ye up on the bank and turn ye upside down and squeeze the water outen ye."

"Did you sit on my stomach and choke me?" the Boy asked.

"I set on yer and mashed the water out, but I didn't choke you."

"I thought the Old Scratch had me!"

For an hour they talked in awed whispers of Sin and Death and Trouble and then the blood of youth shook off the nightmare.

They were alive and unhurt. They were all right and it was a good joke.

They swore eternal secrecy. The day was yet young and it was a glorious one. Their clothes were wet and they had to be dried before night. That settled it. They would strip, hang their clothes in the hot sun and wallow in the sand and play in the shallow water until sundown.