The Edward S. Ellis Megapack

by Edward S. Ellis

  The style in which they went for that same boy was a sight to behold. There was no hesitation or maneuvering; but, with outstretched wings and hoarse screeches, they dashed toward him like a couple of cyclones. The youth saw that he was caught in a desperate fix, for he had no weapons, and had to cling to the vines with one hand to save himself from being dashed to the ground below.

  He ducked his head to ward off their beaks and talons from his eyes, and tried hard to beat them back with his free hand.

  This was impossible. Their beaks struck him repeatedly in the head, bringing blood, which flowed over his face and almost blinded him, while they savagely buffeted him with their great wings, until he was in danger of being knocked from his position.

  Meanwhile, the alarmed professor could do nothing for his young friend. The eagles kept so close to him, that, if he tried, he was as likely to hit one as the other. He walked back and forth, on the alert for such a chance, and fortunately had not long to wait. One of the furious birds, circled off a few feet, as if to gather impetus for a decisive charge, when, taking a quick aim, the gentleman fired.

  The shot was unerring and killed the female. She fluttered into a large sapling that sprouted from a large crevice in the rocks, about eight feet above the boy’s head, and lay motionless. Although nearly blinded by blood, young Hemingway now attempted a feat which he was convinced offered the only means of saving his life.

  He drew himself up to the foot of the tree, and once there, braced himself firmly with his feet, and tied his handkerchief around his forehead, to keep the blood out of his eyes. Seizing the dead bird by the feet, he swung it around with might and main and struck the male, which had continued beating him incessantly.

  It was a strange weapon—a dead eagle against a live one, and the boy’s constrained position prevented his using it with much effect. So lacking, indeed, were the blows in force, that the male flew directly at his face. The sorely beset lad dropped the dead bird and fastened both hands around the throat of his assailant. The latter fought desperately, but the young hero never released his grip, until it ceased its struggles. Then he flung it from him, and it tumbled downward to the professor’s feet.

  This gentleman had done his best to help his young friend, but was unable to do so. The lad, after resting awhile, picked his way down to the ground, where his feet had hardly touched when he fainted in the professor’s arms. He soon rallied, however, though his wounds were so severe that he was obliged to keep his bed for several weeks.

  The two eaglets were found uninjured, and were safely carried to the professor’s home, as were the bodies of the dead birds. They were mounted by Professor McInery, who, in consideration of the danger undergone by the boy, and the two extra birds, presented Lee with $100, and no one will deny that the money was well earned.

  WHO SHALL EXPLAIN IT?

  Let me begin by saying that I was never a believer in signs, omens, or the general superstitions which, it must be admitted, influence most people to a greater or less degree. I have been the thirteenth guest at more than one table, without my appetite being affected; I have tipped over my salt-cellar without a twinge of fear; I have never turned aside to avoid passing under a leaning ladder, and I do not care a jot whether the first glimpse of the new moon is over my right or left shoulder.

  I had a little boy Bob, who was fourteen years old on the last anniversary of American independence. Being our only son, his mother and myself held him close to our hearts. In fact, I am sure no little fellow was ever regarded with more affectionate love than our Bob. The painful story which, with much hesitation, I have set out to tell is one, therefore, that no member of our little family can ever forget.

  We always tried to act the part of sensible parents toward our little boy. He never stepped inside of a school-house until he was seven years old, and, when he did so, it was to stay only a brief while. It was six months before he became acquainted with every letter of the alphabet, and no youngster of his years ever ruined more clothing than he. The destruction of shoes, hats, and trousers was enough to bankrupt many a father, and it often provoked a protest from his mother. I have seen him, within a half hour after having his face scrubbed until it shone like an apple, present himself in such ragged attire and with so soiled a countenance, that it took a second glance to identify him.

  And yet, as I sit here writing by the evening lamp, I am glad to recall that I never scolded Bob. I would have been sadly neglectful of my duty had I failed to reprove and advise him, and I am sure he honestly strove to obey my wishes; but the sum and substance of it all was, he couldn’t do it. He was a vigorous little fellow, overrunning with animal spirits, high health, and mischief; and it was a pleasure to me to see him laying the firm foundation of a lusty constitution, which, in later years, could laugh at disease.

  And then when he did take a start in his studies, he advanced with a speed that astonished his teacher. At the age of twelve there was not a girl or boy in school (and some of them were several years older than he) who could hold his own with him. I took some credit to myself for all this, for I believed it was largely due to the common-sense I used in his early youth. The foundation was strong and secure, and the building erected upon it was upon solid rock.

  During the last two or three years I suffered from a great fear. Between the school-house and our home was a mill-pond, which in many places was fully a dozen feet deep. I knew what a temptation this was to the boys during the long, sultry summer weather, and there was not a day when a dozen youngsters, more or less, were not frolicking and splashing in it.

  One afternoon, when I sauntered thither, I found fully a score of them in the height of enjoyment, and the wildest and most reckless fellow was my Bob. When he observed me standing on the shore he was so anxious to astonish me that he ventured into the water up to his chin, I shouted to him to come to shore, for he was in fearful peril, and it needed only a few inches further advance for him to drown before help could reach him.

  “Bob,” said I, in a voice and manner that could not be mistaken, “if you ever do that again I’ll whip you within an inch of your life.”

  “I won’t, pop,” he replied, in such meek tones that, parent-like, my heart reproached me at once.

  “Now,” I added more gently, “every boy ought to learn to swim, and until he is able to do so, he should keep out of deep water. If you will promise me that you will never venture into a depth above your waist until a good swimmer, you may bathe here; otherwise you shall never come near it.”

  He gave me his promise, and, telling him that he had been in the water long enough for that afternoon, I asked him to dress himself and come home with me.

  I felt that I had been weak. I ought to have forbidden him ever to enter the mill-pond unless in my company, and thus that which followed never could have occurred. I did not tell his mother what had taken place, for I knew she would insist on a strict prohibition of his aimless swimming efforts.

  To tell the truth, there were two reasons why I did not forbid Bob to enter the mill-pond. I knew it would be the most cruel kind of punishment, and, I may as well confess it, I didn’t believe the boy would obey me if he gave the pledge. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. Alas! how often our affection closes our eyes to the plainest duty!

  And now I have reached a point which prompts me to ask the question at the head of this sketch, “Who Shall Explain It?” I have my own theory, which I shall submit, with no little diffidence, later on.

  It was on Saturday afternoon, the ninth of last August, that I became a victim to a greater depression of spirits than I had known for years. I felt nothing of it during the forenoon, but it began shortly after the midday meal and became more oppressive with each passing minute. I sat down at my desk and wrote for a short time. I continually sighed and drew deep inspirations, which gave me no relief. It was as if a great and increasing weight were resting on my chest. Had I been superstitious, I would have declared that I was on the eve of some dreadful
calamity.

  Writing became so difficult and distasteful that I threw down my pen, sprang from my chair, and began rapidly pacing up and down the room. My wife had gone to the city that morning to visit her relatives, and was not to return until the following day; so I was alone, with only two servants in the house.

  I couldn’t keep the thoughts of Bob out of my mind. Saturday being a holiday, I had allowed him to go off to spend the afternoon as he chose; and, as it was unusually warm, there was little doubt where and how he was spending it. He would strike a bee-line for that shady mill-pond, and they would spend hours plashing in its cool and delicious depths.

  I looked at the clock; it was a few minutes past five, and Bob ought to have been home long ago. What made him so late?

  My fear was growing more intense every minute. The boy was in my mind continually to the exclusion of everything else. Despite all my philosophy and rigid common-sense, the conviction was fastening on me that something dreadful had befallen him.

  And what was that something? He had been drowned in the mill-pond. I glanced out of the window, half expecting to see a party bearing the lifeless body homeward. Thank Heaven, I was spared that woful sight, but I discerned something else that sent a misgiving pang through me.

  It was Mrs. Clarkson, our nearest neighbor, rapidly approaching, as if the bearer of momentous tidings.

  “She has come to tell me that Bob is drowned,” I gasped, as my heart almost ceased its beating.

  I met her on the threshold, with a calmness of manner which belied the tumult within. Greeting her courteously, I invited her inside, stating that my wife was absent.

  “I thank you,” she said, “but it is not worth while. I thought I ought to come over and tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” I inquired, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “Why, about the awful dream I had last night.”

  I was able to smile faintly, and was partly prepared for what was coming.

  “I am ready to hear it, Mrs. Clarkson.”

  “Why, you know it was Friday night, and I never had a dream on a Friday night that didn’t come true—never! Where’s Bob?” she abruptly asked, peering around me, as if to learn whether he was in the hall.

  “He’s off somewhere at play.”

  “Oh, Mr. Havens, you’ll never see him alive again!”

  Although startled in spite of myself, I was indignant.

  “Have you any positive knowledge, Mrs. Clarkson, on the matter?”

  “Certainly I have; didn’t I just tell you about my dream?”

  “A fudge for your dream!” I exclaimed, impatiently; “I don’t believe in any such nonsense.”

  “I pity you,” she said, though why I should be pitied on that account is hard to understand.

  “But what was your dream?”

  “I saw your Bob brought home drowned. Oh, I can see him now,” she added, speaking rapidly, and making a movement as if to wring her hands; “his white face—his dripping hair and clothes—his half-closed eyes—it was dreadful; it will break his mother’s heart—”

  “Mrs. Clarkson, did you come here to tell me that?”

  “Why, of course I did; I felt it was my duty to prepare you—”

  “Good day,” I answered, sharply, closing the door and hastily entering my study.

  She had given me a terrible shock. My feelings were in a tumult difficult to describe. My philosophy, my self-command, my hard sense and scepticism were scattered to the winds, I had fought against the awful fear, and was still fighting when my neighbor called; but her visit had knocked every prop from beneath me.

  She had hardly disappeared when I was hurrying through the woods by the shortest route to the mill-pond. I knew Bob had been there, and all that I expected to find was his white, ghastly body in the cold, cruel depths.

  “Oh, my boy!” I wailed, “I am to blame for your death! I never should have permitted you to run into such danger. I should have gone with you and taught you to swim—I can never forgive myself for this—never, never, never. It will break your mother’s heart—mine is already broken—”

  “Pop, just watch me!”

  Surely that was the voice of my boy! I turned my head like a flash, and there he was, with his hands together over his head, and in the act of diving into the mill-pond. Down he went with a splash, his head quickly reappearing, as he flirted the hair and water out of his eyes, and struck out for the middle of the pond.

  “What are you doing, Bob?”

  “You just wait and see, pop.”

  And what did that young rascal do but swim straight across that pond and then turn about and swim back again, without pausing for breath? Not only that, but, when in the very deepest portion, he dove, floated on his back, trod water, and kicked up his heels like a frisky colt.

  “How’s that, pop? You didn’t know I could swim, did you?” he asked, as he came smilingly up the bank.

  “I had no idea of such a thing,” I replied, my whole being fluttering with gratitude and delight; “I think I’ll have to reward you for that.”

  And when he had donned his clothes, and we started homeward, I slipped a twisted bank-bill into his hands. I am really ashamed to tell its denomination, and Bob and I never hinted anything about it to his mother.

  And now as to the question, Who shall explain it? I think I can. I have a weakness for boiled beef and cabbage. The meat is healthful enough, but, as every one knows, or ought to know, cabbage, although one of the most digestible kinds of food when raw, is just the opposite in a boiled state. I knew the consequences of eating it, but in the absence of my good wife that day I disposed of so much that I deserved the oppressive indigestion that followed.

  That fact, I am convinced, fully explains the dreadful “presentiment” which made me so miserable all the afternoon.

  On our way home we passed the house of Mrs. Clarkson. I could not forbear stopping and ringing her bell. She answered it in person.

  “Mrs. Clarkson, Bob is on his way home from swimming, and I thought I would let him hear about that wonderful dream—”

  But the door was slammed in my face.

  I said at the opening of this sketch that I “had” a boy named Bob. God be thanked, I have him yet, and no lustier, brighter, or more manly youth ever lived, and my prayer is that he may be spared to soothe the declining years of his father and mother, whose love for him is beyond the power of words to tell.

  A FOOL OR A GENIUS.

  CHAPTER I.

  Josiah Hunter sat on his porch one summer afternoon, smoking his pipe, feeling dissatisfied, morose and sour on account of his only son Tim, who, he was obliged to confess to himself, gave every indication of proving a disappointment to him.

  Mr. Hunter was owner of the famous Brereton Quarry & Stone Works, located about a mile above the thriving village of Brereton, on the eastern bank of the Castaran river, and at a somewhat greater distance below the town of Denville. The quarry was a valuable one and the owner was in comfortable circumstances, with the prospect of acquiring considerable more of a fortune out of the yield of excellent building stone. The quarry had been worked for something like ten years, and the discovery that he had such a fine deposit on his small farm was in the minds of his neighbors equivalent to the finding of a gold mine, for as the excavation proceeded, the quality of the material improved and Mr. Hunter refused an offer from a company which, but for the stone, would have been a very liberal price for the whole farm.

  Mr. Hunter had been a widower ever since his boy was three years old, and the youth was now fourteen. His sister Maggie was two years his senior, and they were deeply attached to each other. Maggie was a daughter after her father’s own heart,—one of those rare, sensible girls who cannot be spoiled by indulgence, who was equally fond of her parent and who stood unflinchingly by her brother in the little differences between father and son, which, sad to say, were becoming more frequent and serious with the passing weeks and months. It is probable that the affection of
the parent for the daughter prevented him from ever thinking of marrying again, for she was a model housekeeper, and he could not bear the thought of seeing anyone come into the family and usurp, even in a small degree, her functions and place.

  Mr. Hunter was getting on in years, and nothing was more natural than that he should wish and plan that Tim should become his successor in the development of the valuable quarry that was not likely to give out for many a year to come. But the boy showed no liking for the business. He was among the best scholars in the village school, fond of play and so well advanced in his studies that his parent determined to begin his practical business training in earnest. He looked upon a college education as a waste of so many years, taken from the most precious part of a young man’s life, and it must be said that Tim himself showed no wish to attend any higher educational institution.

  Tim had assisted about the quarry, more or less for several years. Of course he was too young to do much in the way of manual labor, but there were many errands that he ran, beside helping to keep his father’s accounts. He wrote an excellent hand, was quick in figures and had such a command of language that all his parent had to do was to tell him the substance of the letter he wished written, to have the boy put it in courteous but pointed and clear form. The elder had never detected an error in the computations of the younger, who had no trouble at all when the operations included difficult fractions.

  All this was good in its way, but it could not be denied that Tim had no liking for the business itself. His father had told him repeatedly that he must prepare himself for the active management of the stone works, and that to do so required something more than quickness in figures and skill in letter writing. But it was in vain. Tim was never at the works unless by direct command of his parent, and seized the first opportunity to get away.