Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  II

  I am not trying to defend myself. I never had the enthusiasm of theother two, but I rather liked the idea. And I did restrain them. It wasmy suggestion, for instance, that we wear sandals without stockings,instead of going in our bare feet, which was a good thing, for the firstday out Aggie stepped into a hornet's nest. And I made out the lists.

  The idea, of course, is not how much one can carry, but how little. The"Young Woodsman" told exactly how to manage in the woods if one werelost there and had nothing in the world but a bootlace and a wirehairpin.

  With the hairpin one could easily make a fair fish-hook--and with abootlace or a good hemp cord one could make a rabbit snare.

  "So you see," Tish explained, "there's fish and meat with no trouble atall. And there will be berries and nuts. That's a diet for a king."

  I was making a list of the necessaries at the time and under bootlacesand hairpins I put down "spade."

  "What in Heaven's name is the spade for?" Tish demanded.

  "You've got to dig bait, haven't you?"

  Tish eyed me with disgust.

  "Grasshoppers!" she said tersely.

  There was really nothing Tish was not prepared for. I should never havethought of grasshoppers.

  "The idea is simply this," observed Tish: "We have surrounded ourselveswith a thousand and one things we do not need and would be betterwithout--houses, foolish clothing, electric light, idioticservants--Hannah, get away from that door!--rich foods, furniture andcrowds of people. We've developed and cared for our bodies instead ofour souls. What we want is to get out into the woods and think; toforget those pampered bodies of ours and to let our souls grow andassert themselves."

  We decided finally to take a blanket apiece, rolled on our shoulders,and Tish and I each took a strong knife. Aggie, instead of the knife,took a pair of scissors. We took a small bottle of blackberry cordialfor emergencies, a cake of soap, a salt-cellar for seasoning the fishand rabbits, two towels, a package of court-plaster, Aggie's hay-feverremedy, a bottle of oil of pennyroyal to use against mosquitoes, anda large piece of canvas, light but strong, cut like the diagram.

  Tish said it was the regulation Indian tepee, and that a squaw could setone up in an hour and have dinner cooked inside it in thirty minutesafter. She said she guessed we could do it if an Indian squaw could, andthat after we'd cut the poles once, we could carry them with us if wewished to move. She said the tent ought to be ornamented, but she hadhad no time, and we could paint designs on it with colored clay in thewoods when we had nothing more important to do!

  It made a largish bundle, but we did not intend to travel much. Wethought we could find a good place by a lake somewhere and put up thetent, and set a few snares, and locate the nearest berry-bushes andmushroom-patches, and then, while the rabbits were catching themselves,we should have time to get acquainted with our souls again.

  Tish put it in her terse manner most intelligently. "We intend toprove," she stated to Mrs. Ostermaier, the minister's wife, who came tocall and found us all sitting on the floor trying to get used to it, forof course there would be no chairs, "we shall prove that the trappingsof civilization are a delusion and a snare. We shall bring back 'Menssana in corpore sano'."

  The minister's wife thought this was a disease, for she said, "I hopenot, I'm sure," very hastily.

  "We shall make our own fire and our own shelter," said Tish from thefloor. "We shall wear one garment, loose enough to allow entire freedomof movement. We shall bathe in Nature's pools and come out cleansed. Onthe Sabbath we shall attend divine service under the Gothic arches ofthe trees, read sermons in stones, and instead of that whining tenor inthe choir we shall listen to the birds singing praise, overhead."

  Mrs. Ostermaier looked rather bewildered. "I'm sure I hope so," she saidvaguely. "I don't like camping myself. There are so many bugs."

  As Tish said, some ideas are so large that the average person cannot seethem at all.

  We had fixed on Maine. It seemed to combine all the necessary qualities:woods and lakes, rabbits, game and fish, and--solitude. Besides,Aggie's hay fever is better the farther north she gets. On the day wewere leaving, Mr. Ostermaier came to see us.

  "I--I really must protest, ladies," he said. "That sort of thing may beall right for savages, but--"

  "Are we not as intelligent as savages?" Tish demanded.

  "Primitive people are inured to hardships, and besides, they havemethods of their own. They can make fire--" "So can I," retorted Tish."Any fool can make a fire with a rubbing-stick. It's been done inthirty-one seconds."

  "If you would only take some matches," he wailed, "and a good revolver,Miss Letitia. And--you must pardon this, but I have your well-being atheart--if I could persuade you to take along some--er--flannels and warmclothing!"

  "Clothing," said Tish loftily, "is a matter of habit, Mr. Ostermaier."

  I think he got the idea from this that we intended to discard clothingaltogether, for he went away almost immediately, looking rather upset,and he preached on the following Sunday from "Consider the lilies of thefield.... Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one ofthese."

  We left on Monday evening, and by Tuesday at noon we were at ourdestination, as far as the railroad was concerned. Tish had a map withthe lake we'd picked out, and we had figured that we'd drive out towithin ten miles or so of it and then send the driver back. The lake wasin an uninhabited neighborhood, with the nearest town twenty-five milesaway. We had one suitcase containing our blankets, sandals, shortdresses, soap, hairpins, salt-box, knives, scissors, and a compass, andthe leather thongs for rabbit snares that we had had cut at a harnessshop. In the other suitcase was the tepee.

  We ate a substantial breakfast at Tish's suggestion, because we expectedto be fairly busy the first day, and there would be no time for hunting.We had to walk ten miles, set up the tent, make a fire and gather nutsand berries. It was about that time, I think, that I happened to recallthat it was early for nuts. Still there would be berries, and Tish hadadded mushrooms to our menu.

  We found a man with a spring wagon to drive us out and Tish showed himthe map.

  "I guess I can get you out that way," he said, "but I ain't heard of nocamp up that direction."

  "Who said anything about a camp?" snapped Tish. "How much to drive usfifteen miles in that direction?"

  "Fifteen miles! Well, about five dollars, but I think--"

  "How much to drive us fifteen miles without thinking?"

  "Ten dollars," said the man; and as he had the only wagon in the town wehad to pay it.

  It was a lovely day, although very warm. The morning sun turned thewoods to fairylike glades. Tish sat on the front seat, erect and staringahead.

  Aggie bent over and touched my arm lightly. "Isn't she wonderful!" shewhispered; "like some adventurer of old--Balboa discovering the PacificOcean, or Joan of Arc leading the what-you-call-'ems."

  But somehow my enthusiasm was dying. The sun was hot and there were noberry-bushes to be seen. Aggie's fairy glades in the woods were filled,not with dancing sprites, but with gnats. I wanted a glass of iced tea,and some chicken salad, and talcum powder down my neck. The road wasbad, and the driver seemed to have a joke to himself, for every now andthen he chuckled, and kept his eyes on the woods on each side, as if heexpected to see something. His manner puzzled us all.

  "You can trust me not to say anything, ladies," he said at last, "butdon't you think you're playing it a bit low down? This ain't quite up tocontract, is it?"

  "You've been drinking!" said Tish shortly.

  After that he let her alone, but soon after he turned round to me andmade another venture.

  "In case you need grub, lady," he said,"--and them two suitcases don'thold a lot,--I'll bring out anything you say: eggs and butter and gardentruck at market prices. I'm no phylanthropist," he said, glaring atTish, "but I'd be glad to help the girl, and that's the truth. I beenmarried to this here wife o' mine quite a spell, and to my first one fortwenty years, and I'm
a believer in married life."

  "What girl?" I asked.

  He turned right round in the seat and winked at me.

  "All right," he said. "I'll not butt in unless you need me. But I'd liketo know one thing: He hasn't got a mother, he says, so I take it you'rehis aunts. Am I on, ladies?"

  We didn't know what he was talking about, and we said so. But he onlysmiled. A mile or so from our destination the horse scared up a rabbit,and Tish could hardly be restrained from running after it with a leatherthong. Aggie, however, turned a little pale.

  "I'll never be able to eat one, never!" she confided to me. "Did you seeits eyes? Lizzie, do you remember Mr. Wiggins's eyes? and the way heused to move his nose, just like that?"

  At the end of fifteen miles the driver drew up his horses and took afresh chew of tobacco.

  "I guess this is about right," he said. "That trail there'll take you tothe lake. How long do you reckon it'll be before you'll need some fresheggs?"

  "We are quite able to look after ourselves," said Tish with hauteur, andgot out of the wagon. She paid him off at once and sat down on hersuitcase until he had driven out of sight. He drove slowly, looking backevery now and then, and his last view of us must have beenimpressive--three middle-aged and determined women ready to conquer thewilderness, as Tish put it, and two suitcases.

  It was as solitary a place as we could have wished. We had not seen ahouse in ten miles, and when the last creak of the wagon had died awaythere was a silence that made our city-broke ears fairly ache. Tishwaited until the wagon was out of sight; then she stood up and threw outher arms.

  "At last!" she said. "Free to have a lodge in some vast wilderness--tothink, to breathe, to expand! Lizzie, do you suppose if we go back wecan get that rabbit?"

  I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock and there was not a berry-bushin sight. The drive had made me hungry, and I'd have eaten a rabbit thatlooked like Mr. Wiggins and called me by name if I'd had it. But therewas absolutely no use going back for the one we'd seen on our drive.

  Aggie was opening her suitcase and getting out her costume, which was ablue calico with short sleeves and a shoe-top skirt.

  "Where'll I put it on?" she asked, looking about her.

  "Right here!" Tish replied. "For goodness sake, Aggie, try to discardfalse modesty and false shame. We're here to get close to the greatbeating heart of Nature. Take off your switch before you do anotherthing."

  None of us looked particularly well, I admit; but it was wonderful howmuch more comfortable we were. Aggie, who is very thin, discarded a partof her figure, and each of us parted with some pet hypocrisy. But Idon't know that I have ever felt better. Only, of course we were hungry.

  We packed our things in the suitcases and hid them in a hollow tree, andTish suggested looking for a spring. She said water was always the firstrequisite and fire the second.

  "Fire!" said Aggie. "What for? We've nothing to cook."

  Well, that was true enough, so we sent Aggie to look for water and Tishand I made a rabbit snare. We made a good many snares and got to berather quick at it. They were all made like this illustration.

  First Tish, with her book open in front of her, made a running noose outof one of the buckskin thongs. Next we bent down a sapling and tied thenoose to it, and last of all we bound the free part of the thong round asnag and thus held the sapling down. The idea is that a rabbit, boundingalong, presumably with his eyes shut, will stick his head through thenoose, kick the line clear of the snag and be drawn violently into theair. Tish figured that by putting up half a dozen snares we'd havethree or four rabbits at least each day.

  It was about three when we finished, and we drew off to a safe distanceto watch the rabbit bound to his doom. But no rabbits came along.

  I was very empty and rather faint, but Tish said she had never been ableto think so clearly, and that we were all overfed and stodgy and wouldbe better for fasting.

  Aggie came in at three-thirty with a hornet sting and no water. She saidthere were no springs, but that she had found a place where a spring hadexisted before the dry spell, and there was a naked footprint in themud, quite fresh! We all went to look at it, and Tish was quite positiveit was not a man's footprint at all, but only a bear's.

  "A bear!" said Aggie.

  "What of it?" Tish demanded. "The 'Young Woodsman' says that no bearattacks a human unless he is hungry, and at this time of the year withthe woods full of food--"

  "Humph!"--I could not restrain myself--"I wish you would show me alittle of it. If no rabbit with acute melancholia comes along to commitsuicide by hanging on that gallows of yours, I think we'll starve todeath."

  "There will be a rabbit," Tish said tersely; and we started back to thesnare.

  I was never so astonished in my life. There was a rabbit! It seems wehad struck a runway without knowing it, although Tish said afterwardthat she had recognized it at once from the rabbit tracks. Anyhow,whether it died of design or curiosity, our supper was kicking at thetop of the sapling, and Tish pretended to be calm and to have known allalong that we'd get one. But it was not dead.

  We got it down somehow or other and I held it by the ears while itkicked and scratched. I was hungry enough to have eaten it alive, butAggie began to cry.

  "You'll be murderers, nothing else," she wailed. "Look at his littlewhite tail and pitiful baby eyes!"

  "Good gracious, Aggie," Tish snapped, "get a knife and cut its throatwhile I make a fire. If it's any help to you, we're not going to eateither its little white tail or its pitiful baby eyes."

  As a matter of fact Aggie wouldn't touch the rabbit and I did not caremuch about it myself. I do not like to kill things. My Aunt SarahMackintosh once killed a white hen that lived twenty minutes without itshead; two weeks later she dreamed that that same hen, without a head,was sitting on the footboard of the bed, and the next day she got wordthat her cousin's husband in Sacramento had died of the hiccoughs.

  It ended with Tish giving me the fire-making materials and stalking offinto the woods with the rabbit in one hand and the knife in the other.

  It ended with Tish stalking off into the woods with therabbit in one hand and the knife in the other]

  Tish is nothing if not thorough, but she seemed to me inconsistent. Shebrought blankets and a canvas tepee and sandals and an aluminum kettle,but she disdained matches. I rubbed with that silly drill and a sort ofbow arrangement until my wrists ached, but I did not get even a spark offire. When Tish came back with the rabbit there was no fire, and Aggiehad taken out her watch crystal and was holding it in the sun over apile of leaves.

  Tish got out the "Young Woodsman" from the suitcase. It seems I hadfollowed cuts I and II, but had neglected cut III, which is: Hold theleft wrist against the left shin, and the left foot on the fireblock. Ihad got my feet mixed and was trying to hold my left wrist against myright shin, which is exceedingly difficult. Tish got a fire in fourteenminutes and thirty-one seconds by Aggie's watch, and had to wear abandage on her hand for a week.

  But we had a fire. We cooked the rabbit, which proved to be much olderthan Aggie had thought, and ate what we could. Personally I am not fondof rabbit, and our enjoyment was rather chastened by the fear that somemushrooms Tish had collected and added to the stew were toadstools_incognito_. To make things worse, Aggie saw some goldenrod nearby andbegan to sneeze.

  It was after five o'clock, but it seemed wisest to move on toward thelake.

  "Even if we don't make it," said Tish, "we'll be on our way, and whilethat bear is likely harmless we needn't thrust temptation in his way."

  We carried the fire with us in the kettle and we took turns with thetepee, which was heavy. Our suitcases with our city clothes in them wehid in a hollow tree, and one after the other, with Aggie last, westarted on.

  The trail, which was a sort of wide wagon road at first, became afootpath; as we went on even that disappeared at times under fallenleaves. Once we lost it entirely, and Aggie, falling over a hidden root,stilled the fire. She became exc
eedingly disagreeable at about thattime, said she was sure Tish's mushrooms were toadstools because shefelt very queer, and suddenly gave a yell and said she had seensomething moving in the bushes.

  We all looked, and the bushes were moving.