Lost Farm Camp

Old man Avery hurried from the woods toward his camp, evidently excited. His daughter Swickey stood watching the black kitten Beelzebub play a clever but rather one-sided game with a half-dead field-mouse. As Avery saw the girl, he raised both hands above his head in a comical gesture of imprecation.

"Swickey, thet bug-eatin' ole pork-thief's been at the butter ag'in!"

"Why, Pop, thet's the second time he's done it!"

"Yes, an' he scraped all the butter he could outen it, an' upset the crock likewise. Swickey, we've got to git that b'ar or take the butter outen the spring-hole."

The girl's brown eyes dilated. "Why don't you trap 'im, Pop?"

"Law ag'in' trappin' b'ars in August."

"Law ag'in' shootin' deer in August, too, ain't they?"

"Thet's diff'runt. We've got to have fresh meat."

"Ain't b'ar meat?" she asked ironically.

"Reckon 'tis."

"Then, why ain't you a-shootin' of him?"

The old lumberman rubbed his hand across his eyes, or rather his eye, for the other was nothing more than a puckered scar, and his broad shoulders drooped sheepishly. Then he laughed, flinging his hand out as though it contained an unpleasant thought which he tossed away.

"Gol-bling it, Swickey, seems to me as lately every time I drawed a bead on a deer, they was three front sights on the gun, and as many as three deer where they oughter been one. 'Sides," he continued, "I ain't ketched sight of him so fur. Now, mebby if you seen him you could shoot--"

Swickey grabbed the astonished Beelzebub to her breast and did a wild and exceedingly primitive dance before the cabin door.

"Be-el-zebub!" she cried, "Be-el-zebub! he's a-goin' to leave me shoot a b'ar--me! I ain't shot nothin' but deer so fur and he's shot more 'n a million b'ars, ain't you, Pop?"

"Wa-al, mebby a hun'red."

"Is thet more 'n a million, Pop?"

The smile faded from Avery's face. Huge, gray-bearded, pensive, he stood for a moment, as inscrutable as the front of a midnight forest.

Swickey eyed him with awe, but Swickey at fourteen could not be suppressed long.

"Pop, one of your buttins is busted."

Her father slid his hand down his suspender strap and wrinkled the loose leather end round his thumb.

"How many's a hun'red, Pop?"

Avery spoke more slowly than usual. "You git the cigar-box where be my ca'tridges."

"Be I goin' to shoot now?" she exclaimed, as she dropped the kitten and skipped into the cabin.

"Got to see him fust," he said, as she returned with the cigar-box and his glasses.

"Here they be, Pop, and here's your 'specs.'" Avery adjusted his spectacles, carried the box of cartridges to the chopping-log and sat down. Beelzebub, who had recovered his now defunct field-mouse, tried to make himself believe it was still alive by tossing it up vigorously and catching it with a curved and graceful paw.

"You count 'em, Swickey, as I hand 'em to you."

"One."

"One," she replied hurriedly.

"Two."

"Two," she repeated briskly.

"Three."

"Thr-ee." She turned the shells over in her hand slowly.

"Four."

"Four's 'nough to shoot a b'ar, ain't it, Pop?"

"Five," continued Avery, disregarding her question.

Swickey counted on her fingers. "One he guv me; two he guv me; then he guv me 'nother. Them's two and them's two and thet's four, and this one makes five--is thet the name fur it?"

"Yes, five," he replied.

"Yes, five," replied Swickey. "Ain't five 'nough?"

The old man paused in his task and ran his blunt fingers through the mass of glittering shells that sparkled in the box. The glint of the cartridges dazzled him for a moment. He closed his eyes and saw a great gray horse standing in the snow beneath the pines, blood trickling from a wounded forward shoulder, and then a huddled shape lying beneath the horse. Presently Nanette, Swickey's mother, seemed to be speaking to him from that Somewhere away off over the tree-tops. "Take care of her, Bud," the voice seemed to say, as it trailed off in the hum of a noonday locust overhead. The counting of the shells continued. Painfully they mounted to the grand total of ten, when Swickey jumped to her feet, scattering the cartridges in the grass.