Caleb in the Country Part 17

So David went, and Mary Anna began to think of her work. She happened to have recollected that there was in the garret an old bread-tray, of j.a.panned ware, which had been worn out and thrown aside, and was now good for nothing; and yet it was whole, and Mary Anna thought it would make a good boat. As, however, it was not shaped like a boat, she thought she would call it a Chinese junk, which is a clumsy kind of vessel, built by the Chinese. Accordingly after the boys had gone to bed, she got all her materials together; the old bread-tray for the hull of the junk, some fine twine for the rigging, David's mast and step, and a piece of birch bark, which she thought would represent very well the mats of which the Chinese make their sails. She carried all those things to her room, so as to have them all ready for her to go to work upon the vessel very early the next morning.

And early the next morning she did get to work. On the whole, the craft, when finished, if it was not built exactly after the model of a real Chinese junk, would sail about as well, and was as gay. She got it all done before breakfast, and carried it down, and hid it under some bushes near the mole.

Then, after breakfast, she took the boys all down, and told Caleb that she was ready to make him an offer for his squirrel. She then went to the bushes, and taking out the junk, she went to the mole, and carrying it out to the end, she gently set it down into the water. The boys looked on in great delight, as the junk wheeled slowly around in the great circles of the whirlpool.

Caleb hesitated a good deal before he finally decided to give Mary Anna his squirrel, and he tried to stipulate with her, that is, make her agree, that she would not let him go; but Mary Anna would not make any such agreement. She said that if she had the little fellow at all, she must have him for her own, without any condition whatever; and Caleb, at length, finding the elegance of the Chinese junk irresistible, decided to make the trade.

And now for Marianna's plan. She liked to see the squirrel very much; she admired his graceful movements, his beautiful grey colour, and his bushy tail, curled over his back, like a plume. But then she did not like to have him a prisoner. She knew that he must love a life of freedom,--rambling among the trees, climbing up to the topmost branches, and leaping from limb to limb; and it was painful to her to think of his being shut up in a cage. And yet she did not like to let him go, for then she knew that in all probability he would run off to the woods, and she would see him no more.

It happened that one limb of the great elm before the house was hollow for a considerable distance up from the trunk of the tree, and there was a hole leading into this hollow limb at the crotch, where the limb grew out from the tree. She thought that this would make a fine house for the squirrel, if he could only be induced to think so himself, and live there. It occurred to her that she might put him in, and fasten up the hole with wires for a time, like a cage; and she thought that if she kept him shut up there, and fed him there with plenty of nuts and corn, for a week or two, he would gradually forget his old home in the woods, and get wonted to his new one.

After thinking of several ways of fastening up the mouth of the hole, she concluded finally on the following plan. She got some small nails, and drove them in pretty near together on each side of the hole, and then she took a long piece of fine wire, and pa.s.sed it across from one to the other, in such a manner as to cover the mouth of the hole with a sort of net-work of wire. She then got Raymond to put the squirrel in through a place which she left open for that purpose, and then she closed this place up like the rest, with wires. The squirrel ran up into the limb, and disappeared.

When the boys came and saw the ingenious cage which Mary Anna had contrived, they thought it was an excellent plan; and they asked her if she was not afraid that when she opened the cage door, he would run off into the woods again. She said she was very much afraid that he would, but that still there was a possibility that he might stay; and if he should, she should often see him from her window, running about the tree, and she should take so much more pleasure in that than in seeing him shut up in a cage, that she thought she should prefer to take the risk. She made the boys promise not to go to the hole, for fear they might frighten him, and she said she meant to feed him herself every day, with nuts and corn, and try to get him tame before she took away the wires.

The children felt a good deal of curiosity to see whether the squirrel would stay in the tree or run away, when Mary Anna should open his cage door; and after a few days, they were eager to have her try the experiment. But she said, no. She wished to let him have full time to become well accustomed to his new home.

Mary Anna generally went early in the morning to feed the squirrel,--before the boys were up. Then she fed him again after they had gone to school, and also just before they came home at night. She knew that if she fed him when they were at home, they would want to go with her; and it would frighten the squirrel to see so many strange faces,--even if the boys should try to be as still as possible.

One morning, Mary Anna and the boys were down near the mole, and were talking about the squirrel. David and Dwight were sailing their boats, and Mary Anna was sitting with Caleb upon a bench which David had made for his mother, close to the sh.o.r.e. Caleb's junk was upon the ground by his side. Caleb asked Mary Anna when she was going to let her squirrel out.

"O, I don't know," said she, "perhaps in a week more."

"A week!" said Dwight, pus.h.i.+ng his boat off from the sh.o.r.e, "I wouldn't wait so long as that."

"Why, when I first had him, you wanted to have me keep him in a cage all the time."

"I know it," said Dwight; "but now I want to see whether he will run away."

"I would not try yet," said David--"but you'd better have a name for him, Marianne."

"I have got a name for him," said she.

"What is it?" said Dwight, eagerly.

"Mungo."

"Mungo!" repeated Dwight; "I don't think that is a very good name. What made you think of that name?"

"O, I heard of a traveller once, named Mungo. The whole of his name was Mungo Park; but I thought Mungo was enough for my squirrel."

"_He_ has not been much of a traveller," said Dwight.

"O, yes," replied Mary Anna, "I think it probable he has travelled about the woods a great deal."

"Did Mungo Park travel in the woods?"

"Yes, in Africa. I think Mungo knows his name too," said Mary Anna.

"Do you," said Dwight. "Why?"

"Why, whenever I go to feed him," said Mary Anna, "I call Mungo! Mungo!

and drop my nuts and corn down through the wires into the hole. And now he begins to come down when he hears my voice, and the little rogue catches up a nut and runs off with it."

"Does he?" said Caleb. "O, I wish you would let him out. I don't believe he would run away."

"Not just yet," said Mary Anna.

"But if you don't let him out pretty soon, I shall be gone," said Caleb; "for I am going to Boston, you know, next week."

"So you are," said Mary Anna; "I forgot that."

Caleb's father and mother were coming up from Boston that week, and they had written something about taking Caleb back with them, when they returned. Caleb was much pleased with this idea. He liked living in the country better than living in Boston; but still, he was very much pleased at the thought of seeing his father and mother, and his little sister, at home. He also liked riding, and was very glad of the opportunity to ride several days in the carryall, upon the front seat with his father. He expected that his father would let him have the whip and reins pretty often to drive.

"It is not certain, however," continued Mary Anna, "that you will go to Boston this summer. Mother said that perhaps you would not go until the fall, and then perhaps she would go with you, and bring you back to stay here through the winter."

"But I don't want to stay here in the _winter_," said Caleb.

"Why not?" said Mary Anna.

"O, it is so cold and snowy;--and we can't play any."

"That's a great mistake," said Dwight; "we have fine times in the winter."

"Why, what can you do?"

"O, a great many things; last winter we dug out a house in a great snow-drift under the rocks, and played in it a good deal."

"But it must be very cold in a snow-house," said Caleb.

"O, we had a fire."

"A fire?" said Caleb.

"Certainly," said Dwight, "We put some large stones for the fire-place, and let the smoke go out at the top."

"But then it would melt your house down."

"It did melt it a little around the sides, and so made it grow larger: but it did not melt it down. We had some good boards for seats, and we could stay there in the cold days."

"Yes," said Mary Anna, "I remember I went in one cold, windy day, and I found you boys all snugly stowed in your snow-house, warm and comfortable, by a good blazing fire."

"Once we made some candy in our snow-house," said David.

"Did you?" said Caleb.

"Yes," said David; "Mary Anna proposed the plan, and got mother to give us the mola.s.ses in a little kettle, and we put it upon three stones in our snow-house, and we boiled it all one Wednesday afternoon, and when it was done, we poured it out upon the snow. It was capital candy."

"_I_ should like to see a snow-house," said Caleb, "very much."