Carolyn of the Corners Part 31

They jogged along very comfortably, reaching the camp a little before noon. Adams' camp was the largest lumber camp near Sunrise Cove; but it was a raw-looking place-nothing but a clump of sheet-iron sheds and log huts.

The snow on the roofs, and the fact that the drifts hid many unsightly things, made the place seem less crude than it really was. Still, Carolyn May was doubtful as to whether or not she would like to live there.

There was but one woman in the camp, Judy Mason. She lived in one of the log huts with her husband. He was a sawyer, and Judy did the men's was.h.i.+ng.

Benjamin Hardy was pleased, indeed, to see his little friend again. She sought him out as soon as the engineer blew the whistle for the noon rest, and they went into the bunk-house together, where more than forty men gathered around the long table for dinner.

There was no tablecloth, and the food was served in basins, and they ate off tin pie plates, and drank out of tin mugs. But the men were a jolly crowd, and the dinner hour was enlivened by jokes and good-natured foolery.

Carolyn May appreciated their attempts to amuse her, but she clung close to Benjamin, for she had a question in her mind that only he, she thought, could answer.

"You come with me, please," she whispered to the old seaman after dinner. "You can smoke. You haven't got to go back to work yet, and Tim is only just loading his sled. So we can talk."

"Aye, aye, little miss. What'll we talk about?" queried Benjamin cautiously, for he remembered that he was to be very circ.u.mspect in his conversation with her.

"I want you to tell me something, Benjamin," she said.

"Sail ahead, matey," he responded with apparent heartiness, filling his pipe meanwhile.

"Why, Benjamin-you must know, you know, for you've been to sea so much-Benjamin, I want to know if it hurts much to be drownd-ed?"

"Hurts much?" gasped the old seaman.

"Yes, sir. Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain? Is it a sufferin' way to die? I want to know, Benjamin, 'cause my papa and mamma died that way," continued the child, choking a little. "It does seem as though I'd just _got_ to know."

"Aye, aye," muttered the man. "I see. An' I kin tell ye, Car'lyn May, as clos't as anybody kin. I've been so near drownin' myself that they thought I was dead when I was hauled inboard.

"That was when I sailed in the old _Paducah_, a cotton boat, from N'Orleans to Liverpool. That was long 'fore I got to runnin' on the Cross and Crescent Line boats, 'cause steams.h.i.+ps is easier to work on than sailin' vessels.

"Well, now, listen. We used to carry almighty cargoes-yes'm. Decks loaded till we could scarce handle sail. She was down to the mark, and then some. An' if it come on to blow, we was all in danger of our lives.

Owners cared more for freight money than they did for the lives of her crew."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain?_"]

"Oh! How very wicked!" exclaimed Carolyn May, her mind led somewhat away from the gruesome question she had propounded to Benjamin.

"'Twas that, indeed," agreed the sailor, puffing on his pipe. "The old _Paducah_ sometimes rolled through the wash like she was top-heavy. And if the swell got too strong for her we had to jettison the top tiers of cotton bales-pitch 'em overboard, you see."

"Oh!"

"An' one day, when the old craft was rollin' till her yards nigh touched the sea, I was loosin' the upper tier of bales and slidin' 'em overboard, when over _I_ went with one of 'em."

"Oh, Benjamin! Never!"

"Aye, aye, matey. That's what I done," said the old man, sucking away on his pipe. "There was me in the sea, hangin' on to a balehook that was stuck in the cotton. The old _Paducah_ rushed by me, it seemed, like an express train past a cripple."

"But you weren't drownd-ed!" exclaimed Carolyn May.

"No-o. But I was near it-mighty near it. They seen me go, an' I heard the cry, 'Man overboard!' when I come up after my first plunge. I knowed they'd wear s.h.i.+p and send a boat after me. So, first off, I thought I'd hang to the balehook and be all right.

"But I got 'nough o' that soon-yes'm! The waves was monster tall. One seized me and the bale o' cotton, an' we shot right up to the crest of it. Then I found myself fallin' down on 'tother side, an' that cotton bale tumblin' after me. I had to get out o' the way of that bale in a hurry, or it might have swiped me a blow that I'd never come up from.

An' I wasn't much of a swimmer."

The little girl's eyes were round with interest and her lips were parted. She drank in every word the old sailor uttered.

"Well, there I was, little miss," he said, still puffing on his pipe.

"There was sev'ral of them cotton bales had been slid overboard about the same time, an' I found myself a-dodgin' of 'em. Fust one, then another, come after me-it seemed as if they was determined to git me.

"When I warn't lookin' for it, the end of one bale clumped me right in the back. I went down that time, I thought, for keeps.

"Down and down I went, till all I could see above me was green water streaked with white. I couldn't git my breath; but otherwise, mind ye, I wasn't in much trouble. I jest floated there, and I didn't much care to come up. I didn't care for anything.

"Lots o' things I'd done, good an' bad, chased through my head," went on Benjamin. "I remembered folks I hadn't thought of for years. My mother and father come to me-jest as plain! An' them dead for a long time."

"Oh! did you see _ghosts_?" Carolyn May exclaimed.

"Not to frighten me," the sailor a.s.sured her. "It was jest as though I was sittin' in a rockin'-chair, half asleep, an' these dreams come to me. I warn't in any pain. It was a lot worse when the boys reached me in the boat an' hauled me inboard.

"_Then_," said the old man with vigour, "it cost me something. Comin'

back from drowning is a whole lot worse than bein' drowned. You take it from me."

"Well," sighed Carolyn May, "I'm glad to know that. It's bothered me a good deal. If my mamma and papa had to be dead, maybe that was the nicest way for them to go.

"Only-only," confessed the little girl, "I'd feel so much better if they'd been brought back and we could have buried them behind the church, like Aunty Rose's babies and her spouse. And-and I'd feel better yet if they weren't dead at all!"

CHAPTER XIX-A GOOD DEAL OF EXCITEMENT

Tim, the hackman, had an accident to his load before he was ready to start from the camp after dinner. He was hauling maple and other hardwood logs to the turning mill at Sunrise Cove; and, the team he worked being a st.u.r.dy pair of animals, he piled a heavy cargo on the jumper. Just as he called to Carolyn May to hop upon the load for the ride home the horses started.

"Hey, you!" sang out the hack driver. "What d'ye think you're doin'?

Hey, there! Whoa!"

Unguided, the horses brought the sled with a vicious crash against a snow-covered stump. The load rocked, one runner hoisted into the air, and the load toppled over completely. The log-chain could not stand such a strain, and right there and then occurred a notable overturn.

"Pitcher of George Was.h.i.+ngton!" bawled Tim. "Now look what you went and done!"

He declaimed this against the spirited team. The whole camp yelled its delight.

"You ain't fit to drive anything more lively than that old rackabones you tackle to your hack in summer, Tim," declared the boss of the camp.

"You don't know nothing about managing a real horse."

"Hi, Timmy!" called another, "want somebody to hold their heads while ye build up that load again?"

But the hackman accepted this good-naturedly. He was delayed quite an hour, however, in starting from the camp with Carolyn May; and an hour out of a winter's afternoon is a good deal, for it becomes dark early at that time of year.