BEST CURE FOR UNAVAILING SORROW--MARY'S ADVENTURE WITH A BEAR--NOVEL DEFENCE--PROTECTING THE TENT
It was natural that the youthful company should be much cast down by this misfortune. But recent experiences had taught them many valuable lessons, and had caused them to practise, more fully than they would have otherwise, those wise maxims which had formed no small part of their education. While Robert and Mary were yet anguished with their sense of disappointment, Harold cheerfully remarked:
"I have often heard your father say, 'There are two kinds of ill that it is worth no wise man's while to fret about:--Ills that can be helped, for then why do we not help them? and, Ills that cannot be helped, for then what is the use of fretting?' I have also heard him say that 'the best cure for ills that cannot be helped is to set about doing something useful.'"
"But what can we do more than we have already tried to do?" asked Robert, in a questioning tone.
"Not much, I confess," was Harold's reply; "yet we can be on the lookout for something. Yes," he continued, pointing, as they walked, to one of the turkey pens which they had not visited for several days, "there is something now. Very likely that trap has caught, and possibly the poor creature that is in it, is now suffering more in body for want of food and water, than we are in mind. Let us go and see."
They turned aside accordingly, and found within the trap a fine young hen in a half-famished condition. She scarcely noticed them until they were within a few paces of her, and then ran with feeble steps around the pen, twitting mournfully, but without strength to fly. Robert proposed to let her go, saying that there would be no use in carrying home a starved bird; but to this Mary objected. She was beginning to believe with Harold that they were destined to stay a long time on the island. "I think," said she, "we had better take her home, and make a coop for her, and let her be the beginning of a stock of poultry. We can get some ducks, too, I have no doubt, and that will be so nice."
The picture which she drew was so comfortable and pleasant, that they agreed to put it into instant execution. They would make for her not a coop merely, but a poultry yard and house, and stock it for her with turkeys, ducks, and brant; and she and Frank should feed them every morning on acorns and chopped venison, and then they would live like princes. The only particular difficulty that suggested itself in the case was, that wild turkeys cannot be tamed. There is such an innate love of freedom in their very blood, that even those which are raised from the egg by tame hens will soon forsake the yard for the forest.
These little pleasant plans (for after all it is little things that make life pleasant or unpleasant), occupied their minds, and soon employed their hands; for immediately on their return home they commenced upon Mary's poultry house, and marked out also the limits of the adjoining yard. This occupied them for the two remaining days of that week, and it was not until the Monday following that they commenced working upon their boats.
In the midst of that week, however, another incident occurred, which threatened to be fearful enough in its consequences, and caused another interruption to their work. Robert, Harold, and Sam, were engaged upon the fallen tree; Mary was preparing their dinner, and Frank, having found a large beetle, was employed in driving down sticks into the ground, on the plan of the picket fence, "making," as he professed, "a house for his turkey." He had begun to feel hungry; and as the odour of the broiling venison floated to his olfactories, he suddenly became ravenous. He left his beetle half penned, and was on his way to ask his sister for a mouthful or two before dinner, when directly behind the tent he saw a great black object approaching the spot where Mary stood.
He looked a moment, uncertain what it could be, then gave a scream. "Run, sister! run!" he said. "Come here! Look! look!" She looked, but saw nothing, for the tent intervened. As Frank said "run!" he set the example, and reaching a small tree about six inches in diameter, climbed it as nimbly as a squirrel, crying as he ran, "Come here! Come here!"
Mary was astonished. She was sure from the tones of his voice that he was in earnest, yet she saw no danger, and hesitated what to do. Observing him, however, climb the tree, calling earnestly to her, she was about to follow, when in a moment it was too late. An enormous bear came from behind the tent, snuffing the odour of the meat, and looking very hungry. Almost as soon as it discovered her, it rose upon its hind legs, seeming surprised to meet a human being, and came forward with a heavy growl. Had any one been present to help, Mary would probably have screamed and fainted, but thrown upon her own resources she ran to the fire and seized a burning brand. Then another and very fortunate thought came to her mind. The dipper, or water ladle, was in her hand; and as she drew the brand from the fire, she dipped a ladle full of the boiling, greasy water, and threw it into the breast, and upon the fore-paws of the growling beast.
That expedient saved her life. The bear instantly dropped upon all fours, and began most piteously to whine and lick its scalded paws. Mary seeing the success of her experiment, dipped another ladle full, and threw it in its face. The bear now uttered a perfect yell of pain, and turning upon its hind legs, ran galloping past the tent, as if expecting every moment to feel another supply of the hot stuff upon its back.
All this time Frank was calling from his tree, "Come here, sister! He can't get you here! Come! come!" And Mary was about to go; but the bear was no sooner out of sight, than she felt very sick. Beckoning Frank to come to her, she ran towards the tent, intending to fire off one of the guns, as a signal for the large boys to return; but ere reaching the door her sight failed, her brain reeled, and she fell prostrate upon the earth. Frank looked all round, and seeing that the bear was "clear gone," sprang lightly from the tree, and ran to her assistance. He had once before seen her in a fainting fit, and recollecting that Robert had poured water in her face, and set him to fanning her, and chafing her temples and the palms of her hands, he first poured a dipper full of cold water on her face, then seizing the conch, blew the signal of alarm, till the woods rang again.
This soon brought the others. Harold came rushing into the tent, and by the time that Robert arrived, he had loosened Mary's dress, and was rubbing her hands and wrists, while Frank fanned her, and told the tale of her fighting the bear with hot water. The boys were powerfully excited. Harold's eye turned continually to the woods, and he called Mum, and patted him with one hand, while he helped Mary with the other.
"Let me attend to her now," said Robert. "I see by your eye that you wish to go. But if you will only wait a minute, I think sister will be sufficiently well for me to go with you."
"I am well enough now," she faintly replied. "You need not stay on my account. Do kill him. He can't be far away. Oh, the horrible"--she covered her eyes with both hands, and shuddered.
"But will you not be afraid to have us leave you?" asked Robert.
"No, no; not if you go to kill that terrible creature. Do go, before he gets away."
Sam had in the meantime hobbled in, and the boys needed no other encouragement. Frank showed them the direction taken by the bear, and they set out instantly in pursuit. Mum had already been smelling around, and exhibiting signs of rage. Now he started off on a brisk trot. They followed him to a moist, mossy place, where the bear appeared to have rolled on the damp ground, and drawn the wet moss around it to alleviate the pain of the fire; then to another low place, where he showed by his increasing excitement that the game was near at hand. Indeed, they could hear every minute a half whine, half growl, which proved that the troubled beast was there in great pain, and conscious of their approach. But it did not long remain. Seeming to know that it had brought upon itself a terrible retribution, by attacking the quiet settlement, it broke from the cover, and ran to a large oak, in the edge of the neighbouring hammock, and when the boys arrived, they found it climbing painfully, a few feet above ground. Its huge paws convulsively grasped the trunk, and it made desperate efforts to ascend, as if confident that climbing that tree was its only refuge, and yet finding this to fail it in its time of need. Both boys prepared to shoot, but Harold beckoned to Robert.
"Let me try him in the ear with a rifle ball, while you keep your barrels ready in case he is not killed."
He advanced within ten paces, rested his rifle deliberately against a tree, took aim without the quivering of a muscle. Robert saw him draw a "bead sight" on his victim, and knew that its fate was sealed. There was a flash, a sharp report, and the heavy creature fell to the earth, like a bag of sand, and the dark blood, oozing from ears and nose, proved that its sufferings and its depredations were ended for ever.
"He will give us plenty of fresh pork, the monster!" said Harold, endeavouring to quell his emotions, by taking a utilitarian view of the case, and, in consequence, making a singular medley of remarks, "What claws and teeth! I don't wonder that Mary fainted! She is a brave girl!"
"Yes, indeed," replied Robert; "there is not one girl in a thousand that could have stood her ground so well. And that notion of fighting with hot water--ha! ha! I must ask where she got it. It is capital. Only see here, Harold, how this fellow's foot is scalded; this is the secret of his climbing so badly."
Mary's hot water had done its work effectually. The bear was terribly scalded on its paws, breast, face, and back of its head. The boys bled it, as they did their other game, by cutting through the jugular vein and carotid artery; but wishing to relieve Mary's mind as soon as possible, they returned to inform her that her enemy was dead.
"And pray tell me, sister," said Robert merrily, after recounting the scene just described, "where did you learn your new art of fighting bears?"
"From cousin Harold," she replied.
"From me, cousin!" Harold repeated. "Why, I never heard of such a thing in my life. How could I have told you?"
"You said one day," Mary continued, "that wild beasts are afraid of fire, and that they cannot endure the pain of a burn. Now when I took up the brand to defend myself, according to your rule, I remembered that hot water hurts the most, and that moreover I could throw it. But if you had not mentioned the one, I should not have thought of the other."
"I think you deserve a patent," said Harold, patting her pale cheek. "You have beat the whole of us, not excepting Robert, who was a perfect hero in his day; for he conquered a panther with duck-shot, but you have conquered a bear with a ladle. Why, cousin Mary, if ever we return to a civilized country we shall have to publish you for a heroine."
She smiled at these compliments, but remarked that she was not heroine enough to covet another such trial; for that she was a coward after all.
"And you, Master Frank," said Robert, whose pleasurable feeling excited a disposition to teaze, "you climbed into a tree."
"Indeed I did," replied Frank, "as fast as I could, and tried to get sister Mary there too. But she would stay and fight the bear with hot water. Sister, why did you not come?"
"I did not know why you called," she answered. "I did not see anything, and did not know which way to run."
"I think, cousin," remarked Harold, "that if you had run when Frank called, you would have saved yourself the battle. The bear was after your meat, not after you; and if you had only been willing to give up that dinner, which you defended so stoutly, he would probably have eaten it, and let you alone."
With this lively chatting, Mary was so much cheered, that she joined them at dinner, and partook slightly of the choice bits that her brother and cousin pressed upon her. The afternoon was spent in preparing the flesh of their game. They treated it in every respect as they would pork, except that the animal was flayed; and they found the flesh well flavoured and pleasant. The parings and other fatty parts were by request turned over to Sam, who prepared from them a soft and useful grease. The skin was stretched in the sun to dry, after which it was soaked in water, cleansed of all impurities, and rubbed well with salt and saltpetre (William had put up a quantity), and finally with the bear's own grease. After it had been nicely cured, Harold made a present of it to Mary, who used it as a mattress so long as she lived upon the island.
Warned so impressively to protect their habitation against wild beasts, the boys spent the rest of the week in erecting a suitable enclosure. They planted a double row of stakes around the tent and kitchen, filling up the interstices with twigs and short poles. The fence was higher than their heads, and there was a rustic gateway so contrived that at a little distance it looked like part of the fence itself.