THE PAW-PAW HUNT.

“Well,” said Phil critically, “I never thought that box of tools would be of the least earthly use to you, Ned. But that’s as good a bookcase as any cabinet-maker could turn out.”

“Yes, sir! That’s pretty fair.” Ned Holmes stood up, wiping his hot face. “The thing’s not hard to put together. But when you come to this polishing—first varnish and then sandpaper, varnish and sandpaper—it almost cracks your back.”

The boys were in the back yard, where Ned had made his workshop under the big walnut. They were just out of school, and Phil had followed Ned home. Carpentering was the last hobby. Just then they heard Ned’s sister Fan, with two or three other girls, come down the street to the gate.

“Let’s go in and see Ned at work,” cried Jenny Symons, with her usual giggle.

“Ned don’t like to be bothered,” whispered Fanny.

“Dear me! The Grand Turk, is he? Well, I’m not going to bother him.”

In they came.

“Isn’t it splendid?”

“How nice! Why, it’s perfectly lovely!”

“La! Did you really do it all yourself, N— Mr. Holmes?”

Ned and Phil were near enough to the age of “beaux” to touch their hats and say, “Good-evening, ladies.” Then they both stooped and began to sandpaper, as if for their lives.

“I can’t do anything, with a lot of girls cluttering about,” muttered Ned, not so low but that Jenny and her companions heard him, and after a few more giggles and tosses of the head they flounced off, leaving Fan and Phil’s sister Maggie on the steps.

“Do we worry you, Ned?” asked Fan.

“Not if you sit there.”

Phil and he then continued their conversation, which was couched in mysterious phrases of how Jim Ford muffed four times, and that there could not be a doubt that Joe had a foul, and how they would lay three to one that Denzell would gag in Horace to-morrow.

Maggie was busy with her box of paper dolls, but Fanny had nothing to do but notice how warm the sun was, although the grass patch under the walnut tree was nipped brown by the frost. She looked beyond the mass of smoky chimneys to where Mt. Hale rose like a green sugar loaf into the October sky.

“I’ll tell you what would be good for Saturday,” she said, with a wise little nod. “Paw-paws. You and Ned, Phil and Maggie and me, and more if you choose. Start by daylight, and go to Mt. Hale, and stay all day paw-paw hunting.”

“And pack baskets!” cried Maggie, clapping her hands. “Dinner and supper both, Fan. We’d better take a lot, for our Phil—Oh, well, he’s always hungry.”

Phil’s face grew very red, and Ned answered on behalf of his friend, “Paw-paw hunting? Bosh!”

“Don’t you think it would be nice, Ned?” said Fan.

“Very nice for a lot of girls,” loftily. “But I don’t like paw-paws; mushy, sweet stuff. Anyhow, you couldn’t climb Mt. Hale, and if you did, there’s no paw-paws on it.”

“I’ve been to the top twice. And the paw-paws are on the side”—quietly. “But we’ll not go. Come in, Maggie.”

The girls disappeared in the house. As soon as they were out of sight Ned threw down his sandpaper.

“I tell you, Phil, it’s just the thing.”

“Mt. Hale? Yes, it would be jolly. We’ll go Saturday. There’s Jim and John Stiles, and Sam Bender’ll go, and—oh, lots! And mother’ll put up a market basket of dinner, and your mother’ll do the same; and——”

“But about the girls?”

“Oh, no matter about the girls! They’re always in the way, stuck in the mud, or screaming at snakes, or crying out ‘Oh, how can you?’ if a fellow gets a bird’s nest or trees a bunny, or anything.”

“That’s so!” rejoined Ned. He sandpapered away in silence for awhile, and then looked up.

“Tell you, Phil, it would be mean to leave ’em out. It was Fan thought of it, you know.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that;” for Phil always took Ned’s opinions second-hand as his own.

“We’ll let them in. Fan, and your Maggie, and—well, Jenny Bowler hasn’t much nonsense about her. But none of that Symons set. No, sir!”

“No, indeed. And about the fellows?”

“Oh, of course I won’t have the Stileses or that crowd where Fan is. Sam Bender’s all right. Fan!” beckoning with his plane to the window and sauntering up. “Phil and I are willing to take you girls out, Saturday. We’ve thought over the places and settled on Mt. Hale.”

“Oh, thank you, boys!” cried little Maggie.

“You can tell Jenny Bowler she may go, but nobody else, mind. You needn’t trouble yourself about any arrangements. We’ll attend to everything.”

“Very well,” said Fan. But she laughed to herself when they were gone, and then hurried to write a note to “Miss Jenny Bowler. Private and immediate.”

Fan was the only girl alive, her father said, who never asked questions. The time passed until Friday evening, and she had not shown the slightest curiosity as to Ned’s arrangements, though he and Phil went about in an exasperating state of fuss and mystery.

“We’re all ready for to-morrow,” said Ned at last.

“Provisions?” Fan looked up from her beadwork. “You know what Maggie says of ‘our Phil’s appetite.’”

“Then our Phil’s father ought to have come to his rescue. Didn’t take the slightest interest whatever. Wouldn’t put down a penny. However, we managed it. We’ve got Bender’s buggy and Sharp’s old mare, and eight pounds of crackers.”

“Is that all?”

“Why, what more do you want? The buggy’s for you girls. And we’re going to shoot game, and catch fish for dinner. Hunters never take anything but bread with them.”

“Oh!”

Fanny pricked away at her beads. Presently, she said gently, “Ned, if I might advise—we girls can easily walk, and that old mare of Sharp’s is blind and lame. You’ll find her harder to manage than a dozen tired girls. And I really don’t think I’d bring my gun. There’s always risk of accident with children like Maggie about.”

“I have made the arrangements, Frances. I did not, I believe, ask for any advice.”

When Ned said Frances matters were grave indeed. Fanny was silent.

Early the next morning Sharp’s old mare, Betty, arrived, Bender’s old buggy lumbering behind her, threatening to go to pieces at every turn. The three girls were hoisted in with difficulty, while Ned stood up to drive. An enormous bag of crackers lay in front—“The whole of Smith’s stale stock,” Maggie whispered, peeping in with a wry face. Phil and Sam marched alongside, loaded with guns and fishing-rods.

On they went from Dr. Thorpe’s door, down Church street into Main, past the warehouses and mills. Would they never get out of town? The buggy creaked, the old horse stumbled and puffed, and finally began to wheeze and snort, precisely like a steam-tug. Ned’s face grew scarlet, though he tried to laugh. The mare’s walk grew slower and slower.

“Hello, Ned! Going to a funeral?” called some boys from the sidewalk.

“Bound for the races, Ned?” shouted another. “Blooded stock there.”

He could see two gentlemen going down the pavement glance at each other and hide a smile, and one pretty young lady laughed outright. Phil and Sam had pushed on before, ashamed of the turnout. At last Mrs. Betty stopped altogether, to treat herself to a comfortable wheeze in quiet.

Ned looked round in despair.

“Girls, I’m very sorry, but if you’d only get out and walk a bit, may be I could get her out of town faster.”

Out scrambled the girls, only too glad to be released.

The end was that they walked to the top of Mt. Hale, while Betty wheezed and puffed and balked behind. But once on the mountain top, what was Betty or any other trouble? Mt. Hale was one of the steep hills that overlook the Ohio. Underneath, the black, bituminous smoke of the town drifted like a passing cloud across the broad landscape of sunlighted, rolling hills and misty valleys. The river, yellow and glistening, wound from one horizon to the other. Here and there a trail of white smoke showed where a steamer lay.

But the children did not look long at river or landscape. They only knew they were high in the air, above the rest of the world; the moss was deep under their feet; old oaks and sycamores rose like giants overhead; through the tangled undergrowth glowed the golden-green paw-paws, full of luscious meat. There were miniature ponds, dark with sumach; bushes, brooks, like glittering threads, among the rocks.

“There’s lots of minnows in those runs,” said Ned. “You try for them, Sam, and Phil and I will bring down a squirrel or two. Broiled squirrel will be very good for dinner;” for the boys, who had eaten no breakfast in their excitement, began to feel, after their five miles’ walk, that dry crackers were not so palatable as they seemed yesterday.

Betty was tied to a tree, where she could nibble at will. Ned put the crackers in a basket and hung them on a paw-paw bush.

“Are they quite safe there?” said Maggie anxiously.

“Now what would hurt them?” cried Phil. “Boys, I believe Mag thinks these woods are full of tigers and lions. Girls are so fussy!” in a pitying tone, as they walked away guns in hand.

“Women,” said Ned, “are well enough in their place. But their place, you see, is the house. They don’t somehow know how to get along out of doors.”

Fan and Jenny had apparently a good deal to do out of doors. There were paw-paws to gather, and moss, and roots, and ferns for their herbariums, and then they sat down and began some weighty school secrets, having established Maggie out of hearing in a doll’s house at the root of a tree. Now and then, the whiz of a gun would be heard, but the sun crept overhead and began to go down on the other side, and the boys did not appear.

“I am so hungry!” cried Maggie, with a little sob.

“So are we,” said a voice behind her, and Sam Bender came up. “Where are the girls, Maggie?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been gone half an hour. It’s awfully lonely here. Where’s your fish, Sam?”

“Yes, where’s your fish, Sam?” shouted Ned, coming with Phil through the thicket. The boys were a little boisterous, as if they wanted to cover some uneasiness.

“Well, the fact is, I haven’t any. Plague on the minnows! they’d shy at the bait, do what I would. But minnows are poor eating for a hungry man, and here are six of us,” for by that time the two girls came strolling up from the hollow, loaded with moss.

“Where’s the game, boys? I’m a good hand at skinning a squirrel.”

Ned looked at Phil, and Phil stared after a bird that was flying past.

“I hadn’t a single chance for a good shot, to-day,” growled the latter hunter.

“I nearly winged two,” said Ned, “and I just grazed a fellow going into his hole—hit the top of his tail. It was as pretty a shot as ever I saw.”

“Do you mean,” said Sam, “that you’ve shot nothing—nothing at all?”

Phil gave a foolish laugh.

“That’s about it,” said Ned.

There was a dead silence. Then poor little Maggie began to sob. “I’m as hungry as ever was, and we’re here in this big forest, and Betty can’t take us home, and we’ll die of starvation. I eated just one bun for my breakfast this morning. A girl can’t live forever on one bun.”

“It’s this gun,” said Ned, giving it a vicious shake. “Nobody could have aimed better than I did!”

“Look there!” screamed Jenny. They all turned in dismay, to see an enormous pig dashing through the bushes, the cracker basket around her neck like a necklace, munching as she ran, while a napkin streamed out of one side of her jaws, and the cracker bag out of the other. The boys gave chase, shouting and flinging stones, but the harder they ran, the more recklessly the triumphant hog threw herself headlong through bush and brake. They gave up at last, and came back.

“Well, there’s an end of the last chance,” said Ned.

“There are plenty of paw-paws,” suggested Fan.

“The very thought of them sickens me. The only thing left is to go home as fast as possible. It’s a miserable end to the day.”

“I think,” said Fan, trying to keep a laugh out of her face, “I think I see a smoke. Come and let us see if it is a troop of wandering Indians with buffalo meat. Who knows, Maggie?”

Down through the bushes they rushed, over the brook, round the high peak of the hill. There, in a sheltered little cove made by the rocks was a glorious wood fire, a great heap of delicious biscuits well buttered, a steaming pot of coffee, cold chicken.

“And here is beef to frizzle, and two slices of ham to broil,” said Fan, talking very fast, her cheeks red as roses, and her eyes bright. “Get two forked sticks, boys, so,” placing it in their awkward fingers. “Isn’t it splendid?”

Phil and Sam gave a tremendous cheer that made the woods ring. Maggie joined in with her shrill little pipe, and jumped like a crazy child. But Ned was very quiet.

“These are mother’s biscuits. How did you bring the things, Fan?” he said.

“In the seat of the buggy.”

“How good they are!”

Never did any meal taste like that one, though the ham was scorched and the beef was fairly burned. They did not leave a crumb nor a bit of meat, though Maggie pleaded hard for the little birds. She had not exaggerated the appetite of “our Phil,” and to tell the truth the others were quite his equals.

The buggy perpetually ran down on Betty’s heels, and such were her asthmatic puffs and snorts, that the boys declared the people living on the mountain would fancy a steamer had missed its way, and was scaling the height. Ned and Phil both had to hold her head to bring her down in safety; and it was quite dark before they reached the town. But nobody could now mistake the procession for a funeral.

“I never had more fun in my life,” said Sam.

“Nor such a dinner!” responded Phil. “Ned, what d’ye say to going again some Saturday—soon?”

“All right! But”—lowering his voice—“let’s leave the girls to manage. There’s more in girls than I thought”—reflectively—“but it wouldn’t do to tell them so.”