Ernest Seton - Two Little Savages

Yan struck a match and put it to the wood. It went out. He struck another—same result. Yet another went out.

Sam remarked:

"Pears to me you don't know much about lightin' a fire. Lemme show you. Let the White hunter learn the Injun somethin' about the woods," said he with a leer.

Sam took the axe and cut some sticks of a dry Pine root. Then with his knife he cut long curling shavings, which he left sticking in a fuzz at the end of each stick.

"Oh, I've seen a picture of an Indian making them. They call them 'prayer-sticks,'" said Yan.

"Well, prayer-sticks is mighty good kindlin'" replied the other. He struck a match, and in a minute he had a blazing fire in the middle of the wigwam.

"Old Granny de Neuville, she's a witch—she knows all about the woods, and cracked Jimmy turns everything into poetry what she says. He says she says when you want to make a fire in the woods you take—

"Who's Granny de Neuville?"

"Oh, she's the old witch that lives down at the bend o' the creek."

"What? Has she got a granddaughter named Biddy?" said Yan, suddenly remembering that his ancient ally came from this part of Sanger.

"Oh, my! Hain't she? Ain't Biddy a peach—drinks like a fish, talks everybody to death about the time she resided in Bonnerton. Gits a letter every mail begging her to come back and 'reside' with them some more."

"Ain't this fine," said Yan, as he sat on a pile of Fir boughs in the wigwam.

"Looks like the real thing," replied Sam from his seat on the other side. "But say, Yan, don't make any more fire; it's kind o' warm here, an' there seems to be something wrong with that flue—wants sweepin', prob'ly—hain't been swep' since I kin remember."

The fire blazed up and the smoke increased. Just a little of it wandered out of the smoke-hole at the top, then it decided that this was a mistake and thereafter positively declined to use the vent. Some of it went out by chinks, and a large stream issued from the door, but by far the best part of it seemed satisfied with the interior of the wigwam, so that in a minute or less both boys scrambled out. Their eyes were streaming with smoke-tears and their discomfiture was complete.

"'Pears to me," observed Sam, "like we got them holes mixed. The dooer should 'a 'been at the top, sence the smoke has a fancy for usin' it, an' then we'd had a chance."

"The Indians make it work," said Yan; "a White hunter ought to know how."

"Now's the Injun's chance," said Sam. "Maybe it wants a dooer to close, then the smoke would have to go out."

They tried this, and of course some of the smoke was crowded out, but not till long after the boys were.

"Seems like what does get out by the chinks is sucked back agin by that there double-action flue," said Sam.

It was very disappointing. The romance of sitting by the fire in one's teepee appealed to both of the boys, but the physical torture of the smoke made it unbearable. Their dream was dispelled, and Sam suggested, "Maybe we'd better try a shanty."

"No," said Yan, with his usual doggedness. "I know it can be done, because the Indians do it. We'll find out in time."

But all their efforts were in vain. The wigwam was a failure, as far as fire was concerned. It was very small and uncomfortable, too; the wind blew through a hundred crevices, which grew larger as the Elm bark dried and cracked. A heavy shower caught them once, and they were rather glad to be driven into their cheerless lodge, but the rain came abundantly into the smoke-hole as well as through the walls, and they found it but little protection.

"Seems to me, if anything, a leetle wetter in here than outside," said Sam, as he led in a dash for home.

That night a heavy storm set in, and next day the boys found their flimsy wigwam blown down—nothing but a heap of ruins.

Some time after, Raften asked at the table in characteristic stern style, "Bhoys, what's doin' down to yer camp? Is yer wigwam finished?"

"No good," said Sam. "All blowed down."

"How's that?"

"I dunno'. It smoked like everything. We couldn't stay in it."

"Couldn't a-been right made," said Raften; then with a sudden interest, which showed how eagerly he would have joined in this forty years ago, he said, "Why don't ye make a rale taypay?"

"Dunno' how, an' ain't got no stuff."

"Wall, now, yez have been pretty good an' ain't slacked on the wurruk, yez kin have the ould wagon kiver. Cousin Bert could tache ye how to make it, if he wuz here. Maybe Caleb Clark knows," he added, with a significant twinkle of his eye. "Better ask him." Then he turned to give orders to the hired men, who, of course, ate at the family table.

"Da, do you care if we go to Caleb?"

"I don't care fwhat ye do wid him," was the reply.

Raften was no idle talker and Sam knew that, so as soon as "the law was off" he and Yan got out the old wagon cover. It seemed like an acre of canvas when they spread it out. Having thus taken possession, they put it away again in the cow-house, their own domain, and Sam said: "I've a great notion to go right to Caleb; he sho'ly knows more about a teepee than any one else here, which ain't sayin' much."

"Who's Caleb?"

"Oh, he's the old Billy Goat that shot at Da oncet, just after Da beat him at a horse trade. Let on it was a mistake: 'twas, too, as he found out, coz Da bought up some old notes of his, got 'em cheap, and squeezed him hard to meet them. He's had hard luck ever since.

"He's a mortal queer old duck, that Caleb. He knows heaps about the woods, coz he was a hunter an' trapper oncet. My! wouldn't he be down on me if he knowed who was my Da, but he don't have to know."

The boys set out for Caleb's. It was up the creek away from the camp ground. As they neared the bend they saw a small log shanty, with some poultry and a pig at the door.

"That's where the witch lives," said Sam.

"Who—old Granny de Neuville?"

"Yep, and she just loves me. Oh, yes; about the same way an old hen loves a Chicken-hawk. 'Pears to me she sets up nights to love me."

"Why?"

"Oh, I guess it started with the pigs. No, let's see: first about the trees. Da chopped off a lot of Elm trees that looked terrible nice from her windy. She's awful queer about a tree. She hates to see 'em cut down, an' that soured her same as if she owned 'em.