Jacob Abbott - Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story

Phonny rolled two large stones into the cavern, and placed them in the back part of it, where he intended to build his fire. These stones were for andirons. Then he began to bring in logs, and sticks, and branches of trees, such as he found lying upon the ground dead and dry. These he piled up inside of the cavern in a sort of corner, where there was a deep recess or crevice, which was very convenient for holding the wood.

Malleville helped him do all this. When a sufficient supply of wood was gathered, Phonny laid some of it across his stone andirons, and then prepared to light the fire.

He rubbed one of his matches against a dry log, and the match immediately kindled. Phonny looked at the blue flame a moment, and then, as if some sudden thought had struck him, he blew it out again, and said,

“On the whole, I will go and ask Beechnut. We may as well be sure.”

So he ran down from the entrance of the cavern, and thence along by the way that they had come, through the thicket, until he came in sight of Beechnut.

“Beechnut,” said he, calling out very loud, “we have found a cavern; – may we build a fire in it?”

“Yes,” said Beechnut.

Then Phonny went back, and telling Malleville that Beechnut had said yes, he proceeded to kindle his fire.

It happened that there were two large stones, tolerably square in form, each of them, and flat upon the upper side, which were lying in the cavern in such places as to be very convenient for seats. When the fire began to burn, Phonny sat down upon one of these seats, and gave Malleville the other. The fire blazed up very cheerily, and the smoke and sparks, winding their way up the side of the rock, which formed the back of the cavern, escaped out through the opening at the top in a very satisfactory manner.

“There,” said Phonny, “this is what I call comfortable. If we only now had something to eat, it is all I should want.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said he again, after a moment’s pause, “we will send home by Beechnut, when he goes with his next load, to get us something to eat.”

“Well,” said Malleville, “so we will.”

Beechnut very readily undertook the commission of bringing Phonny and Malleville something to eat. Accordingly, when his cart was loaded he went away, leaving Phonny and Malleville in their cavern. While he was gone the children employed themselves in bringing flat stones, and making a fireplace by building walls on each side of their fire.

In due time Beechnut returned, bringing with him a large round box, which he said that Mrs. Henry had sent to Phonny and Malleville. It was too heavy for Phonny to lift easily, and so Beechnut drove his cart along until it was nearly opposite the cavern. Then he took the box out of the cart and carried it into the cavern, and laid it down upon Malleville’s seat.

Phonny opened it, and he found that it contained a variety of stores. There were four potatoes and four apples, each rolled up in a separate paper. There were also two crackers. These crackers were in a tin mug, just big enough to hold them, one on the top of the other. The mug, Phonny said, was for them to drink from, and as there was a spring by the side of the cavern they had plenty of water.

“One cracker is for me,” said Phonny, “and the other for you, Malleville. I mean to split my cracker in two, and toast the halves.”

At the bottom of the box there was half a pie.

Beechnut stopped to see what the box contained, and then he went away to his work again. As he went away, he told the children that Mrs. Henry said that they need not come home to dinner that day, unless they chose to do so, – but might make their dinner, if they pleased, in the cavern, from what she had sent them in the box.

The children were very much pleased with this plan. They remained in the cavern a long time. They roasted their potatoes in the fire, and their apples in front of it. They toasted their crackers and warmed their pie, by placing them against a stone between the andirons; and they got water, whenever they were thirsty, in the dipper from the spring.

At length, about the middle of the afternoon, when their interest in the cavern was beginning to decline, their thoughts were suddenly turned away from it altogether, by the news which Beechnut announced to them on his return from the house, after his eighth load, that Wallace had arrived.

“And has my brother Stuyvesant come too?” asked Malleville.

“I suppose so,” said Beechnut, “there was a boy with him, about as large as Phonny, but I did not hear what his name was.”

“Oh, it is he! it is he!” said Malleville, clapping her hands.

Phonny and Malleville mounted upon the top of the load as soon as Beechnut got it ready, and rode home. They ran into the house, while Beechnut went to unload his wood. Just as Beechnut was ready to go out of the yard again with his empty cart, Phonny came out.

“Cousin Wallace has really come,” said Phonny.

“Ah!” said Beechnut, “and what does he have to say?”

“Why, he says,” replied Phonny, “that he is going to make a man of me.”

“Is he?” said Beechnut. “Well, I hope he will take proper time for it. I have no great opinion of the plan of making men out of boys before their time.”

So saying, Beechnut drove away, and Phonny went in.

Two or three days after Wallace arrived at Franconia, he and Phonny formed a plan to go and take a ride on horseback. They invited Stuyvesant to go with them, but Stuyvesant said that Beechnut was going to plow that day, and had promised to teach him to drive oxen. He said that he should like better to learn to drive oxen than to take a ride on horseback.

There was another reason which influenced Stuyvesant in making this decision, and that was, that he had observed that there were only two horses in the stable, and although he knew that Beechnut could easily obtain another from some of the neighbors, still he thought that this would make some trouble, and he was always very considerate about making trouble. This was rather remarkable in Stuyvesant, for he was a city boy, and city boys are apt to be very inconsiderate.

So Wallace and Phonny concluded to go by themselves. They mounted their horses and rode together out through the great gate.

“Now,” said Phonny, when they were fairly on the way, “we will have a good time. This is just what I like. I would rather have a good ride on horseback than any thing else. I wish that they would let me go alone sometimes.”

“Won’t they?” asked Wallace.

“No, not very often,” said Phonny.

“Do you know what the reason is?” asked Wallace.

“I suppose because they think that I am not old enough,” replied Phonny, “but I am.”

“I don’t think that that is the reason,” said Wallace. “Stuyvesant is not quite so old as you are, and yet I shall let him go and ride alone whenever he pleases.”

“What is the reason then?” asked Phonny.

“Because you are not man enough I suppose,” said Wallace. “You might be more manly, without being any older, and then people would put more trust in you, and you would have a great many more pleasures.”

Phonny was rather surprised to hear his cousin Wallace speak thus. He had thought that he was manly – very manly; but it was evident that his cousin considered him boyish.

“I do not know,” continued Wallace, “but that you are as manly as other boys of your years.”

“Except Stuyvesant,” said Phonny.

“Yes, except Stuyvesant,” said Wallace, “I think that he is rather remarkable. I do not think that you are very boyish, – but you are growing up quite fast and you are getting to be pretty large. It is time for you to begin to evince some degree of the carefulness, and considerateness, and sense of responsibility, that belong to men.