Chapter XI
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Iumn I returo my Southern home with a heart full of joyous memories. As I recall that visit North I am filled with wo the riess and variety of the experiehat cluster about it. It seems to have been the beginning of everything. The treasures of a new, beautiful world were laid a.. my feet, and I took in pleasure and information at every turn. I lived myself into all things. I was ill a moment; my life was as full of motion as those little is that crowd a whole existeo one brief day. I met many people who talked with me by spelling into my hand, and thought in joyous sympathy leaped up to meet thought, and behold, a miracle had been wrought! The barren places between my mind and the minds of others blossomed like the rose.I spent the autumn months with my family at our summer cottage, on a mountain about fourteen miles from Tuscumbia. It was called Fern Quarry, because near it there was a limestone quarry, long since abandoned.
Three frolie little streams ran through it from springs in the rocks above, leaping here and tumbling there in laughing cascades wherever the rocks tried to bar their way. The opening was filled with ferns whipletely covered the beds of limestone and in places hid the streams. The rest of the mountain was thickly wooded. Here were great oaks and splendid evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees, the odour of which pervaded every nook and er of the wood--an illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad. In places the wild muse and scuppernong viretched from tree to tree, making arbours which were always full of butterflies and buzzing is. It was delightful to lose ourselves in the green hollows of that tangled wood ie afternoon, and to smell the cool, delicious odours that came up from the earth at the close o藏书网f day.
Our cottage was a sort h camp, beautifully situated oop of the mountain among oaks and pines.
The small rooms were arranged on each side of a long open hall. Round the house was a wide piazza, where the mountain winds blew, sweet with all wood-sts. We lived on the piazza most of the time--there we worked, ate and played. At the back door there was a great butternut tree, round which the steps had been built, and in front the trees stood so close that I could touch them ahe wind shake their branches, or the leaves twirl downward iumn blast.
Many visitors came to Fern Quarry. In the evening, by the campfire, the men played cards and whiled away the hours in talk and sport. They told stories of their wonderful feats with fowl, fish and quadruped--how many wild ducks and turkeys they had shot, what "savage trout" they had caught, and how they had bagged the craftiest foxes, outwitted the most clever possums and overtaken the fleetest deer, until I thought that surely the lion, the tiger, the bear and the rest of the wild tribe would not be able to stand before these wily hunters. "To-morrow to the chase!" was their good-night shout as the cirerry friends broke up for the night. The me in the hall outside our door, and I could feel the deep breathing of the dogs and the hunters as they lay on their improvised beds.
At dawn I was awakened by the smell of coffee, the rattling of guns, and the heavy footsteps of the men as they strode about, promising themselves the greatest luck of the season. I could also feel the stamping of the horses, which they had ridden out from town and hitched uhe trees, where they stood all night, neighing loudly, impatient to be off. At last the men mounted, and, as they say in the old songs, away went the steeds with bridles ringing and whips crag and hounds rag ahead, and away went the champion hunters "with hark and whoop and wild halloo!”
Later in the m reparations for a barbecue. A fire was ki the bottom of a deep hole in the ground, big sticks were laid crosswise at the top, a was hung from them and turned on spits.
Around the fire squatted negroes, driving away the flies with long brahe savoury odour of the meat made me hungry long before the tables were set.
When the bustle aement of preparation was at its height, the hunting party made its appeararuggling in by twos and threes, the men hot and weary, the horses covered with foam, and the jaded hounds panting aed--and not a single kill! Every man declared that he had seen at least one deer, and that the animal had e very close; but however hotly the dogs might pursue the game, however well the guns might be aimed, at the snap of the trigger there was not a deer in sight. They had been as fortunate as the little boy who said he came very near seeing a rabbit--he saw his tracks. The party soon fot its disappoi, however, a down, not to venison, but to a tamer feast of veal and roast pig.
One summer I had my pony at Fern Quarry. I called him Black Beauty, as I had just read the book, and he resembled his namesake in every way, from his glossy black coat to the white star on his forehead. I spent many of my happiest hours on his back. Occasionally, when it was quite safe, my teacher would let go the leading-rein, and the pony sauntered on or stopped at his sweet will to eat grass or nibble the leaves of the trees that grew beside the narrow trail.
On ms when I did not care for the ride, my teacher and I would start after breakfast for a ramble in the woods, and allow ourselves to get lost amid the trees and vines, with no road to follow except the paths made by cows and horses. Frequently we came upon impassable thickets which forced us to take a round about way.
We always returo the cottage with armfuls of laurel, goldenrod, ferns and geous s-flowers such as grow only in the South.
S?９９ｌｉb?ometimes I would go with Mildred and my little cousins to gather persimmons. I did hem; but I loved their fragrand enjoyed hunting for them in the leaves and grass. We also went nutting, and I helped them open the chestnut burrs and break the shells of hickory-nuts and walnuts--the big, sweet walnuts!
At the foot of the mountain there was a railroad, and the children watched the trains whiz by. Sometimes a terrific whistle brought us to the steps, and Mildred told me i excitement that a cow or a horse had strayed orack. About a mile distant there was a trestle spanning a deep ge. It was very difficult to walk over, the ties were wide apart and so narrow that o as if one were walking on knives. I had never crossed it until one day Mildred, Miss Sullivan and I were lost in the woods, and wandered for hours without finding a path.
Suddenly Mildred pointed with her little hand and exclaimed, "Theres the trestle!" We would have taken any way rather than this; but it was late and growing dark, and the trestle was a short cut home. I had to feel for the rails with my toe; but I was not afraid, and got on very well, until all at ohere came a faint "puff, puff”
from the distance.
"I see the train!" cried Mildred<tt>.t>, and in another mi would have been upon us had we not climbed down on the crossbraces while it rushed over our heads. I felt the hot breath from the engine on my face, and the smoke and ashes almost choked us. As the train rumbled by, the trestle shook and swayed until I thought we should be dashed to the chasm below. With the utmost difficulty we regaihe track. Long after dark we reached home and found the cottage empty; the family were all out hunting for us.
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