So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got
the old split-bottom chair and clumb up as easy as
I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun.
I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded,
then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing
towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him
to stir. And how slow and still the time did
drag along.
“Git up! What you ’bout?”
I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make
out where I was. It was after sun-up, and I
had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over
me looking sour and sick, too. He says:
“What you doin’ with this gun?”
I judged he didn’t know nothing about what he
had been doing, so I says:
“Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for
him.”
“Why didn’t you roust me out?”
“Well, I tried to, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t
budge you.”
“Well, all right. Don’t stand there
palavering all day, but out with you and see if there’s
a fish on the lines for breakfast. I’ll
be along in a minute.”
He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank.
I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating
down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I knowed the river
had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great
times now if I was over at the town. The June
rise used to be always luck for me; because as soon
as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down,
and pieces of log rafts—sometimes a dozen
logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them
and sell them to the wood-yards and the sawmill.
I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap
and t’other one out for what the rise might
fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe;
just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot
long, riding high like a duck. I shot head-first
off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and
struck out for the canoe. I just expected there’d
be somebody laying down in it, because people often
done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled
a skiff out most to it they’d raise up and laugh
at him. But it warn’t so this time.
It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in
and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old man
will be glad when he sees this—she’s
worth ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap
wasn’t in sight yet, and as I was running her
into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with
vines and willows, I struck another idea: I
judged I’d hide her good, and then, ’stead
of taking to the woods when I run off, I’d go
down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place
for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on
foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I
heard the old man coming all the time; but I got her
hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows,
and there was the old man down the path a piece just
drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he
hadn’t seen anything.
