Fugen eBooks

I remember how I lagged, and how
the old man urged me on, and how we toiled in the wind and
darkness, straining our eyes for some familiar thing. Of a sudden
we stumbled upon a wall that we had passed an hour or so before.
'Oh!' he groaned, and made that funny, deprecating cluck with his
tongue, that I have heard so much from Yankee lips.
'God o' mercy!' said he, 'we've gone 'round in a half-circle. Now
we'll take the wall an' mebbe it'll bring us home.'
I thought I couldn't keep my feet any longer, for an irresistible
drowsiness had come over me. The voice of Uncle Eb seemed far
away, and when I sank in the snow and shut my eyes to sleep he
shook me as a terrier shakes a rat.
'Wake up, my boy,' said he, 'ye musn't sleep.'
Then he boxed my ears until I cried, and picked me up and ran
with me along the side of the wall. I was but dimly conscious when
he dropped me under a tree whose bare twigs lashed the air and
stung my cheeks. I heard him tearing the branches savagely and
muttering, 'Thanks to God, it's the blue beech.


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