Mass' George

These words of the boy set me thinking; and that night I asked my father about the probabilities of another flood.

"It is impossible to say how long it may be before we have another visitation," he replied. "From what I can gather, it seems that they are so rare that a generation may go by without such a flood occurring, and I hardly like to give up so satisfactory a home on the chance of a fresh one coming during our lives."

"Oh no, father, don't give it up," I said. "Everything at the settlement seems to be straight again."

"They suffered more than we did too," he continued.

"But don't you think some one ought to have come in a boat to help us?"

"Yes, if the poor things had thought of it; but I fully believe that in their trouble and excitement, trying to save life as they were, they did not even give a thought to us."

Then the flood was set aside with the troubles from the Indians and the Spaniards, my father saying quietly enough that people who came out to an entirely new country must do so bearing in mind that they have to take the risks with the pleasures. Some of which Sarah heard, for she took up the subject next time I saw her alone, and she shook her head at me as she said--

"Yes, my dear, there's a lot to put up with for those who come to live in new lands, and a couple more of my chickens gone; but I don't know what you and your poor father would have done if me and Morgan had not made up our minds to come too."

I'm afraid I was playing the impostor a little, for I said to her, "We couldn't have got on at all without you, Sarah;" but all the time I was thinking how much more easily we could have managed during the night of peril if we had not had Sarah with us, and how it was in trying to save her that my father nearly lost his life.

But I did not let her see it, and said quietly--

"Lost two more of the chickens?"

"Yes, my dear; and it seems so strange that the birds that could take such care of themselves all through that dreadful flood should be

"It does seem strange," I said, as my thoughts went back to the flood, and I recalled how the fowls took refuge in the pine-trees, and kept going higher and higher as the water rose, hopping calmly enough from branch to branch, and roosting high up at the top, to stop picking about till the flood was sinking, and then slowly descend with the falling waters, to find quite a feast in the mud.

"You don't think, do you, that those two blacks, Master George--"

"What, like chickens?"

"Yes, my dear."

"The people up at the settlement say they do, and that they can't keep any fowls at all."

"Then that's it," cried Sarah, triumphantly; "and I was right about that smell a few nights ago."

"What smell?"

"Of something roasting in the lean-to shed where those two sleep."

"Nonsense, Sarah! It was squirrel or something of that kind that they had knocked down and cooked."

"No, my dear; it was exactly like roast chicken, and I'm very much afraid--"

"So am I, Sarah, that you are going to make a mistake. I don't believe either of them would steal. Ah! Here comes Pomp all in a hurry about something.--What is it?"

"Hi! Find um, Ma.s.s' George," cried the boy, who was in a high state of excitement.

"Find what?" I cried.

"Oh, yes, Pomp find um; come and see."

"Yes, I'll come," I said. "But, I say, Pomp, there are two chickens gone. Do you know anything about them?"

"Yes. Such big bird come and take um, Ma.s.s' George. Big bird fly ober de tree, _whish_--_whoosh_! And 'tick um foot into de chick.u.m."

Sarah shook her head in a peculiar severe way; but I guessed that she had the question of the uniform upon her mind, and she held her tongue, while Pomp dragged me off to see his discovery.

He led me into a part of the forest where I had not been since the flood, and there, sure enough, twenty feet above the ground, and preserving its perpendicular position, was the greater part of the hut, Pomp climbing up to it in triumph, and then on to the top, with the result that his weight was just sufficient to dislodge it, and the whole affair came down with a crash, and with the boy seated in the ruins.

"What do dat for?" he cried in a whimpering tone as he sat rubbing himself.

"Do what?" I cried, laughing.

"Pull um down down an' break up. How we get um back now?"

"I didn't touch it."

"Not touch um! How um tumble down den? Oh my leg--my leg!"

"No, no; you're not hurt much, Pomp. There, get up, we can't get the hut back; and you know father said a new and better one was to be built.

We'll set this one up here and make a summer-house of it, to come to when I'm shooting."

"Eh! What a summer-house?"

"That will be."

"No; dat hut; ma.s.sa say dat hut."

"But we'll make it into a summer-house."

Pomp shook his head and looked puzzled.

"Pomp find de hut, and Ma.s.sa George say um summer-house. 'Pose um find de boat 'ticking in tree, dat be summer-house too?"

"No, no, you old stupid," I cried. "But, I say, Pomp," I continued, as the thought occurred to me that this might be possible, and that the boat had not gone down the stream to the river, and from thence out to sea.

"What Ma.s.s' George say?" cried the boy, for I had stopped to think.

"Wait a minute," I cried. Then, after a few moments' thought--

"Why, yes, it is possible; the flood came from the big river, up ours, and the boat must be somewhere in the forest after all."

Pomp shook his head.

"Done know what um mean," he said.

"I mean that perhaps our boat was washed up somewhere."