bleak, barren hills and cheerless plain,
all soaked and sodden with the rain;
no wood to bid the camp-fire glow,
no forest roof against the snow;—
drear was the dying winter day
when the troops halted at luray.
not ev'n the draggled tents went up,
no chance to sleep, no chance to sup!
a few hours' rest upon their arms,
then—who could tell what wild alarms?
"halt until midnight," orders read;
"then, if the storm holds, march ahead."
tired and disheartened, faint and chill,
the soldiers, scattered o'er the hill,
lay in their blankets. scarce a word
in all the width of camp was heard.
out of heart was the great blue host—
out of that which they needed most,—
and the general's heart was a heavy load,
for well he knew what that hush must bode.
forth from the town, as if heaven-sent,
passed a child; and as on he went
something moved him to sing a song
his mother taught him, while waiting long
for the loyal husband, who could not stay
when the first blue regiment passed that way!
sweet, and flutelike, and childish clear,
the boy's voice rang through the valley drear:—
tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching;
cheer up, comrades, they will come!
every soldier along the hill
felt his heart with the music thrill!
all forgotten the dreary night,
hunger, and pillow frosted white.
one by one, as the child-voice sang,
others joined, till the chorus rang
deep as a mighty organ tone,
by the bellows of the storm-wind blown.
at midnight the order passed along:—
"march!" and they marched with their heart of song!
needless to say how they fought, that day,
when the sun rose up over far luray.
and the little singer—the loyal lad
who gave, unconsciously, all he had
for his country's welfare—let none deny
his sovereign share in the victory!
if not from his song in the dreary night,
whence came the courage to win the fight?
the remarkable adventures of sandboys
the true story of the moose head.
for a great many years—for as long, indeed, as either bob or jack could remember—there had been over the great fireplace in the office of the mountain house, as its chief decorative feature, a huge moose-head, from either side of which rose up majestic antlers, concerning which bob had once remarked that "they'd make a bully hat-rack."
[pg 84]
to this sage remark bob's father had replied that he thought so too; and he added that he thought it somewhat of a pity that bob, when he chose his pets, should choose pug-dogs and rabbits, that were of no earthly use, instead of an occasional moose, which might be trained to sit in the hall and allow people to hang their hats on his horns.
"just to think," he said, "what a convenience a real live walking hat-rack would be! when you wanted your hat, all you would have to do would be to whistle, and up the hat-rack would trot; you'd select the hat you wished to wear, and back would go the moose again to his accustomed place between the front door and the window."
"i'm willing," bob had answered. "you buy me the moose, daddy, and i'll be glad to make a pet of him."
but it so happened that at the moment his father had something else to think about, and as a result bob never got the moose.
curiously enough, up to this particular summer of which i am writing, it had never occurred to either of the boys to inquire into the story of this especial moose, who had been so greatly honored by having his head stuffed and hung up to beautify the office of the hotel. they had both of them often wondered somewhat as to how it came to lose the rear portions of its body—that from its shoulders backward—but at such times it had so happened there had never been anybody about who could be counted upon to enlighten them on the subject. now, however, it was different. sandboys seemed always at hand, and considering that he had never failed them when they had asked for an explanation of this, that, or the other thing, they confidently broached the subject to him one afternoon during the music hour, and, as usual, sandboys was ready with a "true story" for their satisfaction.
"oh, that!" he said, when bob had put the question. "yes, i know all about it; and why shouldn't i? didn't my father catch him? i guess!"
the boys were not quite sure whether the guess was correct or not, but they deemed it well to suppose that it was, and sandboys went on.
"some folks about here will tell you wonderful stories about that moose," he said. "some will tell you it came from maine; and some will tell you it came from canady; and some will tell you they don't know nothin' at all about it; an' generally it'll be the last ones that tell the whole truth, though it did come from both canady an' maine; and, what's more, if it hadn't come, i wouldn't ha' been here. nobody knows that but me, for up to now i haven't breathed a word about it to a soul, but i don't mind tellin' you boys the whole truth."
"you don't mean to say it got you your position here as a bell-boy, do you?" asked jack.
"yes, i do—that is, it did in a way, as you'll see when i've told you the whole story," returned sandboys, and he began:
"my father, when he was a boy, used to live up in canady. i don't recollect the name of the exact place. he told me its name lots o' times, but it was one o' them french-canadian names with an accent to it i never could get the hang of. names of english towns, like london or new york, i can always remember without much trouble, because i can spell 'em and pronounce 'em; but the minute they gets mixed in with a little foreign language, like french or eyetalian, i can't spell 'em, pronounce 'em, or remember 'em to save my life. if anybody'd say to me, 'remember the name o' that town or die,' i think that i'd simply have to stop breathin' an' die. i do remember, though, that it was a great place for salmon and mooses. my daddy used to tell me reg'lar slews of stories about 'em. why, he told me the salmon was so thick in the river back of his father's barn, that if you took a bean-shooter and shot anywhere into the river, usin' pebbles instead o' beans, you couldn't help hittin' a salmon on the head and killin' it—or, rather, knockin' it unconscious, so's it would flop over and rise to the surface like it was dead, after which all you had to do was to catch it by the tail, chop its head off as you would a chicken's, cook it, and have your marketing done for two weeks."
"jiminny!" said bob. "it's too bad you can't remember the name of that place. a hotel at a place like that would be good as a mint."
"oh no—it's all changed now," said sandboys, sadly. "they've put a saw-mill in there now, and the salmon's mostly all gone. sometimes they tell me they do catch one or two, and they're so big they cut 'em up in the saw-mill just like planks, and feed on 'em all through the winter."
"i've heard of planked shad," put in bob, very anxious indeed to believe in the truth of sandboys's statement, and searching in his mind for something in the way of a parallel which might give it a color of veracity.
"hyops!" said sandboys. "planked shad is very good, but it can't hold a candle to planked salmon. but, as i was tellin' you, the place was full of moose too. they used to catch 'em and train 'em to go in harness. i don't believe anybody up there ever thought of buying a horse or a team of oxen to pull their wagons and plough their fields, moose were so plenty, and, when you could catch 'em hungry, so easy to tame. they'd hitch 'em to the plough, for instance, with ropes tied to their horns, and drive 'em around all day, and when night came they weren't a bit tired. but sometimes daddy said they'd strike a fearfully wild one, and then there'd be trouble. pop told me he hitched one up to the harrow once, and the thing got a wild fit on and started across the field prancin' like a rocky mountain goat. he pulled up all the fences in his way with the harrow's teeth, and before he stopped he'd gone right through my grandfather's bay-window, into the dinin'-room, out the back door into the kitchen, takin' all the tables and chiny in the place with him. where he went to nobody ever knew, though the harrow was found on top o' one of the mountains about sixty miles away, three years afterwards. i'd tell you the name of the mountain, only it had one o' those french-canadian names too, so of course i can't.
"time went on, and pop got to be a pretty big boy, and on his thirteenth birthday his father gave him the gun he'd used in the war—the war of the revylation, i think it was, when george washington was runnin' things. with it he gave him a powder-flask and some bullets, and i tell you pop was proud, and crazy to go huntin'. his father wasn't anxious to let him, though, until he thought pop knew enough about fire-arms to kill something besides himself, and he told him no, he couldn't. he must wait awhile. so pop tried to be good and obey, but that gun was too much for him. it kept hintin', 'let's go huntin'—let's go huntin',' and one night pop could not resist it any longer. so after everybody'd gone to bed, he got up, sneaked down stairs into the parlor, took down the gun from the bricky-brack rack, and set out for the lonely woods.
"'if i don't kill nothin',' he said to himself, 'i'll get home before they wake up; and if i do kill somethin', pa will be so pleased an' proud he'll forgive me.' he little thought then he was leavin' home forever. he opened the door softly, an' in half an hour he was off on the mountain, 'longside of a great big lake. pretty soon he heard a sound, and through the darkness he see two big eyes, flamin' like fire,[pg 85] a-lookin' at where he was. it was that moose up there as was a-lookin' at him. for a minute he was scart to death, but he soon recovered, upped with his gun, an' fired—only he was too excited, and he didn't do any more than graze the moose's cheek. you can't see the scar. it's been mended. it was a tarrable exciting moment, for in a jiffy the moose was after him, head down. pop tried to run, but couldn't. he stumbled, an' just as he stumbled he felt the big moose's breath hot on the back of his neck. he thought he was a goner for sure; but he wasn't, as it turned out, for as he rolled over and the moose tried to butt him to death, pop grabbed holt of his horns, and the first toss of his head the moose gave landed pop right between 'em, sittin' down as comfortably fixed as though he was in a rockin'-chair. if you'll look at the antlers you'll see how there's a place in between 'em scooped out just right for a small boy to sit in. that's where pop sat, hangin' on to those two upper prongs, with, his legs dangling down over the moose's cheeks."
"phe-e-e-ew!" whispered bob. "he was in a fix, wasn't he? what did the moose do?"
"him?" said sandboys. "he was absolutely flummoxed for a minute, and then he began to run. pop held on. he had to. he didn't want to go travellin', but there warn't anything else he could do, so he kept holt. that moose run steady for three days, down over the canadian border into maine, takin' a short-cut over maine into new hampshire, droppin' dead with weariness two miles from littleton, where i cum from. that let pop out. the moose was dead, and he wasn't afraid any more; so he climbed down, walked into littleton, and sold the animal's carkiss to a man there, who cut off its head, and sent it up here to this hotel, an' it's been here ever since. pop took the money and tried to get back home with it; but there wasn't enough, so he worked about littleton until he had enough; and just then he met my mother, fell in love with her, married her, and settled down right there; and that's how it is that that moose-head is responsible for my bein' here. if the animal hadn't run away with dad, he'd never have met my mother, and i'd have been nowhere."
"it's very interesting," said bob. "but i should think he'd have sent word to his father that he was all right."
"oh, he did," said sandboys; "and a year or two later the whole family came down and joined him, leavin' canady and its french names forever."
and here the narrative, which might have been much longer, stopped, for the cross old lady near the elevator sent word that that "talkin' must stop," because while it was "goin' on" she "couldn't hear what tune it was the trumpeter was blowin'."
