when we got home uncle hieronymous was laying flat on his back by the side of the stream, with his eyes shut and the pleasantest smile on his face. he looked like everything he wanted in the world had walked right up and sat down in his lap. when he heard us coming he sat up and sort of wriggled his eyes to get them wide open, and made a funny motion at us with his hands. then, right off, he made up a leetle poem:
“here they come with tired feet,
mosquiter-bites, and a wish to eat.”
he got up slow, kind of one piece of him at a time, it looked, and then said:
“hungry, eh? i bet you. what’ll you eat? will you have beefsteak, chicken-pie, strawberry short-cake, noodel soup, or bacon and eggs?” he reached around and scratched the back of his neck and winked one eye at the house. “if i was four boys with hollows into their stummicks i’d pick out bacon and eggs, i would. ’cause why? ’cause that’s what they’re goin’ to get. now, each one of you take your choice.”
“n-n-name over those things again, please,” mark asked him.
uncle did it as patient as could be. mark thought careful, going over every one in his mind, then, as solemn as a screech-owl, he says, “i guess b-b-bacon and eggs look best to me.”
uncle nodded and looked at the rest of us. we spoke up for bacon and eggs right off without thinking over the other things, which seemed to satisfy uncle hieronymous all right.
“will you have ’em baked, b’iled, fried, or stewed?”
“fried, p-p-please,” says mark. “once on the top and once on the b-bottom.”
the rest of us took the same, and uncle went in to start a fire and begin his cooking. while he was at it we walked over to the little tumbledown barn off at a corner of the clearing. it looked as if something big and powerful had come along and given it a push, because it was all squee-geed. boards were off, and what shingles were left stayed on the roof because they wanted to and not because they had to. mark peeked inside.
“w-what’s that?” he wanted to know.
the rest of us crowded around and then pushed inside. it was pretty dim in there, but as soon as our eyes got used to it we could see a long white thing laying across the beams above our heads.
“looks like a boat,” says i.
tallow martin lighted a match and held it up so we could see. sure enough it was a boat—a canoe.
“w-wonder what it’s doing here,” says mark.
“let’s ask uncle hieronymous,” i says.
so we went off to the house, where uncle was standing over the stove, breaking an egg into a frying-pan.
“’tain’t ready yet,” says he, as we came into the kitchen.
“we was just out in the barn,” i says, “and we saw a canoe up on the beams. does it belong to you?”
“well, now, lemme see. does that there curi’us leetle boat b’long to me or not? now, does it? if you was guessin’ how would you guess?”
“i’d guess it did,” i says.
“then,” says he, “you’d be wrong, for it don’t. at any rate, it didn’t, last time i looked at it. but canoes is peculiar critters—no tellin’ what it’s up and done regardin’ its ownership in nigh onto two months.”
“can we use it, uncle?”
“use it? you don’t mean git into the thing on the water? into that there tipsy, oncertain, wabbly leetle boat? would you dast?”
“s-s-sure,” says mark. “i learned to paddle one two years ago.”
“then,” says uncle, “i guess nobody’ll objec’ serious to fussin’ around in it. feller left it here two years ago and hain’t never called for it. go ahead, boys, and do your worst.”
the egg had been sizzling away in the frying-pan. uncle poked at it with a fork, and then, quicker than a wink, he took hold of the handle of the pan, gave it a little flip, and, would you believe it, that egg turned over just as neat and settled down on its face. i heard mark chuckle. uncle looked sort of surprised.
“d-d-do you always turn them like that?” mark asked.
“how would a feller turn an egg?” uncle wanted to know.
“well,” says mark, “after seeing it done like that i don’t know’s there’s any way quite so g-g-good. anyhow, n-n-none so interestin’.”
in about five minutes the eggs, with fried potatoes and bacon and coffee, were ready, and we put them where they were wanting to go. uncle gathered up what was left, and when he had shut the door tight he called martha and mary and gave it to them.
“can we get the canoe down now?” i asked uncle.
“you can git it down any time you want to exceptin’ yestiddy. i don’t allow nobody to do anything yestiddy around this house. no, sir. not a single, solitary thing. that’s how set in my ways i am.”
we all went out to the barn, uncle bringing a ladder with him. he set it up against a beam, and in no time the canoe was down on the ground.
“kind of a slimpsy-lookin’ thing,” he says, disgusted-like.
“where’s the p-p-p-paddles?” mark wanted to know.
“under the bed,” says uncle, and i ran to get them.
we hauled the canoe down and put it in the water, but right away it began to leak, so we dragged it out again and asked uncle for some paint. he said green paint was all he had. mark allowed that green paint wasn’t exactly suitable for a canoe, but any paint was better than no paint, so uncle got a can and a brush off a shelf in the kitchen and brought them out to us.
we put the canoe up on a couple of logs and started in to paint, but after we had been at it a couple of minutes uncle hieronymous shook his head and grunted. then he recited another poem:
“don’t think that that’s the way to paint,
because, my friends, it surely hain’t.”
then he took the brush away from tallow, who had it at that particular minute, and told us to clear out while he did a job of painting that would be a credit to the state of michigan, even if the governor were to come along to see it, with all the legislature marching in circles around his hat-brim.
we decided to explore down-stream this time. just as we were starting out from the house billy came driving along with a fat man on the seat beside him. not just a big man, but a man that was as fat as mark tidd. billy called to us and waved his hand, and we waved back. then we started out.
“c-c-couldn’t mistake that feller on a d-d-dark night,” says mark.
“it ain’t apt to matter whether we do or not,” i told him.
“n-n-n-never can tell. he’s the man that’s comin’ to help out collins. wish i knew what those letters and figures in that telegram were about.”
“oh, come on, and forget about that. let’s find out what kind of country is down that way.”
to go down-stream we had to take a path through heavy underbrush. most of the time we had to force our way because the bushes were trying to cover the path. it wasn’t very light, and it was boggy. about a hundred yards ahead we came to a little brook that emptied into the middle branch, with two saplings across it for a bridge. i was going ahead. no sooner had i stepped my foot off the far end of the bridge than something began to thrash around and rustle the reeds right under my feet, and all of a sudden a little animal about as big as a dog, or maybe a cat, jumped up and whisked out of sight. he scared me almost out of my wits.
“what was that?” says i.
“that,” says mark, “was a f-f-full-grown g-grizzly bear.”
“g’wan!” says i. “there ain’t no bears around here.”
“maybe not,” says mark, in a whisper, “but there’s something else.” he pointed, and there, across the stream, not more than a couple of hundred feet off, were two little deer and a big one.
well, it startled all of us. somehow until then we didn’t realize we really were in the woods—the real, genuine, wild woods where big animals might be. i thought over what i’d said about bears and sort of changed my mind.
“you can’t tell,” i whispered back; “maybe there is bears.”
the deer smelled us, i guess, and off they went, running with the funniest, jumpiest gait you ever saw.
“did you notice,” asked mark, “that he asked w-w-who we were?”
“who asked?” tallow wanted to know.
“the f-fat man in billy’s wagon. i could see him asking billy.”
“huh!” says i, and on we went.
after a while the ground got higher, and about two miles down we came to a place where the banks of the stream were maybe forty or fifty feet high. then the stream widened out into a big pool and curved off to the right. it was a dandy place. we sat down, with our feet hanging over, and looked at the water. i noticed some black spots that moved around here and there toward the lower end of the pool where there wasn’t any current, and after a while i got it through my head they were fish—trout. great big fellows they were. i showed them to the other three, and we sat looking at them, watching how they stayed right around that spot, having a sort of fish meeting, i guess.
the sun was shining bright right down on the water, so that we could see to the bottom where the current didn’t make a ripple. it was pretty deep in spots, too, where the water rushing down had scooped out a hole. it swept around that corner faster than anywhere above.
“here comes somebody,” says tallow, and, sure enough, down-stream waded a man, casting away just like we had seen collins do in the morning. he was an old man—we could tell by the way he carried his shoulders—and he looked tall. he came along, paying no attention to anything but his casting, wading right in the middle of the stream. we watched him without saying anything until he was almost under us.
“if he don’t look out he’s going to wade right into that hole,” says plunk martin, but nobody thought to do anything except mark, and he yelled down:
“l-l-look out, mister. you’re goin’ to s-s-step into a hole.”
the man stopped, looked up, took another step, and sort of stumbled. then he recovered his balance and waded to shore, but his landing-net had got loose from his belt and was floating down without his noticing it.
“you’ve lost your net,” tallow yelled.
the old gentleman started after it, but the water got deeper and the current dragged at him pretty strong. he was going to keep on, though, until mark called to him again.
“it’ll lodge right there in the b-b-brush-heap,” he says.
we all scrambled down the bank to where the old gentleman was. he smiled at us pleasant-like, and said: “much obliged, boys. i’d have got a good ducking if it hadn’t been for you, and a ducking is no joke at my age.”
“there,” says mark, “your net’s c-c-caught. go get it, binney.”
i scrambled around the shore to the brush-pile and crawled out to where the net was. it was easy to get.
“camping around here?” asked the old gentleman. i guess he was close to seventy, because his hair and mustache were white as could be. he was a nice-looking old gentleman, with blue eyes that looked like they were twinkling at you, and a big nose. not a homely nose, but a big one that looked as though he amounted to something.
“we’re staying with my uncle hieronymous,” i told him.
he sat down on the bank to talk with us. it turned out his name was macmillan and that he was a lawyer in ludington, which is about forty or fifty miles farther, and on the shore of lake michigan. right off when he said he was a lawyer mark was interested. i could see it by the way he squinted his little eyes and pulled on his fat cheek.
“m-m-mister macmillan,” says mark, “i want to show you s-somethin’.”
“all right, my son, go ahead.”
“i want to f-f-find out what it is, because it may b-be important.”
“let’s have a look, then.”
mark took a paper out of his pocket and gave it to mr. macmillan. “i’ve been wonderin’ w-w-what kind of a cipher that is,” says he, “or w-w-what it is if it isn’t a cipher. it m-m-means somethin’.”
“‘the s. 40 of the n. w. ? of sec. 6, town 1 north, r. 4 west.’ hum. does look mysterious, doesn’t it. but, my son, like a lot of things that look mysterious, it isn’t so a bit when you know about it. that is nothing but the description of land. you know there has to be some way of describing every farm, no matter what its size or shape may be, so that everybody will know just where to find it. well, this cipher, as you call it, describes a farm of forty acres that is the northwest part of section six of township number one west of range seventeen. that’s all. did you think it was telling where hidden treasure was hidden?”
mark shook his head. “maybe ’tis,” says he, and all the afternoon we couldn’t get another word out of him.
the rest of us talked with mr. macmillan and listened to stories about where he’d fished and hunted, and all about how this part of the state used to be a great pine forest that was butchered off and floated down-stream to the mills. i tell you it was interesting. it began to get late before he was half through, and he had to start for the place where his team was hitched.
“if you come to ludington,” says he, “drop in to see me.”
we said we surely would.
“and you, young man,” says he to mark, “when you have any more mysteries to clear up just let me know.”
mark nodded as sober as could be. anybody would think he expected to have a couple of mysteries every day.
mr. macmillan went off, and we turned back home. as soon as we got in sight of the house we saw uncle had company.
