Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

“ Essie had skated straight into the hole Charlie had cut. There was a wild cry from Essie, as she plunged, a wilder one from all the others.
But on the instant Uncle Billy had flung himself across the hole, and with both arms down in the still cold water had caught hold of her. Then crawling away, with Charlie’s help he lifted her to the top and out upon the ice, quite conscious, but terribly scared, and as wet as any seal.
Accidents never come alone, says an old proverb; and it was not to be expected that Ally should not have her share in any dangers going. ”

“ Aunt Rose took Ally and Essie by either hand, and swept off with them, their little feet close together, so that they really thought they were skating!
“It’s most like flying,” said Essie, delight in her eyes, her cheeks like red apples, while Ally, looking straight ahead, was silent with joy, her yellow hair streaming out behind her.
Janet went blundering about alone a long time, somehow, anyhow, and all at once finding herself firm on her feet, and making a stroke. Then the dinner-bell rang, and the skates had to come off. ”

“ When Uncle Billy and Pincher came round a bend of the tangled path, an hour or two later, cutting their way through the thicket here, and lifting the low boughs there, they stopped short at the sight of the lost Ally sitting on a log with Sally, whose feet could take her no farther. Ally, whose rosy face was a picture of delight, sympathy, and anxiety, was holding a tiny sleeping baby in her arms, and looking at it with eyes of unbounded love. ”

“ Uncle Billy had caught trout, and Aunt Rose had broiled them, while they picked the berries. After dinner they had burned the remnant, and washed the dishes together.
They had gone up the hills, too, on so many picnics, and seen what had looked so blue and so far turn into woods and fields and lonely farms that they had left off expecting to see a big bear reach over their shoulders for their bread and honey. In fact, by this time they almost wished they might see one, and Essie and Ally had many a delightful bear-talk with Pincher. ”

“ The ice lay glittering. In less than no time Will had his skates on, and was out careering over the crystal glare, doing his fancy tricks, and speeding away from reach to reach among the islands with which the great lake was sprinkled.
It was daylight much longer out on the open ice than in the woody places. And exhilarated with the glow of his swift motion, Will did not think anything about time until he saw large snow-flakes dancing about him. ”

“ The twins watched as long as they could see her. Then Essie began to cry. “I wanted to keep him,” she said, “I—I loved him so.”
“So did I,” said Ally, with her arms round Essie. “But I guess, Essie, we’ll have to get along with Bobbo. I wonder how Pincher knew his name was Bruin. Some day we’ll go into the woods, and call ‘Bruin, Bruin,’ and perhaps he will remember us. His mother loved him, you know, Essie. I suppose she was so sorry when she found him gone. Mothers must have their babies, you know, Essie; why, they belong to them!” ”

“ One day Ally and Essie were out by themselves gathering autumn leaves, which had come as a great surprise to their southern eyes; first making them think the woods afire, and then that the world would not be a green world any more. ”

“ Let me feel it!” cried Essie, down in the hollow too, and half crowding Ally away, to get her own arms round the little animal. “Do you think it is a little fox?”
“Oh, no! Essie—foxes are yellowish. And it can’t be a wild-cat—wild-cats have blazing eyes, and they scratch. This is a soft sleepy baby, and it isn’t a panther—it isn’t anything cruel—oh, isn’t it cunning?”
“Perhaps it’s a quite new sort of animal,” [18] said Essie, “and we have found it first of anybody; maybe it is one of the Bible animals—a leviathan, maybe, Ally.” ”

“ And Old Uncle, driving down from the upper camp, with a jingle of bells and flashing of sleigh-lamps, was passing just as a group of the men had paused wondering at the place not far from the wayside where for a circle of some hundred yards in diameter the snow was somewhat trodden down around the old post-office tree (the very circle where poor Will had done his tramping) , and naturally Old Uncle had stopped and come to see what was the cause of the excitement. Aunt Susan had alighted too, and followed, and had been first of all to see Will in beneath the broad hemlock boughs. ”

“ All at once he recollected that catamount tolling the men out with a child’s cry, and his heart stood still. If that sound were a catamount! [58] He began to run—tripping, stumbling, hitting outstretched boughs and fetching down on himself plunges of snow. Finally he brought up against a moss-covered giant of the wood, his lungs a furnace, his throat like burning brass.
He sat down on a fallen log. The snow was floating and eddying and falling round him. ”

“ The woods, the life there, the stories, the games, the hunting [46] for bears, the gathering of gum, the deer-hunt, the escape from panthers or gray, gaunt wolves, the coming down with the drive in the spring, the jam of the logs at the falls with the raftsmen skipping round on them as lightly as Mercury in the mythology, handling them with long hooks, and springing for dear life as one dexterous thrust loosened the whole mass and sent them rearing, rolling, plunging, and shooting over the cataracts,—all that was close at hand. ”

“ It’s as bad as shooting with poisoned bullets! Don’t you know ice-balls might kill people? Ah, it did do the work! See, Charlie’s nose is bleeding!”
At this Jack began to cry. “You’re a fine bawl-baby for a soldier!” said Will then with much scorn. “You going to pity the enemy? Why, I broke a finger once, and never thought of crying! Here they come! Ready now! Aim low! Fire!” And the garrison overwhelmed the assailants with such a shower of snow that they retreated in disorder. ”

“ John and Michael were spared to beat the trees, and down below the children filled baskets and bags. Squirrels ran everywhere, indignant, darting aloft like streaks of light, scolding as they sat with their tails over their heads among the few golden leaves left, and chattering at the children below.
Ally and Essie, as usual, went off by themselves, Pincher following them. “The oxens,” said he, “allus go together, yoke-fellows, same ez you two do!”
“Pincher!” suddenly called Essie, “look here!”
“Oh, Pincher, do!” cried Ally. “Please do look here!” ”

“ Wouldn’t you like a little cow? I’ll give you mine,” said Ally fervently. “And Essie has a cat, Erminie; and she brings her kittens into the house for us to see. And there’s beautiful dogs. And we take rides on a pony—Uncle Billy holds us on; you shall have my turn. And we feed the hens—there’s a darling white hen with fifteen chickens,” went on the little coaxer. “And we have gardens and make flowers grow. Do the Children of the Hill make flowers grow? Essie and Janet think they do.” ”

“ Janet and Jack and Essie and Ally had come from the far south—where no snow fell, and the only ice they ever saw was made by a machine—to the home of Old Uncle and Aunt Susan, who had lost all their own children. Uncle Billy and Aunt Rose had journeyed down to bring them, after their father and mother had gone into the country from which they never came back. ”

“ Be youse an angel?” she whispered.
“Oh, I’m Ally!” answered the little creature. “I’ve come to find you. You’re one of the Children of the Hill, I suppose, and here’s the baby, the very baby! Come with me quick! Aunt Susan wants the baby!” ”

“ Aunt Rose had cried, “there are two children here, right out of the depths—though how in the world they came here I haven’t yet made out, except that the little girl—and she’s the merest mite herself—lugged the baby all the way from the city. Ally was up there in the hollow and found them. It’s fortunate that there are such good Institutions”—
“No, no, no!” interrupted Ally, who, very proud of herself, had also come to meet Old Uncle. “She can’t go to a ’statution. She’s afraid of them. If she doesn’t go back among the Children of the Hill, she’s going to stay here. ”

“ Ally didn’t answer. She was holding the little warm flat foot in her hand, and looking the little creature over. “I guess it’s a baby bear, Essie,” she said. “Bears don’t have tails, you know, and this hasn’t. Uncle Billy’ll know. Essie, if it is a bear, it’s our very own bear, and we can have it.” ”

“ The enemy are upon us!”
“Oh! we are lost!” cried the garrison.
And then Bose’s head emerged in the very middle of the snow fort’s floor, and the colonists seized the dogs with tremendous cheering and also, it must be owned, with any amount of hugging, and held them captive.
This unwarrior-like conduct so displeased Bobbo that he sprang upon the battlements and [43] deserted to the enemy on the instant, to the great relief of Ally and Essie.
“Oh, Aunt Rose!” cried Essie, when they went in at night, “do you believe the little Esquimau children in their snow huts have any better time than we do?” ”

“ Uncle Billy was great fun when he chose.
It was only Old Uncle who was a drawback. For this sound disturbed Old Uncle’s nap, and that sound hindered Old Uncle’s work, and the other sound irritated Old Uncle’s nerves; and the children tiptoed and held their breath as they went past his office-door, and everybody hushed them down and hushed them down on account of Old Uncle, until Jack said one day, “They don’t really like children here at all!”
“It is very unfortunate to be children, anyway,” said Janet, with a sigh.
“Yes,” said Ally. “They always send you to bed if there’s anything going on ”

“ The night was hot; men were asleep on their carts drawn up beside the walls, women were asleep hanging half out of the windows above for a breath of coolness, and other women had made some sort of bed on the pavement for their sick babies, and had stretched themselves on the hard stones beside them. ”

“ Essie shook her head. “I don’t believe he would like to be carried that way. What if we put him in our basket? He’d like lying on the leaves.”
“Why, yes,” said Ally. “He’s always lying on leaves and grass. Let’s do it. We oughtn’t [19] to let him stay out here in the woods all night, all alone.”
“Of course not,” said Essie. “What a bad mother he must have had to go and leave him here!”
“Perhaps some hunter shot her,” said Ally.
Pitiful, the twins stroked him again and put their dear little faces close to his; and the little bear cuddled and snuggled and uttered a soft sound of pleasure. ”

“ For Aunt Susan remembered very vividly that morning in the garret on the day long after—away over near the end of this story—when Ally was found, after the time when she had gone up, as Janet had suspected, to see the Children of the Hill.
But there were sunny days as well as stormy ones, along through that first autumn, and often all the children in the house would be gone out nutting.
At last came the great frost, to open the [28] burrs, and Pincher said next morning that if they didn’t make haste that very day the squirrels would gather all the rest of the nuts. ”