CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT DOES SAM MEAN?
When the halt was called, Sam said, very much to the astonishment ofthe boys:--
"We must build a house here, boys."
"A house!" exclaimed Tom, "What for, pray?"
"To live in, of course. What else are houses for?"
"Yes, of course, but aren't we going on?"
"Not at present, and it rains. We must dry our clothes to-night if wecan, and keep as dry as we can while we stay here, which may be for aday or two. To do that we must have a house, but it need not be a verygood one. Joe!"
"Yes, sah."
"Build a fire right here."
"Agin de big log dah, Mas' Sam?" pointing to the trunk of a greattree which had fallen in some earlier storm.
"No, build it right here. Sid, you and Bob Sharp go down into thecanebrake there and get two or three dozen of the longest canes youcan find."
"Green ones?" asked Bob.
"Green or dry, it doesn't matter in the least," answered Sam. "Therest of you boys go down into the swamp off there and cut a lot of thepalmetes you find there,--this sort of thing," pointing to one of theplants which grew at his feet. "Get as many of them as you can, themore the better. The fire will be burning presently and will throw alight all around."
The boys were puzzled, but they hurried away to the work assignedthem. Sam busied himself digging a trench on the side of the fallentree opposite the fire. The great branches of the tree held it up manyfeet from the ground at the point selected, and it was Sam's purposeto make the trunk the front of his house, building behind it, andhaving the fire in front. The lower part of the trunk was high enoughfrom the ground to let all the boys, except Sid Russell, pass underwithout stooping; Sid had to stoop a little.
The fire blazed presently, and by the time that Sam had his ditch donethe boys began to come in with loads of cane and palmetes. Thepalmetes are plants out of which what we call "palm-leaf fans" aremade. They grow in bunches right out of the ground in many southernswamps. Each leaf is simply a palm leaf fan that needs ironing outflat, except that the edge consists of long points which are cut offin making the fans.
Sam cut two forked sticks and drove them in the ground about ten feetfrom the fallen tree trunk, and about ten feet apart. When driven inthey were about five feet high, while the top of the trunk was perhapseight feet from the ground. Cutting a long, straight pole, Sam laid itin the forks of his two stakes, parallel with the tree trunk. Thentaking the canes he laid them from this pole to the top of the treetrunk, for rafters, placing them as close to each other as possible.On top of them he laid the palmete leaves, taking care to lap themover each other like shingles. When the roof was well covered withthem, he made the boys bring some armfuls of the long gray moss whichabounds in southern forests, and lay it on top of the roof, to holdthe palmete leaves in place, and to prevent them from blowing away.For sides to the house bushes answered very well, and in less than anhour after the company halted, they were safely housed in a shed openonly on the side toward the fire, and the ground within was rapidlydrying, while supper was in course of preparation.
"Sam," said Tom presently.
"Well," answered Sam.
"What did you dig that big ditch for? a little one would have carriedoff all the water that'll drip from the roof."
"Yes, but I dug this one to carry off other water than that."
"What water?"
"That which was already in the ground that the house is built on. Yousee this soil is largely composed of sand, and water runs out of itvery rapidly if it has anywhere to run to. I made the ditch for it torun into, and if you'll examine the ground here you'll find that mytrench is doing its work very well indeed."
"That's a fac'," said Sid Russell, feeling of the sand.
"I say Sam," said Billy Bowlegs, squaring himself before Sam, witharms akimbo.
"Well, say it then," replied Sam, laughing, and assuming a similarattitude.
"If there is any little thing, about any sort o' thing, that you don'thappen to know, I wish you'd just oblige me by telling me what it is."
"I haven't time, Billy," laughed Sam, "the list of things I don't knowis too long to begin this late in the evening."
"Well, you've made me feel like an idiot every day since we started onthis tramp, by knowing all about things, and doing little things thatany fool ought to have thought of, and not one of us fools did."
"Come, supper is ready," replied Sam.
After supper the boys busied themselves drying their clothes by theroaring fire of pitch pine which blazed and crackled in front of thetent, making the air within like that of an oven. While they wereat it they fell to talking, of course, and it is equally a matter ofcourse that they talked about the subject which was uppermost intheir minds. They knew very well that until the house was built, andsupper over, they could get nothing out of Sam. "He never will explainanything till every body is ready to listen," said Sid Russell, whohad become one of Sam's heartiest admirers. Recognizing the truth ofSid's observation, the boys had tacitly consented to postpone allquestions respecting Sam's plans and queer manoeuvres until aftersupper, when there was time for him to talk and for them to listen.Now that the time had come, the long repressed curiosity broke forthin questions.
Captain Sam: The Boy Scouts of 1814 Page 13