The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

by Ruel Perley Smith

  CHAPTER IV

  THE TROUT POOL

  The brook that flowed into Mill Stream, just above the old mill, itself,came down from some heavily wooded hills a few miles to the northeast,and its waters were ever cold, even in hottest summer, save in one ortwo open places in the intervening meadows. It was called "Cold Brook"by some of the farmers. Henry Burns and Harvey and Bess Thornton hadcrossed this brook, by way of the bridge on their flight to the mill.

  A wayfarer, standing on the little bridge, of an afternoon, keepingmotionless and in the shadow, might sometimes see, far down in the clearwater, vague objects that looked like shadows cast by sticks. He mightgaze for many minutes and see no sign of life or motion to them. Then,perchance, one of these same grey shadows might disappear in thetwinkling of an eye; the observer would see the surface of the waterbreak in a tiny whirl; the momentary flash of a silvery side, spottedwith red, appear--and the trout would vanish back into the deep wateronce more.

  Let the traveller try as he might, he seldom got one of these fish.They were too wary; "educated," the farmers called them. They certainlyknew enough not to bite.

  Tim Reardon occasionally came back to Benton with two or three of thetrout tucked inside his blouse; but he wouldn't tell how he got 'em--noteven to Jack Harvey, to whom he was loyal in all else. Most folks cameback empty-handed.

  To be sure, there was one part of the brook where the least experiencedfisherman might cast a line and draw out a fish. But that was just thevery part of all the brook where nobody was allowed. It was the poolbelonging to Farmer Ellison.

  A little more than a mile up the brook from the bridge the water cametumbling down a series of short, abrupt cascades, into a pool, formed bya small dam thrown across the brook between banks that were quite steep.This pool broadened out in its widest part to a width of several rods,bordered by thick alders, swampy land in places, and in part by a groveof beech trees.

  Come upon this pool at twilight and you would see the trout playingthere as though they had just been let out of school. Try to catchone--and if Farmer Ellison wasn't down upon you in a hurry, it wasbecause he was napping.

  You might have bought Farmer Ellison's pet cow, but not a chance to fishin this pool. Indeed, he seldom fished it himself, but he prized thetrout like precious jewels. John and James Ellison, Farmer Ellison'ssons, and Benjamin, their cousin, fished the pool once in a greatwhile--and got soundly trounced if caught. It was Farmer Ellison'shobby, this pool and its fish. He gloated over them like a miser. Hewatched them leap, and counted them when they did, as a miser wouldmoney.

  The dam held the trout in the pool downstream, and the cascades--or theupper cascade--held them from escaping upstream. There were threesmaller cascades which a lusty trout could ascend by a fine series ofrushes and leapings. The upper water-fall was too steep to be scaled.When the water in the brook was high there was an outlet in the dam forit to pass through, to which a gate opened, and protected at all timesby heavy wire netting.

  Farmer Ellison's house was situated on a hill overlooking this part ofthe brook, less than a half mile away.

  Some way up the brook, if one followed a path through mowing-fields fromFarmer Ellison's, and crossed a little foot-bridge over the brook, hewould come eventually upon a house, weather-beaten and unpainted, smalland showing every sign of neglect. The grass grew long in the dooryard.A few hens scratched the weeds in what once might have been flower-beds.The roof was sagging, and the chimney threatened to topple in the firsthigh wind.

  The sun was shining in at the windows of this house, at the close of anafternoon, a few days following the adventure of Henry Burns and Harveyin the mill. It revealed a girl, little, sturdy and of well-knitfigure, though in whose childish face there was an underlying trace ofshrewdness unusual in one so young; like a little wild creature, or akitten that has found itself more often chased than petted.

  The girl was busily engaged, over a kitchen fire, stirring some sort ofporridge in a dish. Clearly, hers were spirits not easily depressed byher surroundings, for she whistled at her task,--as good as any boycould have whistled,--and now and again, from sheer excess of animation,she whisked away from the stove and danced about the old kitchen, allalone by herself.

  "Isn't that oatmeal most ready, Bess?" came a querulous voice presently,from an adjoining room. "What makes you so long?"

  "Coming, gran', right away now," replied the child. "The coffee's hot,too. Don't it smell go-o-od? But there's only one--"

  "What?" queried the voice.

  "Nothing," said the child.

  She took a single piece of bread from a box, toasted it for a moment,put it on a plate, poured a cup of coffee, dished out a mess of theporridge, and carried it all into the next room. There, an elderlywoman, muttering and scolding to herself as she lay on a couch, receivedit.

  "Too bad the rheumatics bother so, gran'," said the child, consolingly."If they last to-morrow, I'm going to tell old Witham and make him sendyou something good to eat."

  "No, you won't," exclaimed the woman sharply. "Much he cares! Says hepays me too much now for cooking; and he says I've got money tucked awayhere. Wish I had."

  "So do I," said the child. "I'd buy the biggest doll you ever saw."

  "Fudge!" cried the old woman. "Why, you've outgrown 'em long ago."

  "I know it," said the child, solemnly. "But I'd just like to have a bigone, once."

  "And so you should, if we had our rights," cried Grannie Thornton,lifting herself up on an elbow, with a jerk that brought forth anexclamation of pain. "If he didn't own everything. If he didn't get itall--what we used to own."

  "Old Ellison?" suggested the child.

  "Yes, Jim Ellison." Grannie Thornton sat up and shook a lean fist towardthe window that opened off toward the hill. "Oh, he bought it all right.He paid for it, I suppose. But it's ours, by rights. We owned it allonce, from Ten Mile Wood to the bridge. But it's gone now."

  "I don't see why we don't own it now, if that's so," said the child.

  "Well, it's law doin's," muttered the woman. "Get your own supper, anddon't bother me."

  "I don't understand," said the child, as she went back to the kitchen.

  She might have understood better if Grannie Thornton had explained thereal reason: that the Thorntons had gone wild and run through their farmproperty; mortgaged it and sold it out; and that Ellison, a shrewdbuyer, had got it when it was to be had cheapest. But she asked one morequestion.

  "Gran'" she said, peeping in at the door, "will we ever get it again,s'pose?"

  "Mercy sakes, how do I know!" came the answer. "It's ours now, byrights. Will you ever stop talking?"

  The child looked wonderingly out across the fields; seated herself bythe window, and still gazed as she drank her coffee and ate her scantysupper. She was sitting there when night shut down and hid the hill andthe brook from sight.

  The sun, himself an early riser, was up not anywhere near so early nextmorning as was Bess Thornton. There was light in the east, but the sunhad not begun to roll above the hill-tops when the child stole quietlyout of bed, slipped into her few garments, and hurried barefoot, fromthe room where she and Grannie Thornton slept. The old woman was stillslumbering heavily.

  "I'll not ask that old Witham for anything for gran," she said. "I'llget her something,--and something she'll like, too. It all belongs tous, anyway, gran' said."

  The girl gently slid the bolt of the kitchen door, stepped outside andclosed the door after her. Then she made her way out through theneglected garden to an old apple-tree, against which there leaned a longslender alder pole, with a line and hook attached. Throwing this overher shoulder, she started down through the fields in the direction ofthe brook.

  On the way, a few grasshoppers, roused from their early naps in thegrass by the girl's bare feet, jumped this side and that. But, with thecoolness of the hour, they seemed to have some of old Grannie Thornton'srheumatism in their joints, for they tumbled and sprawled clumsily. Thegirl quickly captured several of
them, tying them up in a fold of herhandkerchief.

  Presently she came near the borders of the pool, dear to the heart ofFarmer Ellison. But the edge of the pool on the side where she walkedwas boggy. Gazing sharply for some moments up at the big house on thehill, the girl darted down to the edge of the brook close by the dam,then suddenly skimmed across it to the other side.

  A little way above the dam, on that side, there were clumps of bushes,among which one might steal softly to the water's edge, on good, firmfooting. The girl did this, seated herself on a little knoll behind ascreen of shrubs, baited the hook with a fat grasshopper and cast itinto the pool.

  "Grasshopper Green, go catch me a trout," she whispered; "and don't youdare come back without a big--"

  Splash! There was a quick, sharp whirl in the still water; a tauteningof the line, a hard jerk of the rod, and the girl was drawing in a plumpfellow that was fighting gamely and wrathfully for his freedom. The fishdarted to and fro for a moment, lashed the water into a miniatureupheaval, and then swung in to where a small but strong little handclutched him.

  "Oh, you beauty!" she exclaimed, gazing triumphantly and admiringly athis brilliant spots. "Didn't you know better than to try to eat poor oldGrasshopper Green? See what you get for it. Gran'll eat you now."

  She took the trout from the hook, dropped it among the shrubs, tookanother "grasshopper green" from her handkerchief, and cast again. Asecond and a third trout rewarded her efforts.

  But Bess Thornton, the grasshoppers and the trout were not the only onesstirring abroad early this pleasant morning. A person not all intentupon fishing, nor absorbed in the excitement of it, might have seen, hadhe looked in the direction of the house on the hill, Farmer Ellison,himself, appear in the doorway and gaze out over his fields and stream.

  Had one been nearer, he might have seen a look of grim satisfaction,that was almost a smile, steal over the man's face as he saw the grass,grown thick and heavy; grains coming in well filled; garden patchesshowing thrift; cattle feeding in pasture lands, and the brook windingprettily down through green fields and woodland.

  But the expression upon Farmer Ellison's face changed, as he gazed; hisbrow wrinkled into a frown. His eyes flashed angrily.

  What was that, moving to and fro amid the alder clumps by the border ofthe trout pool? There was no breeze stirring the alders; but one singlealder stick--was not it waving back and forth most mysteriously?

  Farmer Ellison gave an exclamation of anger. He knew these early morningpoachers. This would not be the first he had chased before sunrise,taking a fish from the forbidden waters. He stepped back into the entry,seized a stout cane, and started forth down through the fields, bendinglow and screening himself as he progressed by whatsoever trees andbushes were along the way.

  That someone was there, whipping the stream, there could be no doubt.Yet, someone--whoever it was--must be short, or else, perchance,crouched low in the undergrowth; for Farmer Ellison could get no glimpseof the fisherman.

  Crack! A dead branch snapped under Farmer Ellison's heavy boot.

  Bess Thornton, gleeful,--joyous over the conquest of her third trout,looked quickly behind her, startled by the snapping of the branch only afew rods away. What she saw made her gasp. She almost cried out with thesudden fright. But she acted promptly.

  Giving the pole a sharp thrust, she shoved it in under the bank, beneaththe water. The trout! The precious trout! Ah, she could not leave them.Hastily she snatched them up, and thrust all three inside her ginghamwaist, dropping them in with a wrench at the neck-band.

  "Ugh! how they squirm," she cried, softly.

  Then, creeping to the water's edge, she dived in--neatly as any troutcould have done it--and disappeared. One who did not know Bess Thorntonmight well have been alarmed now, for the child seemed to be lost. Thesurface of the brook where she had gone down remained unruffled. Then,clear across on the other side, one watching sharply might have seen achild's head appear out of the pool, at the edge of a clump ofbull-rushes; might have seen her emerge half out of water, and hideherself from view of anyone on the opposite shore.

  She had swum the entire width of the pool under water.

  From her hiding-place she saw Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from coverupon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run,furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane,shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest disappointmentand chagrin.

  Up and down the shore of the pool he travelled, searching every clumpthat might afford shelter.

  "Well," he exclaimed finally, "I must be going wrong, somehow. Firstit's the mill I hear, when it isn't grinding, and now I see somebodyfishing when there isn't anybody. I'll go and take some of them burdockbitters. Guess my liver must be out of order."

  Farmer Ellison, shaking his head dubiously, and casting a backwardglance now and then, strode up the hill, looking puzzled and wrathful.

  When he was a safe distance out of the way, a little figure, drippingwet, scrambled in across the bog on the other side, and stole upthrough the fields to the old tumble-down house.

  "What's that you're cooking, child?" called out a voice, some timelater, as the girl stood by the kitchen stove.

  "M-m-m-m gran', it's something awful good. Do you smell 'em?" repliedthe child, gazing proudly into the fry-pan, wherein the three fat troutsizzled. "Well, I caught 'em, myself."

  "I do declare!" exclaimed Grannie Thornton. "I didn't know the troutwould bite now anywhere but in Jim Ellison's pool."

  The girl made no reply.

  "You like 'em, don't you, gran'?" she said, gleefully, some momentslater, as she stood watching the old woman eat her breakfast with arelish. Grannie Thornton had eaten one trout, and was beginning on thehalf of another.

  "They're tasty, Bess," she replied. "Where did you catch 'em? I thoughtthe fishing in the brook wasn't any use nowadays."

  The girl stood for a moment, hesitating. Then she thought of the oldwoman's words of the night before.

  "I caught 'em in the pool, gran'," she said.

  The iron fork with which Grannie Thornton was conveying a piece of thetrout to her mouth dropped from her hand. The last piece she had eatenseemed to choke her. Then she tottered to her feet with a wrench thatmade her groan.

  "You got 'em from the pool!" she screamed. "From the pool, do you say?Don't yer know that's stealing? Didn't I bring you up better'n that?What do you mean by going and being so bad, just 'cause I'm crippled andcan't look after yer? Would you grow up to be a thief, child?"

  The old woman's strength failed her, and she fell back on the couch. Thegirl stood for a moment, silent, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  "But you said 'twas all ours, anyway, gran'," she sobbed. "Will I haveto go to prison, do you think?"

  "Nonsense!" cried Grannie Thornton. "But if Ellison found it out--"

  Bess Thornton was darting out of the doorway.

  "He'll find it out now," she said, bitterly. "I'll tell him. I don'tcare what happens to me."

  Benjamin Ellison, James Ellison's nephew, a heavy-set, large-boned,clumsily-built youth, lounged lazily in the dooryard of the Ellisonhomestead as the girl neared the gate, a quarter of an hour later.

  "Hello, Tomboy," he said, barring her entrance, with arms outstretched."Don't know as I'll let you in this way. Let's see you jump the fence.Say, what's the matter with you? Ho! ho! Why, you look like that cat Idropped in the brook yesterday. You've got a ducking, somehow. Yourclothes aren't all dry yet. Who--?"

  The youth's bantering was most unexpectedly interrupted. He himselfdidn't know exactly how it happened. He only knew that the girl haddarted suddenly forward, that he had been neatly tripped, and that hefound himself lying on his back in a clump of burdocks.

  "Here, you beggar!" he cried, spitefully, scrambling to his feet andmaking after her. "You'll get another ducking for that."

  But the girl, as though knowing human nature, instinctively ran closebeside another youth, of about the same size
as Benjamin, who had justappeared from the house, caught him by an arm and said, "Don't let himhurt me, will you, John? I tripped him up. Oh, but you ought to haveseen him!"

  Her errand was forgotten for an instant and she laughed a merry laugh.

  The boy thus appealed to, a youth of about his cousin's size, but of aless heavy mould, stood between her and the other.

  "You go on, Bennie," he said, laughing. "Let her alone. Oh ho, that'srich! Put poor old Bennie on his back, did you, Bess? What do you want?"

  The girl's mirth vanished, and her face flushed.

  "I want to see your father," she said, slowly.

  "All right, go in the door there," responded John Ellison. "He's allalone in the dining-room."

  Farmer Ellison, finishing his third cup of coffee, and leaning back inhis chair, looked up in surprise, as the girl stepped noiselessly acrossthe threshold and confronted him.

  "Well! Well!" he exclaimed, eying her somewhat sharply. "Why didn't youknock at the door? Forgotten how? What do you want?"

  The girl waited for a moment before replying, shuffling her bare feetand tugging at her damp dress. Then she seemed to gather her courage.She looked resolutely at Farmer Ellison.

  "I want a licking, I guess," she said.

  Farmer Ellison's face relaxed into a grim smile.

  "A licking," he repeated. "Well, I reckon you deserve it, all right, ifnot for one thing, then for something else."

  "I guess I do," said Bess Thornton.

  "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" queried Farmer Ellison,looking puzzled. "Can't old Mother Thornton give it to you?"

  "No," replied the girl. "She's sick. And besides, she didn't know what Iwas going to do. I did it all myself, early this morning."

  Farmer Ellison looked up quickly. An expression of suspicion stole overhis face. He looked at the girl's bedraggled dress.

  "What have you been up to?" he asked, sternly.

  "I've been stealing," replied the girl. "'Twas--'twas--"

  Farmer Ellison sprang up from his seat.

  "'Twas you, then, down by the shore?" he cried. "Confound it! I knew Ididn't need them burdock bitters all the time I was takin' 'em. Stealingmy trout, eh? Don't tell me you caught any?"

  "Only three."

  The girl half whispered the reply.

  Farmer Ellison seized the girl by an arm and shook her roughly.

  "Bring them back!" he cried. "Where are they?"

  "I can't," stammered the girl; "they're cooked."

  He shook her again.

  "You ate my trout!" he cried. "Pity they didn't choke you. Didn't youfeel like choking--eating stolen trout, eh?"

  "Gran' did," said the girl, ruefully. "But 'twas a bone, sir. She didn'tknow they were stolen till I told her."

  The sound of Farmer Ellison's wrathful voice had rung through the house,and at this moment a woman entered the room. At the sight of her, BessThornton suddenly darted away from the man's grasp, ran to Mrs. Ellison,hid her face in her dress and sobbed.

  "I didn't think 'twas so bad," she said. "I--I won't do it again--ever."

  Mrs. Ellison, whose face expressed a tenderness in contrast to thehardness of her husband's, stroked the girl's hair softly, seatedherself in a rocking chair, and drew the girl close to her.

  "What made you take the fish?" she inquired softly.

  "Well, gran' said we ought to have the whole place by rights--"

  Mrs. Ellison directed an inquiring glance at her husband.

  "She's been complaining that way ever since I bought it," he said.

  "And gran' was sick and I thought she'd like some of the trout,"continued the girl. "She's got rheumatics and can't work this week, youknow."

  "But wouldn't it have been better to ask?" queried Mrs. Ellison, kindly."Didn't you feel kind of as though it was wrong, eating something youhad no right to take?"

  "I didn't," answered the girl, promptly. "I didn't eat any. I was goingto, though, till gran' said what she did--"

  "Then you haven't had anything to eat to-day?" asked Mrs. Ellison,feeling a sudden moisture in her own eyes.

  "No," said the girl.

  "And what makes your dress so wet? Did you fall in?"

  "No-o-o," exclaimed the girl. "I swam the pool. And I did it all the wayunder water. I didn't think I could, and I almost died holding my breathso long. But I did it."

  There was a touch of pride in her tone.

  "James," said Mrs. Ellison. "Leave her to me. I'll say all that'sneeded, I don't think she'll do it again."

  "Indeed I won't--truly," said Bess Thornton.

  Farmer Ellison walked to the door, with half a twinkle in his eye."Clear across the pool under water," he muttered to himself. "Sureenough, I didn't need them burdock bitters."

  A few minutes later, Bess Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in theEllison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. Amotherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wipedher eyes now and again with a corner of her apron.

  "She'd have been about her age," she whispered to herself once softly,and bent and gave the girl a kiss.

  When Bess Thornton left the house, she carried a basket on one arm thatmade Grannie Thornton stare in amazement when she looked within.

  "No, no," she said, all of a tremble, as the girl drew forth some of thedelicacies, and offered them to her. "Not a bit of it for me. I'll nottouch it. You can. And see here, don't go up on the hill again, do youhear? Keep away from the Ellisons'."

  She had such a strange, excited, almost frightened way with her that thechild urged her no further, but put the basket away, put of her sight.

  "Mrs. Ellison asked me to come again," she said to herself, sighing. "Idon't see why gran' should care."