‘BRUIN’S BOXING-MATCH.’
“It was a dreamy, sun-drenched September afternoon. The wide, shallow river was rippling with a mellow noise over its golden pebbles. Back from the river, upon both banks, the yellow grain-fields and blue-green patches of turnips slanted gently to the foot of the wooded hills. A little distance down stream stood two horses, fetlock-deep in the water, drinking.
“Near the top of the bank, where the gravel had thinned off into yellow sand, and the sand was beginning to bristle with the scrubby bushes of the sand-plum, lay the trunk of an ancient oak-tree. In the effort to split this gnarled and seasoned timber, Jake Simmons and I were expending the utmost of our energies. Our axes had proved unequal to the enterprise, so we had been at last compelled to call in the aid of a heavy mall and hardwood wedges.
“With the axes we had accomplished a slight split in one end of the prostrate giant. An axe-blade held this open while we inserted a hardwood wedge, which we drove home with repeated blows of the mall till the crack was widened, whereupon, of course, the axe dropped out.
“The mall—a huge, long-handled mallet, so heavy as to require both hands to wield it—was made of the sawed-off end of a small oak log, and was bound around with two hoops of wrought iron to keep it from splitting. This implement was wielded by Jake, with a skill born of years in the backwoods.
“Suddenly, as Jake was delivering a tremendous blow on the head of the wedge, the mall flew off its handle, and pounded down the bank, making the sand and gravel fly in a way that bore eloquent witness to Jake’s vigor. The sinewy old woodsman toppled over, and, losing his balance, sat down in a thicket of sand-plums.
“Of course I laughed, and so did Jake; but our temperate mirth quieted down, and Jake, picking himself up out of the sand-plums, went to re-capture the errant mall. As he set it down on the timber, and proceeded to refit the handle to it, he was all at once quite overcome with merriment. He laughed and laughed, not loudly, but with convulsive inward spasms, till I began to feel indignant at him. When mirth is not contagious, it is always exasperating. Presently he sat down on the log and gasped, holding his sides.
“‘Don’t be such an old fool, Jake,’ said I rudely; at which he began to laugh again, with the intolerable relish of one who holds the monopoly of a joke.
“‘I don’t see anything so excruciatingly funny,’ I grumbled, ‘in the head flying off of an old mall, and a long-legged old idiot sitting down hard in the sand-plum patch. That mall might just as well as not have hit me on the head, and maybe you’d have called that the best joke of the season.’
“‘Bless your sober soul!’ answered Jake, ‘it ain’t that I’m laughing at.’
“I was not going to give him the satisfaction of asking him for his story, so I proceeded to fix a new wedge, and hammer it in with my axe. Jake was too full of his reminiscence to be chilled by my apparent lack of interest. Presently he drew out a short pipe, filled it with tobacco, and remarked—
“‘When I picked up that there mall-head, I was reminded of something I saw once up in the Madawaska woods that struck me as just about the funniest I ever heard tell of. I ’most died laughing over it at the time, and whenever I think of it even now it breaks me all up.’
“Here he paused and eyed me.
“‘But I don’t believe you’d see anything funny in it, because you didn’t see it,’ he continued in his slow and drawling tones ‘so I reckon I won’t bother telling you.’
“Then he picked up the handle of the mall as if to resume work.
“I still kept silence, resolved not to ask for the story. Jake was full of anecdotes picked up in the lumbering-camps; and though he was a good workman, he would gladly stop any time to smoke his pipe, or to tell a story.
“But he kept chuckling over his own thoughts until I couldn’t do a stroke of work. I saw I had to give in, and I surrendered.
“‘Oh, go along and let’s have it!’ said I, dropping the axe, and seating myself on the log in an attitude of most inviting attention.
“This encouragement was what Jake was waiting for.
“‘Did you ever see a bear box?’ he inquired. I had seen some performances of that sort; but as Jake took it for granted I hadn’t, and didn’t wait for a reply, I refrained from saying so.
“‘Well, a bear can box some, now I tell you. But I’ve seen one clean knocked out by an old mall without a handle, just like this one here; and there wasn’t any man at the end of it either.’
“Here Jake paused to indulge in a prolonged chuckle as the scene unrolled itself anew before his mind’s eye.
“‘It happened this way: A couple of us were splitting slabs in the Madawaska woods along in the fall, when, all of a sudden, the head of the mall flew off, as this ’ere one did. Bill, however,—Bill Goodin was the name of the fellow with me,—wasn’t so lucky as you were in getting out of the way. The mall struck a tree, glanced, and took Bill on the side of the knee. It keeled him over so he couldn’t do any more work that day, and I had to help him back to the camp. Before we left, I took a bit of codline out of my pocket, ran it through the eye, and strung the mall up to a branch so it would be easier to find when I wanted it.
“‘It was maybe a week before I went for that mall,—a little more than a week, I should say; and then, it being of a Sunday afternoon, when there was no work to do, and Bill’s leg being so much better that he could hobble alone, he and I thought we’d stroll over to where we’d been splitting, and bring the mall in to camp.
“‘When we got pretty near the place, and could see through the trees the mall hanging there where we had left it, Bill all of a sudden grabbed me sharp by the arm, and whispered, “Keep still!”
“‘“What is it?” said I, under my breath, looking all around.
“‘“Use your eyes if you’ve got any,” said he; and I stared through the branches in the direction he was looking. But there was a trunk in the way. As soon as I moved my head a bit, I saw what he was watching. There was a fine young bear sitting back on his haunches, and looking at the mall as if he didn’t know what to make of it. Probably that bear had once been hurt in a trap, and so had grown suspicious. That there mall hanging from the limb of a tree was something different from anything he’d ever seen before. Wondering what he was going to do, we crept a little nearer, without makin’ any noise, and crouched down behind a spruce bush.
“‘The bear was maybe a couple of yards from the mall, and watching it as if he thought it might get down any moment and come at him. A little gust of wind came through the trees and set the mall swinging a bit. He didn’t like this, and backed off a few feet. The mall swung some more, and he drew off still farther; and as soon as it was quite still again, he sidled around it at a prudent distance, and investigated it from the other side of the tree.
“‘“The blame fool is scared of it,” whispered Bill scornfully; “let’s fling a rock at him!”
“‘“No,” said I, knowing bears pretty well; “let’s wait and see what he’s going to do.”
“‘Well, when the mall had been pretty still for a minute or two, the bear appeared to make up his mind it didn’t amount to much after all; he came right close up to it as bold as you like, and pawed it kind of inquiringly. The mall swung away; and being hung short, it came back quick, and took the bear a smart rap on the nose.
Bruin’s Boxing Match.—Page 335.
“‘Bill and I both snickered, but the bear didn’t hear us. He was mad right off, and with a snort he hit the mall a pretty good cuff; back it came like greased lightning, and took him again square on the snout with a whack that must have made him just see stars.
“‘Bill and I could hardly hold ourselves; but even if we had laughed right out I don’t believe that bear would have noticed us, he was so mad. You know a bear’s snout is mighty tender. Well, he grunted and snorted, and rooted around in the leaves a bit, and then went back at the mall as if he was just going to knock it into the other side of to-morrow. He stood up to it, and he did hit it so hard that it seemed to disappear for half a second. It swung right over the limb; and, while he was looking for it, it came down on the top of his head. Great Scott! how he roared! And then, scratching his head with one paw, he went at it again with the other, and hit it just the same way he’d hit it before. I tell you, Bill and I pretty near burst as we saw that mall fly over the limb again and come down on the top of his head just like the first time. You’d have thought it would have cracked his skull; but a bear’s head is as hard as they make them.
“‘This time the bear, after rubbing his head and his snout, and rooting some more in the leaves, sat back and seemed to consider. In a second or two he went up to the mall, and tried to take hold of it with one paw; of course it slipped right away, and you’d have thought it was alive to see the sharp way it dodged back and caught him again on the nose. It wasn’t much of a whack this time, but that nose was tender enough then! And the bear got desperate. He grabbed for the mall with both paws; and that way, of course, he got it. With one pull he snapped the codline, and the victory was his.
“‘After tumbling the mall about for a while, trying to chew it and claw it to pieces, and getting nothing to show for his labor, he appeared absolutely disgusted. He sat down and glared at the bit of iron-bound oak lying so innocent in the leaves, and kept feeling at his snout in a puzzled sort of way. Then all of a sudden he gave it up as a bad job, and ambled off into the woods in a hurry as if he had just remembered something.’”
This story had called forth a running commentary of appreciative chuckling. When it ended, every one was in a merry humor.
“I think,” remarked Queerman, “that I, too, have kept one of my best stories for the last. At least, it seems the best to me; and I hope you fellows won’t think it the worst, anyway.”
“We’ll tell you about that after we hear it,” said Magnus.
“Well, here goes,” continued Queerman. “My title is—