Relying on her assurance, the wearied boy went to bed.
“He’ll be sore enough in the morning,” said Joe; “but I like his grit, any how.”
“Don’t tease him too much, Joe,” said Sally; “he’s a tender-hearted thing, and takes everything in earnest.”
“Well, I won’t, if I can help it.”
The next day, at dinner, Charlie said to Ben, “I have cut the whole length of the axe-handle on both sides; can’t I cut on the edges?”
“No; for then you cannot tell which way it will fall; and it might fall on you and kill you. If you’re going to be such a chopper, you must have an axe-handle as long as ours; take this afternoon and make one, and that will rest you.”
Charlie did so, and in the morning, as soon as he could see, was in the woods. About nine o’clock the enormous tree began to totter. He had received a promise from Ben that nobody should come near him till the tree was down. He stood at the end of the kerf, just where he had been told to, and watched the top of the tree as it wavered in the air, trembling all over, half with fear, and half with excitement, while the perspiration, unheeded, dropped from his chin. Still the enormous tree did not fall. Charlie put his shoulder against it, and when he felt it waver, pushed till the sparks came in his eyes; but he soon found this was useless. He didn’t like to stand right in front and cut; at length, summoning all his resolution, he stepped to the larger kerf, on the side towards which he expected it would fall, and, with set teeth, plied the axe: snap went the wood; he jumped aside; the top now began evidently to incline; crack! crack! and then with a great crash, that made the boy’s heart leap into his throat, the enormous cone fell, crushing the smaller growth, and sending broken limbs thirty feet in the air, and shaking the ground all around. The boy leaped upon the prostrate tree, and burst into loud cheers. It was the battle of Waterloo to him.
“Let us go and see,” said Ben; “it will do him so much good.”
“You’ve done well, Charlie,” said Joe; “you never will cut many bigger trees than that, if you work in the woods all your lifetime.”
“Now, father, where shall I cut it off?”