Be that as it may, the fact remains that he is extremely careful to refrain from overstatement or exaggeration. A point in illustration is found in the story of the elderly Vermonter who was bringing in hay from his ancestral meadow. Seated upon a fragrant two-ton load he had guided his double team almost to the doors of his barn when one of the front wheels twisted on an outcrop of granite and the cargo capsized, precipitating the husbandman to the stony earth with great violence and entirely burying him under the mound of timothy.
The two hired hands leaped to the rescue. They forked away the hay and after several minutes of strenuous endeavor dug out their employer. He was speechless for the time being and half-suffocated. There was a bump on his forehead and one arm dangled to prove that his shoulder-blade had been snapped. As they propped the victim against the softer side of a handy boulder his son, who had been at work in the hayfield and who had been summoned by the cries of the rescuers, came running up. Filled with alarm and solicitude the younger man put a question which seemed somewhat superfluous but which, in view of his fright, was perfectly natural.
“Paw,” he cried as he bent over his parent, “did it hurt you?”
“Wall, son,” said the old man slowly, and measuring his words, “I wouldn’t go so fur as to say it’s done me any real good.”
§ 120 A Seasonable and Timely Suggestion
It was in the old days up in the Klondyke. On a winter’s night—a night destined to be remembered even in that land for its severity—the inhabitants of a mining-camp were gathered in the local dance hall for companionship and for warmth. It was too cold to play cards. Those present had huddled themselves about a huge, red-hot stove which stood in the center of the big room, when from without there came the sound of feeble cries.
The proprietor threw open the door and peered forth into the blizzard. The light from the coal-oil lamps behind him revealed a string of exhausted husky dogs and a sled upon which was huddled a human shape. Hardy spirits dashed forth into the storm and separated the form of the traveler from his sled to which he was frozen fast. They bore him inside, chafed his hands and thawed him before the fire, and by these means succeeded in restoring him his powers of motion and coherent speech. It developed that the rescued one was a green prospector who in his ignorance had undertaken to make the trip from a settlement ten miles below to a point considerably up country from the place where he now was. When he was almost spent from cold and exhaustion he had seen the lighted windows of the dance hall and had guided his staggering dog-team there in the nick of time.
Now that he was able to walk, two sympathetic Samaritans guided his footsteps to the bar where the barkeeper awaited them.
“Stranger,” said the hospitable barkeep, “you’ve had a blamed close call and we’re goin’ to celebrate. This round is on the house. What are you goin’ to have? I’d suggest a hot whiskey punch—or maybe you’d rather have a hot Tom-and-Jerry?”
The stranger considered for a moment.