“Why, it was his father's string,” said Caleb, eagerly, looking up into Dwight's face.
“What did he have a string for?” said David.
“Why to lead him along by,” said Caleb.
“Yes—but why did not he take hold of his father's hand?” asked Dwight.
“Why,—why,—there was a snake in the road, I believe,—wasn't there, grandmother?”
His grandmother smiled,—for Caleb had evidently got bewildered, in his drowsiness, so that he had not a very distinct recollection of the story. She, therefore, began again, and told the whole. When she got to the place where she left off before, that is, to the place Samuel heard a splash in the water, Dwight started up, and asked, eagerly,
“What was it?”
“A stone, I suppose,” said David, coolly.
“No,” said Madam Rachel, “it was only the end of the stem of a small tree, which Samuel's father was trying to fix across the brook, so that he could lead his blind boy over. It was lying upon the ground, and he took it and raised it upon its end, near the edge of the bank, on one side, and then let it fall over, in hopes that the other end would fall upon the opposite bank. But it did not happen to fall straight across, and so the end fell into the water, and this was the noise that Samuel heard.
“He drew the stick back again, and then contrived to raise it on its end once more; and this time he was more successful. It fell across, and so extended from bank to bank. In a few minutes he succeeded in getting another by its side, and then he came back to Samuel.