After two glorious days of exploring—"exploricating," the guides called it—the children went to bed early, expecting to make an early start to hunt partridge. They were so tired from their good times that for two or three hours they slept like tops.
But in front of the cabin Ben Gile and Mrs. Reece and the other guides were looking at the night sky anxiously. The lightning flashed more and more vividly, black clouds were coming nearer and nearer. What was a distant rumble soon became a near-by, long undertow of ominous sound. Nearer and nearer it came, until every flash was followed by a sound like ripping.
Mrs. Reece was very uneasy, for she did not like to have the children in the tents alone. But soon Betty and Hope came scampering through the dark to the cabin. They were surprised to see the older people up. Before long the boys also came to the cabin rubbing their eyes, yawning, and pretending not to care whether there was to be a cyclone or a cloud-burst.
For a while all sat waiting for the storm to break. When it did break, what torrents of rain and wind descended! How the trees groaned and cracked! How the rain roared upon the shingled roof, and how the wind howled through the mountain valley!
"Well," said Ben Gile, "let's have a fire in the fireplace, then we can have a crackle of our own." He had noticed how nervous Mrs. Reece grew, and that the little girls were watching her. He could not help thinking that it was foolish, even wicked, to waste strength in fear of something which no one of them could stop. "Build a fire, boys." And build a fire they did—a royal good blaze. "Now throw on some of those pine-cones you children gathered." There was a flare in the cabin almost as bright as the incessant flare of the lightning outside. "I'll tell you what we'll do," he continued, "we will have a midnight spread. We will have some of Tom's famous flapjacks. Mrs. Reece, don't you want to make molasses candy, and then the children can pull it."
The storm was forgotten by the children as, with many squeals of glee, they rushed into this midnight frolic.
"And now, Ben," said Tom, the guide, "I've just found something; I have it in my hand. I propose, Ben, while the rest of us work, that you make one of your stories out of it, and tell us all about it."
Tom opened his hand, and the children crowded around to see. There was a shout of laughter.
"Why, that's only a dead June-bug!"
"Who wants to know about a June-bug?" exclaimed Jimmie, much to the discomfiture of the guide, who knew a great deal about moose and deer and bears and beavers, even if he didn't know much about a June-bug. The guides had profound respect for the schoolmaster, Ben Gile, who was really too wise and kind to laugh at another's ignorance. But this is another story, and Jimmie learned better in the years to come.