CA-IRY AND THE QUEEN.
What's this you've found? Well, now! well, now! where did you get that, little gal? Been rummagin' in Aunt Ca-iry's bureau, hev you? Naughty little gal! Bring it to me, honey. Why, that little bag,—I wouldn't part with it for gold! That was give me by a queen,—think o' that, Dolly,—by a real live queen, 'cordin' to her own idees,—the Queen o' Sheba.
Tell you about her? Why, yes, I will. Bring your little cheer here by the fire,—so; and get your knittin'. When little gals come to spend the day with Aunt Ca-iry they allus brings their knittin',—don't they?—'cause they know they won't get any story unless they do. I can't have no idle hands round this kitchen, 'cause Satan might git in, ye know, and find some mischief for them to do. There! now we're right comf'table, and I'll begin.
You see, Dolly, I've lived alone most o' my life, as you may say. Mother died when I was fifteen, and Father, he couldn't stay on without her, so he went the next year; and my brother was settled a good way off: so ever since I've lived here in the old brown house alone, 'cept for the time I'm goin' to tell ye about, when I had a boarder, and a queer one she was. Plenty o' folks asked me to hire out with them, or board with them, and I s'pose I might have married, if I'd been that kind, but I wasn't. Never could abide the thought of havin' a man gormineerin' over me, not if he was the lord o' the land. And I was strong, and had a cow and some fowls, and altogether I knew when I was well off; and after a while folks learned to let me alone. "Queer Ca-iry," they called me,—in your grandfather's time, Dolly,—but now it's "Aunt Ca-iry" with the hull country round, and everybody's very good to the old woman.
How did I come to have such a funny name? Well, my father give it to me. He was a great man for readin', my father was, and there was one book he couldn't ever let alone, skurcely. 'T was about the French Revolution, and it told how the French people tried to git up a republic like ourn. But they hadn't no sense, seemin'ly, and some of 'em was no better nor wild beasts, with their slaughterin', devourin' ways; so nothin' much came of it in the end 'cept bloodshed.
Well, it seems they had a way of yellin' round the streets, and shoutin' and singin', "Ca-ira! Ca-ira!" Made a song out of it, the book said, and sang it day in and day out. Father said it meant "That will go!" or somethin' like that, though I never could see any meanin' in it myself. Anyhow, it took Father's fancy greatly, and when I was born, nothin' would do but I must be christened Ca-ira. So I was, and so I stayed; and I don't know as I should have done any better if I'd been called Susan or Jerusha. So that's all about the name, and now we'll come to the story.
One day, when I was about eighteen years old, I was takin' a walk in the woods with my dog Bluff. I was very fond o' walkin', and so was Bluff, and there was woods all about, twice as much as there is now. It was a fine, clear day, and we wandered a long way, further from home than we often went, 'way down by Rollin' Dam Falls. The stream was full, and the falls were a pretty sight; and I sat lookin' at 'em, as girls do, and pullin' wintergreen leaves. I never smell wintergreen now without thinkin' of that day. All of a suddent I heard Bluff bark; and lookin' round, I saw him snuffin' and smellin' about a steep clay bank covered with vines and brambles. "Woodchuck!" I thought; and I called him off, for I never let him kill critters unless they were mischeevous, which in the wild woods they couldn't be, of course. But the dog wouldn't come off. He stayed there, sniffin' and growlin', and at last I went to see what the trouble was.
My dear, when I lifted up those vines and brambles, what should I see but a hole in the bank!—a hole about two feet across, bigger than any that a woodchuck ever made. The edges were rubbed smooth, as if the critter that made it was big enough to fit pretty close in gettin' through. My first idee was that 't was a wolf's den,—wolves were seen sometimes in those days in the Cobbossee woods,—and I was goin' to drop the vines and slip off as quiet as I could, when what does that dog do but pop into the hole right before my eyes, and go wrigglin' through it! I called and whistled, but 't was no use; the dog was bound to see what was in there.
I waited a minute, expectin' to hear the wolf growl, and thinkin' my poor Bluff would be torn to pieces, and yet I must go off and leave him, or be treated the same myself. But, Dolly, instead of a wolf's growl, I heard next minute a sound that made me start more 'n the wolf would ha' done,—the sound of a human voice. Yes! out o' the bowels o' the earth, as you may say, a voice was cryin' out, frightened and angry-like; and then Bluff began to bark, bark! Oh, dear! I felt every which way, child. But 't was clear that there was only one path of duty, and that path led through the hole; for a fellow creature was in trouble, and 't was my dog makin' the trouble. Down I went on my face, and through that hole I crawled and wriggled,—don't ask me how, for I don't know to this day,—thinkin' of the sarpent in the Bible all the way.
Suddenly the hole widened, and I found myself in a kind of cave, about five feet by six across, but high enough for me to stand up. I scrambled to my feet, and what should I see but a woman,—a white woman,—sittin' on a heap o' moose and sheep skins, and glarin' at me with eyes like two live coals. She had driven Bluff off, and he stood growlin' in the corner.