“The adventure supplied the country-side all that winter with a theme for conversation; and about Lou’s clarionet there gathered a halo of romance that drew rousing congregations to the parish church, where its music was to be heard every alternate Sunday evening.”
“I should say,” remarked Queerman, “that to experience and imagination you combine a most tenacious memory. Who would have dreamed that the shy Teddy, with his proclivity for the pulpit-steps, would have developed into the Stranion that we see before us!”
To this there was no reply. Then suddenly Magnus said, “Sam!” And Sam began at once.
“This is all about—
‘JAKE DIMBALL’S WOODEN LEG,’”
said Sam.
“One evening in the early summer, I won’t say how many years ago, Jake Dimball was driving the cows home from pasture. At that time Jake, a stout youth of seventeen, had no thought of such an appendage as a wooden leg. Indeed, he had no place to put one had he possessed such a thing; for his own vigorous legs of bone and muscle, with which he had been born and with which he had grown up in entire content, seemed likely to serve him for the rest of his natural life. But that very evening, amid the safe quiet and soft colors of the upland cow-pasture, fate was making ready a lesson for him in the possibilities of the unexpected.
“In Westmoreland county that summer bears were looked upon as a drug in the market. The county, indeed, seemed to be suffering from an epidemic of bears. But, so far, these woody pastures of Second Westcock, surrounded by settlements, had apparently escaped the contagion. When, therefore, Jake was startled by an angry growl, coming from a swampy thicket on his right, the thought of a bear did not immediately occur to him. He saw that the cows were running ahead with a sudden alertness, but he paused and gazed at the thicket, wondering whether it would be wise for him to go and investigate the source of the sound. While he hesitated, the question was decided for him. A large black bear burst forth from the bushes with a crash that carried a nameless terror into Jake’s very soul. The beast looked so cruelly out of place, so horribly out of place, breaking in upon the beauty and security of the familiar scene. Jake had no weapon more formidable than the hazel switch he was carrying and the pocket-knife with which he was trimming off its branches. After one long horrified look at the bear, Jake took to flight along the narrow cow-path.
“Jake was a notable runner in those days, yet the bear gained upon him rapidly. The cow-path was tortuous exceedingly, and away from the path the ground was too rough for fast running—at least Jake found it so. The bear did not seem to mind the irregularities.
“Jake envied the cows their fine head start. He wished he was with them; then, as he heard the bear getting closer, he almost wished he was one of them; and then his foot caught in a root and he fell headlong.