"But there is a limit to endeavor. The bull, fatigued at last, slid downward to the ground, just as the hen, who, happily for the boy, had noted from the distant barnyard what was going on, came desperately to the rescue. The struggle which ensued was something doubtless without a parallel, or anything else in the way of similitude, in the history of single combats. It was something frightful! The bellowing of the hen, the hissing and cackling of the bull, the scattering of scales from both adversaries as they clashed together, cannot be adequately described. But the end came quickly. There came a moment, when perspiring and panting, the hen gored the bull with all her might, mind and strength, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
"The moral of this story is, be kind to a hen. Tum-a-row!"
"Why do you say 'Tum-a-row'?" suddenly demanded Erastus.
"Well, I hardly know, myself," said Abercrombie. "I guess it's a sort of accompaniment. It came in an old farmer's song I heard when I was a little boy, in an old song which told about a young man who went 'down in the medder for to mow,' and who 'mowed around till he did feel a pizen sarpint bite him on the heel;' and, every little while, through the song came the word 'Tum-a-row.' That's the reason 'Tum-a-row' comes in so often in the story. It isn't my fault; it just seems to belong. Tum-a-row!"
"Tell me another! Tell me another!" shouted young Erastus, but there came no sound from the twilight which encompassed the old people, nor from the gloaming about the sweetheart, though little did it matter. Abercrombie had passed the caring point!
"One more will I tell you," he said, speaking in a resonant and rotund voice, to the wide-mouthed and expectant Erastus. "This is the story of the Dark Forest, the Charcoal Burners, the Witch and the Boa Constrictor.
"Once there was a forest so dark that you cannot conceive of its darkness. Oh! it was just a forest dark from Darkville! It was fringed about with a forest which was somewhat lighter, in which things lived, but nothing lived in the forest itself; it was too black! Among the people who lived in this lighter fringe of forest were some Charcoal Burners. You will always find Charcoal Burners connected with a deep forest story, particularly in the German Medieval Legends. The Charcoal Burners in those stories usually lived in some glade in the middle of the wood, but the Charcoal Burners we are telling about lived on the outside for the reason we have given—but they ought not really to be called 'burners,' because they did not burn anything. Whenever orders came for charcoal they simply took their shovels and went down an aisle into the depth of the inner wood and dug out great hunks of the blackness, which they brought out and stacked upon wagons, and which were conveyed to Vienna and Wiesbaden and Oshkosh and all the other charcoal commercial centers.
"Now all this has nothing to do with the story. These matters about the Charcoal Burners I have related only because it chances that from the Charcoal Burners themselves the real story was gained. We ought to be grateful to them for what they have told.
"Four or five miles east of the Charcoal Burners lived a Boa Constrictor. He was sixty feet long and had a gilt-edged appetite. I don't believe in using slang, and gilt-edged is slightly slangy, but the bald fact stands out that he had a gilt-edged appetite. He lived mostly on wild boars, but, when the supply of wild boars gave out on any occasion, he lived on most anything that came along.
"Now, five miles east of the Boa Constrictor lived a Witch, and she was a witch from Witchville. She was not any common witch, but one whose slightest anathema would just curl your hair. Talk about brimstone! Why brimstone would be just ice cream in any comparison you could make between this witch and other things in the world. She knew her business! Well, this Witch had three children, two sons and a daughter, nice little children, in their way. It happened, unfortunately, one afternoon, that they strayed into the forest; and this afternoon happened to be the particular afternoon on which the Boa Constrictor had run out of wild boars. He consumed the kids—I beg your pardon; young as you are, I beg your pardon—I meant to say that he devoured the three young children, that he encompassed them after the constrictor manner.