“Why, Ruel?” inquired the boy curiously.
“Wal, fer one reason, they’re good company, even those black rascals. Many’s the time I’ve been off alone in the woods, in the winter, when I couldn’t see nor hear a livin’ thing fer a week together. An’ some mornin’ I’d hear a queer croakin’ noise near my cabin, an’ thar’d be a crow—head on one side, a-talkin’ to a neighbor over’n a pine. Their talkin’ ain’t anything like their reg’lar cawin’.”
“What does it sound like?”
“O, I d’no. Like a hoarse old man, talkin’ to himself, p’raps. Anyway, it sounds sort o’ human, and I couldn’t knock ’em over, to save me.”
By this time the girls had found something else to interest them by the roadside, in the tree-tops, or the sky overhead; and so the ride went on, happily, toward Pineville.
But it is time to look back a little, and see what Tom is about, left alone at The Pines.
As soon as the rest were gone, Tom glanced carelessly over his shoulder, and sauntered off toward the woods. At a distance of about a thousand feet from the house, he paused and looked curiously about him. He had entered a clump of oaks and birches, just on the edge of the pine forest; before him lay a little valley, into which he descended, and leaving the path, followed the course of what was evidently in the spring season a small stream, now entirely dry. Stepping cautiously, to avoid treading upon dry twigs, he kept on down the ravine until he reached a large bowlder, forming the outworks of a picturesquely broken cliff whose fern-draped front towered some forty feet or more above his head.
An aged beech-tree, rooted about half-way up the juncture of the boulder and the cliff, had bent downward in the course of years, until its lowermost branches almost touched the ground. Seizing the nearest of these, and aiding himself by slight projections and crannies in the ledge itself, Tom drew himself up to the thick end of the tree, upon the curving trunk of which he seated himself, breathless. He was now in a sort of cavity, formed by the fall of the bowlder in ages past, which had given shelter to the young beech and collected soil for its nourishment. Ferns grew thickly above, below, on every side, along the shelving surfaces, which, projecting over Tom’s head, made a snug nook some five or six feet deep. This hiding-place the boy flattered himself was entirely his own discovery, and thither he was accustomed to betake himself on long summer afternoons; then, stretching out comfortably at full length in the green shade, he would fancy himself in a wild country, flying from Indians; or would pull a book from his pocket, and lose himself in tales of peril and adventure.
On this occasion, however, he had no book, and gave himself up to no day dreams. Instead, he seemed worried and frightened, and peering downward through the leaves, listened for any footstep that might be approaching.