Lost on a Mountain in Maine (5 page)

The brook was pretty noisy right there, and it sounded like someone humming a tune. I went to sleep listening to it.

B
EARS
A
RE
N
OT
S
O
B
AD
• F
OURTH
D
AY

I
HAD plenty of dreams that night—maybe you never chased your pants all over the lot and never could catch up with them because they could run faster than you could. Well, that's the kind of dream I had, and I must have been thinking a lot about my pants, because when I woke up, the backs of my legs were as sore as though I had slid down a rock and taken the skin off. The skin was off, too, but I had done it myself in the night, scratching mosquito bites. Christmas, was I sore! The red, deep scratches burned like fire and a million blackflies and mosquitoes bit right into them.

It's bad enough in the woods to have a whole skin for bugs to peck at, but get a break in it and see what happens! That's when you run into
real
trouble. I guess flies are just lazy, and a cut saves them the bother of boring in. Anyway, I woke up with every cut and scratch lined with insects. Even the ants were having a picnic on me, but the worst pest of all was the moosefly. You wouldn't think a fly
could
bite like that fellow. He lands and zingo—you're bit and the blood is flowing.

The flies were so bad in that place that I knew I had to get out of there in a hurry. It was sort of swampy, with water standing between rocks, and when I got down on my stomach to drink from the stream, I noticed black, slick bloodsuckers all over the bottom. I wondered why the trout didn't feed on those bloodsuckers. There were millions of them.

As soon as I had washed myself, I started away from the stream to escape the flies. I went towards an open space I could see above me through the bushes. The stream had cut into the bank at that spot, and I had some trouble climbing up the steep side, but I made it. When I crawled out on top, on all fours,
was
I surprised! Four or five deer were feeding right out in the open! They looked up and saw me, but didn't seem the least bit frightened. They just moved over to one side of the open space and watched me. Now and then, a buck would snort and make his front legs prance up and down.

I looked around and found strawberries there, and I ate some. Then I saw some bushes that were full of blue and green berries. I didn't eat any, but I got down on all fours and picked the strawberries that grew in between the clumps. Those strawberries were good. I thought of cream, and that made me think of milk, and that made me think of Mommy and Dad, and I cried while I was eating the berries.

I was pretty lonesome, too, and getting discouraged. Besides, I wasn't as strong as I had been the day before. I had to work harder to get through the brush and once, when my jacket was caught in a thorny vine, I had trouble getting it loose.
¹⁶
I almost gave up. That vine was so strong, it tore pieces out of my jacket and scratched my legs till they bled. Anyway, I got out of that fix and began to eat strawberries again. I had worked down close to the stream once more, and I noticed that it made quite a noise over the rocks.

Suddenly, as I came around a clump of berry bushes, I came face to face with a bear—a big one, black as ink, and standing on his hind legs. I was stooping over, and when I straightened up, the bear saw me and screamed like a person. Christmas! That scream just turned me cold. I couldn't run. I couldn't yell. I couldn't do anything. I just stood and stared, crouched over a little, because I never finished straightening up. For a second, that bear and I just looked at each other, then the bear made a big leap sideways. I don't think he touched his forepaws to the ground. He just went sideways as though on springs and splash!—whish!—bobbing up and down, with the water flying around him, he was on the other side of the stream.
Was
I glad! I straightened up and laughed. I couldn't help it. I just laughed and laughed, and then I cried and tears ran down into my mouth and then I laughed again. That bear stood a while looking at me and then he got down on all fours and loped off with his black shoulders going up and down like a horse on a merry-go-round.

I couldn't eat any more berries—I wasn't hungry anymore. I just wanted to get into the next camp and find someone who would telephone to Dad. I was getting worried about that trip to Caribou. I didn't want Dad and the boys to be cheated out of it because of me.

My feet were bothering me a lot, now, and I was lame. Something in my hip hurt me when I walked. Besides, every time I stepped on a stone or a broken twig, I'd have to cry with pain. I guess I cried a lot that morning. I tried not to, because I knew I had to keep my head, but I did, and I guess that wasn't so bad, because guides have told me they cried, too, when they got lost in the winter and had to “hole up” for a day or so in a snowbank.

When I was feeling worst, I got down on my knees and prayed. I had to hunt some moss, because my knees were so sore they almost made me scream when I went down on them, but I found the moss under a tree and I prayed as hard as I could. I prayed out loud, too, asking God to help me, because I needed help and asking Him not to let Mommy and Dad worry and asking Him for food—just something to keep me going till I found a camp and, oh, yes, I asked Him to help me get out and not let my feet go back on me. I had to ask Him about my feet because my toes were so stiff I couldn't bend them. They stuck straight out and the ends were cut and worn, and my left foot had a slice cut right out of it.

After I had prayed, I rested a while. Then I got up and, right around a big rock, I found a road. It was just a tote road into a camp, but it was a road just the same and easy to walk on. Here and there, logs had been laid across, corduroy style, and water stood between them, and it was cool there, with beautiful green ferns growing. I knew the road was an old one because there were no signs of any horse or wagon wheel.

I was happy at last. I knew that road would lead me either into a camp or out to another road. I didn't care which; so I followed it, going as fast as I could.

I F
IND A
C
ABIN
• F
IFTH
D
AY

T
HE FLIES and mosquitoes were pretty bad in that place because the ground was low and swampy. At first I beat them off, but pretty soon my arms got tired and hurt me so to swing them that I just went on, letting the flies bite. I remember, once, when I slapped down on my wrist, the blood splashed into my face.
¹⁷

I don't know how long I followed that road, but night came and I had to stop. I picked out a place under a tree and tried to go to sleep, but the frogs kept me awake. Boy! They must have been big ones. One would croak and another would answer him. They were arguing—and arguing always makes me feel like running away.

“You did,” one frog would say. “I didn't,” would answer the other. “You did,” “I didn't,” “You did,” “I didn't”—until I had to get up and go away from there. A handful of stones would have come in handy, but I didn't have any stones and anyway it was so dark in there you couldn't see your hand before your face. I had to go mighty slow, feeling the road with my feet, to keep from bumping into something.

After a while, I came to an opening. I could see the stars. Right in the middle, on what seemed to be a mound, was a big tree. I crawled up close to it and dropped down, too tired to go another step. I slept hard, too, for it was broad daylight when I awoke. Something was talking to me. I couldn't make it out for a long time, then I opened my eyes and a chipmunk was standing on a limb with his tail jerking up and down, looking at me. He was saying a lot, too, asking me what I was doing there and if I were lost and telling me to cheer up, that a camp was just around the corner and there was bacon frying and maybe an egg or two.

Funny how you can get chummy with the wild animals when you're in the woods. I had to laugh at that chipmunk—he was so busy talking, with that tail of his jerking up and down all the time. I found out that the woods creatures don't want to hurt you, and they'd all help you if they could.

I just lay there and listened—and laughed a little. It didn't seem to me that I could ever get up. I tried to lift my head, but it just plopped back like a head made of putty. I closed my eyes and dozed again, and then I rolled over and pulled myself up by hanging onto the tree. It sounds funny, but I wasn't glad another day had come.
¹⁸
I was sorry, because I had to walk some more and my feet were so sore and covered with cuts and bites that every step made me yell out. That was at first, but a person can get used to anything, I guess. After my feet got warmed up, it wasn't so bad.

I would stop, now and then, when I found a patch of wet, green moss, and just stand in it. Boy, it felt good!

The little chipmunk seemed to want company, too, for he followed me like a dog, only he went along in the trees over my head. He kept chattering all the time. He was a pretty little fellow, and I wondered why he went so far with me.
¹⁹

I hadn't gone far along that tote road, maybe two or three miles, when I knew I was coming to a cabin. First, I saw a pile of tin cans, sort of a dump, but the cans were all rusted, and you couldn't tell what kind of cans they were.

I stood and looked at them. Even a rusty tin can looks good to a fellow lost in the woods. It shows that someone else has been there, ahead of him. Not far from the pile of tin cans I saw some rusty iron barrel hoops hanging over a limb, and then the road turned and I came right out onto a clearing.

Christmas! That was a glad moment for me. I was kind of stooped over, I was so tired, and I thought sure someone would come running out of a door and say, “Hello, where did
you
come from!” But nobody did.

I stopped a while and looked things over. The cabin was made of logs and the bark had partly peeled off, but the door was closed with a latch—at least that's how I remember it. There wasn't any bacon smell, like you generally find around camps. Then I knew what had happened. The camp was deserted and I wasn't much better off than before I found it. Still, there was a house there and a fellow might find something to eat on a shelf, something someone had forgotten—a can of beans, maybe, or evaporated milk. Boy, wouldn't
that
be good—a can of beans!

I hurried as fast as I could. I lifted the latch and the door almost fell off its hinges. That scared me and I pushed it open, slowly, and peeked in. I didn't know what was in there—a porcupine, maybe, or a skunk. There wasn't anything like that, but how that door did squeak! The inside of the house had a funny, musty smell. There was a bunk along one side, but it was empty. There was a bed, too, with a mattress on it and a rough blanket covering the bottom. That bed looked good to me but I was so hungry that I went straight to the cupboard.

There were cans on the shelves. One was a brown matchbox, but it was empty. I opened another can—coffee. I opened another can—salt. I opened another can—empty. They were all empty after that, but I found two pieces of iron, a part of a big knife and a bar of some kind. They were up on the top shelf. I cracked them together and boy, what a spark! I did that three or four times and, every time, I got a spark. I thought of stories I had read about people lighting fires with sparks and I thought I would try it.

I had a good reason, too, for wanting a fire. I forgot to say that when I came near the camp I looked into the brook—I guess I took a drink—and it was full of the biggest trout I ever saw—big, blue fellows, all headed upstream. Boy, were they lazy! They just floated in the water and looked at me. I guess they knew I didn't have a hook and line. If I'd had a hook and line, they would have gone off a mile a minute.

I thought of those trout when I made those sparks. I hit the pieces of iron together again and made
lots
of sparks. It was almost like having a sparkler. I thought that was fine so I went outside and got some dry cedar bark and crushed it all up in my hands. I worked it back and forth into a loose ball. Behind the cabin was a place where there was no wind. I put the ball of cedar bark on the ground and crouched over it. Then I struck the two pieces of iron together as close to the bark as I could. But I didn't get a spark. I got sparks inside, but I didn't get any outside. I thought that was funny. I went over to the cabin and got some dry, fluffy stuff from between the logs. I tried the iron pieces, again—no sparks—nothing.
²⁰

Well, I couldn't start a fire. I worked hard at it, until my arms got so tired lifting the iron bar that I could scarcely move it. I gave up trying and it didn't seem to matter at all. I thought of the trout and then I thought of the trouble it would be to catch one. Maybe they only
looked
lazy. Maybe if I started a big fire the wind would get it away from me and set the whole forest going. I thought of that and of the signs I saw on Katahdin. That
mountain was plastered with yellow signs asking people to help prevent forest fires. Dad had pointed them out to me and we had talked about the timber damage every year from fire.

I went back into the house and took the blanket off the bed. Christmas! I got a fright when I pulled it off. Boy! There was a mouse on it with long ears.

He squealed and hung on so tightly that I had to take him by the tail and yank him off. I thought mice were afraid of people, but this one wasn't. He was just mad and he wanted that blanket as much as I did. Then I wondered if I was stealing it. I thought of that mouse and the owner of the blanket. I wanted to take the blanket with me, but I wondered if that would be the right thing to do. I thought of Dad. What would
he
do? Would he be mad if I took it along? I remembered what he always told me, “Never touch a thing that doesn't belong to you.” Dad wasn't thinking, maybe, of me, lost in the woods. Still, something seemed to tell me to go ahead—that the owner would
want
me to have it and the mouse could find something else to sleep under next winter.