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Ebook has 1633 lines and 56417 words, and 33 pages

MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS

Books by CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Mark Tidd in Egypt Mark Tidd in Italy Mark Tidd Mark Tidd in the Backwoods Mark Tidd in Business Mark Tidd's Citadel Mark Tidd, Editor Mark Tidd, Manufacturer Catty Atkins, Bandmaster Catty Atkins Catty Atkins, Riverman Catty Atkins, Sailorman Catty Atkins, Financier

HARPER & BROTHERS Established 1817

MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS

BY CLARENCE B. KELLAND

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON

Then I Heard Collins Say Something that Sounded Like "Wo-oo-of!"

Right in the Middle of It the Old Horse Jumped All His Feet Off the Ground and Started Down the Road a-Kiting

My Pole Landed Good and Solid Right Between the Two Sheds, and I Swung Out and Over

He Went Down, Rolling Over and Over Right Up to Uncle Hieronymous's Feet

MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS

It all started just before school was out. One afternoon when I got home mother showed me a letter from Uncle Hieronymous, who lives in the woods back of Baldwin, on the Middle Branch of the P?re Marquette River. I never had seen him, but he and mother wrote to each other quite often, and I guess she'd been telling him a good deal about me, that's Binney Jenks, and Mark Tidd and Tallow and Plunk. Of course, Mark Tidd was most important. He always thought us out of scrapes. So what did this letter of his do but invite us all to come up to his place and stay the whole summer if we wanted to?

As soon as I read it I was so excited I had to stand up and prance around the room. I couldn't sit still.

"Can we go, ma? Can we go?" I asked, over and over again, without giving her a chance to answer.

Ma had been thinking it over, because she said yes right off. Ma never says yes to things until she's had a chance to look at them from all sides and knows just what the chances are for my coming out alive. "You can go if the other boys can," she told me, and I didn't wait to hear another word, but went pelting off to Mark's house.

Mark was in the back yard talking to his father when I got there, and I burst right in on them.

"Can you go?" I hollered. "D'you think you can go?"

"L-l-light somewheres," says he. "You're floppin' around l-l-l-like Bill Durfee's one-legged ch-chicken."

"Can you go to my uncle Hieronymous's? We're asked in a letter. The whole kit and bilin' of us. Up in the woods. Right on a trout-stream. In a log cabin." I broke it all up into short sentences like that, I was so anxious. After a while Mark got it all out of me so he understood it, then he turned to his father.

"C-c-can I go, father?" he asked.

Mr. Tidd, though he'd got to be rich, was just as mild and sort of dazed-like and forgetful as ever--and helpless! You wouldn't believe how helpless he was.

Mark called to her from the door. "Ma," he said, "can I go--"

She didn't let him get any further than that, but just says sharp-like over her shoulder: "There's a fresh berry-pie on the second shelf. Can't you see I'm so busy I dun'no' where to turn?"

"But, ma," he says again, "I d-d-d-don't want pie. I want to g-go--"

"No," says she, "you can't." Just like that, without finding out where he wanted to go or anything; but that didn't scare us a mite, for we knew her pretty well, I can tell you. In a second she turned around and wrinkled her forehead at us. "Where you want to go?" she rapped out.

Mark started in to tell her, but he stuttered so I had to do it myself. I explained all about it in a jiffy. She thought a minute.

"It'll get you out from underfoot," she says, "and keep us from being et out of house and home. I guess if the others can go you can."

You always could depend on Mrs. Tidd to be just that way. She was so busy with housekeeping or something, and had her head so full that she didn't get to understand what you said at first and always said no just to be safe, I guess. But I never knew her to refuse Mark anything that he had any business asking. For all her quickness we fellows thought a heap of her, I want to tell you.

When the Martins and Smalleys found out we could go they let Tallow and Plunk come along, so there we were. We fixed it to leave the day school was out and to stay just as long as we could hold out.

We started the day we planned. At first we thought we'd take a lunch, but Mrs. Tidd set her foot down.

"You'll need a hot meal," she told us, "so you go right into the dining-car when you get hungry." Then she gave Mark the money for our dinners, and we all kissed our folks good-by and got on the train.

It was pretty interesting riding along, and we enjoyed it fine till we got to Grand Rapids. We had to change there for Baldwin, and from then on the ride began to get tiresome. We tried a lot of things to pass away the time, but nothing helped. I guess it was because we were so anxious to get into the woods. We went along and along and along. I hadn't any idea Michigan was so big. After a while a colored man came in and yelled that dinner was ready in the dining-car. Mark began to grin. It looked like he was ready for the dinner. So was I, and the other fellows didn't hold back much. We went in and sat down at a little table. Each of us got a card that told what there was to eat. There were so many things it was hard to make up our minds, but finally we hit on the idea of every fellow taking something different, and so we got a look at more of it than we would any other way. We were about two-thirds through eating when all at once that car acted like it had gone crazy. I looked at the other three, and you never saw folks with such scared expressions in all your life. Their eyes bulged out, their mouths were open.

Well, sir, we just rose right up out of our chairs; that is, all of us did but Mark Tidd, and he was so wedged in he couldn't. It started with a crack that we could hear above the roaring of the train, then the car sagged down at the front end and began to bump and jump and wabble back and forth like a boat in a storm. We hadn't time to get scared--only startled. Then the car went over--smash! I don't believe anybody ever got such a jolt. The next thing I knew I was kicking around in a mess of rubbish with my head down and my feet up. Busted tables and dishes and chairs and folks were all scrambled on top of me. First off I thought sure it was the end of me, but I didn't hurt any place, and when my heart settled down below my Adam's apple I began squirming around to get loose.

I remember the first thing I thought about was its being so still. Nobody was hollering or groaning or anything. It surprised me and sort of frightened me. I squirmed harder and wriggled a table off me and pushed a chair away from the back of my neck. Then I sat up. You never saw such a sight. The car was lying on its side, and the lower side where I was was nothing but a jumble of things and people. And the whole jumble looked like it was squirming.

Next I thought about Mark Tidd. He was so fat and heavy I was afraid he'd be smashed all to pieces. I tried to call him, and at the third try I got out his name.

"Mark," says I, faint-like, "are you hurt?"

Over to the left of me, under a dining-table with its legs spraddled up, I heard a grunt--a disgusted grunt. It was a familiar grunt, a grunt that belonged to Mark.

"H-h-hurt," says he, sarcastic-like, but cool as a cucumber, only stuttering more than usual. "H-h-hurt! Me? Naw; I'm comfortable as a ulcerated t-t-tooth. Hey, you," says he to somebody down under the rubbish, "quit a-kickin' me in the s-s-stummick."

I knew he was all right then, and began figgering about Tallow Martin and Plunk Smalley. In a minnit both of them came sort of oozing out from amongst things looking like they'd sat down for a friendly chat with a cyclone.

"Mother'll be mad about these pants," says Plunk.

"There hain't much pants left for her to get mad about," says Tallow, angry-like and rubbing at his shoulder. "What you want to do is get a barrel."

Folks was digging their way out all around us now, and nobody seemed hurt particular, though some was making an awful fuss, specially a stout lady that had lost a breastpin. We began mining for Mark, and pretty soon we got down to where we could see him. He was the beat of anything I ever saw. Somehow he'd wriggled so as to get his head on a soft leather bag that somebody'd brought into the diner--most likely some woman. One arm was pinned down, but the other was free, and what do you think he was doing with it? Eating! Yes, sir; eating! He had two bananas in his pocket that he'd grabbed off the table just before the smash-up, and there he lay, gobbling away as calm as an iron hitching-post. It made me mad.

"You'd eat," says I, "if Gabriel was tooting his horn!"

"D-d-didn't know what was goin' to h-happen," says he, "so I th-thought I'd g-git what enjoyment there was t-t-to it."

We hauled him out, and it took all three of us. Heavy? I bet he weighs two hundred pounds. We got his head and shoulders free first and tried to drag the rest of him from under, but he wouldn't drag. Why, each one of his legs weighs as much as I do. He has to have all his clothes made special. I bet I could rip one of his pant-legs down the front, put sleeves in it, and wear it for an overcoat.

While we were tugging away at him somebody outside began smashin' the door, and pretty soon three or four men crawled in and began helping folks out. One of them came over to us and looked down at Mark.

"Hum," says he. "Didn't know there was a side-show aboard."

That made Mark kind of mad.

"Mister," says he, "this is the f-f-f-first wreck I was ever in, and I want to en-enjoy it. So I'd rather b-be pulled out by a f-f-feller that's more polite."

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