Filing along singly, we peered
into the underbush. Lo, and behold, I see it! It is a white thing
hanging on a bush! Yes! And listen, I hear voices! It is the robbers!
Why, no, these are only children's voices! They are picking berries,
the dear things. Poor children! Don't you know that you may be robbed
and murdered by some of these infernal rascals who beat innocent men,
take their money and come out here into this wilderness and wash the
blood off their garments and hang them on these berry bushes to dry?
Slowly we approached the white garment. Why, this is only an old white
rag that has hung here for months, all mildewed and half rotten. Come,
boys, we are sold! What an old goose that fellow was to get us out here
for such a thing as this! I am going home! I am hungry! Feelings of
disgust and mirth took possession of us. Were these the robbers, and
was this the bloody raiment? Ha! ha!
There was no use of going further. The exciting problem was solved, and
we turned our feet homeward over the hills, across the fields and by
stone walls; shying a stone now and then into some gnarled apple tree,
just to knock down a wild apple or two, to try if they contained, as
Emerson has said of one of them, "a pint of cider and a barrel of
wind"; whipping off the heads of the wild daisies with our canes and
switches; pulling sprigs of sweet fern and bayberry; mocking the crows
and the cat-birds; finding choice flowers, and trying to fill the
aching void within us with blackberries and whortleberries, and
reaching the farm after the dinner was over.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240