Judge — December 24, 1904 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i ALOU iG Caen UNCLE DAVID WAS A BOT” BY ED. MOTT ILLUSTRATED BY ALBERT LEVERING. F COURSE, I know there ain't no doubt but what you're goin’ to have a merry Christmas, over here to the Corners, an’ I see you're sort o' gittin’ ready fer it now,” said Sol mon Cribber, the unfailing Homer of the Pochuck country, making his appearance at ‘Kiar Biff’s tavern, where a number of convivial citizens of the Corners were mingling themselves with sundry steaming savors that rose from convenient glassware that seemed to have been fashioned for the purpose. “I knowed it, of course; but I knowed, further, that I could make it more gladsome still, as Dominie Snedeker, of the Pochuck circuit, mowt say, by fetchin’ over somethin’ to tell you, the like o’ which, I ain't afeared to bet, ain't sot down in history, nor writ on the tablets o' nobody’s memory outside 0’ Pochuck. In the first place, ‘Kiar, how many boys do you s'pose there is nowadays that ‘d go out when they was only comin’ o' twelve year old, git lost in the depths o' the highest an’ wildest hills, stay lost more than a week, an’ then turn up at the fireside where his folks was weepin’ an’ wailin’ fer him, fetchin’ with him fer a Christmas gift to ‘em twenty-nine wolves an’ four bears, two o' the bears bein’ alive at that? How many twelve-year-old boys do you s‘pose there is to-day that ‘d do that, ‘Kiar 2” Now, ‘Kiar Biff was busy, and as there had never seemed to be any perceptible increase in the receipts of the house following any of the comings of Mr. Cribber there, there was perhaps a suspicion of inhospitable brusqueness in his answer to the Pochuck chronicler’s question. “T reckon there’s jest as many o' them kind 0” boys to-day as there ever was,” said he, an’ that ain't a gollding one!" “ But, ‘Kiar !" exclaimed Solomon protestingly, “there must ‘a’ been one sech a boy, or how could this 'a” happened ? from my remarks, ‘Kiar, that there must ‘a’ been one sech a boy ?” “gether from your remarks,” replied ‘Kiar with even more vim than before, that you're goin’ to say there was one sech a boy sometime or other, an’ you kin gether from my remarks that that ain't goin’ to be no reason fer me to change ‘em.” “ But, ‘Kiar,” said Mr. Cribber, as if now all skepticism on the part of the landlord must be swept away, “this was Uncle David Becken- darter—this was Uncle David !” Just what ‘Kiar would have replied to this is not known, for ‘Squire Ricketts, of over Hogback, intervened and said, “T want to know, Solomon! Uncle David, eh? Well, well, well! An’ how under the canopy did he come to do it 2" “To raise the shadder off o' the Beckendarter fireside,” replied Solomon, now having secured his opening. “The shadder that had throwed his poor old pap down into the all-pervadin’ dumps an’ was threatenin’ to turn ‘em all out in the cold! That's how he come to do it! was that shadder? It was a mort Don't you gether An’ what ¢ on the clearin’ fer two hundred dollars—a mortgage that was fallin’ due the day before Christmas—an’ things had been goin’ so tough with Hezekiah Beckendarter, Uncle David's pap, that there wa'n't no more show of his payin’ it than there was of his flyin’ over the top o' the high mountain that riz towards the sky right from the back edge o” his clearin “The gloom an’ the dumps got so overpowerin’ heavy by an’ by that Uncle David—course he wa'n't my Uncle David then, ‘cause this was sixty or seventy years ago, an’ he was only comin’ twelve— got to be so heavy by an’ by that Uncle David jest about in’ bear an’ wolves to keep his spirits up a little; an’ one a week before Christmas, which was promisin’ to be any- the Beckendarter folks, he shouldered his gun an’ went up mountain overlookin’ the clearin’ an’ other clearin’s scat- wilderness to sort o' cheer himself up a little by gittin’ on lin’ a den o wolves, or maybe havin’ a tussle with a bear. dered, an’ he tramped an’ he tramped, but not a sight nor bear could he skeer up. Then the snow begun to fall. snowed. It snowed so hard that Uncle David concluded go home. But he had to fight his way, an’ he hadn't fit it he had lost it. He couldn't git his bearin’s, an’ he hadn't was goin’ than if he was trampin’ across the moon. While he run plumb up ag’‘in a high ledge o' rocks. At the foot openin’ two foot or so wide, an’ a big rock hangin’ over it from it, That amazin’ boy crawled in that hole. He “He seen t'other bear standin’ over him.”" that was pitch dark, but he could feel that there was con- sider'ble room in it. By an’ by he got sort o' used to the darkness, an’ then he discovered that he wa'n't alone in the cave. Not exac'ly, ‘cause off to one side of it he seen a bear, an’ off to t'other side o' it he seen another bear, both old slammers. They was snoozin’ away in their winter's sleep. * Did that twelve-year boy back out o’ there an’ seek other quarters? Not if he remembers the circumstance right, an’ he thinks he does. No, sir! He squeezed in betwixt them two bears, stretched himself out, an’ tumbled off into a snooze his own self, intendin’ to git up an’ di: his way back home when he woke up rested. He never knowed jest how long he slept, but when he woke faint rays o' the sun was struggli through the openin’ o’ the cave. Uncle David crawled out o' the hole, an’ the sight he seen was most amazin’. The ground was bare 0 snow in front o' the ledge fer twenty foot around, but on the right an’ left o’ that bare spot the snow was drifted more than thirty foot high. From the fur edge o' the open spot the snow shot down in a straight stretch at least a mile. “That astoundin’ slope o’ snow was all o' fifty foot deep, an’ had a pitch to it like the roof of a barn, But the aggravatin’, weepin’, hair- tearin’ part of it all was, that lone little creeter was standin’ on the steep side o’ the mountain, one end o’ that tremendous snow-bank layin’ at his feet, an’ other end stuck down amongst the clearin’s, his own pap’s bein’ straight below him, in plain sight! Uncle David was only one short mile from home, but he mowt jest as well ‘a’ been four hundred thousand with that snow-bank before an’ around him. He gazed down onto where his fireside was, though there was a shadder onto it an’ the all-pervadin’ dumps was there, with weepin’ eyes. “* Home o' my childhood !" he says. + Unless there comes an all-sweepin’ warm rain pooty ding soon an’ melts this snow,’ he says, ‘them two snoozin’ bears, now peaceful an’ not carin’ fer victuals, will wake up an’ gobble me ‘fore I kin git away from here,’ he says, ‘an’ nobody the dumps an’ the gloom lived in the woods, chas- day, somethin’ more than thing but a merry one to into the high an’ wild tered about there in that to a wolf's trail, or tack- He wandered an’ he wan- a sound of a wolf or a An’ it snowed an’ it that he mowt jest as well long ‘fore he found that no more idee where he he was flounderin’ about o’ the ledge he see an that kep’ the snow away found himself in a place comicbooks.com