United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
So, when the snowshoe was again tied on his foot, he and Laddie shuffled about where the snow was not too deep. They had lots of fun, and the other little Bunkers came out to watch them. Mun Bun wanted a pair of the barrel-stave snowshoes for himself, but his mother said he was too little; but Russ made some for Rose and Vi.
The unyielding barrel-stave, that formerly occupied a place of honor and convenience in the household, is now relegated, a harmless thing, to a forgotten corner of the cellar, and no longer points a moral but adorns a wood-pile.
"Maybe we might get hurt there," said Laddie. "No, we won't!" cried Russ. "Come on." Russ was part way to the top when something happened. All at once one leg sank away down, barrel-stave snowshoe and all, and a moment later he was floundering in the snow, and crying: "Hey, Laddie, I can't get out. I can't get out. Go and call Daddy or Grandpa! I can't get out!" "Are you hurt?" asked Laddie. "No.
In a little while, with his brother's help, Russ had made four of the barrel-stave snowshoes a pair for himself and a pair for Laddie. "Now all we have to do," said Russ, "is to tie 'em on and walk out on the snow. We won't sink down in, as we do with our regular feet, and we can go as fast as anything." "Won't we fall?" asked Laddie. "We'll hold on to the poles.
White-faced and trembling violently, the big fellow clung to Shand like a child. "Oh, hell!" said Big Jack. "Nothing can happen to us if we stick together and keep the fire up!" His tone was less confident than the words. "All the wood's outside," stammered Husky. "Burn the furniture," suggested Big Jack. Suiting the action to the words, he put his barrel-stave rocker on the embers.
Here is a little piece of smooth board, with a bit of cornice fastened to the end. It must be from the wall of a cabin. Did the captain's daughter and the young mate sit under it and whisper stories to each other in the calm evenings of the voyage? There is a piece of barrel-stave. Perhaps it once held rum for the sailors' grog; it burns as if it did. There again is a float from a fisherman's net.
The striker, with a lust for more money and shorter hours, the party who wears the face off the clock, and the man with a continual eye on the pay-envelope, all have their reward and it is mighty small. Nemesis with her barrel-stave lies in wait for them around the corner. They get what is coming to them. The Oliver fortune is founded on reciprocity.
I was so excited at the time that I did not know it, and only discovered it a week later when currying off my horse, which I made a practice of doing once a week, with a piece of barrel-stave, when I noticed the horse's ear was swelled up about as big as a canvas ham.
The horrible meanness of its details was veiled, the hutches that were homes, the bristling multitudes of chimneys, the ugly patches of unwilling vegetation amidst the makeshift fences of barrel-stave and wire.
"Good-evenin', ma'm," responded the man briefly, and not relaxing at all the energy with which he was trimming a barrel-stave. Mis' Molly then accosted the younger workman, a dark-brown young man, small in stature, but with a well-shaped head, an expressive forehead, and features indicative of kindness, intelligence, humor, and imagination.
Word Of The Day