Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
Suddenly there was a great clatter and scraping of claws inside the tree and then there popped out between the branches the head and shoulders of a smaller bear than the one which now lay still in the bushes. "Wait till he gits out!" shouted Nuck, as the excited Bryce raised his musket. "If you shoot him there he'll tumble back into the hole."
Both bullets went true, but in falling the bear became wedged in the crotch of a big limb and Nuck, throwing aside his shoes and stockings, essayed to climb the trunk to push the dead beast off to the ground. This was no simple matter, for all he had to cling to were the knots and "warts" on the side of the trunk. It was almost like climbing up the wall of a house.
The girls had scoured the woods for beech, hazel, and hickory nuts, and Robbie Baker came over on his horse with nigh a bushel of peeled chestnuts which his father brought him from Manchester way after the first frost. Then, there were potatoes to roast and a wild turkey which Nuck had shot two days before and hung in the smoke-house.
"Harding my friend," he finally said, in his grave tone, repeating a formula which he had used so many times since the night Nuck had saved him from the wolves. "Harding my friend. Crow Wing know what is in his mind. He thinks to fight the red-coats to take their great stockades; he is not afraid of their many guns. But he is foolish; he is as a child; he does not understand.
The ranger hesitated a moment, appeared to think of following him, and then turned abruptly and plunged into the forest on a course diagonal from the river. Therefore, when Nuck and Bryce were fighting the bears in the swamp he did not hear their guns, being by that time some miles away and striding rapidly toward Arlington.
"She's fighting away there in the wilderness with her pack of babies in a way to make grown men blush. I was by there but yesterday.... And what's the news you bring, Nuck?" "The Yorkers have come back to the mill on Otter Creek." "What, sir?" cried Allen, leaping from his chair. "That's not to be believed," cried one of the others. "How know ye this, boy?"
"And I'll get Master Bolderwood to come an' be empire," declared Nuck, no farther out in his pronunciation of the word than some boys are nowadays. So the girls were allowed to come, and an hour or two after sun-up on the day in question the Harding place was fairly overrun with young folk of both sexes.
"There, Nuck Harding!" cried the long ranger, "I leave you to guard that 'ere. If they show fight, fire your rifle into the place. If so be, we'll all go up together; but Old Ti is ourn and if we're driven forth we'll wreck the fortifications as we go."
The kite-shop is like a tulip-bed, full of all sorts of gay and gorgeous hues. The kites are made of Chinese paper, thin and tough, and the ribs of finely-split bamboo. A wild species of silkworm is pressed into the service, and set to spin nuck for the strings a kind of thread which, although fine, is surprisingly strong.
The stranger might be roaming the forest even then, hunting for the messenger of the Green Mountain chieftain. He had likely heard that Nuck was going from farmer to farmer, as Nuck had heard of his presence, and the man might contemplate stopping him. It would be easy for him to creep upon and shoot the defenseless youth as he lay before the fire.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking