FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  
ut I wish you could! Only I ain't such a baby as to have somebody luggin' me 'round." Duncan patted his head lovingly. "Hoots, toots, but you surely won't leave a poor old man like your uncle to find his way alone," he said, with great tact. "I will not be at Jimmie Archie's sugar bush for many a year, and you will jist be showing me the road." Archie's pride was somewhat mollified by this aspect of the case, and being further soothed by a huge slab of bread and jam, he set off with his uncle in high glee. Duncan put on his bonnet and plaid and with Collie bounding in front, half mad with joy at this unexpected excursion, they stepped out upon the road. The moon was shining, but its rays were obscured by the mild night mists. A soft, suffused light shrouded the landscape, giving an unreal and weird appearance to all objects. A rising wind shifted the ghostly clouds here and there; it was a strangely uncanny night. Jimmie Archie McDonald's farm lay up the river, next to Andrew Johnstone's. But the belt of maples with the sugar camp was quite near. So when Duncan Polite and the child had gone a short distance up the road they climbed a fence and crossed the soft, yielding fields until they reached the line of timber that bordered the stream. "There's a path jist along by the river that goes straight to Jimmie Archie's bush," explained Archie importantly, strutting ahead. "Ain't you glad I called for you, Uncle Duncan?" He dashed into the woods whooping and yelling, with Collie circling about him in noisy delight, and darted back again at short intervals to ask a dozen unanswerable questions. "What made the moon look so queer? And what was the moon made of, anyhow? Sandy said it was made of green cheese; but Don said if that was true they must have got a chunk of the moon to make Sandy's head. And Don ought to know, since he'd been to college. And what made the moon shine? The master told the Fourth Class that the moon didn't have any light of its own. And Crummie Bailey said that was a howlin' lie, 'cause any fool could see it. And the master heard him saying it at recess, and he licked Crummie good for it, too. And was the shadow on the moon really a man?" Duncan replied at random. Ordinarily he was Archie's most interesting chum, but to-night he was silent and absent. The boy concluded it was because his uncle had been sick all winter. He was too excited over the prospect of a visit to t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  



Top keywords:

Archie

 

Duncan

 

Jimmie

 

Crummie

 
master
 
Collie
 

darted

 

delight

 

questions

 

intervals


unanswerable
 

dashed

 
straight
 
explained
 

importantly

 
strutting
 

timber

 

reached

 
bordered
 
stream

fields

 

whooping

 
yelling
 

circling

 
called
 
replied
 

random

 
Ordinarily
 
shadow
 

recess


licked
 
interesting
 

excited

 

winter

 

prospect

 

silent

 

absent

 

concluded

 

cheese

 

Bailey


howlin
 

Fourth

 

yielding

 
college
 
strangely
 

aspect

 

soothed

 

mollified

 

showing

 
bonnet