Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains

"So long as you are around, Tom," answered the Doctor, "I shall feel no apprehension of scurvy, and still less of starvation."

Tom had shown his spoil at that part of the camp where the other boys were chopping. Having done so he carried the turkeys to the house and delivered them over to Ed, who, incapacitated for other work by his wound, had made himself at once sentinel in charge of the prisoner and company cook.

As soon as Tom left the choppers, Jack stopped his work, and said to the others:

"I say, boys, Tom was a Christmas baby, and this coming Christmas day will be his eighteenth birthday. Isn't there any way in which we can celebrate it?"

"Yes," answered the Doctor, "We'll give a big dinner in his honor on that occasion and surprise him with it. I have been jealously saving a few onions and potatoes that I brought up the mountain in my pack. I have carefully guarded them against frost as well as against use, meaning to keep them all winter in case scurvy should appear among us. But evidently Tom is taking care of that by keeping us abundantly supplied with fresh meat. So I'm going to suggest to Ed that on Christmas day he roast the onions in a pan or skillet and bake the potatoes in the ashes. That, with the big turkey, will give us a dinner fit for princes."

"Good!" cried the others, "and we'll pretend to forget all about it's being Tom's birthday," added Jim Chenowith, "till the dinner is dished up in his honor. Then we'll congratulate him."

Ed fell in with the plan with all heartiness when he was told of it. He was a notably good cook considering that he was a boy, and he was determined to produce the best result he could with the meagre means at his disposal.

On Christmas morning he took the giblets of his big turkey – the gizzard, liver, heart, the outer ends of the wings and the upper part of the neck, and put them on the fire to stew.

Then he puzzled his brain over the question of a stuffing for the gigantic turkey. He had no wheaten bread of any kind, and he doubted that corn bread could be made to answer. Just then he remembered that a box of crackers, two-thirds full, remained among Camp Venture's stores. He hunted them out and took as many of them as he needed. He toasted each to a rich crisp brown. When all were toasted he reduced them to crumbs. Next he mixed the crumbs together with the bacon fat drippings that he had made the boys save from their broiling. He added just enough water to make the mass half adhere together. Then he chopped up one small onion and mixed it with the stuffing. After adding a little chopped bacon and a liberal supply of black pepper, he pressed the whole mass into the hollow of the big bird and hung the turkey up before the fire to roast, placing a dripping pan under it, setting it whirling at the end of a string, and from time to time basting it with the drippings that fell into the pan.

A little later he placed the potatoes in the hot embers to bake. He put the onions into a skillet and placing live coals under and upon the lid of that utensil, left them to roast. Still later he made up some corn pones and set them to bake in another skillet. Finally, just before dinner time, he brewed a great pot of coffee.

But in the meantime he had taken the giblets off the fire, chopped them to a mince meat and poured them into the dripping pan that had reposed under the turkey as it roasted. Into this he poured the water in which the giblets had been stewed and added a little of the cracker crumbs for thickening, a little salt and a liberal supply of pepper. This done he stirred all together vigorously and produced a gravy of which even his mother – the best cook he had ever known – might have been proud.

At the very last he dug the potatoes out of the ashes, split open one side of each and inserted, in the mealy depths, a freshly broiled slice of bacon. This was to replace the butter which he had not.

Then he called the boys to dinner, but as the day was warm he served the meal on an improvised table out of doors, from which both points of possible invasion of the camp could be fairly well observed. He did this in order that the whole company, sentinel and all, might sit down together in celebration of Christmas and of little Tom's birthday.

When the little company assembled, each member of it grasped Tom's hand and warmly congratulated him, and when the boy learned how they had exerted themselves to make his natal day one to be remembered, he fairly broke down with affectionate emotion. It was assigned to him to carve the great turkey gobbler, which in the absence of scales on which to weigh him, the boys pretty accurately estimated at twenty-six pounds. Jack served the roast onions, which were done to a beautiful brown, and Ed himself dished out the potatoes, roasted to a hard crust without and enticing mealiness within.

The coffee was drunk with the meal after the manner of the country, and of course there was no milk to go with it, but these healthy, happy, out-of-door boys enjoyed that Christmas dinner as they had never enjoyed a dinner before.

Just as they were finishing the eating of it something struck and penetrated the clapboards that formed the extemporized table. Tom instantly glanced at the mark made, estimated direction and, turning, sent a bullet from his long range rifle toward the point from which he believed the shot to have come. A moment later there came another shot and another, and this time Tom saw the smoke of the rifles from which they came. He aimed carefully but quickly, and fired two shots in reply.

"There!" he said. "They are shooting from long range, or what they regard as such, up there on the mountain. They think we have nothing but shot guns and their plan is to shoot at us from too great a distance for us to shoot back. I reckon those three bullets of mine will give them a new idea of the situation, for this rifle carries at least twice as far as any they have."

Apparently Tom was right, for after his shots were delivered no more was heard from the assailing mountaineers.

"Now that teaches us a lesson," said Jack. "Our house door faces directly south and up the mountain. There are points up there from which those rascals can fire right into our house through the door, whenever they feel so disposed. We must stop that right now."

"But how?" asked the Doctor.

"By building a bullet proof barricade of poles right here, ten feet in front of our door," answered Jack. "We can easily do it this afternoon and still get some chopping done."

Jack's suggestion was adopted instantly and the boys set to work at once to carry it out. They set up some poles about fifteen feet high and six feet apart, burying their lower ends deep in the earth. Then they set up a second line in the same way about eight inches in front of the first line. Next they placed in the space between the two lines a tier of poles about five inches thick and so closely fitted together as to be bullet proof. Then for complete safety they cut small brush into pieces, and with them filled in what space remained between the two lines of poles.

"Now then," said Jack, "Camp Venture is in a state of defence. But it needs offensive as well as defensive advantages. We are pretty well protected against stray bullets by the wooden barrier we have erected, but we must also be able to shoot over it whenever that becomes necessary. Let's build a platform inside of it, so that one of us standing on it can see everything beyond and shoot as from a breast work, if those fellows insist upon shooting as a condition of the game."

So the boys built the platform of poles, with a little ladder leading up to it, and as it gave a full view of every part of the camp, it was decided that the sentry should thereafter be stationed there in a protected position, instead of being required to expose himself out under the cliff.

CHAPTER XVIII

Parole

During the next week or two after Christmas the boys made notable progress with their chopping, for even the Doctor had by this time become as expert as any of them in wielding an axe, while the other boys, who could scarcely be more expert with that implement than they were at the beginning, acquired a good deal of extra skill in the particular work they were now doing. They more readily recognized the use to which each piece of timber could be put; they acquired new deftness in shaping railroad ties to their destined use, so that the work was done more quickly and with a smaller expenditure of time and force; especially they learned and invented many devices to facilitate their handling of the great bridge timbers, of which they were now sending many down the chute.

All of them except Ed chopped all day. Ed volunteered to take the duty of camp guard upon himself all day every day, so long as his wound should incapacitate him for the hard work of chopping. There was double guard duty to do now of course, for in addition to the guarding of the camp there was the prisoner to watch. But now that the barricade with its platform was built in front of the hut, Ed was confident of his ability to watch both inside and outside, particularly as the wounded man was pretty nearly helpless still, and the boys took all the guns with them when they went chopping, except the one that Ed was using as sentinel. There was still another advantage in the fact that there was now nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and it would have been easy to see a man toiling over its white surface at a great distance.

So Ed played cook and camp guard all through the days and was excused from all night duty.

In the meantime there was no more trouble from the mountaineers, except that the wounded one in camp continually bewailed his fate and indulged in dismal forebodings of the long term he must serve in prison. Finally one Sunday, when his wounds were nearly well again, he said:

"It ain't so much for myself I care. I kin stand purty nigh anything. What I'm thinkin' about, boys, is my wife an' my little gal. You see my wife she's consumptive like an' not much fit fer work, an' my little gal, she's only six year old. So I don't know what's to become of 'em when I'm sent up, an' that'll be mighty soon now, as I'm gettin' well enough to walk."

"Now listen to me a minute," said Tom in a voice as stern as he could make it with the tears that were in it – for the picture presented to his mind of that poor invalid wife and still more of that little six year old girl left to struggle with that mountain poverty and starvation which he knew something about, had touched all that was tender in his nature.

"Now listen to me! I'm going to have a plain talk with you. The only reason you are to go to prison is that you tried your best to kill Ed. Why didn't you think of your wife and little girl before you committed that crime? Answer me honestly now!"

"Well, I will, Tom. You see I ain't much account. I ain't enough account to own a little share in one o' the stills that does a purty poor business up here in the mountings. So I has to live on odd jobs like, an' at best I barely manage to keep a little bread and meat in the mouths of my wife an' little gal an' a calico dress on their backs. No, that ain't edzacly the truth nother, an' as you an' me is talkin' fair an' square now, I don't want to misrepresent nothin'. I'll own up that oncet – just oncet I bought the little gal a doll down there in town, jest becase she seemed so lonely an' longin' like as she looked at it. It cost me five cents."

By this time all the boys had business with their handkerchiefs, which they felt it necessary to go out of doors to attend to.

After awhile Tom mastered himself sufficiently to say:

"Go on! Tell us why you shot Ed?"

"Well, as I wuz a tellin' you," resumed the mountaineer, "I ain't no account an' so I has to live by odd jobs. Well, when you fellers come up here, the other fellers made up their minds that you must go back, an' so they decided like to have you persecuted till you did go. So, as they didn't want to take the risk of the job theirselves, they come to me an' another feller – that feller what got his arm broke in your camp – "

"Yes, I remember him," said Tom; "go on and tell us all about it."

"Well, they come to us two no 'count fellers, him an' me, an' says, says they, 'ef you two fellers'll do the job we'll see as how you an' your families will have enough, meal an' meat, to last till blackberry time.' You see, we no 'count fellers always looked forrard to blackberry time. Ef we kin pull through till the blackberries is ripe, we're all right for a spell. Well, nuther on us liked the job, but we didn't see no way out'n it. So he come fust an' twicet. The second time he got too bad hurt like to go on with the job, an' so then I took it up. My pard he had reasoned and argified with you an' you wouldn't listen. So the fellers what was hirin' of me says, says they, 'Bill, you've got to shoot. If you kin drap one o' them fellers without gittin' caught they'll quick enough git out'n the mountings.' That's why I shot Ed. You see yourselves as how I couldn't help it."

All that Tom had tried to tell his comrades about the squalid poverty of the poorer class of mountaineers had made no such impression upon their minds as the prisoner's simple narrative. They were horrified at the destitution which he pictured and shocked at the dullness and perversion of his moral sense, manifested by his confident assumption that they would see that in trying to kill Ed he had done nothing wrong or unusual. Here was that degradation of mind and soul which frankly regards crime – even including the murder of innocent persons – as a legitimate means of livelihood – like the picking of blackberries – a degradation which nevertheless leaves the soul capable of emotions of affection and tender pity such as this man so manifestly felt for his invalid wife and his "little gal."

Unhappily this degradation, this perversion of the moral sense, is not confined to mountain moonshiners. There is very much of it in our great cities and it is the thing that gives the police force their hardest work. It is also the source of the most serious danger that threatens all of us.

The man had evidently finished with what he had to say, and as for the boys, they had from the first left this man's case in Little Tom's hands. Their throats ached too badly now with a pained pity, for them to make even a suggestion. So Tom took up the conversation.

"Now I want to say something to you," he said, "and I want you to try to understand me. You and I are talking, fair and square, as you said a little while ago, aren't we?"

"That's what we is, Tom," answered the man; "an' whatever you say'll be right, I don't doubt; but you see may be I won't quite understand it, like. I'll do my best. But I ain't got no eddication like. All I know is how to write my name, and may be print a few words on paper. The sergeant major taught me that when I was in the army."

"Then you served in the army?" asked Tom, somewhat eagerly.

"Yes, I was conscripted, but after I was conscripted I thought I mout as well be a good soldier as a bad one an' so I fought all I could. I never did make it out quite clear in my head what they was a fightin' about, but I says to myself, says I, 'Bill,' says I, 'you're in for this thing an' they's only one thing to do, an' that is fight as hard as you kin on the side yer on.'"

"Well if you were in the army," interposed Tom, "you know what a parole is?"

"Oh, yes, I know that. I had one o' them things oncet. That's how I got out'n the army. I was tooken pris'ner along with a lot of other fellers, an' after talkin' to us a lot, the officers what had us pris'ners sort o' explained the parole business to us, an' after we signed papers promisin' not to fight no more, they let us go home, tellin' us that ef we was caught fightin' agin they'd hang us. Fur a long time I was afraid the conscript officers would ketch me, an' make me fight again, but when one on 'em did ketch me at last he tole me he couldn't make me fight agin, 'cause I was a prisoner on parole. So I know mighty well what a parole means, though at first we all thought it meant a pay-roll an' that we was to be paid for not fightin'."

"Well you understand it better now," said Tom. "You understand that when a man is paroled, he promises not to fight again, and if he does, and is caught at it, he gets shot?"