Whos your father? asked the man still suspiciously.
Deacon Winthrop, down to Muddy Creek Deepo.
Deacon Winthrop! Oh, I know him, ruther. A tall, skinny, dried-up kind of fellow, aint he, who looks as if most of his milk was turned sour, an the Hopkinsite Confession was a settin orful heavy on his digestion?
Hiram nodded several times successively, in acknowledgment of the general accuracy of this brief description. Thats him, you bet, he answered with unfilial promptitude. I guess youve seed him somwhar, for thats him as like as a portrait. Look here, say, Ill draw him for you. And the boy, taking his pencil from his pocket, drew as quickly as he was able on a scrap of birch-bark a humorous caricature of his respected parent, as he appeared in the very act of offering an unctuous exhortation to the Hopkinsite assembly at Muddy Creek meeting-house. It was very wrong and wicked, of course a clear breach of the Fifth Commandment but the deacon hadnt done much on his own account to merit honour or love at the hands of Hiram Winthrop.
The man took the rough sketch and laughed at it inwardly, with a suppressed chuckle. There was no denying, he saw, that it was the perfect moral of that thar freezed-up old customer down to the Deepo. He handed it with a smile to his two companions. They both recognised the likeness and the little additions which gave it point, and one of them, a Canadian as Hiram conjectured (for he spoke with a dreadful English accent so stuck-up), said in the same soft undertone: Do you know where any mink live anywhere hereabouts?
A little higher up stream, Hiram answered, overjoyed, I know every spot whar thers any mink stirrin for five miles round, anyhow.
The Canadian turned to the others.
Boys, he said, you can trust the youngster. He wont peach on us. Hes game, you may be sure. Now, youngster, were trappers, as you guessed correctly. But you see, farmers dont love trappers, because they go trespassing, and overrunning the fields: and so we dont want you to say a word about us to this father of yours. Do you understand?
Hiram nodded.
You promise not to tell him or anybody?
Yes, I promise.
Well, then, if you like, you can come with us. Were going to set our traps now. You dont seem a bad sort of little chap, and you can see the fun out if youve a mind to.
Hirams heart bounded with excitement. What a magnificent prospect! He promised to show the trappers every spot he knew about the place where any fur-bearing animal, from ermine to musk-rat, was likely to be found. In ten minutes, all four were started off upon their skates once more, striking up the river in the direction of the deacons, and setting traps by Hirams advice as they went along, at every likely run or corner.
You drew that picture real well, the Canadian said, as they skated side by side: I could see it was the old man at a glance.
Hirams face shone with pleasure at this sincere compliment to his artistic merit. I could hev done it a long sight better, he said simply, ef my hands hadnt been numbed a bit with the cold, sos I could hardly hold the pencil.
It was a grand day, that day with the trappers the gipsies of half-settled America; the grandest day Hiram had ever spent in his whole lifetime. How many musk-rats burrows he pointed out to his new acquaintance along the bank of the creek; how many spots where the mink, that strange water-haunting weasel, lurks unseen among the frozen sedges! Here and there, too, he showed them the points where he had noticed the faint track of the ermine on the lightly fallen snow, and where they might place their traps across the path worn by the coons on their way to and from the Indian corn patch. It was cruel work, to be sure, setting those murderous snapping iron jaws, and perhaps if Hiram had thought more about the beasts themselves (whom after all he loved in his heart) he wouldnt have been so ready to aid their natural enemies in thus catching and exterminating them: but what boy is free from the aboriginal love of hunting something? Certainly not Hiram Winthrop, at least, to whom this one glimpse of a delightful wandering life among the woods and marshes a life that wasnt all made up of bare fields and fall wheat and snake fences and cross-ploughing seemed like a stray snatch of that impossible paradise he had read about in Peter Simple and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean Sea.
Say, Bob, the Canadian muttered to him as they were half-way through their work (in Northern New York every boy unknown is ex officio addressed as Bob), we shall be back in these diggings in the spring again, looking after the summer furs, you see. Now, dont you go and tell any other trappers about these places weve set, because trappers generly (present company always excepted) is a pretty dishonest lot, and theyll poach on other trappers grounds and even steal their furs and traps as soon as look at em. You stand by us and well stand by you, and take care you dont suffer by it.
Whenll you come? Hiram asked in the thrilling delight of anticipation.
When the first spring days are on, the Canadian answered. Ill tell you the best sign: its no use going by days o the month we dont remember em mostly; but itll be about the time when the skunk cabbage begins to flower.
Hiram made a note of the date mentally, and treasured it up in safety on the lasting tablets of his memory.
At about one oclock the trappers sat down upon the frozen bank and ate their dinner. It would have been cold work to men less actively engaged; but skating and trapping warms your blood well. Got any grub? one of the men asked Hiram, still softly. Your trapper seems almost to have lost the power of speaking above a whisper, and he moves stealthily as if he thought a spectral farmer was always dogging his steps close behind him.
No, I aint, Hiram answered.
Then, thunder, pitch into the basket, his new friend said encouragingly.
Hiram obeyed, and made an excellent lunch off cold hare and lake ship-biscuit.
Are you through? the men asked at last.
Yes, Hiram replied.
Then come along and see the fun out.
They skated on, still upward, in the general direction of the blackberry bottom. When they got there, Hiram, now quite at home, pointed out even more accurately than ever the exact homes of each individual mink and ermine. So the men worked away eagerly at their task till the evening began to come over. Then Hiram, all aglow with excitement and wholly oblivious of all earthly considerations, became suddenly aware of a gaunt figure moving about among the dusky brushwood and making in the direction of his friends the trappers. Hello, he cried to his new acquaintances in a frightened tone, youd best cut it. Thars the deacon.