Read Online Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink - Free Book Online Page B

about the fire and the lamp, the Woodlawns made their own society, nor wanted any better. One evening soon after Caddie’s adventure in the attic, they were all gathered together thus. Everyone who belonged was there—except Nero. Caddie missed the faithful head resting against her knee. They were recalling old adventures that they had had, and now Clara was speaking in her gentle voice.
    â€œYes,” she said, “it was the first winter we were out here. We lived at Eau Galle then, near the mill, and we had school in the tavern. Caddie and Tom were little then, and Warren was a baby.”
    â€œWhere was I ?” demanded Hetty.
    â€œYou hadn’t come yet.”
    â€œGo on and tell,” urged the other children. They all sat about the big stove, cracking butternuts between hammer and stones, and dropping the meats into a wooden bowl.
    â€œThere isn’t much to tell,” continued Clara in her soft voice, “only I came through the woods one day and I saw a bear eating a little pig.”
    â€œWhere did he get it?” asked Warren.
    â€œFrom one of the farms, I guess.”
    â€œWere you scared?” asked Hetty.
    â€œOh!” said Clara, putting her slim hand against her heart. “I was so scared. It makes my heart thump yet to think of it!”
    â€œI wouldn’t have been so scared,” boasted Tom. “Remember, Caddie, when we saw the wolves?”
    â€œUh-huh!” said Caddie, her mouth full of butternuts.
    â€œTell about that,” said Warren. “I wish I’d been there.”
    â€œWell, one time the cows got into the swamp, and Caddie and I went after them to bring them home, and right in the swamp we met a wolf.”
    â€œDid he bite you?” asked little Minnie breathlessly.
    â€œNo, he just stood and looked at us, and we looked at him.”
    â€œI’d have shot him or hit him with a rock,” said Warren.
    â€œYou hold your tongue, Warren,” said Tom. “I guess you’d have done the same as us, if you’d been there. I don’t know what would have happened next, if two big hounds hadn’t come along and chased him away.”
    â€œAw, you’re making it up,” said Warren, who was always skeptical of any adventures which Tom and Caddie had without him.
    â€œNo, honest,” said Tom. “Caddie will tell you the same thing. The hounds were after him—that’s why he acted so funny. They belonged to a man down the river.”
    â€œRobert Ireton can tell a better one than that,” said Warren. “He says there was a fiddler coming home through the woods late one night from a dance, and a pack of wolves took after him. He saw he couldn’t get away from them, so he stopped and played his fiddle to them, and they all went away and let him go home in peace.”
    â€œI know!” said Tom. “It’s true, too. Robert had it from a man who married the fiddler’s sister.”
    Mr. Woodlawn smiled at his wife and said: “Ireton knows how to tell a good story as well as sing a good song, I see.”
    Caddie had been listening to the stories in silence. Now she suddenly jumped up, shaking the nutshells from her apron into the wood basket. Without a word, she caught up one of the candles which burned on a side table and ran upstairs to the attic. She hastily went through the contents of one of the boxes until she found what she was seeking; and downstairs she ran again, almost before the others had ceased gaping over her sudden departure.
    â€œLook!” she said. She held up a small pair of scarlet breeches and two little wooden-soled clogs.
    â€œWell, of all things!” cried Mrs. Woodlawn. “Wherever did you get those?”
    â€œIn one of the boxes in the attic.”
    â€œWhat are they? What are they?” cried the children, leaving their nuts to crowd nearer.
    â€œI don’t know whose they are,” said Caddie. “There must be a