Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Donn Fendler Read Free Book Online Page A

one way and then he’d swing his head and nip the other. He kept making grunting noises. I don’t see how he ever came so close to me without seeing me, but I kept mighty still. I hardly breathed. I knew I was a goner, if he took after me. I couldn’t run or climb a tree—not with those feet and legs. Pretty soon, he dropped down on his front feet and I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could hear him, breaking down the bushes as he went away.

CHAPTER 10
    E VER S EE A S WINK? • S EVENTH D AY
    B OY, I WAS lonesome when he was gone. I cried some and sat down and ate a few berries, and then I got up. I didn’t go very fast now—kind of picking my way from soft spot to soft spot. I had to take care of those feet—and were they sore ! The flies bothered me, too. I always carried my blue shirt over my arm, so as to protect my head with it if those bugs got too bad, and I was doing it now. That left only my reefer on my back, with the fleece inside.
    Those flies, the black ones, crawled up into the fleece and bit me all around my waist and around my neck—every place an edge showed. That was bad, for I couldn’t do anything but slap myself, and pretty soon I got so tired slapping, I just quit and let them bite.
    I found the road all right and the telephone wire, too. It was cooler but there were morebugs—mosquitoes as big as flies. I watched one fill up like a balloon and then drop off, too heavy to fly.
    Even with my blue shirt tied by the sleeves around my head, those mosquitoes bit me on the forehead and eyelids. I had to peek out to see where I was going. Sometimes my eyelids swelled up, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see anymore.
    Pretty soon I came to a fork in the road. The telephone wires went off to the left and a trail went off to the right. The stream was on the right, and I was afraid to get away from it for fear I wouldn’t have any water to drink. Every time I had left the stream, I had to go without water. I never found any springs or any other water fit to drink—just pools in rocks with green scum on top. I knew better than to drink any of that. I never drank any scumwater all the time I was in the woods.
    I stood for a long time thinking what to do about that fork in the trail. I tried to think what Dad or Henry would do about it. Finally, I guessed Henry would keep to the stream, because, if a fellow did that , he couldn’t help coming out somewhere. Besides, there had been a big storm over that country and hundreds of trees were down. What if the telephone wire ran into one of the “blow-downs”? What would I do, then?
    Well, no “blow-down” could plug up a stream and stop it from flowing. I decided to leave the wires and keep to the water. I was getting pretty weak by now, so when I reached the stream I got down on my stomach and took a drink. There were bloodsuckers in that water but I didn’t care, I drank a little and rested my head on the moss.
    That chipmunk was still following me and he came and chattered on a limb above me. But I didn’t pay any attention to him. I was too tired. I rested up a bit there and went on. I remember looking at my arms when I tried to get up. Boy, they were skinny! My arms were always strong, even if they weren’t big, but now they were just bony and so weak I could hardly make them work. I knew I had to get some food soon, but I wasn’t hungry anymore.
    I missed the easygoing on the tote road. The brush was very thick and so I had to wade in the water most of the time. I waded and scrambled and crawled until I couldn’t move another leg, then I lay flat on my stomach and rested.
    Once, as I went along, a stone turned over under my feet and I fell and hurt my hip. I thought, for a moment, it was broken, but the rush of the cold water around me made me struggle to get up and I found I could move my leg. Just below that spot I came to some rapid water. I was limping and,