The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1894-08-28

peep amid the floating shadows, and
bright-eyed squirrels fit hither and
thither among the trees, and birds
twitter merrily overhead, and every
now and then u sturdy little Russian
hoy, rCund-faced and yellow-haired,
ome trudging past, with a basket of
mushrooms in his hand, looking up at
you rs he passes with wide, wondering
eyes.
But the forest is a very different
place when the winter winds are howl
Ing and the winter SHOWS are lying
deep, n not q CLEAN OF sunshine
breaks the cold, gray, lowering sky,
over which the great clouds roll us
thick and dark, in grim warning of the
coming storm. Then is the time to
pull your fur cap well over your face,
and head as straight as you a for the
nearest log hut, glancing warily about
you as you go, lest you should suddenly
find yourself confronted by the gaunt.
gray body and sharp, white teeth of q
hungry wolf on the lookout for ''some-
thing nice for supper"
thought Vania Johnny Masloff,
q Russian peasant boy belonging to the
hamlet OF Pavlovsk, in the northern
most corner of the province of Vologda,
as he struggled homcward through
the frozen forest at nightfall. He had
been sent IN an crrand by his father to
another village several miles Off, and
had spent so much time in games with
some of his playmatcs there, after his
work was done, that the sun was set
ting when ne started IN his way back.
1t was a dismal evening. The chill
ness Of tho frosty air felt like a cold
hand pressed against Vania's head to
push him back. Tho rising wind moan
ed drearily among the frozen trees
hat stood up white and gaunt on every
side like giant skeletons, and the dark
ening sky showed that there would be
more snow before morning.
Vania was II brave country boy, ac-
customed to trough it" in all wealth
ers and he would hayc cared little for
either Wind-o snow had that been all.
Bat there was something else which
was troubling him much more. In
the thick wood that he was travcrsing
"a gloomy place oven in broad day,
light--it had grown so dark the mo-
ment the sun sank, that oven he, who
knew every foot of the way by heart.
began to fear hat he must have got off
the right track, for the snow-drifts
seemed to grow deeper and deeper as
he advanced.
This thought Tin itself anything but
a pleasant One) was quickly followed by
oFoh ihot L ouO vi
the cold black depths of the forest rose
suddenly q hollow, long-drawn, dismal
sound, which Vania had heard too Of
ten not to know it at once for the cry
OF a wolf, or rather of several wolves
together.
The boy started to run, for with such
enemies on his trail there was no time
to be lost. But any n who has tried
running through knee-deep snow les.
pecially with the sitting cold of q rus
sian winter taking away one's breath
at every step knows what fearfully ex-
hausting work it is. He had barely ad-
vanced fifty yards when the horrible
cry broke out again, sharper, ~tiercer,
nearer than before. The monsters had
scented their prey, and in full
chase of him
Vania looked around him as he
ran, with a numb horror, such as he
had never felt before, tightening round
his bold heart. He was now in the
very worst place of ala wide clear
ing in the forest, where all the trees
had been felled except a few. If the
wolves caught him there he was lost,
and their yells seemed to come nearer
and nearer every moment.
All at once a dark shadowy mass
loomed up right in front of him, plain
even amid the blackness against the
ghostly white of the snow. He know
at once that it must be the huge pile of
split legs which he had noticed in pass
iro thatrafternoon, and he sprang up
IT Ike a wildcat; but he had barely
reached the top when the gloom around
him was alive with whisking tails, and
gnashing teeth, and fiery %greenish-
yellow eyes.
The next moment the wolves were
leaping up at him OF every side but
luckily the wood-pile was too high for
them to reach the top with one bound,
and Vania, snatching up a heavy piece
of wood, struck so ficrcely among the
scrambling monsters that at every
stroke a wolf dropped back in the
snow, bowling with pain, with a crush
cd paw, or a broken head.
The yolls OF tho wild beasts, and the
shouts of Vania himself, made such a
din amid the dead silcncc of the lonely
forest, that the boy began to hope that
some n might near it and come to
his assistance. But the help for which
he was looking seemed like to come too
late for the constant scrambling of
wolves up the sides Of the wood-pilc,
and Vania's violent leaps to and fro on
It's top, had begun to loosen the logs,
which were already tottering, and
must soon roll down altogethery fling
ing the poor lad right among tho
blood-thirsty jaws that we're gaping
and gnashing for him below.
But just when all seemed over, an
un-looked-for way of escape suddenly
presented itself. A pale CLEAN of
moonlight breaking through the gath
ering storm.clouds, showed our hero a
single tree standing behind tho wood
pile, and only u few feet away from it. |
Gould he make II spring n clutch
one of the branches, and so swing him
self up into the tree, he would be safe.
Gathering all his strength for the
perllous leap-for he knew hat if the
first attempt failed lie would ncverliyc |
into the empty air. The wolves yelled |
and leaped up at him, but it was too
late. Wanna had seized the u
bough. The slender limb bent and
cracked terribly beneath his weight,
but it did not give way, and in another
moment ne was safe among tho higher
branches, just as the whole pile of logs
came crashing down at once, burying
three or o of the wolves underneath
it.
But now that he was sitting up on
this uneasy perch, cramped and no
longer kept warm by the violent exer-
tiOn Of beating off the wolves, the
piercing cold OF the wintry night began
to tell upon him in earnest. Vania
was a true Russian, and could bear
without Hinching a degree of cold that
would have killed q native of q warm
err climate outright; but even he now
began to feel that he could not stand
much more OF this, and must either
drop down among the wolves or be