Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-03-22

this dream of my leaving home | have
had many times. and never yet have
been awakened by it. Always do
crash. shrieking down through the
brush and fetch up with a bump on
the ground.
Scratched and bruised and whimper-
ing. | lay where | had fallen. Peering
| uD through the bushes, | could see the
Chatterer. He had set up a demon
iacal chant of joy and was keeping
time to it with his lettering. | quickly
hushed my whimpering. was no
longer in the safety Of the trees. and
knew the danger | ran Of bringing
upon myself the hunting animals by
too audible an expression Of my grief
| remember. as my SObs died down
that | became interested in watching
the strange light effects produced by
partially opening and closing my tear
wet eyelids Then | began to inves-
tigatp and found that | was not so
very badly tamaped by my fall.
had lost ~o'"e hair and hide. here and
there TIE sharp and Jagged end Of a
broken branch had thrust fully an inch
into m fn"c2"'N ard my right hip.
which bod l,.,",,e 80 '.,~-pt of my con
tact with tho '~"9.''. ,.-' aching intOl-
erably But ~ - 81. were only
petty hurts. ~ '.t,. ,~e"e broken,
and i'm thOrp Ca.s '''.,'' n of man had
finer Dealing ora tie; tnan it has to-
day. Yet II was Se~erp fall for
limped with nv injured hip for fully
a week aft"rward
Next. as / lay in tn" bushes. there
came upon me a feeling Of deSolation.
a consciousness that was homeless.
| made up my mind never to return TO
nv mother and the Chatterer | would
go far away through the terrible forest
and find some tree for myself in which
TO roost. AS for food, | knew where
to find it. For the last year at least /
| had not been behOlden to my mother
! for food All she had furnished me
was protection and guidance.
! | crawled softly out through the
bushes. Once l looked back and saw
the Chatterer still chanting and teeter-
ing. 1t was not pleasant sight.
knew pretty well how to be cautions,
and | was exceedingly careful on this
my first journey in the world.
! | gave no thought as to where was
going. | had but one purpose and that
was to go away beyond the reach of
the Chatterer | climbed into the trees
and wandered on among them for
! hours, passing from tree to tree and
never touching the ground. But | did
not go in any particular direction nor
did | travel steadily. 1t was my ma
ture. as it was the nature of all my
folk. to be inconsequential. Besides,
was mere child. and stopped great
deal to play by the way.
The events that befell me on my
leaving home are very vague In my
mind. NV dreams do not cover them.
Much has my other self forgotten, and
particularly at this very period. Nor
have | been able to frame up the vari-
Gus dreams SO as to bridge the gap be-
tween my leaving the home tree and
my arrival at the caves.
| remember that several times
came to open spaces. These crossed
in great trepidation. descending to the
ground and running at the top of my
speed. | remember that there were
days of rain and days of sunshine, so
F.! that | must have wandered alone for
quite a time. l especially dream of
my misery in the rain and of my suf-
ferings from hunger and how | ap-
1eased it. One very strong impression
is of hunting little lizards on the rocky
top of an open knoll They ran under
the rocks, and most of them escaped,
but occasionally l turned over stone
and caught one. l was frightened
away from the knoll by snakes. They
did not pursue me. They were merely
basking on fat rocks in the sun. But
such was my inherited fear Of them
! that | fed as fast as if they had been
after me.
Then l gnawed bitter bark from
young trees. l remember vaguely the
eating of many green nuts with soft
shells and milky kernels. And | re-
member most distinctly suffering from
a stomach ache. 1t may have been
caused by the green nuts and maybe
by the lizards. l do not know. But
do know that l was fortunate in not
! being devOured during the SeVeral
hours l was knOtted up on the ground
with the collie.
My vision of the scene came abruptly
as l emerged from the forest. l found
myself on the edge of large clear
space. On one side of this space rose
I'D high bluffs. On the other side was
the river. The earth bank ran steeply
down to the water, but here and there
in several places, where at some time
slides of earth had occurred, there
were runways. These were the drink
ing places of the folk that lived in the
caves.
And this was the main abiding place
of the folk that had CHANGED upon.
This was, may say, by stretching the
word, the village My mother and the
Chatterer and l and a few other simple