Cole of Spyglass Mountain
Arthur Preston Hankins
9781465548177
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Four boys, ranging from eleven to fifteen years of age, squatted close to earth in a wet, weed-rank city lot. It was spring, and the new warmth of the season’s birth was in the air. The lot was a vacant one, and perhaps would remain so for many years to come, because it was low, and the spring rains had made of it a veritable swamp. One boy was master of ceremonies, and the eager eyes of his companions were fixed on a chip of wood that he held in his hand, four inches above the ground. The chip was perhaps five inches square, and over it crawled a slug, a slimy, repulsive, helpless creature of the earth. Limax Campestris was the slug’s rather important-sounding name, but of this the boys knew nothing. “Aw, bet ye an agut he can’t get down!” volunteered one boy. “Which one o’ yere agates?” asked the one who held the chip. “My ole moony one,” was the reply. “Bet ye my moony agut against yer black-’n’-white one!” “Aw, his black-an’-white one’s half glass,” put in a would-be spoilsport. To show that he accepted the wager, the black-haired boy who had imprisoned the slug on the chip reached his right hand into his trousers pocket and laid a white-and-black-striped agate marble on the ground beside him. The tow-headed gambler who had offered the wager laid beside the black-and-white marble a milky-colored one, which was soft and showed tiny half-moons, the result of countless collisions with other “taws.” “Anybody else?” invited the boy who held the chip and its crawling inhabitant. Several bets were offered, ranging from so many “chinies” or “commies” or “glassies” to collections of jack-stones and other treasures dear to the heart of a boy, all of which the master of ceremonies accepted to the extent of his pockets’ contents. All eyes were again fixed on the slowly moving gastropod. “Now, lissen, Cole,” said one. “Ye’re bettin’ he c’n git down offen that chip ’thout jumpin’, eh? Is that it?” “Yes,” replied the dark-haired boy. “Er fallin’?” questioned another. “Er fallin’ either,” was the reply. “Aw, they’s a ketch in it somewheres, fellas,” was the warning of the third youthful sportsman. “He’ll let the chip down er somethin’.” “They ain’t any such thing,” retorted the boy called Cole. “I’m bettin’just like what I said. This here slug’ll let ’imself down on the ground an’ go on about his business ’thout me helpin’ ’im, er him jumpin’ er fallin’ er anything like that. An’ I’ll keep the chip four inches above the ground all the time, just like I got her now. Now you watch what I’m tellin’ you! Watch ’im!” “Aw, ye’re crazy!” derided the tow-headed boy. “Ye’re crazy, Cole!” The boy called Cole made no reply to this, but kept his fine gray eyes on his captive. A studious observer would have noted this boy’s remarkable face. His hair was coal-black and of heavy growth. In sharp contrast, his large eyes were a deep gray, almost blue, and the lashes that covered them were long and black as soot. The face was decidedly ascetic, the nose thin and almost Grecian. One noticed the mouth. It was youthful still, but even now there were settling about it faint traceries that bespoke determination. His was the face, almost, of a youth of twenty. But he had barely turned fourteen. Joshua Cole was the boy’s name. His schoolmates called him Cole, not because of his precocious gravity, but after the manner of boys of the age of twelve or thereabout as they begin to assume the ways of men. When they called him Josh they were in a frivolous mood and set on teasing him. But teasing Joshua Cole was fruitless. He merely smiled and looked steadily at his would-be tormentors out of his tolerant, grave gray eyes—eyes at the same time so serious and so whimsical as to baffle them to silence. A strange boy was Joshua Cole, always deep in some original, boyish experiment, as in the present instance, but universally liked by his associates.
