Bertha and Her Baptism
BERTHA AND HER BAPTISM. By the Author of AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY; _or_, BEREAVED PARENTS INSTRUCTED AND COMFORTED. BOSTON: S.K. WHIPPLE AND COMPANY, 161 WASHINGTON STREET. 1857. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by S.K. WHIPPLE & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
rendezvous. When we arrived at this spot on the following day, the
horsemen had not turned up, so we amused ourselves as best we could,
fishing, shooting, and eating damper thickly plastered over with honey, for
Larry had found a "sugar bag."
The way the trooper performed this feat was not a little ingenious. Having
noticed several bees about, he caught one, and with a little gum, attached
to it a piece of down from a large owl that somebody had shot. Releasing
the insect, it flew directly towards its nest, the unaccustomed burden with
which it was laden serving not only to make it easily visible, but also
impeding its flight sufficiently to admit of the boy following it. The
next was at the top of a large blue gum tree, about three feet in diameter,
and sending up a smooth column for fifty feet without a branch or twig.
Most people would have given up all thoughts of a honey feed for the day;
not so Mr. Larry, whose movements we followed with considerable curiosity.
Divesting himself of his clothing, he repaired to an adjoining scrub, and
with his tomahawk cut out a piece of lawyer cane twenty feet in length.
Having stripped this of its husk, he wove it into a hoop round the tree of
just sufficient size to admit his body. Slinging his tomahawk and a
fishing-line round his neck, he got inside the hoop, and allowing it to
rest against the small of his back, he pressed hard against the tree with
his knees and feet. This raised him several inches, when with a dexterous
jerk he moved the portion of the hoop furthest away from him a good foot up
the stem, and thus -- somewhat on the same principle that boys climb a
chimney, for the hoop represented the chimney -- he worked himself upward,
and in much less time than I have taken to describe it, was astride on the
BERTHA AND HER BAPTISM. By the Author of AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY; _or_, BEREAVED PARENTS INSTRUCTED AND COMFORTED. BOSTON: S.K. WHIPPLE AND COMPANY, 161 WASHINGTON STREET. 1857. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by S.K. WHIPPLE & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.