The Trail of the Hawk: a Comedy of the Seriousness of Life

MP3 Audio CD. The Trail of the Hawk: a Comedy of the Seriousness of Life

Part I

THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH


THE TRAIL OF THE HAWK


CHAPTER I


Carl Ericson was being naughty. Probably no boy in Joralemon was being
naughtier that October Saturday afternoon. He had not half finished
the wood-piling which was his punishment for having chased the family
rooster thirteen times squawking around the chicken-yard, while
playing soldiers with Bennie Rusk.

He stood in the middle of the musty woodshed, pessimistically kicking
at the scattered wood. His face was stern, as became a man of eight
who was a soldier of fortune famed from the front gate to the
chicken-yard. An unromantic film of dirt hid the fact that his
Scandinavian cheeks were like cream-colored silk stained with
rose-petals. A baby Norseman, with only an average boy's prettiness,
yet with the whiteness and slenderness of a girl's little finger. A
back-yard boy, in baggy jacket and pants, gingham blouse, and cap
whose lining oozed back over his ash-blond hair, which was tangled now
like trampled grass, with a tiny chip riding grotesquely on one flossy
lock.

The darkness of the shed displeased Carl. The whole basic conception
of work bored him. The sticks of wood were personal enemies to which
he gave insulting names. He had always admired the hard bark and
metallic resonance of the ironwood, but he hated the poplar--"popple"
it is called in Joralemon, Minnesota. Poplar becomes dry and dusty,
and the bark turns to a monstrously mottled and evil greenish-white.
Carl announced to one poplar stick, "I could lick you! I'm a gen'ral,
I am." The stick made no reply whatever, and he contemptuously shied
it out into the chickweed which matted the grubby back yard. This