Tommy the Hawker and Snifter His Boy (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922. Excerpt: ... Chapter 11. THE FOUNDLING. SNIFTER was curled up in his 'possum rug in the back of the dark waggon, sniffing even in his sleep. Outside there was the white light of a round, silver moon playing on the yellows water of the dam and the clusters of saplings.; but the folding front of the waggon was strapped down, and no vagrant moon-ray could steal in to disturb the dreams of innocence. Tommy the Hawker was down in the small township of tents clustered about a puddler on the bank of the creek, and from one of the larger tents, where guttering candles lit a smoky interior, came excited voices, reiterating the phrases familiar to pokerplayers. Nothing more is.necessary to explain the fact that at one in the morning 'Umpy was thoughtless of sleep. 'Enery Ingham in his rug slept a good deal like a joey in the maternal depository. He curled himself tip into the smallest possible kind of knot. and with his nose tucked in between his knees dreamed a dream. The dream was of a young monkey bear that haunted him. Its thin human crying was incessant. Sometimes it was simply a native bear with the natural sorrows of an orphan, at other times it in worried Snifter byassuming a human face, the tiny, pitiful face of a human babe. Snifter could not shake it off. He had shot the mother bear that evening, and here was the joey haunting him. What business had it with a human face? Snifter looked again, and the monkey bear was a dead woman, pale and bleeding, at the foot of the tree. The boy sat up with a yell, and stared into the darkness with terrified eyes. Thank God it was only a dream. He turned over in his rug, and curled up again. But was it a dream? The thin, incessant crying pursued him. He asked himself definitely--Was he awake? He was. That point being settled, did ...