Caddie Woodlawn Read Online Free PDF

book from Uncle Edmund’s hand and opened the cover. Whiz! Something long and green flew out at her and fell into the path. Uncle Edmund shouted with laughter, and Caddie laughed, too, a little ruefully. She picked up the long green thing which lay in the path.
    â€œThat’s no snake,” she said. “It’s got a clock spring inside it.”
    â€œSay, Uncle Edmund,” cried Tom, “you’d ought to know you can’t fool Caddie on snakes or clock springs. Try that on Hetty.”

4. A Silver Dollar
    The next morning Uncle Edmund got out his gun and oiled and polished it. Then he polished his spectacles, for Uncle Edmund was near-sighted.
    â€œNow,” he said, “I’ve missed the pigeons, and that’s a great pity, for a near-sighted man can always bring down a nice bag of pigeons. But I must do the best I can. Who will go with me to help me sight my game?”
    Tom and Warren and Caddie stood beside him in breathless anticipation of this question. Uncle Edmund always asked it, and he always chose one of the three to go with him. More than one of them he would never take, for then, he said, they frightened the game away.
    The three children spoke up with one voice: “I’ll go, Uncle Edmund!”
    Uncle Edmund looked them over critically. “Tom, you went last time I was here. You’re pretty good, but you let a nice, fat squirrel get away. You remember?”
    â€œYah,” said Tom, “but if I’d had the gun he wouldn’t have got away.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble,” said Uncle Edmund regretfully. “And Warren, here, talks too much. I might as well take a fife and drum corps.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say a word,” shouted Warren. “I wouldn’t talk a bit. Just listen how quiet I could be.”
    â€œNo,” said Uncle Edmund, “I always have to fall back on Caddie in the end. I might as well start with her. She’s as good as a pointer for showing me the game, and she never tells me how to shoot it nor reproaches me when I miss my aim. Come along, Caddie.”
    Caddie opened her mouth to speak. She was going to say: “It’s too bad you little children have to stay at home. But, of course, we can’t take all of you.” But she closed it again without saying anything. After all, she did hate to see Tom and Warren disappointed, and also she didn’t want to find a frog in her bed or a pail of water arranged over her door in such a way as to give her a drenching when she came back.
    As she trotted along beside Uncle Edmund, she wasabsolutely happy. It was perfect Indian-summer weather. The birch trees were all a-tremble with thinning gold. The oaks and sugar maples were putting on their vivid red and orange hues, and river, lake, and sky were all sublimely blue.
    Uncle Edmund and Caddie struck across fields and through the woods to the lake. Nero went with them, for, although he had not been trained as a hunter, he loved to go hunting, and he had a strong affection for Uncle Edmund. Half drawn up on the shore of the lake were the Woodlawn children’s two prized possessions—a homemade raft, of small logs or poles fastened together with wooden pins, and the Indian canoe hollowed from a single log. The little Woodlawns could manage almost any craft in any kind of weather, but, although they spent half of their time on either lake or river, they had never learned to swim.
    Caddie ran ahead, her golden-red curls flying in the breeze. She threw her weight against the canoe and pushed it into the water. Then, her eyes shining with mischief, she jumped in and caught up the paddle.
    â€œBeat you to the end of the lake, Uncle Edmund,” she called. Uncle Edmund could swim, but he was no hand with a boat. He managed to get the raft afloat, and he and Nero scrambled aboard. Then he began to pole it down the lake. It swung from side to side and seemed to defy all of his attempts at