Humbug Mountain Read Online Free PDF

actor’s voice, and it was fun to listen to him.
    Glorietta and I spent a good deal of time poring over the colored lithograph of Sunrise, with all its street names, a green park—and Humbug Mountain, with a dazzling cap of snow.
    â€œThat’s the funniest name for a mountain,” Glorietta said.
    It was peculiar-sounding, but I said, “If you had a mountain to name what would you call it—‘Morning Glory’ or ‘Buttercup’ or something sickening like that?”
    Ma glanced up from the book she was reading. It was one of Pa’s books of poems. She read them over and over the way I did my nickel novels. “Children, there may be inaccuracies on that lithograph. Town promoters are inclined to brag.”
    â€œBut Grandpa wouldn’t lie,” Glorietta said.
    â€œNo,” Ma answered. “But the artist may have fancied things up a bit. I’ll be surprised to find Sunrise quite so grand. Let’s wait and see.”
    We had to do an infernal amount of waiting. Day after day we went winding up the river, thumping and splashing around snags and bobbing tree roots. Sioux City came and went and finally I asked Captain Cully, “Sir, is it much farther to Sunrise?”
    He looked down his long, thin nose at me and grinned in an overly friendly way. “Why, we ain’t even to the Vermillion River yet.”
    And after the mouth of the Vermillion slipped behind us he gave me that same grin. “Sunrise? Why, we ain’t even in Yankton yet.”
    But Sunrise didn’t turn up after Yankton. Captain Cully seemed to do an awful lot of grinning now. He had some trick up his sleeve, I thought.
    The countryside had flattened out all around us. I couldn’t spy a hill, let alone a mountain. Captain Cully stayed up in the pilothouse mostly, spitting tobacco juice out the windows, and you had to be careful how you approached.
    â€œSir,” I said at last. “Are you certain we didn’t pass Sunrise far back?”
    His grin gave way to a chuckle. “Son,” he answered, “this river must be twenty-five hundred miles long—and I know every foot of it. Sunrise? There’s a big ol’ mulberry tree I’ve tied up to many a time. I’ll be putting you ashore in no time.”
    A heavy mist lay over the river the next morning. The Prairie Buzzard crept along slower’n a snail. At the bow one of the deckhands kept poking a stick in the water and we felt our way around the bends like a blind man tapping a cane.
    Finally there came a jingle of bells and the dark, ghostly shape of a great tree rose up on the left bank. Lines were quickly wrapped around the trunk, and then Captain Cully spit out the window.
    â€œSunrise, folks!” he called.
    â€œPossibly,” Pa answered. In that river fog Captain Cully might be pleased to let us off in the middle of nowhere.
    â€œTake a lantern and see for yourself, Colonel.”
    I followed Pa ashore and there, nailed to the mulberry tree, hung a sign.

    As soon as our belongings were set ashore the mooring lines were loosened and the Prairie Buzzard crawled away through the mist. But not before Captain Cully tipped his cap and shouted, “Four dollars a ton for buffalo bones—be glad to do business with you!”
    Once the riverboat disappeared we made a discovery. There was no regular landing—just the sturdy old mulberry for boats to tie up to. And wherever Sunrise was, it wasn’t on the riverbank the way the picture showed.
    As we began to explore around for the town, Glorietta slipped off her brass-rimmed spectacles. She wasn’t going to meet Grandpa with window-eyes. The fog spread only a short distance beyond the riverbank and we walked smack into fresh morning sunlight.
    Pa took a slow look around. We all looked around. The only thing to be seen across the flat prairie was a string of cottonwoods to the south a mile or so off. Maybe that’s where we’d