Читать книгу Friends and Foes in the Australian Bush - Edward Sorenson - Страница 7

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Quiyan, the grey Possum, came to realise the stern realities of life in the dawn of a Spring morning. He was a pretty little ball of fur as he lay snugly coiled in his mother's pouch, his pink nose buried in the folds of his own sleek body. It was getting light, and he wanted to sleep. Time after time he snuggled down, but only to move restlessly again, and wonder why his mother was so still and cold. Then he put his head out, and saw that she was hanging by the neck from a pole which was leaning against the tree where she had been feeding. Looking around, he noticed similar poles set everywhere through the great forest, and, under many of them, Possums were hanging, with a noose round their necks.

While his pretty, round eyes were still staring in affright, the trapper came quickly through the bushes behind him. He had never seen a man before, but instinct told him that this monster that walked on its hind legs was an enemy, and he made an effort to wake his mother, to hurry her home. The trapper, grown callous in his work of slaughter, dragged him out by the neck. He would have thrown him to the waiting dogs, but Abe, the trapper's son, came up and said he wanted him for his cousin Joe, who had written to ask for one.

Abe handled him tenderly, and, after admiring his dainty hands, and stroking his soft fur, tucked him under his arm. In this position, Quiyan was taken the round of the traps. Later he came to know much about the dreaded trapper and his work.

The artful trapper took advantage of the possum's preference to come headfirst to the ground by the easiest incline. So he rested a pole against the trees on which he found claw-marks, and fitted it with a wire noose suspended to a stronger wire to keep it in position. Into this noose the possum put his head as he walked down the inclined pole.

The trapper started out early so as to beat the crows and hawks. He skinned the dead possums and reset the traps as he went. The rest of the day was spent in pegging out the skins at the camp, packing those that were cured, and making fresh pegs and snares. When he shifted camp, these snares made a cartload in themselves. His wife and children, living in tents, shared with him the lonely forest life. Besides horses and a serviceable vehicle, they had a couple of cows, which were milked in a rough bail rigged in a sapling yard. A flock of fowls was also kept, but the much-travelled hens had frequently to make new nests in the middle of their laying. A low tree near camp suited them to roost in, but Buckandees (native cats) and bushy-tailed rats gave a lot of trouble. The worst foe of the trapper, however, was the Dingo, who stole his possums at night. The struggling of the animals when caught often caused the pole to fall, and even when it retained its position against the tree it was not always safe.

Scores of young possums like Quiyan were torn ruthlessly from the parent pouches, but none of them were brought to camp to keep him company in the box Abe had made for him. The naked "joeys" made dainty morsels for the trapper's dogs, while the furred ones were liberated so that their skins, by-and-bye, might return him half-a-crown to half-a- sovereign each.

The trapper found them in all stages of growth, from a lifeless-looking atom, no bigger than a peanut, which had been placed on the teat by the mother, shortly after it had been born. This was usually about June. For a long time that speck of life was fed automatically, and was held on by a little bulb on the end of the nipple. This formed after the hard and pointed nipple was placed in the mouth. Thus, once removed in its embryo state it could not be replaced, and so must perish. The pouch, which was at first small, and the opening narrow, now developed quickly. The "joey" was as big, or bigger, than a new-born kitten before the fur began to appear. About the same time it became a separate, self-feeding animal. It then showed considerable activity and its growth was rapid. Soon it found the snug quarters, where it had snuggled for months, getting cramped, and had some difficulty in turning round, while the mother's movements were hampered with the increasing burden. She did not travel much these days, or climb any more than she could help. Still she did not yet cast the little one forth to look after itself. For a time it looked out of the pouch at the great strange world around it, while its mother fed it or sat purring on a limb, and its first taste of gum leaves was obtained while still in that snug retreat. At first it came half out, then it left the pouch for short periods.

The days in the nursery were now soon over, for the young one became too large to carry. Still, he was not turned away from the parent roof tree with a mother's blessing and not a gum leaf in his pocket, for he would probably go about with her, and share the nest with her, until the next season. At that time, his father, who had been away, reaping a planter's crop and neglecting his home and family responsibilities, would return and kick him downstairs. In these times, when it was a strenuous matter to exist, with so many foes around, and the full splendour of the ancestral forests a mere dream, the father, who had no burden to shackle his wandering feet, very often did not see his child. Not that he wanted to see him very much, or would recognise him if he met him at dinner, but the mother was widowed--or she married again. In either case, the little one had to go for good, and find a hollow for himself. With the continual thinning of forests, this was not an easy matter, unless he went away into new country. Many eventually did so.

In due time, Quiyan was delivered into the hands of Joe Grimby, who lived on a farm on the Richmond River. Though possums were numerous in the neighborhood, Joe made a great fuss over the orphan. His sisters, who were older than Joe, made more fuss still. They said he was a dear little creature, and they laughed till the tears came into their eyes when he hugged Joe round the neck, or clung to his matted hair. Their shrieks and contortions of delight astonished him at first, but they treated him so gently and caressingly that his timidity soon wore off. Indeed, he became ere long a cheeky and mischievous little imp.

Joe built him a large cage, with a dark corner in it, where he could snuggle up in soft corn husks, and fed him on gum and wild apple leaves, fruits and grain, varied with damper, cooked corned meat, and sugar. He was provided nightly with a clean saucer, from which he lapped milk and water with gusto, and sometimes sweet black tea.

Joe brought him to table with him at tea time, and, when a piece of bread was offered to him, he put out his pretty little paw for it, and sat up to eat it like a human being.

He took kindly to Joe. He would perch on his shoulder and purr, and, when he found the opening in Joe's shirt front, he liked him better than ever. Joe was his new mother, and here was the pouch he had so long missed. He got half into it, but his sharp claws touched Joe's ribs, and he was violently ejected, while Joe danced, and his sisters went into hysterics. This astonished him, and he desisted. Still, he was satisfied with Joe. He was evidently a marsupial of some kind.

Joe's father, however, he regarded with suspicion, for he was a fierce- looking monster like the trapper. Grimby treated him with good-humoured indifference, until an incident one night raised his ire against Quiyan and all his kind.

Grimby was having tea, and discoursing un-learnedly, to his admiring family, on the nationalisation of coal mines, when Quiyan, who latterly had been allowed the freedom of the house at night time, sprang down from the wall-plate on to the old man's bald head. The roof-lifting roar that came from Grimby, and the jump he gave, caused his good wife to drop the teapot on the cups, and the baby to topple off its high stool. Quiyan was so startled by all this, that he leaped on to the table, where he sat with his tail in the butter, and stared at the monster. Joe snatched him up, and disappeared for half-an-hour. When he returned, his father was able to deliver himself more calmly on the situation.

"You get rid of that little beast, Joe, as soon as you like, or there'll be a row. The idea of making pets of possums on a farm! One of the greatest night pests we have--next to wallabies, and parrimallas, and bandicoots. Look down the farm now! Round every tree and stump the corn's stripped."

Joe could not but admit that in such localities the possum was content to take up his residence in a dead tree, or even in the root of a stump, to save travelling. His rambles at any time never took him far from home. He must have trees, and, when they went, he had to go too. Joe humbly suggested that the best remedy was to move the trees.

"What," asked Mr. Grimby, ignoring the suggestion as beneath notice, "what does he do in the wheatfields? He hadn't been very long acquainted with wheat, but he soon showed ability to adapt himself to circumstances. He couldn't climb the wheatstalk, so he nibbled at the bottom till it fell, and ate the head of grain on the ground. In the barn he did better, and, making his abode on a wall-plate now and again, showed a desire to live there. When he found a stack of bagged wheat, he made his presence felt more than ever. He called his kind to the feast, and they feasted. They spent the night there, for the heaped bags were just fine for racing over between meals, and for mischief, and doing handsprings, and playing leapfrog. In the morning the farmer found holes eaten in his bags, and wheat scattered all over the place. And you want to set him up in the house, and make a pet of him!"

Like most Australians, Joe had a warm spot in his heart for the nimble possum, and he had no sympathy with the hunter when the hunted scored against him. The grey possum, he argued, was a frisky, sportive little animal when not seriously molested, and he was inquisitive, fond of sweets, and always on the lookout for a change of diet. These propensities often led him into mischief, but he was not a pest any more than the horse, or cow, or pig, or the fowl, any one of which would do more damage if it got at a wheat stack.

Quiyan was kept in his cage that night for his own good. Mr. Grimby was a fussy, nerve-sensitive man at best, and a gambol so soon after the tea-table episode would be fraught with peril. But the following night, when everybody had gone to bed, Joe let him out. He first closed all openings about the house, including the chimney top, so that the possum could not get away into the bush. He put some green leaves, bread, sugar, and water near the cage to keep him from rambling; but he rambled all the same.

Joe was awakened by the falling of the clock, and immediately afterwards two glass vases clattered down and smashed. Joe knew at once it was his pet, and, hearing a commotion in Grimby's room, together with some remarks befitting the occasion, he slipped out quickly to capture him before his father found the matches.

A great clatter of falling tins and a bottle of spirits from the mantelpiece guided him. He captured the little mischief, and regained his room as Grimby fell over the rocking chair. Then, while the latter fumbled and groped about, he opened the back door, hauled the cat in, and returned to bed.

By the time Grimby had found the matches, the cat was purring round his legs It got a reception that surprised it, while Mrs. Grimby was soundly rated for shutting up the house without putting the cat out. Nothing was said about the possum.

Next night, Quiyan was kept in again by way of punishment. But he managed to get out, and the window being up, he was very shortly viewing the situation from the top of a post. The bush was calling, calling. Again, he was dissatisfied with a mother who slept all night, and only got up when it was time to go to bed. He jumped down, and bounded away into the world of trees.