Читать книгу Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 14

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HEN Nat awoke the next morning, he lay quite still for a moment, rubbing his eyes and wondering what it was that he was trying to remember.

He did not seem to be in any more of a hurry to get up than the sun, who was only beginning to peep through the most southerly corner of the orchard trees, instead of being up above them at this hour, as had been his habit all summer.

Nat finally opened his eyes and looked toward the window, still half dreaming about Wild West Shows, animal trees, and four-footed Americans, wondering why the light was so speckled. Then as he saw the frost crystals that covered the panes with their beautiful fern traceries, it all came back like a flash, and he jumped out, shouting, "There's been a hard frost, and we are to go nutting to-day, and hear about the surprise!"

At the same moment Dodo's sturdy fist pounded on the door. Bang, bang, bang! "Aren't you up yet, Nattie? I am, and all dressed." Bang. "My boots laced to the very top, and my teeth cleaned with powder." Bang, bang, bang! Lacing her boots and cleaning her teeth were usually two weak spots in Dodo's toilet, and the fact that she had done both so early in the morning made Nat feel sure that something unusual was afoot.

"Yes, I'm up," said Nat, "and I'll be ready in a minute."

"Father says, put on your thick very old clothes, and the old boots with the scraped skin."

"Where are we going? Was there a big frost?" spluttered Nat, struggling with his sponge full of water.

"Uncle Roy said he would tell when we are all dressed. I can't seem to make Olive hurry one bit, and breakfast will be at seven, and it's a quarter to, now. Only look out, and you'll see what kind of a frost there was,"—and Nat could hear the squeak and flop that she made as she slid down the bannisters and landed on the rug at the foot of the stairs.

He wiped off the frost with his towel and looked out. Near the house everything was glittering with diamonds, for Jack Frost had only fingered the nearby things, but down in the low pasture by the spring the blackened ferns showed where he had walked with his heaviest boots. There was quite a commotion and bustle over by the barns. The long market wagon with all three seats screwed in place was pulled out of its shed, and Rod was putting bundles of straw in the bottom. Mysterious baskets stood about, and in one Nat thought he saw a tea-kettle. Who was that man in a queer furry-looking cap, thick short coat, and leggins buttoned up to his knees? Nat looked again and then exclaimed to himself, "Why, it's daddy, and the other humpy-looking man is uncle!" Then he hurried on with dressing as the only means of solving the mystery.

This morning there was a roaring fire in the Franklin stove in the dining-room. This stove, which is a sort of open fireplace on legs that stands out a little way from the chimney, throws more heat into the room than a hearth fire.

"Now," said the Doctor, coming in with his arm around Olive, who met him in the hall, "hold your ears wide open and stand away from the table so that you will not break the china.

"We are going to the far-away hickory woods, where we expected to go on Dodo's birthday to look for owls! Stop a moment! that is not all. Instead of taking sandwiches and such things for lunch we are going to take pots and pans and food and play camp-out and cook our dinner and supper in the woods, and come home by moonlight!"

"That will be fine," said Olive. "I half expected this last night."

"Jolly!" cried Nat.

"But," said practical Miss Dodo, "if we are to cook, Mammy Bun will have to go, and being out after dark will make her grumble about her bones."

"I am the c-oo-k who is going with you to-day," said Mr. Blake, coming in; "and a very good cook, too, I can tell you."

"Why, daddy," exclaimed both children, "can you cook, and out in the woods, without any stove, too?"

"Indeed I can, and many's the day that your Uncle Roy and I have not only had to cook for ourselves, but catch or shoot our own provisions, and as for stoves—we often hadn't even a bough wind-break over us, and slept on the ground in our blankets."

"On the ground? And wasn't it wet, and didn't things bite you? Ah, what is that? Come, look out here, Uncle Roy. Wolf and Quick have caught some kind of a wild beast. It's too small for a Fox. What is it?"

"One of the big Woodchucks who would not go in the trap we set in the rocky pasture, and who is rather late in holing up. They generally go to sleep for the winter before hard frost."

"Why don't they freeze?" said Dodo. "You told us once that it was very extra dangerous to go to sleep out doors in cold weather,—that we would freeze in a twinkling."

"Is that beast one of the four-footed Americans you are going to tell us about?" asked Nat. "What queer long teeth he has: two upper and two under ones, with straight edges, and no little pointed ones like our eye-teeth. Do the four-footed Americans belong to guilds the same as the birds do, Uncle Roy?"

"Yes, my boy; and those four powerful teeth show to what guild the Woodchuck belongs,—the greatest guild among the Mammals,—the Gnawers.

"Mother is coming," said Dodo, going to the stairs to meet her, as Mammy Bun came in the opposite door with the coffee-pot. "Now everything is started, 'cause nothing really begins right end up until mother comes!"

The Woodchuck.

The Doctor would not let the children hurry their breakfast, and Mr. Blake said, "Eat all you can now, for you may not like my cooking."

"Are you not going to take some cake or bread, or at least cold chicken?" asked Mrs. Blake.

"No, dear; not even bread. Ginger cookies are the only cooked food allowed. I want to give the children a nibble at the way people live who explore, or hunt, or for any other reason take to a wild life. Don't worry; we shall neither starve nor be out quite all night, though it may be late before we return."

Tom and Jerry were harnessed to the farm wagon, so Comet was left home by himself. "You see this wagon is only suitable for stout horses," said Tom, with a wink to his mate, as they drove round to the house.

"Are you sure you have everything?" asked Mrs. Blake, anxiously.

"I will give you a list of our belongings: a tea-kettle, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, and a small tin kettle, six tin plates, cups, knives and forks, salt, pepper, sugar, coffee, flour, part of a ham, a dozen eggs, a small bag of potatoes, a quart of beans, a ball of stout cord, my shot-gun, a small axe, a shovel, and plenty of matches."

"'Pears like you uns was calkerlatin' to plant a gardin, wif beans and p'taters and a shovel," chuckled Mammy Bun, who was never far away when a picnic was about to start. "For de law's sakes, Massa Doctor, do fetch along a jar o' sas,—all dem vittles am chokin' dry!"

"Mr. Blake is the cook, and you know, mammy, cooks don't like to be interfered with."

"No mo' do they," she chuckled.

*****

They stopped at Rap's house and found him waiting, with a feed-bag, all ready for the nuts he expected to get.

"Which way are the hickory woods?" asked Olive; "toward the shore or inland?"

"Inland and almost twenty miles due north of here. There was a logging camp there years ago. I am sure that you have never been in that direction."

"Is there any river in the woods?" asked Rap. "Perhaps we may see some wild ducks."

"There is a strong, swift river beyond where we are going, though I am not sure that we shall get so far to-day, but there is a small river and pond near the hickory woods, where you may see ducks. It is by the big river that the lumber camp is, where Olaf expects to stop for a few months this winter."

Some of the trees that were almost covered the day before had dropped their leaves entirely after the hard frost, and the Red Squirrels were chattering and running along the stone fences. One little fellow was carrying a nut in each cheek, and looked very comical, as if he either had the mumps or a toothache.

"I never noticed before how many Squirrels there are about here. I suppose because the leaves hid them. Are they Mammals, Uncle Roy, and what guild do they belong to?" asked Dodo.

"Yes, they are Mammals, and they belong to the same guild as the Woodchuck,—the Gnawers. Watch that little fellow as he sits up and turns the nut about with his paws, which he uses quite as we do our hands. See how quickly he gnaws through the hard shell."

"So he does," cried Nat.

"Chipmunks gnawed up a lot of our seckle pears this year before they were ripe," said Rap. "They seemed to want the seeds, for they left the fruity part chipped up all over the grass under the tree."

"That is one of their habits; in fact, the bad habit of the whole guild, that they destroy much more than they need for food."

"Most of the little beasts hereabouts belong to the Gnawers, don't they, Doctor!" asked Rap. "Squirrels, Chipmunks, Muskrats, Rats, Mice, Woodchucks, Rabbits, and all such things?"

"Yes, all those belong to the Gnawers, and some of them we call vermin, or, as Dodo says, 'Nuisance Animals,' who do more harm than good. Yet many of them are wonderfully intelligent, and it seems hard sometimes to say that we should kill even one of these little mischief-makers.

"The great balance wheel of Nature is so carefully made and well planned by its Maker that we must always touch it reverently."

"What do you mean by balance wheel, Uncle Roy?" asked Nat.

"This, my lad. In this world of ours nothing, from the least grain of sand to the strongest animal, was made for itself alone. Each thing depends upon some other thing, which is equally dependent in its own turn. So we may compare this plan to a wheel which, though it is made of many different parts,—hub, spokes, rim, and tire,—would not be a useful, perfect wheel if even a single spoke were missing, so much does the strength of the whole depend on even the least part. We may think that this animal or that is of no use, until we find by experience that it filled its place as a small but important spoke in this life-wheel."

"But, father," said Olive, "it is surely necessary for us to kill Rats and Mice and other nuisance animals?"

"Certainly, we must kill them now because the balance wheel has been so disturbed that these animals have multiplied out of their due proportion and we have made ourselves responsible for their increase. This is a penalty man has to pay in many ways for eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He has to labor to accomplish many things that Heart of Nature intended doing for him."

"Then maybe if people hadn't shot so many Owls and good Cannibal Birds, it would have helped keep down the nuisance animals," ventured Dodo. "Oh, uncle, what are those funny little haystacks down in the water in the marsh meadow?

"Muskrat huts. Stop a minute, Olive, and let us look at them," said the Doctor, shading his eyes with his hands. "The animals who make their homes in those haystacks, as Dodo calls them, are very curious as well as both mischievous and useful. They look like something between the Woodchuck the dogs brought in this morning and a great Rat. They are a little under a foot long, and they can swim as fast as a Duck. Their front toes have long claws for scratching, and their back toes webs for swimming. They live in the banks of rivers and ponds in summer, and retire into these huts, made of rushes and old weeds, before winter. They will suck eggs and steal poultry like common Rats. They have a stiff, hairy-looking coat, but underneath it is soft, beautiful fur. Why, that old cap your father is wearing is Muskrat fur—where did you get it, Blake?"

Front Paw and Tail of Muskrat.

"Out West, with many other such things to keep out cold. But this is only the common uncolored skin; the furriers dye it a soft brown, selling it for French seal,—and a very pretty fur it is, too, for caps and mittens."

"There seem to be a good many wild animals about here, even though it's a pretty tame place—I mean a civilized place," said Nat, correcting himself. "I never thought that we should find fur beasts so near home. I'd like to see into one of those Muskrat houses, uncle."

"And so you shall, as soon as it is cold enough for the water that surrounds it to be frozen so that we can walk to them. The story of that animal and his cousin, the Beaver, is enough to fill a book all by itself."

After they had jogged along a fairly level road for a couple of hours, the children asking questions and begging to get out at intervals, to pick up some particularly nice apple that had fallen outside a fence and been passed by in the general harvest, they turned into a lane road with turf between the wheel tracks. The ground now began to rise in a zig-zag fashion between a wall of hemlock and pine trees, under which were mats of ground pine, partridge berry, and wintergreen.

Whirr-whirr, and a pair of large brownish birds flew up from the roadside and disappeared in some bushes.

"What were those birds as big as chickens?" screamed Dodo. "Oh, why didn't some one catch them? They went right by your nose, Olive!"

"I think partly because I was as much surprised as they were," laughed Olive.

"As fine a pair of Ruffed Grouse as one could wish for dinner," said Mr. Blake.

"Ah, papa, you wouldn't eat them?" wailed Dodo.

"Why not, girlie? They are game birds made for food; their nesting is over, and this is the season that the Wise Men say we may take them by fair hunting."

"What is fair hunting? I don't think any hunting is fair."

"Using no trap or snare, but following the game afoot, if it be birds with gun and dog, killing no more than you need. If it is a Deer, Elk, Moose, or Antelope, using your own perseverance and rifle without a dog, and never taking a doe or fawn unless absolute starvation stares you in the face."

"But if you are trying to kill nuisance animals?" asked Rap.

"Then use gun, trap, snare, poison, or any other means you have; but never put a nuisance animal to torture—never leave even a rat to die miserably in a trap."

"I guess I'll let you do my hunting for me, daddy," said Dodo, duly impressed. "I'd rather not kill anything myself."

"And I had much rather you would not," said Mr. Blake, putting his arm around her. "Keep your little heart tender. There is greater need for such things than for game and guns in this world nowadays, little daughter. I would not now willingly kill a big game animal myself and see the light fade from its bright eyes and the last flutter of its breast."

"It wouldn't be any harm if we learned how to shoot, would it, daddy?" asked Nat. "'Way back in the summer Uncle Roy said perhaps you would teach me some time, and Rap, too," for the boys had long since become inseparable.

"Certainly, you shall learn this very fall. Every man should know how to shoot and handle a gun properly, if need requires. Shooting game fairly is a manly art, and it is also a manly art to know when and what not to shoot."

"See the river," said Dodo. "You called it little, but it is much bigger and swifter than our river. Oh, what a queer bridge, and all the evergreen trees are on the rocks on one side, and great tall barky trees with no leaves on the other."

"This is the beginning of the hickory wood, where we are going. It looks to me as if some one had been making improvement here, since my day," said the Doctor. "Though the biggest trees are gone, the dead ones seem to have been taken away from year to year, and the young growth encouraged."

"Stop a minute, Olive; your father, Nat, and I will walk this last mile; the road is too steep and rough for a full load."

"Is the far west country wilder than this?" asked Dodo, who of course wished to walk with the others, holding tight to her uncle's hand. "I think it's lonely enough for Tigers here, if it was only warm enough."

"Bless my heart, this is not wild! You have a road to walk on; you know where you came from and where you are going. To call a country really wild it must have no roads, but only gaps or trails between the trees, and often not even these, but you must cut a path for yourself. You will more frequently know where you wish to go than where you are going; and you are never sure when, if ever, you will get back to the place from which you started."

"What is that ahead? Smoke coming from the hillside. It must be from the charcoal-burner's hut that Olaf spoke of last summer. I supposed that was the other side of the mountain, but I see the wood here is about right for making charcoal."

The Doctor and Dodo had fallen behind Mr. Blake and Nat. When they overtook them they found that the lane ended in some high hickory woods, and Mr. Blake suggested they couldn't find a better place to halt and make their play camp.

While they were discussing where it would be best to tie the horses, a tall, thin, but wiry man, came noiselessly from among the trees and stood looking at the party. He had a long, straight nose like a Fox, and deep-set eyes; his face was as brown as his beard, and his clothes were very much like some of those worn by the scouts in the Wild West Show, his shoes being without seams, like moccasins.

In spite of his strange face and dress there was nothing forbidding about him, and he had a pleasant smile as he stepped noiselessly up.

"A woodsman, I know," said Mr. Blake to himself, scarcely looking at the man's face, but judging by his soft tread.

The man stood still a second, looking as if he saw some familiar object, but from a great distance, and then exclaimed, "I want to know!"

The Doctor and Mr. Blake both started forward, and the strange man grasped each by the hand.

"Nez Long! Is it possible?" said the Doctor, clapping him on the back with his free hand, while the children stood looking on in amazement. Olive, however, knew who he was as soon as she heard the name, and explained to the others, while the three men continued to talk eagerly.

Nez was a man from northern Maine whom her father and uncle had known out West. He had been a trapper, hunter, and cowboy, all by turns, and the head of a lumber camp in Canada. The French Canadians called him Nez Long, which means "long-nose" in their language. He had once saved Mr. Blake's life, when he was almost crushed by a falling tree and in danger of being torn by a bear, but how he came in the hickory wood she of course did not know.

"Yes, I'm the charcoal-burner, I reckon, now, and canoe-maker, too, and do a bit o' huntin' and trappin' raound about, and raise some truck t'other side o' the woods, and get out railroad ties. I've a camp o' my own inside the first belt, and a wife, and she isn't a squaw neither, and two young uns. You see I've got some property at last, Doc, in spite of being a sort of wild Injun myself. We live in a log house, though; we'd choke in any other kind,—my woman an' me's agreed on that. She was 'Toinette Pardeau—old Dominique's daughter. You'll remember him; he was your guide the day you got that thunderin' big Bear. All these your young uns, Jake?"

"What a queer man," said Dodo. "And not very polite. He calls Uncle Roy, Doc, and daddy, Jake. I don't think he is nice."

"You must remember," said Olive, "that he has been with them in wild places and they have shared danger, and worked and hunted together as if they were brothers, and when men do this, the Mister drops away from their names, and they feel to each other as you and Nat and Rap do."

"Of course they must," said Dodo, repentantly, "and he picked the tree off daddy;" so, without hesitating, she walked up to him, holding out her hand, and saying solemnly, "Good morning, Mr. Long Nose, I'm glad to meet you and thank you very much for taking the tree off daddy's leg."

"I want to know!" stuttered Nez, more surprised than if a Grizzly Bear had spoken to him.

Every one laughed then, and it did not take long to explain why they were there, and how they were going to cook dinner camp-fashion; and Nat feeling the sudden confidence in Nez that young people and dogs have in those who really love them, said, "I'm going to learn to shoot this winter and hear all about the wild American animals, and sometimes you will let us come to see you, won't you, and you'll tell us stories?"

"Oh, do," echoed Dodo, looking up at him with a smile that generally had yes, as its reward, "and perhaps you'll tell us just one story for dessert to-day."

"Sure enough I will," he answered; "and I'll set you a camp and a fire all slick and ready while you're a-gettin' your nuts. Then you can come over yonder," and without more ado he disappeared in the trees.

"Where are the nuts?" asked Dodo, looking up to the sky.

"On the ground partly and in the trees mostly," said Olive. "If these trees in front of us had a good shaking, we could pick up enough hickories to last all winter."

The horses were unharnessed, tethered to stumps and blanketed; for in spite of the bright sun the air was keen, and the wind had suddenly sprung up, scattering the leaves and sending down quite a hailstorm of nuts.

When Mr. Blake and the Doctor, climbing some of the smaller trees, aided the wind in its work, the nuts gave the gatherers such a pelting that they had to stop until the squall was over.

"It's almost too easy to be fun," said Nat, as they tied up the mouth of Rap's bag, which was already filled. "I think I'd rather hunt for things a little longer."

"Good boy," said his father; "that is the spirit that makes a real sportsman,—the watching and waiting and finding, not simply the greedy getting that makes the selfish sort of man I call a Hunting Wolf."

"You had better make the most of this easy nutting, though," said the Doctor, "for when it comes to picking up chestnuts, you will have to look and poke about between the leaves and stones, I can tell you."

"I wonder what Mr. Long Nose is doing, and how he is going to fix our camp for us," said Dodo, emptying her little basket into the big one for the third time. "I think we have enough now."

"I thought there was some other reason for your hurry beside the filling of the bags. I never knew before that children could have too many nuts. But don't call your friend Long Nose, Dodo; he has a real name, though it was never used among his camp-mates."

"What shall I call him then—Mr. Long?"

"No; simply Nez, pronounced as it is spelled; he will understand it better, for if you called him Mister, he would be put out, perhaps."

"Oh, what a big Squirrel!" called Nat. "Twice as large as those about the farm, and all one color, like a Maltese cat, only a little browner. There is another, and another yet, chasing about like anything! See, Uncle Roy; up there!"

"Gray Squirrels, and fine ones, too. These are exactly the sort of woods that suit them; plenty of hickories and beech trees, and water not far away."

"How many kinds of American Squirrels are there?" asked Dodo, "and is the lining of mother's coat made of the fur of this gray kind?"

"There are sixty or seventy kinds in North America, but the Red, Gray, the big Fox Squirrel, and the little Chipmunk, or Ground Squirrel, are the ones most likely to interest you. The lining of your mother's coat is probably made of the skins of a Russian Squirrel. Strange as it may seem, the skins of our species are too thin and tender to let them go in the list of valuable fur-bearing animals."

"I suppose they are like the Moleskin that Rod gave me to make a muff for my doll. It cracked like a piece of paper, and wouldn't stay sewed well, and it had a very queer smell that took a day to wash off my hands. Why do some animals have such strange smells, Uncle Roy?"

"For two reasons. There are protective smells and signal smells. The Skunk's odor belongs to this first sort, and he uses his evil odor as a weapon of defence and seems to thoroughly understand its power, for very few of the large beasts of prey ever care to get within range of it.

"The signal smells are as important to the Four-footed People as speech is to House People. In fact, the power of scent largely takes the place of speech with them. What they lack in tongue is made up by a wonderful keenness of ear and nose.

"A Fox goes through a lane and can tell by the smell whether it is a dog who has been there before him or a brother Fox. The dog in his turn who follows knows by the scent where the Fox has gone and can find him unless he crosses water."

"Why can't he follow him across water? Does it wash away the smell?" asked Nat.

"Exactly, but—"

"What, is that terrible noise," cried Olive, starting, and they all listened, somewhat startled, while Dodo crept close between her father and uncle, saying, "It must be a very wild sick cow that is hurt."

"If we were in a swamp a couple of hundred miles further north, instead of here in a hickory wood, I should say it was either a cow Moose or else some one imitating one," said Mr. Blake.

"Why, it's Nez, of course," said Dr. Roy. "He used to be one of the best Moose callers along the border. He is ready for us to come up, and has taken that way to call us, though we are not Moose."

"Let's go quick and see," said Dodo, recovering her courage, and hurrying the party along. "What are Moose, and what do people call them for?"

"Moose are the largest of our Deer. The cry we have just heard is the cow Moose's call to her mate. Men who hunt the Moose imitate this call, and the bull (which is the name given male Moose and Elk) comes hurrying up to meet, not his mate, but a bullet."

"Do you call that fair hunting, daddy?" asked Nat.

"No, I do not; unless the hunter is hungry and cannot get food in any other way, it seems to me little better than setting a trap. A sportsman should show his skill in finding the Moose, not calling him by a trick."

"Yes," said Nat, "I understand that. It's the same as if when we play hide-and-seek I wanted Dodo, and instead of hunting for her I cried or did something to make her come out, and then cried 'I spy.'"

"Look, father! Look there!" said Olive. "It's like the old days in Canada."

As they left the narrow footpath where they had been walking in Indian file they stepped into an open space from which all the trees had been cut, as well as the underbrush. At the further side, with its back against the hill toward the north, was a log-cabin with small windows in the front and sides. A little way from it was a sort of long shed, roofed with hemlock boughs, under which was a grindstone, some tools, etc. In the centre of the open square the earth was black, and there were many ashes, as if a fire had often burned there.

At one side Nez himself was at work, axe in hand, before a sort of tent made of two upright poles, and a crosspiece against which he was laying hemlock boughs. Not far from this two logs about five feet long were placed side by side on the ground. The upper side was shaved off; at one end they were about four inches apart and at the other eight. Between this was a line of glowing charcoal, kept from burning the logs by the earth which was heaped against them. At either end there was an upright stake, and a bar was laid between these so that it came about a foot and a half above the fire.