Perhaps it was the cold weather that brought us a visitor. There was a
tree directly over our tent, and in the morning--a sharp sunny morning,
with the wind where it should be, in the west--we noticed on going out
that a peculiar sort of fruit had grown on this tree over night. On one
of the limbs just above the tent was a prickly looking ball, like a
chestnut burr, only black, and about a hundred times as big. It was a
baby porcupine, who perhaps had set out to see the world on his own
account--a sort of prodigal who had found himself without funds, and
helpless, on a cold night. No doubt he climbed up there to look us over,
with a view of picking out a good place for himself; possibly with the
hope of being invited to breakfast.
Eddie was delighted with our new guest. He declared that he would take
him home alive, and feed him and care for him, and live happy ever
after. He got a pole and shook our visitor down in a basket, and did a
war-dance of joy over his new possession. He was a cute little
fellow--the "piggypine" (another of Eddie's absurd names)--with bright
little eyes and certain areas of fur, but I didn't fancy him as a pet.
He seemed to me rather too much of a cross between a rat and a pin
cushion to be a pleasant companion in the intimate relations of one's
household. I suspected that if in a perfectly wild state he had been
prompted to seek human companionship and the comforts of civilized life,
in a domestic atmosphere he would want to sit at the table and sleep
with somebody. I did not believe Eddie's affection would survive these
familiarities. I knew how surprised and annoyed he might be some night
to roll over suddenly on the piggypine and then have to sit up the rest
of the night while a surgeon removed the quills. I said that I did not
believe in taming wild creatures, and I think the guides were with me in
this opinion. I think so because they recited two instances while we
were at breakfast. Del's story was of some pet gulls he once owned. He
told it in that serious way which convinced me of its truth. Certain
phases of the narrative may have impressed me as being humorous, but it
was clear they were not so regarded by Del. His manner was that of one
who records history. He said:
"One of the children caught two young gulls once, in the lake, and
brought them to the house and said they were going to tame them. I
didn't think they would live, but they did. You couldn't have killed
them without an ax. They got tame right away, and they were all over the
house, under foot and into everything, making all kinds of trouble. But
that wasn't the worst--the worst was feeding them. It wasn't so bad
when they were little, but they grew to beat anything. Then it began to
keep us moving to get enough for them to eat. They lived on fish,
mostly, and at first the children thought it fun to feed them. They used
to bait a little dip net and catch minnows for the gulls, and the gulls
got so they would follow anybody that started out with that dip net,
calling and squealing like a pair of pigs. But they were worse than
pigs. You can fill up a pig and he will go to sleep, but you never could
fill up those gulls. By and by the children got tired of trying to do it
and gave me the job. I made a big dip net and kept it set day and night,
and every few minutes all day and the last thing before bedtime I'd go
down and lift out about a pailful of fish for those gulls, and they'd
eat until the fish tails stuck out of their mouths, and I wouldn't more
than have my back turned before they'd be standing on the shore of the
lake, looking down into that dip net and hollering for more. I got so I
couldn't do anything but catch fish for those gulls. It was a busy
season, too, and besides the minnows were getting scarce along the lake
front, so I had to get up early to get enough to feed them and the rest
of the family. I said at last that I was through feeding gulls. I told
the children that either they'd have to do it, or that the gulls would
have to go to work like the rest of the family and fish for themselves.
But the children wouldn't do it, nor the gulls, either. Then I said I
would take those birds down in the woods and leave them somewhere. I
did that. I put them into a basket and shut them in tight and took them
five miles down the river and let them loose in a good place where there
were plenty of fish. They flew off and I went home. When I got to the
house they'd been there three hours, looking at the dip net and
squalling, and they ate a pail heaping full of fish, and you could have
put both gulls into the pail when they got through. I was going on a
long trip with a party next morning, and we took the gulls along. We fed
them about a bushel of trout and left them seventeen miles down the
river, just before night, and drove home in the dark. I didn't think the
gulls would find their way back that time, but they did. They were there
before daybreak, fresh and hungry as ever. Then I knew it was no use.
The ax was the only thing that would get me out of that mess. The
children haven't brought home any wild pets since."
That you see is just unembellished history, and convincing. I regret
that I cannot say as much for Charlie's narrative. It is a likely story
enough, as such things go, but there are points about it here and there
which seem to require confirmation. I am told that it is a story well
known and often repeated in Nova Scotia, but even that cannot be
accepted as evidence of its entire truth. Being a fish-story it would
seem to require something more. This is the tale as Charlie told it.
"Once there was a half-breed Indian," he said, "who had a pet trout
named Tommy, which he kept in a barrel. But the trout got pretty big and
had to have the water changed a good deal to keep him alive. The Indian
was too lazy to do that, and he thought he would teach the trout to live
out of water. So he did. He commenced by taking Tommy out of the barrel
for a few minutes at a time, pretty often, and then he took him out
oftener and kept him out longer, and by and by Tommy got so he could
stay out a good while if he was in the wet grass. Then the Indian found
he could leave him in the wet grass all night, and pretty soon that
trout could live in the shade whether the grass was wet or not. By that
time he had got pretty tame, too, and he used to follow the Indian
around a good deal, and when the Indian would go out to dig worms for
him, Tommy would go along and pick up the worms for himself. The Indian
thought everything of that fish, and when Tommy got so he didn't need
water at all, but could go anywhere--down the dusty road and stay all
day out in the hot sun--you never saw the Indian without his trout. Show
people wanted to buy Tommy, but the Indian said he wouldn't sell a fish
like that for any money. You'd see him coming to town with Tommy
following along in the road behind, just like a dog, only of course it
traveled a good deal like a snake, and most as fast.
"Well, it was pretty sad the way that Indian lost his trout, and it was
curious, too. He started for town one day with Tommy coming along
behind, as usual. There was a bridge in the road and when the Indian
came to it he saw there was a plank off, but he went on over it without
thinking. By and by he looked around for Tommy and Tommy wasn't there.
He went back a ways and called, but he couldn't see anything of his pet.
Then he came to the bridge and saw the hole, and he thought right away
that maybe his trout had got in there. So he went to the hole and looked
down, and sure enough, there was Tommy, floating on the water,
bottom-side up. He'd tumbled through that hole into the brook and
drowned."
I think these stories impressed Eddie a good deal. I know they did me.
Even if Charlie's story was not pure fact in certain minor details, its
moral was none the less evident. I saw clearer than ever that it is not
proper to take wild creatures from their native element and make pets of
them. Something always happens to them sooner or later. We were through
breakfast and Eddie went over to look at his porcupine. He had left it
in a basket, well covered with a number of things. He came back right
away--looking a little blank I thought.
"He's gone!" he said. "The basket's just as I left it, all covered up,
but he isn't in it."
We went over to look. Sure enough, our visitor had set out on new
adventures. How he had escaped was a mystery. It didn't matter--both he
and Eddie were better off.
But that was a day for animal friends. Where we camped for luncheon,
Eddie and I took a walk along the river bank and suddenly found
ourselves in a perfect menagerie. We were among a regular group of grown
porcupines--we counted five of them--and at the same time there were two
blue herons in the water, close by. A step away a pair of partridges ran
through the brush and stood looking at us from a fallen log, while an
old duck and her young came sailing across the river. We were nearing
civilization now, but evidently these creatures were not much harassed.
It was like the Garden of Eden before the Fall. It is true the old duck
swam away, calling to her brood, when she saw us; the partridges
presently hid in the brush, and the blue herons waded a bit further off.
But the porcupines went on galumphing around us, and none of the
collection seemed much disturbed. During the afternoon we came upon two
fishermen, college boys, camping, who told us they had seen some young
loons in a nest just above, and Eddie was promptly seized with a desire
to possess them.
In fact we left so hastily that Del forgot his extra paddle, and did not
discover the loss until we were a half-mile or so upstream. Then he said
he would leave me in the canoe to fish and would walk back along the
shore. An arm of the river made around an island just there, and it
looked like a good place. There seemed to be not much current in the
water, and I thought I could manage the canoe in such a spot and fish,
too, without much trouble.
[Illustration: "I never realized before what a crazy thing a canoe can
be when you want it to do something out of its regular line of work."]
It was not as easy as it looked. Any one who has tried to handle a canoe
from the front end with one hand and fish with the other will tell you
so. I couldn't seem to keep out of the brush along the shore, and I
couldn't get near some brush in the middle of the river where I believed
there were trout. I was right about the trout being there, too. Eddie
proved that when he came up with his canoe. He had plenty of business
with big fellows right away. But the fact didn't do me any good. Just
when I would get near the lucky place and ready to cast, a twitch in the
current or a little puff of wind would get hold of the stern of my
craft, which rode up out of the water high and light like a sail, and my
flies would land in some bushes along the bank, or hang in a treetop, or
do some other silly thing which was entertaining enough to Eddie and his
guide, apparently, but which did not amuse me. I never realized before
what a crazy thing a canoe can be when you want it to do something out
of its regular line of work. A canoe is a good sort of a craft in its
place, and I would not wish to go into the woods without one, but it is
limited in its gifts, very limited. It can't keep its balance with any
degree of certainty when you want to stand up and fish, and it has no
sort of notion of staying in one place, unless it's hauled out on the
bank. If that canoe had been given the versatility of an ordinary
flat-bottomed john-boat I could have got along better than I did. I said
as much, and disparaged canoes generally. Eddie declared that he had
never heard me swear with such talent and unreserve. He encouraged me by
holding up each fish as he caught it and by suggesting that I come over
there. He knew very well that I couldn't get there in a thousand years.
Whenever I tried to do it that fool of a canoe shot out at a tangent and
brought up nowhere. Finally in an effort to reconstruct my rod I dropped
a joint of the noibwood overboard, and it went down in about four
hundred feet of water. Then I believe I did have a few things to say. I
was surprised at my own proficiency. It takes a crucial moment like that
to develop real genius. I polished off the situation and I trimmed up
the corners. Possibly a touch of sun made me fluent, for it was hot out
there, though it was not as hot as a place I told them about, and I
dwelt upon its fitness as a permanent abiding place for fishermen in
general and for themselves in particular. When I was through and empty I
see-sawed over to the bank and waited for Del. I believe I had a
feverish hope that they would conclude to take my advice, and that I
should never see their canoe and its contents again.
There are always compensations for those who suffer and are meek in
spirit. That was the evening I caught the big fish, the fish that Eddie
would have given a corner of his immortal soul (if he has a soul, and if
it has corners) to have taken. It was just below a big fall--Loon Lake
Falls I think they call it--and we were going to camp there. Eddie had
taken one side of the pool and I the other and neither of us had caught
anything. Eddie was just landing, when something that looked big and
important, far down the swift racing current, rose to what I had
intended as my last cast. I had the little four-ounce bamboo, but I let
the flies go down there--the fly, I mean, for I was casting with one (a
big Silver Doctor)--and the King was there, waiting. He took it with a
great slop and carried out a long stretch of line. It was a test for the
little rod. There had been unkind remarks about the tiny bamboo whip;
this was to be justification; a big trout on a long line, in deep, swift
water--the combination was perfect. Battle now, ye ruler of the rapids!
Show your timber now, thou slender wisp of silk and cane!
But we have had enough of fishing. I shall not dwell upon the details of
that contest. I may say, however, that I have never seen Del more
excited than during the minutes--few or many, I do not know how few or
how many--that it lasted. Every guide wants his canoe to beat, and it
was evident from the first that this was the trout of the expedition. I
know that Del believed I would never bring that fish to the canoe, and
when those heavy rushes came I was harrassed with doubts myself. Then
little by little he yielded. When at last he was over in the slower
water--out of the main channel--I began to have faith.
So he came in, slowly, slowly, and as he was drawn nearer to the boat,
Del seized the net to be ready for him. But I took the net. I had been
browbeaten and humiliated and would make my triumph complete. I brought
him to the very side of the boat, and I lifted him in. This time the big
fish did not get away. We went to where the others had been watching,
and I stepped out and tossed him carelessly on the ground, as if it were
but an everyday occurrence. Eddie was crushed. I no longer felt
bitterness toward him.
I think I shall not give the weight of that fish. As already stated, no
one can tell the truth concerning a big fish the first trial, while more
than one attempt does not look well in print, and is apt to confuse the
reader. Besides, I don't think Eddie's scales were right, anyway.