WOOD-FOLK COMEDIES
[Illustration]
BOOKS BY
WILLIAM J. LONG
WOOD-FOLK COMEDIES
HOW ANIMALS TALK
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817
[Illustration: [See p. 105
“_Deer appear on the opposite shore, stepping daintily; the wild
ducks glide out of their hiding place._”]
WOOD-FOLK COMEDIES
_The Play of Wild-Animal Life
on a Natural Stage_
BY
WILLIAM J. LONG
_Author of
“How Animals Talk” “Brier-Patch Philosophy”
“School of the Woods” “Northern Trails” etc._
_Illustrated_
[Illustration]
_HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON_
WOOD-FOLK COMEDIES
Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1920
I-U
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. PRELUDE: MORNING ON MOOSEHEAD 3
II. THE BIRDS’ TABLE 15
III. FOX COMEDY 32
IV. PLAYERS IN SABLE 44
V. WOLVES AND WOLF TALES 57
VI. EARS FOR HEARING 78
VII. HEALTH AND A DAY 90
VIII. NIGHT LIFE OF THE WILDERNESS 113
IX. STORIES FROM THE TRAIL 138
X. TWO ENDS OF A BEAR STORY 176
XI. WHEN BEAVER MEETS OTTER 184
XII. A NIGHT BEWITCHED 214
XIII. THE TRAIL OF THE LOUP-GAROU 233
XIV. FROM A BEAVER LODGE 256
XV. COMEDIANS ALL 283
ILLUSTRATIONS
“DEER APPEAR ON THE OPPOSITE SHORE, STEPPING
DAINTILY; THE WILD DUCKS GLIDE OUT OF
THEIR HIDING PLACE” _Frontispiece_
“HE SCRAMBLED UP IT WITH ALMOST THE EASE OF A
SQUIRREL AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE TOP” _Facing p._ 42
“THE REST SPREAD INTO A FAN-SHAPED FORMATION
AS THEY CAME STRAIGHT ON” “ 74
“HE IS A VERY EXPERT FISHERMAN, AND FINDS PLENTY
TO EAT WITHOUT INTERFERING WITH ANY OTHER” “ 188
“THEIR VERY ATTITUDE MADE ME FEEL QUEER, FOR
THEY WERE IN TOUCH WITH A MATTER OF WHICH
I HAD NO WARNING” “ 226
“WITH A SUDDEN ACCESS OF COURAGE HE POUNCED
ON HIS FIND, WHIRLED IT UP IN THE AIR,
SCAMPERED HITHER AND YON LIKE A PLAYING
KITTEN” “ 242
“THE SILHOUETTE OF THAT QUIET BEAVER STOOD
OUT LIKE A WATCHMAN AGAINST THE EVENING
TWILIGHT” “ 266
“THEN HE PEEKS CAUTIOUSLY AROUND THE TREE,
AND VERY LIKELY FINDS A BLACK NOSE COMING
TO MEET HIM” “ 296
WOOD-FOLK COMEDIES
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PRELUDE: MORNING ON MOOSEHEAD
Sunrise in the big woods, morning and springtime and fishing weather!
For the new day Killooleet the white-throated sparrow has a song of
welcome; fishing has its gleeman in Koskomenos the kingfisher, sounding
his merry rattle along every shore where minnows are shoaling; and for
the springtime even these dumb trees grow eloquent. Yesterday they were
gray and dun, as if life had lost its sense of beauty; to-day a mist of
tender green appears on every birch tree, a blush of rose color spreads
over the hardwood ridges. Woods that all winter have been silent, as if
deserted, are now alive with the rustling of eager feet, the flutter of
wings, the call of birds returning with joy to familiar nesting places.
Above these quiet voices of rejoicing sounds another note, loud,
rhythmic, jubilant, which says that Comedy, light of foot and heart,
has once more renewed her lease of the wilderness. High on a towering
hemlock a logcock has his sounding board, dry and resonant, where he
makes all the hills echo to his lusty drumming. The morning light
flames on his scarlet crest as he turns his head alertly, this way for
the answer of a mate, that way for the challenge of a rival. Nearer, on
the roof of my fishing camp, a downy woodpecker is thumping the metal
cover of the stovepipe, a wonderful drum, on which he can easily make
more noise than the big logcock.
Every day before sunrise that same little fellow appears on my roof, so
punctually that one wonders if he keeps a clock, and bids me “Top o’
the Morning” by sending a fearful din clattering down the stovepipe.
It is a love-call to his mate, no doubt; but the Seven Sleepers in my
place must be roused by it as by dynamite. This morning he exploded
me out of sleep at four-twenty, as usual; and so persistent was his
rackety-packety that I lost patience, and threw a stick of wood at him.
Away he went, crying “Yip! Yip!” at the meddlesome Philistine who had
no heart for love, no ear for music. He was heading briskly for the
horizon when, remembering his shy mate, he darted aside to the shell
of a white pine, where he drummed out another message, only to meet
violent opposition from another Philistine. He had sounded one call,
listened for the effect, and was in the midst of another ecstatic
vibration when there came a scurry of leaves, a shaking of boughs, and
Meeko the red squirrel appeared, threatening death and destruction to
all drummers.
Evidently Meeko was planning a nest of his own in that vicinity,
and had no mind to tolerate such a noisy fellow as a near neighbor.
As he came headlong upon the scene, hurling abuse ahead of him, the
woodpecker vanished like a wink, leaving the enemy to threaten the
empty air; which he did in a fashion to make one shudder at what might
happen if a red squirrel were half as big as his temper. Once I saw
a bull-moose accidentally shake a branch on which Meeko happened to
be sitting while he ate a mushroom, turning it around in his paws as
he nibbled the edges; and the peppery little beast followed the sober
great beast two or three hundred yards, running just above the antlered
head, calling down the wrath of squirrel-heaven on all the tribe of
moose. Now, in greater rage because the object of it was so small,
he whisked all over the pine, declaring it, _kilch-kilch!_ to be his
property, and warning all woodpeckers, _zit-zit!_ to keep forever away
from it. Hardly had he ended his demonstration of squirrel rights
and gone away, swearing, to his interrupted affairs when another
hammering, louder and more jubilant, began on the pine shell.
Here was defiance as well as trespass, and Meeko came rushing back to
deal with it properly. Sputtering like a lighted fuse he darted up the
pine and took a flying leap after the drummer, determined this time to
make an end of him or chase him clean out of the woods. Into a thicket
of spruce he went, shrilling his battle yell. Out of the thicket
flashed the woodpecker, unseen, and doubled back to the starting point.
There a curious thing happened, one which strengthened my impression
that all birds have more or less ventriloquial power to make their
calling sound near or far at will. The woodpecker lit on precisely the
same spot he had used before, and hammered it with the same rapidity
and rhythm; but now his drum sounded faintly, distantly, as if on the
other side of the ridge. Growing bolder he changed his note, put more
_hallelujah_ into it, and was in the midst of a glorious rub-a-dub when
Meeko came tearing back through the spruce thicket and hunted him away.
So the little comedy ran on, charge and retreat, till a second Meeko
appeared and held the fort, while the first ran after the drummer. Now,
as I watch the play, there is triumphant squirrel talk on the pine
shell, and the woodpecker is again drumming lustily on the stovepipe
cover.
Farther back in the woods sounds the roll of another drum, a muffled
_brum, brum, brum_, which you must hear many times before you learn to
locate it accurately. Of all forest sounds it is the vaguest, the most
mysterious, the hardest to associate with distance or direction. Now
it comes to you from above, like a dim echo of distant thunder, and
suddenly you understand the bird’s Indian name, Seksagadagee, little
thunder-maker; again it drifts in vaguely from all directions, filling
the air like the surge of a waterfall at night. Listen attentively, and
the drum seems to be near at hand, quite distinctly in front of you;
but take a few careless steps in that direction and it is gone, like
a flame that is blown out, and when you hear it once more it sounds
faintly from the valley behind you.
Somewhere out yonder, not nearly so remote as you think, a cock
partridge or ruffed grouse is finding a mate by the odd method of
drumming her up; for he never goes in quest of her, but rumbles his
drum day after day, sometimes also on moonlit nights, till she appears
in answer to his summons. Though I have often seen little Thunder-maker
when he was filling hill and valley with his love-call, never yet
have I learned how he sounds his drum; so I must have another look
at him. Taking every precaution against noise, moving only when the
muffled thunder rolls through the woods, I creep nearer and nearer
till I locate a great mossy log and-- Ah! there he is, a beautiful
creature, standing tense as if listening. There is a flash of wings
up and down, so swift that I cannot follow the motion or tell whether
the hollow _brum_ sounds when the stiffened wings are above the bird’s
back or in front of his pouting chest. He does not beat the log; I
have an impression that the booming sound is made by columns of air
caught under the wings and driven together when the grouse strikes
forward. If you cup your hands and drive them almost against your ears,
repeating the action till you hear the air boom, you will have a faint
but excellent imitation of the partridge’s drum call. The explanation
remains theoretical, however, for even with the bird under my eyes I
cannot say for a certainty how the sound is made. I see flash after
flash of the wings, and with each comes an answering _brum_; then the
wing-beats follow faster and faster till individual sounds merge in a
continuous roll; which suddenly grows faint, as if moving away, and
seems to vanish in the far distance.
Thunder-maker now stands at attention, his ear cocked to something I
cannot hear. In a few moments, as if well satisfied, he droops his
wing-tips, spreads wide his tail, erects his crest and his bronzed
ruff, and begins to strut, showing all his fine feathers. There is a
stir beyond him; from behind a yellow birch a hen-grouse appears and
glides on, pretending to be merely passing this way; while the drummer
pretends not to see her or to be interested in anything save his own
performance. So it seems to me, watching the play through the branches
of a low fir. Thunder-maker drums again, as if his mate were yet to
come; while the audience moves coyly away, picking at a seed here or
there, till she enters the shadowy underbrush. There she hides and
remains motionless, where she can see without being seen.
As I creep away, trying not to disturb the little comedy, I am startled
by a rush behind me, and have glimpse of two deer bounding through the
leafless woods. They take needlessly high jumps for such easy going, it
seems; one has an impression that they are kicking up their heels in
delight at being out of their winter yard, free to wander at will and
find abundance of fresh food, tender and delicious, wherever they seek.
A loon blows his wild bugle from the lake below. Multitudes of little
warblers, the first ripple of a mighty wave, are sweeping northward
with exultation, singing as they go. Frogs are piping, kingfishers
clattering, thrushes chiming their silver bells,--everywhere the full
tide of life, the impulse of play, the spirit of happy adventure.
One such morning, when every blessed bird or beast appears like a
bit of happiness astray, should be enough to open one’s eyes to the
meaning of nature; but yesterday was just like this in the woods, and
in the back of my head is a memory of other mornings in that far, misty
time when all days came as holidays, when one leaped out of bed with
the wordless thought that life was too precious to waste any of its
sunny hours in sleeping. Suddenly it occurs to me, looking out from my
“Commoosie” at the sunrise on Moosehead, while the woods around are
vocal and jubilant, that this inspiring morning is simply natural and
as it should be; that this new day, with its tingle of life and joy,
is typical of the whole existence of the wood folk. For them every day
is a new day, joyous and expectant, without regret for yesterday or
anxiety for the morrow.
“Ah, but wait!” you say. “Wait till winter returns with its hunger and
snow and bitter cold. Then we shall see nothing of this springtime
comedy, but a stern and terrible struggle for existence.”
That owlish hoot expresses the prevalent theory of wild life, I know;
but forget all such borrowed notions here in the budding woods, and
open your eyes to behold life as it is. “Ask now the beasts and they
shall teach thee, or the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee”
that animal life is from beginning to end a gladsome comedy. The
“tragedy” is a romantic invention of our story-writers; the “struggle
for existence” is a bookish theory passed from lip to lip without a
moment’s thought or observation to justify it. I would call it mythical
were it not that myths commonly have some hint of truth or gleam
of beauty in them; but this struggle notion is the crude, unlovely
superstition of one who used neither his eyes nor his imagination. To
quote Darwin as an authority is to deceive yourself; for he borrowed
the notion of natural struggle from the economist Malthus, who invented
it not as a theory of nature (of which he knew nothing), but to explain
from his easy-chair the vice and misery of massed humanity. Moreover,
Darwin used the “struggle for existence” as a crude figure of speech;
but later writers accept it as a literal gospel, or rather bodespel,
without once putting it to the test of out-door observation.[1]
A moment’s reflection here may suggest two things: first, that from
lowly protozoans, which always unite in colonies, to the mighty
elephant that finds comfort and safety in a herd of his fellows,
coöperation of kind with kind is the universal law of nature; second,
that the evolutionary processes, to which the violent name of struggle
is thoughtlessly applied, are all so leisurely that centuries must
pass before the change is noticeable, and so effortless that subject
creatures are not even aware they are being changed. Meanwhile
individual birds and beasts go their alert ways, finding pleasure in
the exercise of every natural faculty. Singing or feeding, playing
or resting, courting their mates or roving freely with their little
ones, all wild creatures have every appearance of gladness, but give
you never a sign that they are under a terrible law of strife or
competition. And why? Because there is absolutely no such thing as a
struggle for existence in nature. There is no evidence of struggle, no
reason for struggle, no impression of the spirit of struggle, when you
look on the natural world with frank unprejudiced eyes.
As for the coming winter, let not theory be as a veil over your sight
to obscure the facts or to blur your impressions. One who camps in
these big woods when they are white with snow finds them quite as
cheery as the woods of spring or summer. Most of the birds that now
fill the solitude with rejoicing will then be far away, pursuing the
happy adventure under other skies; but the friendliest of them all, the
tiny chickadee, will bide contentedly in his cold domain, and greet
the sunrise with a note in which you detect no lack of cheerfulness.
A few of the animals will then be snug in their dens, with the bear
and chipmunk; others will show the same spirit of play--a little
subdued, but still brave and confident--which moves them now as they go
seeking their mates to the sound of running brooks and the fragrance
of swelling buds. Keeonekh the otter will spend a large part of his
time happily sliding downhill. Pequam the fisher will save his short
legs much travel by putting his nose into every fox track till he finds
one which tells him that Eleemos has been digging at a frozen carcass,
and has the smell of it on his feet; then he will cunningly back-trail
that fellow, knowing that food is somewhere ahead of him. Tookhees the
wood mouse will be building his assembly rooms deep under the snow, and
Meeko the red squirrel (mischief-maker the Indians call him) will still
be making tragi-comedy of every passing event, berating the jays that
spy upon him when he hides food, chasing the woodpeckers that hammer
on his hollow tree, and scolding every big beast that pays no attention
to him.
To sum up this prelude of the sunrise: whether you enter the solitude
in the expectant spring or the restful winter, “nothing is here to
wail or knock the breast.” The wood folk are invincibly cheerful, and
need no pity for their alleged tragic fate. If I dared voice their
unconscious philosophy, I might say that the lines are fallen unto them
in pleasant places, and that, if ever they grow discontented with the
place, they quickly change it for a better or for hope of a better. The
world is wide and all theirs, and through it they go like perpetual
Canterbury pilgrims.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE BIRDS’ TABLE
The impression of comedy among natural birds and beasts first came
to me in childhood, a time when eyes are frankly open to behold the
natural world as God made it. Long before it became the excellent
fashion to feed our winter birds, I used to prepare a table under the
grapevines and spread it with crumbs, raisins, cracked nuts, everything
a child could think of that feathered folk might like. Scores of wild
birds came daily to my table in bitter weather. Squirrels frisked
over it, and were sometimes hungry enough to eat before they began to
hide things away, as squirrels commonly do when they find unexpected
abundance. Several times a family of Bob Whites, graceful and light
footed, came swiftly over the wall, gurgling exquisite low calls as
they sensed the feast; and once a beautiful cock partridge appeared
from nowhere, gliding, turning, balancing like a dancing master, and
hopped upon the table and ate all the raisins as his first morsel.
Unless a door were noisily opened or a sneaky cat crept into the scene,
none of these dainty creatures gave me any impression of fearfulness,
and such a notion as pity for their tragic existence could hardly
enter one’s head; certainly not so long as one kept his eyes open.
Though always finely alert, they seemed a contented folk, gay even in
midwinter, and they quickly accepted the child who watched with eager
eyes from the window or sat motionless out-of-doors within a few feet
of their dining table. When their hunger was satisfied many would stay
a little time, basking in the sunshine on the grapevines or the pear
tree, as if they liked to be near the house. Some of them sang, and
their note was low and sweet, very different from their springtime
jubilation. A few uttered what seemed to be a food call, since it
brought more of the same feather hurrying in; now and then it appeared
that birds which are perforce solitary in winter (because of the
necessity of seeking food over wide areas) were glad to be once more
with their own kind. Among these were certain small groups, noticeable
because they chattered together after the feast, and I wondered if
they were not a mother bird and her reunited nestlings. I think they
were, for I have since learned that family ties hold longer among the
birds than we have been led to imagine.
One of the first things I noticed in the conduct of my little guests
was that they were never quarrelsome so long as they were downright
hungry. Indeed, unlike our imported house sparrow, very few of them
showed a pugnacious disposition at any time; but now and then appeared
a thrifty or grasping fellow who, after satisfying his hunger, would
get a notion into his head that the food was all his if he could
claim or corner it; and he was apt to be a trouble-maker. This early
observation is one which I have since confirmed many times, both at
home and in the snows of the North: the hunger which is supposed to
make wild creatures ferocious invariably softens and tames them.
Another matter which soon became evident was that birds of the same
species were not all alike. Their forms, their colors, even their
faces distinguished them one from another. I began to recognize many
of them at sight, and presently to note individual whims or humors
which reminded me pleasantly of my neighbors; so much so that I called
certain birds by names which might be found in the town records, but
not in books of natural history. Some came with grace to the table,
eating daintily or moving aside for a newcomer, as if timid of giving
offense. Others swooped in and fed rudely, unmindful of others, as if
eating had no savor of society or the Sacrament, but were a trivial
matter to be finished quickly, with no regard for that natural courtesy
and dignity which we now call manners.
* * * * *
Among these graceful or graceless birds there was constant individual
variety. Alert juncos, forever on tiptoe, would be followed by some
sleepy or indifferent junco; woodpeckers that seemed wholly intent on
the marrow of a hollow bone would be replaced by a Paul-Pry woodpecker,
who was always watching the other guests from behind a limb; and sooner
or later in the day I would bid welcome to “Saryjane,” a fussy and
suspicious bird that reminded me of a woman who had only to look at a
boy to make him shamefully conscious that his face needed washing or
his clothes mending.
No sooner did “Saryjane” light on the table than peace took to flight.
Before she picked up a crumb she would lay down the law how crumbs must
be picked up, and by her bossy or meddlesome ways she drove many of the
birds into the grapevines; whither they went gladly, it seemed, to be
rid of her. They soon learned to anticipate her ways; at her approach
some dainty tree sparrow or cheerful titmouse would flit away with an
air of “Here she comes!” in his hasty exit. She was a nuthatch, one
of a half-dozen that came at odd times, peaceably enough, to explore
a lump of suet suspended over the birds’ table; and whenever I see
her like now, or hear her critical _yank-yank_, I always think of
“Saryjane” rather than of _Sitta carolinensis_.
When I translate the latter jargon, using a monkey-wrench on the
grammar, I get, “A she-thing that squats, inhabitating a place named
after an imaginary counterpart of a he-one miscalled Carolus”; which
illuminates the ornithologists somewhat, but leaves the nuthatch in
obscurity. The other name has power, at least, to evoke a smile and a
happy memory. The real or human “Saryjane” used to stipulate, when she
hired a boy to pick her cherries, that he must whistle while he worked
or lose his pay.
One morning--I remember only that the snow lay deep, and that all birds
were uncommonly eager at their breakfast--a stranger appeared at the
birds’ table, a sober fellow whom I had never before seen. Without
paying the slightest attention to other guests he plumped into the
feast, ate enough for two birds of his size, and then sat for a long
time beside a pile of crumbs, as if waiting for another appetite.
Thereafter he came regularly, and always acted in the same greedy way.
He would light fair in the middle of the food, and gobble the first
thing in sight, as if fearful that the supply might fail or that other
birds might devour everything before he was satisfied. After eating he
would sit at the edge of the table, his feathers puffed, a disconsolate
droop to his tail, looking in a sad way at the abundance of things he
could not eat, being too full. With the joy of Adam when he gave names
to creatures that were brought before him, I promptly called this bird
“Jake” after a boy about my size, one of a numerous and shiftless
brood, whom I had brought most unexpectedly to our human table on
Thanksgiving Day.
The table happened to be loaded, in the country fashion of that time,
with every tasty or substantial thing that the farm provided, and Jake
stuffed himself in a way to threaten famine. Turkey with cranberry
sauce, sparerib with apple sauce, game potpie, mashed potatoes with
cream, Hubbard squash with butter,--whatever was offered him vanished
in fearful haste, and his eyes were fixed hungrily on something else.
He said never a word; as I watched him, fascinated, he seemed to swell
as he ate. Then came a great tray of plum pudding, with mince and
pumpkin pies flanked by raisins and fruit; and the waif sat appalled,
his greasy cheeks puffed out, tears rolling down over them into his
plate. “I can’t eat no puddin’; I--can’t--eat--no--pie!” he wailed;
while we forgot all courtesy to our guest and howled at the comedy.
Poor little chap! he had more hunger and less discretion than any wild
thing I ever fed.
That was long ago, when I knew most of the birds without naming them,
and when no one within my ken could have given me book names for the
half of them had I cared to ask. It was the bird himself, not his
ticket or his species, that always interested me.
Among the visitors was one gorgeous blue-and-white fellow, a jay, as
I guessed at once, who puzzled me all winter. He always came most
politely, and would light on the pear tree to whistle a pleasant
_too-loo-loo_! a greeting it seemed, before he approached the table.
I took to him at once, with his gay attire and gallant crest, and
immediately he proved himself the most courteous guest at the feast.
He invariably lit at some empty place; he would move aside for the
smallest bird, with deference in his manner; when he took a morsel
it was always with an air of “By your leave, sir,” which showed his
breeding.
The puzzle was that other birds disdained this handsome Chesterfield,
refusing to have anything to do with him. Now and then, when he was
most polite, some tiny sparrow would fly at his head or chivvy him
angrily from the table; but for the most part they kept him at a
distance until they had eaten, when they would move scornfully aside,
leaving him to eat by himself. At first I thought they had bad tempers;
but a child’s instinct is quick to measure any social situation, and
when the jay had returned a few times I began to suspect that the fault
was with him. Yes, surely there was something wrong, some pretense or
imposture, in this fine fellow whom nobody trusted; but what?
The answer came in the spring, and was my own discovery. I am still
more proud of it than of the time, years later, when I first touched
a wild deer in the woods with my hand. Near my home was a woodsy dell
with a brook singing through it, which I named “Bird Hollow” from the
number of feathered folk that gathered or nested there. What attracted
them I know not; perhaps the brook, with its shallows for bathing; or
the perfect solitude of the place, for though cultivated fields lay
about it, and from its edge a distant house could be seen, I never once
met a human being there. It was just such a place as a child loves,
because it is all his own, and because it is sure to furnish something
new or old every day of the year,--birds’ nests, wood for whistles,
early woodcock, frogs for pickerel bait, pools for sailing a fleet of
cucumber boats, a mink’s track, a rabbit’s form, an owl’s cavernous
tree, a thousand interesting matters.
One morning I was at the Hollow alone, watching some nests at a
time when mother birds chanced to be away for a hurried mouthful.
Presently came my blue jay, and he seemed a different creature from
the Chesterfield I had known. No more polite or gallant ways now; he
fairly sneaked along, hiding, listening, like a boy sent to plunder a
neighbor’s garden. Without knowing why, I felt suddenly ashamed of him.
Just over a catbird’s nest the jay stopped and called, but very softly.
That was a “feeler,” I think, for at the call he pressed against the
stem of a tree, as if to hide, and he stood alert, ready to flit at a
moment’s notice. Then he dropped swiftly to the nest, drove his bill
into it, and tip-tilted his head with a speared egg. A dribble of
yellow ran down the corner of his mouth as he ate. He finished off two
more eggs, and went straight as a bee to another nest, which I had not
discovered. Evidently he knew where they all were. He speared an egg
here, and was eating it when there came a rush of wings, the challenge
of an excited robin, and away went the jay screaming, “Thief! Thief!”
at the top of his voice. A score of little birds came with angry cries
to the robin’s challenge, and together they chased the nest-robber out
of hearing.
And then I understood why the other guests had no patience with the
jay’s comedy when he played the part of a fine fellow at the winter
table. They knew him better than I did.
* * * * *
It was an experience, not a theory, of life that I sought in those
early days, when nature spoke a language that I seemed to understand;
and a host of experiences soon confirmed me in the belief that birds
and beasts accept life, unconsciously perhaps, as a kind of game and
play it to the end in a spirit of comedy. Later came the literature
and alleged science of wild life, one filling the pleasant woods
with tragedy, the other with a pitiless struggle for existence; but
no sooner do I go out-of-doors to front life as it is than all such
borrowed notions appear in their true light, the tragic stories as mere
inventions, the scientific theories as bookish delusions.
The cheery lesson of the winter birds, for example, is one which I have
since proved in many places, especially in the North, where I always
spread a table for the birds before I dine at my own. The typical
table is a broad and bountiful affair, set just outside the window on
the sunny side of camp; but sometimes, when I am following the wolf
trails, it is only a bit of bark on the snow beside my midday fire.
When the halt comes, and the glow of snowshoeing is replaced by the
chill of a zero wind, a fire is quickly kindled and a dipper of tea set
to brew. Next comes the birds’ table with its sprinkling of crumbs, and
hardly is one returned to the fire before Ch’geegee appears, calling
blithely as he comes to share the feast. His summons invariably brings
more chickadees, each with gray, warm coat and jaunty black cap; their
eager voices attract other hungry ones, a woodpecker, a pair of Canada
jays (they always go in pairs, as if expecting another ark), and a shy,
elusive visitor who is no less welcome because you cannot name him
in his winter garb. Suddenly from aloft comes a new call, very wild
and sweet; there is a whirl of wings in the top of a spruce, where
Little Far-to-go, as the Indians name him, calls halt to his troop
of crossbills at sight of the fire and the gathering birds. A brief
moment of rest, a babel of soft voices, another flurry of wings, and
the crossbills are gone, speeding away into the far distance. Next to
arrive are the nuthatches, a squirrel or two, and then--well, then you
never know who may answer your invitation. Before your feast ends you
may learn two things: that these snow-filled woods shelter an abundant
life, and that the life is invincibly cheerful.
So it happens that, though I have often been alone in the winter
wilderness, I have never eaten a lonely meal there; always I have had
guests, friendly, well-mannered little guests, and the pleasure they
bring to the solitary man is beyond words. Very companionable it is,
as one says grace over his bread and meat, to hear “Amen” from a score
of pleasant voices making Thanksgiving of the homely fare. Warm as the
radiance of the fire, soothing as the fragrance of a restful pipe, is
the inner glow of satisfaction when one sees his guests linger awhile,
gossiping over the unexpected, questioning the flame or the smoke, and
anon turning up an inquisitive eye at the silent host from whose table
they have just eaten. When I hear speaker or writer urging his audience
to feed our winter birds because of their earthly or economic value, I
find myself wondering why he does not emphasize the heavenly fun of the
thing.
As I recall these many tables, spread in the snow at a season when,
as we imagine, the pitiless struggle for existence is at its height,
they all speak to strengthen the early impression of gladness, of good
cheer, of a general spirit of play or comedy among wild creatures.
I have counted over sixty chickadees, woodpeckers, grouse, jays,
squirrels and other wayfarers around the table beside my camp; but
though some of these have their enmities in the nesting season, when
jays and squirrels are overfond of eggs, it was still a lively and
a happy company, because all the wood folk have an excellent way of
ending an unpleasantness by forgetting it. They live wholly in the
present, being too full of vitality to dwell in the past, and too
carefree to burden life by carrying a grudge.
Some of these remembered guests came boldly to my table, some with the
exquisite shyness born of the silent places; but all were natural at
first, and therefore peaceable. Unlike our mannerless house sparrows,
they fed very daintily for the most part, and would chatter pleasantly
before going away, to return when they were again hungry; but now and
then some graceless bird or squirrel would insist on having the biggest
morsel, or might even try to drive others away while he made sure of
it; and it was these exceptional individuals who caused whatever brief,
unnatural bickerings I have chanced to witness.
I remember especially one nuthatch that visited my winter camp in
Ontario; he was different from all others of his kind, even from my
early acquaintance, “Saryjane,” in that he seemed possessed of the
notion that whatever I put out-doors in the way of food was his private
property. He was always first at the table, arriving before the sun;
and sometimes, when an angry chatter would break through my dawn
dreams, I would go to the window to find him driving other early comers
away from the relicts of yesterday’s abundance. “Food Baron” we dubbed
him when some of his notions struck us as familiar and quite human.
As the sun rose, and more hungry birds appeared for the breakfast I
always spread for them, the Baron would change his methods. Finding
the hungry ones too many or too lively to be managed, he would proceed
hurriedly to remove as much food as possible to a cache which he had
somewhere back in the woods. In this individual whim of hiding food,
as well as in his peculiar challenge, he was different from any other
nuthatch I ever met. Returning from one of these hurried flights,
he would perch a moment on a branch over the table, eye the feeding
guests angrily, pick out one who was busy at a big morsel, and launch
himself straight at the offender’s head. Deep in his throat sounded a
terrifying _chur-churr_ as he made his swoop.
The odd thing is that he always got the morsel he wanted. Though he
often charged a jay or a squirrel much bigger than himself, I never
saw one that had the nerve to stand against his headlong rush. Being
peaceable and a little timid, as all wild things naturally are, they
dropped whatever they were eating and dodged aside; whereupon the
nuthatch swept over the table like a fury, whirring his wings and
crying, “Churr! Away with you! Vamoose!” which sent most of the little
birds with startled peeps into the trees. Then, with the board cleared,
he would drag off his morsel, hide it, and come back as quickly as he
could to repeat his extraordinary performance.
How the other birds regarded him would be hard to tell. At times they
seemed to get a bit of fun or excitement out of the game by slipping
in to steal a mouthful while the Baron was chasing some luckless
fellow who had claimed too big a crumb. At other times they would wait
patiently in the trees, basking in the sunshine, till the trouble-maker
was gone away to hide things, when they would come down and feed
alertly. In this way they would soon get all they wanted for the time,
and flit away to their own affairs. Another odd thing is that the
Baron, after storing things without opposition for a few minutes, would
tire of it and disappear, leaving plenty still on the table.
Occasionally in the woods one meets a bird that by some freak of
heredity seems to have been born without his proper instincts: a
young wild goose sees his companions depart from the North, but feels
no impulse to follow them, and remains to die in the winter snow; or
a cow-bunting has no instinct to build a nest of her own, and makes
a farce of life by leaving an egg here or there in some other bird’s
household. Among the beasts it is the same story: a rare beaver has
no instinct to build a house with his fellows, but lives by himself
in a den in the bank; or some timid creature that has fled from you
unnumbered times on a sudden upsets all your generalizations by showing
the boldness of lunacy.
I remember one occasion when darkness and rain overtook me on the
trail, and sent me to sleep in a deserted lumber camp; which is the
most sleepless place on earth, I think, being full of creaks, groans,
rustling porcupines, wild-eyed cats, spooks, mice, evil smells, and
other distractions. Except in a downpour, any tree or bush offers
more cheerful shelter. About the middle of the night I was awakened,
or rather galvanized, by the impression that some creature was trying
to get at me. In the black darkness of the place the very presence
of the thing seemed to fill the whole shanty. I foolishly jumped up,
charged with a yell, and ran _bang_ into a huge, hairy object. There
was a grunt, and a hasty, flaring match showed the grotesque head of
a cow-moose sticking into the open window. Having been scared stiff, I
belted her away roughly; but hardly had I straightened my poor nerves
in sleep when she came again, head, neck, shoulders, all she could
crowd into the low doorway. I _shooed_ her off, hastening her flight
with clubs, ax heads, old moccasins, everything throwable that I could
lay hands on; yet she lingered about the yard for an hour or two, and
once more came snuffling with her camel’s nose at the window. How do I
account for her? I don’t. You can say that she mistook me for her lost
calf, and I shall not contradict you.
So this nuthatch, at odds with all his kind, may possibly have been
born without the common instinct of sociability and decency. The
other birds were sometimes seen watching him curiously, as they watch
any other strange thing. Now and then one of them would resent some
personal indignity by giving the greedy one tit for tat; but for the
most part they seemed well content to keep aloof from the nuisance.
They had enough to eat, with a little sauce of excitement, and I think
they accepted the nuthatch as a harmless kind of lunatic.
[Illustration]
FOX COMEDY
Though my early impressions of wild life were mostly heart-warming, one
thing always troubled me, and that was the clamor of a pack of hounds
running a fox to death. There were fox hunters in the neighborhood;
I had shivered at stories of men who had been chased by wolves, and
whenever I heard the winter woods ringing to dog voices I pictured the
poor fox as running desperately for his life, with terror lifting his
heels or tugging at his heart. I could see no comedy in that picture,
probably because, never having witnessed a fox chase, I was viewing it
with my imagination rather than with my eyes.
There came a day when the hounds were out in full cry, and I was in the
snowy woods alone. For some time I had heard dogs in the distance, and
when a louder clamor came on the breath of the wind I hid beside a
hemlock fronting a stream, all eyes and ears for whatever might befall.
Presently came the fox, the hunted beast, and my first glimpse of him
was reassuring. He was moving easily, confidently, his beautiful fur
fluffed out as if each individual hair were alive, his great brush
floating like a plume behind him. There was no sign of terror, no
evidence of haste in his graceful action. Though he could run like a
red streak, as I well knew, having watched fox cubs playing outside
their den, he was now trotting leisurely on his way, stopping often
to listen or to sniff the air, while far behind him the heavy-footed
hounds were wailing their hearts out over a tangled trail.
So Eleemos came to the water and ran lightly beside it, heading
downstream, taking in the possibilities of the situation with cunning
glances of his bright eyes. The water was low; above it showed the
heads of many rocks, from which the sun had melted all the snow,
leaving dry spots that would hold no scent. Suddenly a beautiful jump
landed Eleemos on a flat rock well out from shore; without losing
momentum he turned and went flying upstream, leaping from rock to
rock, till he was twenty yards above where he had first approached
the water, and a broad stretch called halt to his rush. Again without
losing speed, he whirled in to my side, leaped ashore, flashed up
through the woods, and scrambled to the top of a ledge, where he could
overlook his trail. When I saw him stretch himself comfortably in the
sunshine, as if for a nap, and when, as the hounds came pounding into
sight, he lifted his head to cock his ears and wrinkle his eyebrows
at the lunatic beasts that were yelling up and down a peaceful world,
trying to find out where or how he had crossed the stream--well, then
and there I put imagination aside, and concluded that perhaps the fox
was getting more fun out of the chase than any of the dogs. He had this
advantage, moreover, that whenever he wearied of the play he had only
to slip into the nearest ledge or den to make a safe end of it.
Another day when I was roaming the woods I heard in the distance the
melodious voice of Old Roby, best of all possible foxhounds. It was
a springlike morning, with melting snow; and Roby, thinking it an
excellent time for smelling things, had pulled the collar over his head
and gone off for a solitary hunt, as he often did. When his voice rose
triumphant over a ridge and headed in my direction, I hurried to the
edge of a wild meadow and stood against a big chestnut tree, waiting
for the fox and growing more expectant that I should have a glimpse of
him.
A short distance in front of me a cart-path came winding down through
the leafless woods. Where this path entered the meadow was a dry ditch;
over the ditch was a bridge of slabwood, and some loaded wagon had
recently broken through it, crushing the slabs on one side down into
the earth. On that side, therefore, the ditch was closed; but on the
other side it appeared as a dark tunnel, hardly a foot high and three
or four times as long,--an excellent refuge for any beastie that cared
to shelter therein, since it was too low for a hound to enter bodily,
and if he thrust his head in too far, the beastie would have a fine
chance to teach him manners by nipping his nose.
I had waited but a few minutes when down the cart-path came the fox,
running fast but not easily. One could see that at a glance. The
soft snow made hard going; as he plunged into it, moisture got into
his great brush, making it heavy, so that it no longer floated like
a gallant plume. A gray fox would have taken to earth within a few
minutes of the start, and now even this fleet red fox had run as far as
he cared to go under such circumstances. At sight of the open meadow he
put on speed, flying gloriously down the hill. One jump landed him fair
in the middle of the bridge; a marvelous side spring carried him into
the ditch, and with a final wave of his brush he disappeared into the
tunnel.
A little later Old Roby hove into sight, singing _ough! ough!
oooooooh!_ in jubilation of the melancholy joy he followed. Clean over
the bridge he went, head up, picking the rich scent from the air rather
than from the ground, and took three or four jumps into the meadow
before he discovered that the fox was no longer ahead of him. Then he
came out of his trance, circled over the bridge, poked his nose into
the tunnel. There before his bulging eyes was the fox, and in his
nostrils was a reek to drive any foxhound crazy. “Ow-wow! here’s the
villain at last! And, woooo! what won’t I do to him!” yelled Roby,
pulling out his head and lifting it over the edge of the bridge for a
mighty howl of exultation. Again he thrust his nose into the tunnel and
began to dig furiously; but the sight of the fox, so near, so reeky, so
surely caught at last, set the old dog’s heart leaping and his tongue
a-clamoring. Every other minute he would stop digging, back out of the
tunnel for room, for air, and lifting his head over the bridge send up
to heaven another jubilation.
Now Roby was bow-legged, as many foxhounds are that run too young; also
he was apt to spread his feet as he howled, so that there was plenty
of room to pass under him, and when his head was lifted up for joy he
could see nothing but the sky. He had been alternately digging and
celebrating for some time, working his way farther under the bridge,
when as he raised his head for another bowl of relief a flash of yellow
passed between his bowlegs, out under his belly and up over the hill.
The thing was done so boldly that it made one gasp, so quickly that a
living streak seemed to be drawn through the woods; but the entranced
old dog saw nothing of it. When he thrust his head confidently into the
tunnel once more, there was no fox and no pungent odor of fox where
landscape and smellscape had just been filled with foxiness.
Roby looked a second time and sniffed with a loud sniffing to be sure
he was not dreaming. He looked all over the bridge, and sat down upon
it. He examined the ditch on the other or closed side, and took a final
squint into the tunnel; while every line and hair of him from furrowed
face to ratty tail proclaimed that he considered himself the foolishest
of all fool dogs that ever thought they could catch a fox. Then he
shook his ears violently, as if ridding himself of hallucinations, and
began to cast about methodically in circles. A fresh reek of fox poured
into his nostrils, filling him with the old ecstasy; he threw up his
head for a glad hoot, and went pounding up the hill after his nose,
singing _ough! ough! oooooh!_ as an epitome of all fox hunting.
Whenever I heard the hounds after that, I pictured comedy afoot and
followed it eagerly, still roaming alone in hope of meeting the fox,
and making myself a nuisance to many a proper fox hunter who, waiting
expectantly for a shot, heard the chase draw away and fell to cursing
the luck or the mischief that had turned the fox from his runway. So it
befell, one winter, that I saw Old Roby and a pack of hounds completely
fooled by a fox that lay quietly watching them while they hunted and
howled for his lost trail.
The place was a deep gully in some big woods. Its sides were covered
with a mat of vines and bushes; at the bottom ran a stream, too broad
to jump and too swift to freeze even in severe weather. Several times
an old fox had been “lost” here, his trail leading straight to the
gully, and vanishing as completely as if the river had swallowed him
up. He was frequently started in some rugged hills to the westward,
and would commonly play back and forth from one ridge to another till
he wearied of the game, or till he met a hunter and felt the sting of
shot on a runway, when he would break away eastward at top speed. For a
mile or more his course could be traced by the hounds giving tongue on
a hot scent until they reached the gully, where their steady trail-cry
changed to howls of vexation. And that was the end of the chase for
that day, unless the weary dogs had ambition enough to hunt up another
fox.
At first it was assumed that the game had run into a ledge, as red
foxes do when they are fagged or wounded; but when hunters followed
their baffled dogs time and again, they always found them running
wildly up and down both banks of the stream, looking for a trail which
they never found. Then some said that the fox had a secret den, which
he approached by running over a tangle of vines where the hounds
could not follow; but one old hunter, who had chased foxes for half a
century, settled the matter briefly. “My dogs,” he said, “can follow
anything that runs above ground. They can’t follow this fox. Therefore
he takes to water, like a buck, and swims so far downstream that we
never find where he comes out.” Though nobody had ever seen a fox take
to water, a man who has followed foxes half a century is ready to
believe almost anything within reason.
On stormy nights the hunters would forgather at the village store, and
whenever the talk turned to the old fox of the gully I was all ears. I
knew the place well, and wondered why some Nimrod, instead of merely
shooting foxes or theorizing about them, did not take the simplest
means of solving the mystery; but it would have been foolhardy in that
veteran company to venture a new opinion on the ancient sport of fox
hunting. I remember once, when they were swapping yarns, of breaking
rashly into the conversation to tell of a fox I had seen at a lucky
moment when he did not see me. He was nosing along the edge of a wood,
and I threw a chunk of wood after him as he moved away. It missed him
by a foot, and he pounced upon it like a flash as it went bouncing
among the dead leaves.