That autumn, late one moonlight night, the porcupine was down by a little
forest lake feasting on lily pads. He occupied a post of great advantage,
a long, narrow ledge of rock jutting out into the midst of the lilies,
and rising but an inch or two above the water. Presently, to his great
indignation, he heard a dry rustling of quills behind him, and saw
another porcupine crawl out upon his rock. He faced about, bristling
angrily and gnashing his teeth, and advanced to repel the intruder.
The intruder hesitated, then came on again with confidence, but making no
hostile demonstrations whatever. When the two met, the expected conflict
was by some sudden agreement omitted. They touched blunt noses, squeaked
and grunted together for awhile till a perfect understanding was
established; then crawled ashore and left the lily pads to rest, broad,
shiny, and unruffled in the moonlight, little platters of silver on the
dark glass of the lake.
The newcomer was a female; and with such brief wooing the big porcupine
had taken her for his mate. Now he led her off to show her the unequalled
den which he had lately discovered. The den was high in the side of a
heap of rocks, dry in all weathers, and so overhung by a half-uprooted
tree as to be very well concealed from passers and prowlers. Its entrance
was long and narrow, deterrent to rash investigators. In fact, just after
the porcupine had moved in, a red fox had discovered the doorway and
judged it exactly to his liking; but on finding that the occupant was a
porcupine, he had hastily decided to seek accommodation elsewhere. In
this snug house the two porcupines settled contentedly for the winter.
The winter passed somewhat uneventfully for them, though for the rest of
the wood-folk it was a season of unwonted hardship. The cold was more
intense and more implacable than had been known about the settlements for
years. Most of the wild creatures, save those who could sleep the bitter
months away and abide the coming of spring, found themselves face to face
with famine. But the porcupines feared neither famine nor cold. The brown
fur beneath their quills was thick and warm, and hunger was impossible to
them with all the trees of the forest for their pasturage. Sometimes,
when the cold made them sluggish, they would stay all day and all night
in a single balsam-fir or hemlock, stripping one branch after another of
leaf and twig, indifferent to the monotony of their diet. At other times,
however, they were as active and enterprising as if all the heats of
summer were loosing their sinews. On account of the starvation-madness
that was everywhere ranging the coverts, they were more than once
attacked as they crawled lazily over the snow; but on each occasion the
enemy, whether lynx or fox, fisher or mink, withdrew discomfited, with
something besides hunger in his hide to think about.
Once, in midwinter, they found a prize which added exquisite variety to
their bill of fare. Having wandered down to the outskirts of the
settlements, they discovered, cast aside among the bushes, an empty
firkin which had lately contained salt pork. The wood, saturated with
brine, was delicious to the porcupines. Greedily they gnawed at it,
returning night after night to the novel banquet, till the last sliver of
the flavoured wood was gone. Then, after lingering a day or two longer in
the neighbourhood, expecting another miracle, they returned to their
solitudes and their hemlock.
When winter was drawing near its close, but spring had not yet sent the
wilderness word of her coming, the porcupines got her message in their
blood. They proclaimed it abroad in the early twilight from the tops of
the high hemlocks, in queer, half-rhythmical choruses of happy grunts and
squeaks. The sound was far from melodious, but it pleased every one of
the wild kindred to whose ears it came; for they knew that when the
porcupines got trying to sing, then the spring thaws were hurrying up
from the south.
At last the long desired one came; and every little rill ran a brawling
brook in the fulness of its joy. And the ash-buds swelled rich purple;
and the maples crimsoned with their misty blooms; and the skunk cabbage
began to thrust up bold knobs of emerald, startling in their brightness,
through the black and naked leaf-mould of the swamp. And just at this
time, when all the wild kindred, from the wood-mouse to the moose, felt
sure that life was good, a porcupine baby was born in the snug den among
the rocks.
[Illustration: “A WEASEL GLIDED NOISELESSLY UP TO THE DOOR OF THE DEN.”]
It was an astonishingly big baby,—the biggest, in proportion to the size
of its parents, of all the babies of the wild. In fact it was almost as
big as an average bear cub. It was covered with long, dark brown, silky
fur, under which the future panoply of spear-points was already beginning
to make way through the tender skin. Its mother was very properly proud,
and assiduous in her devotion. And the big father, though seemingly quite
indifferent, kept his place contentedly in the den instead of going off
sourly by himself to another lair as the porcupine male is apt to do on
the arrival of the young.
One evening about dusk, when the young porcupine was but three days old,
a weasel glided noiselessly up to the door of the den, and sniffed. His
eyes, set close together and far down toward his malignant, pointed nose,
were glowing red with the lust of the kill. Fierce and fearless as he
was, he knew well enough that a porcupine was something for him to let
alone. But this, surely, was his chance to feed fat an ancient grudge;
for he hated everything that he could not hope to kill. He had seen the
mother porcupine feeding comfortably in the top of a near-by poplar. And
now he made assurance doubly sure by sniffing at her trail, which came
out from the den and did not return. As for the big male porcupine, the
prowler took it for granted that he had followed the usage of his kind,
and gone off about other business. Like a snake, he slipped in, and found
the furry baby all alone. There was a strong, squeaking cry, a moment’s
struggle; and then the weasel drank eagerly at the blood of his easy
prey. The blood, and the fierce joy of the kill, were all he wanted, for
his hunting was only just begun.
The assassin stayed but a minute with his victim, then turned swiftly to
the door of the den. But the door was blocked. It was filled by an
ominous, bristling bulk, which advanced upon him slowly, inexorably,
making a sharp, clashing sound with its long teeth. The big porcupine had
come home. And his eyes blazed more fiercely red than those of the
weasel.
The weasel, fairly caught, felt that doom was upon him. He backed away,
over the body of his victim, to the furthest depth of the den. But,
though a ruthless murderer, the most cruel of all the wild kindred, he
was no coward. He would evade the slow avenger if he could; but if not,
he would fight to the last gasp.
Against this foe the porcupine scorned his customary tactics, and
depended upon his terrible, cutting teeth. At the same time he knew that
the weasel was desperate and deadly. Therefore he held his head low,
shielding his tender throat. When he reached the wider part of the den,
he suddenly swung sidewise, thus keeping the exit still blocked.
Seeing now that there was no escape, the weasel gathered his forces for
one last fight. Like lightning he sprang, and struck; and being, for
speed, quite matchless among the wild folk, he secured a deadly hold on
the porcupine’s jaw. The porcupine squeaked furiously and tried to shake
his adversary off. With a sweep of his powerful neck, he threw the weasel
to one side, and then into the air over his head.
The next instant the weasel came down, sprawling widely, full upon the
stiffly erected spears of the porcupine’s back. They pierced deep into
his tender belly. With a shrill cry he relaxed his hold on the avenger’s
jaw, shrank together in anguish, fell to the ground, and darted to the
exit. As he passed he got a heavy slap from the porcupine’s tail, which
filled his face and neck with piercing barbs. Then he escaped from the
den and fled away toward his own lair, carrying his death with him.
Before he had gone a hundred yards one of the quills in his belly reached
a vital part. He faltered, fell, stretched his legs out weakly, and died.
Then a red squirrel, who had been watching him in a quiver of fear and
hate, shot from his hiding-place, ran wildly up and down his tree, and
made the woods ring with his sharp, barking chatter of triumph over the
death of the universal enemy.
In the midst of the squirrel’s shrill rejoicings the porcupine emerged
from his den. He seemed to hesitate, which is not the way of a porcupine.
He looked at his mate, still foraging in the top of her poplar, happily
unaware for the present of how her little world had changed. He seemed to
realise that the time of partings had come, the time when he must resume
his solitude. He turned and looked at his den,—he would never find
another like it! Then he crawled off through the cool, wet woods, where
the silence seemed to throb sweetly with the stir and fulness of the sap.
And in a hollow log, not far from the bee-tree on the knoll, he found
himself a new home, small and solitary.