While little Luke spent a good deal of his time with the Bob Lincoln
family, he did not neglect his other friends among the wild folk. Almost
every day he had long talks with one or more of them. Thus it came to
pass that he soon became exceeding wise with the wisdom of the wild
kindreds; for his eyes were sharper and his ears keener than those of
any other of the house people.
There was Sam, the hired man, who thought he knew a good deal about the
wild folk. And there was Old Bill, the hunter, who had done little
besides hunting and trapping all his long life; even these did not begin
to know the beasts and birds as little Luke knew them. Before the
Finding of the Magic Flower, he had thought them marvels of woodcraft
and fieldcraft. Now they seemed to him almost blind and deaf.
As he went about with them, he found that for all their boasting (and
they often boasted) they really knew little about the wild folk. Many
times they would pass Wa-poose the Rabbit sitting unseen on his form
within a few feet of them. Mother Mit-chee the Ruffled Partridge made
her nest in plain sight on the ground beside the old trail and they
passed by a hundred times and never saw her. And so it was with many
others of the wild folk. Often they went quietly about their business
before the very eyes of the house people who did not see them.
During that summer little Luke spent much time with Old John the lone
Indian, who lived at the foot of Black Mountain. For Old John, seeing
the little boy's love of woodcraft and his wonderful keenness of ear and
eye, and understanding, came to love him more than he had loved anyone
or anything for many years.
He would make some excuse to come to the farmhouse. Then, when his
pretended business was finished, he would sit with the little boy on an
old bench on the lawn and tell him stories of the Red Men or of the wild
folk.
Sometimes, too, the little boy would go up the trail and sit by the
spring where he had found the Magic Speech Flower and wait for the old
Indian. Or, when Old John started for home, he would go along with him
up into the woods and there they would sit on a fallen log and talk of
the old days when the Red Men dwelt in that land, or of the wood folk
they saw and heard about them. These were most enchanting tales, and
little Luke enjoyed them exceedingly.
And he learned that in some matters Old John was very wise. But these
were mostly concerned with hunting and trapping. Little Luke did not
like the idea of killing any of his wild friends, even though he knew
that their flesh and fur were very useful. He knew, too, that the Law of
the Wild Kindred allowed everyone to kill to supply his need and so he
did not much mind the killing in Old John's stories, for he knew that
the old man never killed any creature needlessly.
And he learned, too, that the old Indian had some strange notions about
the wild folk. He believed that long ago they had all been very much
like men. "In those days," he said, "the animals could talk and build
wigwams just as the Red Men did." He believed, too, that the forefathers
of some tribes of the Red Men had been animals, and that the forefathers
of some of the animal kindreds had been men. All this seemed queer to
the boy, but not half so queer as it would have seemed before the
Finding of the Magic Speech Flower and his talks with the wild folk.
Now the tale of the Finding of the Magic Flower was told abroad among
all the tribes of the wild folk round about. For this reason, as time
went on, many of them came to see the wonderful Man Cub (as they often
called little Luke) who could speak and understand the language of the
wild kindreds.
In that way little Luke came to know many of the wild folk that he had
never seen before. Some of them were furry folk, who lived in the woods
and fields and along the brooks, and some were beautiful feathered folk,
who came down from the tops of the tall pines and spruces and hemlocks.
These were mostly bird folk who had once lived in the Summer Land and
had learned to travel southward before the return of Pe-boan the cruel
Winter King. They loved the upper spaces of the great forests, and there
they lived as some of the water folk live in the lower depths of the
great sea.
These bird folk hated the open fields and even the lower air, in the
thick forests, seemed heavy and unpleasant to them. So they seldom came
down from their airy homes in the upper branches of the great trees. For
this reason little Luke did not see much of them, but when he did see
one of them, it was as if he had seen an angel.
[Illustration]