walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in
all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had
been rather proud of the eggs,--they were unusually large,--but she
never felt quite comfortable on them, and whether it was because she
used to get cramp and go off the nest, or because the season was bad, or
what, she never could tell; but every egg was addled but one, and the
one that did hatch gave her more trouble than any chick she had ever
reared.
It was a fine, downy, bright yellow little thing, but it had a monstrous
big nose and feet, and such an ungainly walk as she knew no other
instance of in her well-bred and high-stepping family. And as to
behavior, it was not that it was either quarrelsome or moping, but
simply unlike the rest. When the other chicks hopped and cheeped on the
Green about their mother's feet, this solitary yellow brat went waddling
off on its own responsibility, and do or cluck what the speckled hen
would, it went to play in the pond.
It was off one day as usual, and the hen was fussing and fuming after
it, when the Postman, going to deliver a letter at Miss Jessamine's
door, was nearly knocked over by the good lady herself, who, bursting
out of the house with her cap just off and her bonnet just not on, fell
into his arms, crying,--
"Baby! Baby! Jackanapes! Jackanapes!"
If the Postman loved anything on earth, he loved the Captain's
yellow-haired child; so, propping Miss Jessamine against her own
door-post, he followed the direction of her trembling fingers and made
for the Green.
Jackanapes had had the start of the Postman by nearly ten minutes. The
world--the round green world with an oak tree on it--was just becoming
very interesting to him. He had tried, vigorously but ineffectually, to
mount a passing pig the last time he was taken out walking; but then he
was encumbered with a nurse. Now he was his own master, and might, by
courage and energy, become the master of that delightful downy, dumpy,
yellow thing that was bobbing along over the green grass in front of
him. Forward! Charge! He aimed well, and grabbed it, but only to feel
the delicious downiness and dumpiness slipping through his fingers as he
fell upon his face. "Quawk!" said the yellow thing, and wabbled off
sideways. It was this oblique movement that enabled Jackanapes to come
up with it, for it was bound for the Pond, and therefore obliged to come
back into line. He failed again from top-heaviness, and his prey escaped
sideways as before, and, as before, lost ground in getting back to the
direct road to the Pond.
And at the Pond the Postman found them both,--one yellow thing rocking
safely on the ripples that lie beyond duckweed, and the other washing
his draggled frock with tears because he too had tried to sit upon the
Pond and it wouldn't hold him.
CHAPTER III
If studious, copie fair what time hath blurred,
Redeem truth from his jawes: if souldier,
Chase brave employments with a naked sword
Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have,
If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave.
* * * * *
In brief, acquit thee bravely; play the man.
Look not on pleasures as they come, but go.
Defer not the least vertue: life's poore span
Make not an ell, by trifling in thy woe.
If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains.
If well: the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
--GEORGE HERBERT
Young Mrs. Johnson, who was a mother of many, hardly knew which to pity
more,--Miss Jessamine for having her little ways and her antimacassars
rumpled by a young Jackanapes, or the boy himself for being brought up
by an old maid.
Oddly enough, she would probably have pitied neither, had Jackanapes
been a girl. (One is so apt to think that what works smoothest, works to
the highest ends, having no patience for the results of friction.) That
father in God who bade the young men to be pure and the maidens brave,
greatly disturbed a member of his congregation, who thought that the
great preacher had made a slip of the tongue.
"That the girls should have purity, and the boys courage, is what you
would say, good father?"
"Nature has done that," was the reply; "I meant what I said."
In good sooth, a young maid is all the better for learning some robuster
virtues than maidenliness and not to move the antimacassars; and the
robuster virtues require some fresh air and freedom. As, on the other
hand, Jackanapes (who had a boy's full share of the little beast and the
young monkey in his natural composition) was none the worse, at his
tender years, for learning some maidenliness,--so far as maidenliness
means decency, pity, unselfishness, and pretty behavior.
And it is due to him to say that he was an obedient boy, and a boy whose
word could be depended on, long before his grandfather the General came
to live at the Green.
He was obedient; that is, he did what his great-aunt told him. But--oh,
dear! oh, dear!--the pranks he played, which it had never entered into
her head to forbid!
It was when he had just been put into skeletons (frocks never suited
him) that he became very friendly with Master Tony Johnson, a younger
brother of the young gentleman who sat in the puddle on purpose. Tony
was not enterprising, and Jackanapes led him by the nose. One summer's
evening they were out late, and Miss Jessamine was becoming anxious,
when Jackanapes presented himself with a ghastly face all besmirched
with tears. He was unusually subdued.
"I'm afraid," he sobbed,--"if you please, I'm very much afraid that Tony
Johnson's dying in the churchyard."
Miss Jessamine was just beginning to be distracted, when she smelt
Jackanapes.
"You naughty, naughty boys! Do you mean to tell me that you've been
smoking?"
"Not pipes," urged Jackanapes; "upon my honor, aunty, not pipes. Only
cigars like Mr. Johnson's! and only made of brown paper with a very,
very little tobacco from the shop inside them."
Whereupon Miss Jessamine sent a servant to the churchyard, who found
Tony Johnson lying on a tombstone, very sick, and having ceased to
entertain any hopes of his own recovery.
If it could be possible that any "unpleasantness" could arise between
two such amiable neighbors as Miss Jessamine and Mrs. Johnson, and if
the still more incredible paradox can be that ladies may differ over a
point on which they are agreed, that point was the admitted fact that
Tony Johnson was "delicate"; and the difference lay chiefly in this:
Mrs. Johnson said that Tony was delicate,--meaning that he was more
finely strung, more sensitive, a properer subject for pampering and
petting, than Jackanapes, and that, consequently, Jackanapes was to
blame for leading Tony into scrapes which resulted in his being chilled,
frightened, or (most frequently) sick. But when Miss Jessamine said that
Tony Johnson was delicate, she meant that he was more puling, less
manly, and less healthily brought up than Jackanapes, who, when they got
into mischief together, was certainly not to blame because his friend
could not get wet, sit a kicking donkey, ride in the giddy-go-round,
bear the noise of a cracker, or smoke brown paper with impunity, as he
could.
Not that there was ever the slightest quarrel between the ladies. It
never even came near it, except the day after Tony had been so very
sick with riding Bucephalus on the giddy-go-round. Mrs. Johnson had
explained to Miss Jessamine that the reason Tony was so easily upset was
the unusual sensitiveness (as a doctor had explained it to her) of the
nervous centers in her family--"Fiddlestick!" So Mrs. Johnson understood
Miss Jessamine to say; but it appeared that she only said
"Treaclestick!" which is quite another thing, and of which Tony was
undoubtedly fond.
It was at the Fair that Tony was made ill by riding on Bucephalus. Once
a year the Goose Green became the scene of a carnival. First of all,
carts and caravans were rumbling up all along, day and night. Jackanapes
could hear them as he lay in bed, and could hardly sleep for speculating
what booths and whirligigs he should find fairly established when he and
his dog Spitfire went out after breakfast. As a matter of fact, he
seldom had to wait so long for news of the Fair. The Postman knew the
window out of which Jackanapes's yellow head would come, and was ready
with his report.
"Royal Theayter, Master Jackanapes, in the old place, but be careful o'
them seats, sir; they're rickettier than ever. Two sweets and a ginger
beer under the Oak tree, and the Flying Boats is just a-coming along the
road."
No doubt it was partly because he had already suffered severely in the
Flying Boats that Tony collapsed so quickly in the giddy-go-round. He
only mounted Bucephalus (who was spotted, and had no tail) because
Jackanapes urged him, and held out the ingenious hope that the
round-and-round feeling would very likely cure the up-and-down
sensation. It did not, however, and Tony tumbled off during the first
revolution.
Jackanapes was not absolutely free from qualms; but having once mounted
the Black Prince, he stuck to him as a horseman should. During the first
round he waved his hat, and observed with some concern that the Black
Prince had lost an ear since last Fair; at the second, he looked a
little pale, but sat upright, though somewhat unnecessarily rigid; at
the third round he shut his eyes. During the fourth his hat fell off,
and he clasped his horse's neck. By the fifth he had laid his yellow
head against the Black Prince's mane, and so clung anyhow till the
hobby-horses stopped, when the proprietor assisted him to alight, and he
sat down rather suddenly and said he had enjoyed it very much.
The Gray Goose always ran away at the first approach of the caravans,
and never came back to the Green till there was nothing left of the Fair
but footmarks and oyster-shells. Running away was her pet principle; the
only system, she maintained, by which you can live long and easily and
lose nothing. If you run away when you see danger, you can come back
when all is safe. Run quickly, return slowly, hold your head high, and
gabble as loud as you can, and you'll preserve the respect of the Goose
Green to a peaceful old age. Why should you struggle and get hurt, if
you can lower your head and swerve, and not lose a feather?! Why in the
world should any one spoil the pleasure of life, or risk his skin, if he
can help it?
"'What's the use?'
Said the Goose."
Before answering which one might have to consider what world, which
life, and whether his skin were a goose-skin; but the Gray Goose's head
would never have held all that.
Grass soon grows over footprints, and the village children took the
oyster-shells to trim their gardens with; but the year after Tony rode
Bucephalus there lingered another relic of Fair-time in which Jackanapes
was deeply interested. "The Green" proper was originally only part of a
straggling common, which in its turn merged into some wilder waste land
where gypsies sometimes squatted if the authorities would allow them,
especially after the annual Fair. And it was after the Fair that
Jackanapes, out rambling by himself, was knocked over by the Gypsy's son
riding the Gypsy's red-haired pony at breakneck pace across the common.
Jackanapes got up and shook himself, none the worse except for being
heels over head in love with the red-haired pony. What a rate he went
at! How he spurned the ground with his nimble feet! How his red coat
shone in the sunshine! And what bright eyes peeped out of his dark
forelock as it was blown by the wind!
The Gypsy boy had had a fright, and he was willing enough to reward
Jackanapes for not having been hurt, by consenting to let him have a
ride.
"Do you mean to kill the little fine gentleman, and swing us all on the
gibbet, you rascal?" screamed the Gypsy mother, who came up just as
Jackanapes and the pony set off.
"He would get on," replied her son. "It'll not kill him. He'll fall on
his yellow head, and it's as tough as a cocoanut."
But Jackanapes did not fall. He stuck to the red-haired pony as he had
stuck to the hobby-horse; but, oh, how different the delight of this
wild gallop with flesh and blood! Just as his legs were beginning to
feel as if he did not feel them, the Gypsy boy cried, "Lollo!" Round
went the pony so unceremoniously that with as little ceremony Jackanapes
clung to his neck; and he did not properly recover himself before Lollo
stopped with a jerk at the place where they had started.
"Is his name Lollo?" asked Jackanapes, his hand lingering in the wiry
mane.
"Yes."
"What does Lollo mean?"
"Red."
"Is Lollo your pony?"
"No. My father's." And the Gypsy boy led Lollo away.
At the first opportunity Jackanapes stole away again to the common. This
time he saw the Gypsy father, smoking a dirty pipe.
"Lollo is your pony, isn't he?" said Jackanapes.
"Yes."
"He's a very nice one."
"He's a racer."
"You don't want to sell him, do you?"
"Fifteen pounds," said the Gypsy father; and Jackanapes sighed and went
home again. That very afternoon he and Tony rode the two donkeys; and
Tony managed to get thrown, and even Jackanapes's donkey kicked. But it
was jolting, clumsy work after the elastic swiftness and the dainty
mischief of the red-haired pony.
A few days later, Miss Jessamine spoke very seriously to Jackanapes. She
was a good deal agitated as she told him that his grandfather the
General was coming to the Green, and that he must be on his very best
behavior during the visit. If it had been feasible to leave off calling
him Jackanapes and to get used to his baptismal name of Theodore before
the day after to-morrow (when the General was due), it would have been
satisfactory. But Miss Jessamine feared it would be impossible in
practice, and she had scruples about it on principle. It would not seem
quite truthful, although she had always most fully intended that he
should be called Theodore when he had outgrown the ridiculous
appropriateness of his nickname. The fact was that he had not outgrown
it, but he must take care to remember who was meant when his grandfather
said Theodore.
Indeed, for that matter, he must take care all along.
"You are apt to be giddy, Jackanapes," said Miss Jessamine.
"Yes, aunt," said Jackanapes, thinking of the hobby-horses.
"You are a good boy, Jackanapes. Thank God, I can tell your grandfather
that. An obedient boy, an honorable boy, and a kind-hearted boy. But you
are--in short, you _are_ a Boy, Jackanapes. And I hope," added Miss
Jessamine, desperate with the results of experience, "that the General
knows that Boys will be Boys."
What mischief could be foreseen, Jackanapes promised to guard against.
He was to keep his clothes and his hands clean, to look over his
catechism, not to put sticky things in his pockets, to keep that hair of
his smooth ("It's the wind that blows it, aunty," said Jackanapes--"I'll
send by the coach for some bear's-grease," said Miss Jessamine, tying a
knot in her pocket-handkerchief), not to burst in at the parlor door,
not to talk at the top of his voice, not to crumple his Sunday frill,
and to sit quite quiet during the sermon, to be sure to say "sir" to the
General, to be careful about rubbing his shoes on the door-mat, and to
bring his lesson-books to his aunt at once that she might iron down the
dogs'-ears. The General arrived; and for the first day all went well,
except that Jackanapes's hair was as wild as usual, for the hair-dresser
had no bear's-grease left. He began to feel more at ease with his
grandfather, and disposed to talk confidentially with him, as he did
with the Postman. All that the General felt, it would take too long to
tell; but the result was the same. He was disposed to talk
confidentially with Jackanapes.
"Mons'ous pretty place this," he said, looking out of the lattice on to
the Green, where the grass was vivid with sunset and the shadows were
long and peaceful.
"You should see it in Fair-week, sir," said Jackanapes, shaking his
yellow mop, and leaning back in his one of the two Chippendale
arm-chairs in which they sat.
"A fine time that, eh?" said the General, with a twinkle in his left eye
(the other was glass).
Jackanapes shook his hair once more. "I enjoyed this last one the best
of all," he said. "I'd so much money."
"By George, it's not a common complaint in these bad times. How much had
ye?"
"I'd two shillings. A new shilling aunty gave me, and elevenpence I had
saved up, and a penny from the Postman,--_sir_!" added Jackanapes with a
jerk, having forgotten it.
"And how did ye spend it,--_sir_?" inquired the General.
Jackanapes spread his ten fingers on the arms of his chair, and shut his
eyes that he might count the more conscientiously.
"Watch-stand for aunty, threepence. Trumpet for myself, twopence; that's
fivepence. Gingernuts for Tony, twopence, and a mug with a Grenadier on
for the Postman, fourpence; that's elevenpence. Shooting-gallery a
penny; that's a shilling. Giddy-go-round, a penny; that's one and a
penny. Treating Tony, one and twopence. Flying Boats (Tony paid for
himself), a penny, one and threepence. Shooting-gallery again, one and
fourpence; Fat Woman a penny, one and fivepence. Giddy-go-round again,
one and sixpence. Shooting-gallery, one and sevenpence. Treating Tony,
and then he wouldn't shoot, so I did, one and eightpence. Living
Skeleton, a penny--no, Tony treated me, the Living Skeleton doesn't
count. Skittles, a penny, one and ninepence. Mermaid (but when we got
inside she was dead), a penny, one and tenpence. Theater, a penny
(Priscilla Partington, or the Green Lane Murder. A beautiful young lady,
sir, with pink cheeks and a real pistol); that's one and elevenpence.
Ginger beer, a penny (I _was_ so thirsty!), two shillings. And then the
Shooting-gallery man gave me a turn for nothing, because, he said, I was
a real gentleman, and spent my money like a man."
"So you do, sir, so you do!" cried the General. "Egad, sir, you spent it
like a prince. And now I suppose you've not got a penny in your pocket?"
"Yes, I have," said Jackanapes. "Two pennies. They are saving up." And
Jackanapes jingled them with his hand.
"You don't want money except at Fair-times, I suppose?" said the
General.
Jackanapes shook his mop.
"If I could have as much as I want, I should know what to buy," said he.
"And how much do you want, if you could get it?"
"Wait a minute, sir, till I think what twopence from fifteen pounds
leaves. Two from nothing you can't, but borrow twelve. Two from twelve,
ten, and carry one. Please remember ten, sir, when I ask you. One from
nothing you can't, borrow twenty. One from twenty, nineteen, and carry
one. One from fifteen, fourteen. Fourteen pounds nineteen and--what did
I tell you to remember?"
"Ten," said the General.
"Fourteen pounds nineteen shillings and tenpence, then, is what I want,"
said Jackanapes.
"God bless my soul! what for?"
"To buy Lollo with. Lollo means red, sir. The Gypsy's red-haired pony,
sir. Oh, he _is_ beautiful! You should see his coat in the sunshine! You
should see his mane! You should see his tail! Such little feet, sir, and
they go like lightning! Such a dear face, too, and eyes like a mouse!
But he's a racer, and the Gypsy wants fifteen pounds for him."
"If he's a racer you couldn't ride him. Could you?"
"No--o, sir, but I can stick to him. I did the other day."
"The dooce you did! Well, I'm fond of riding myself; and if the beast is
as good as you say, he might suit me."
"You're too tall for Lollo, I think," said Jackanapes, measuring his
grandfather with his eye.
"I can double up my legs, I suppose. We'll have a look at him
to-morrow."
"Don't you weigh a good deal?" asked Jackanapes.
"Chiefly waistcoats," said the General, slapping the breast of his
military frock-coat. "We'll have the little racer on the Green the first
thing in the morning. Glad you mentioned it, grandson; glad you
mentioned it."
The General was as good as his word. Next morning the Gypsy and Lollo,
Miss Jessamine, Jackanapes and his grandfather and his dog Spitfire,
were all gathered at one end of the Green in a group, which so aroused
the innocent curiosity of Mrs. Johnson, as she saw it from one of her
upper windows, that she and the children took their early promenade
rather earlier than usual. The General talked to the Gypsy, and
Jackanapes fondled Lollo's mane, and did not know whether he should be
more glad or miserable if his grandfather bought him.
"Jackanapes!"
"Yes, sir!"
"I've bought Lollo, but I believe you were right. He hardly stands high
enough for me. If you can ride him to the other end of the Green, I'll
give him to you."
How Jackanapes tumbled on to Lollo's back he never knew. He had just
gathered up the reins when the Gypsy father took him by the arm.
"If you want to make Lollo go fast, my little gentleman--"
"_I_ can make him go!" said Jackanapes; and drawing from his pocket the
trumpet he had bought in the Fair, he blew a blast both loud and shrill.
Away went Lollo, and away went Jackanapes's hat. His golden hair flew
out, an aureole from which his cheeks shone red and distended with
trumpeting. Away went Spitfire, mad with the rapture of the race and the
wind in his silky ears. Away went the geese, the cocks, the hens, and
the whole family of Johnson. Lucy clung to her mamma, Jane saved Emily
by the gathers of her gown, and Tony saved himself by a somersault.
The Gray Goose was just returning when Jackanapes and Lollo rode back,
Spitfire panting behind.
"Good, my little gentleman, good!" said the Gypsy. "You were born to the
saddle. You've the flat thigh, the strong knee, the wiry back, and the
light caressing hand; all you want is to learn the whisper. Come here!"
"What was that dirty fellow talking about, grandson?" asked the General.
"I can't tell you, sir. It's a secret."
They were sitting in the window again, in the two Chippendale
arm-chairs, the General devouring every line of his grandson's face,
with strange spasms crossing his own.
"You must love your aunt very much, Jackanapes?"
"I do, sir," said Jackanapes, warmly.
"And whom do you love next best to your aunt?"
The ties of blood were pressing very strongly on the General himself,
and perhaps he thought of Lollo. But love is not bought in a day, even
with fourteen pounds nineteen shillings and tenpence. Jackanapes
answered quite readily, "The Postman."
"Why the Postman?"
"He knew my father," said Jackanapes, "and he tells me about him and
about his black mare. My father was a soldier, a brave soldier. He died
at Waterloo. When I grow up I want to be a soldier too."
"So you shall, my boy; so you shall."
"Thank you, grandfather. Aunty doesn't want me to be a soldier, for fear
of being killed."
"Bless my life! Would she have you get into a feather-bed and stay
there? Why, you might be killed by a thunderbolt if you were a
butter-merchant!"
"So I might. I shall tell her so. What a funny fellow you are, sir! I
say, do you think my father knew the Gypsy's secret? The Postman says he
used to whisper to his black mare."
"Your father was taught to ride, as a child, by one of those horsemen of
the East who swoop and dart and wheel about a plain like swallows in
autumn. Grandson! love me a little too. I can tell you more about your
father than the Postman can."
"I do love you," said Jackanapes. "Before you came I was frightened. I'd
no notion you were so nice."
"Love me always, boy, whatever I do or leave undone. And--God help
me!--whatever you do or leave undone, I'll love you. There shall never
be a cloud between us for a day; no, sir, not for an hour. We're
imperfect enough, all of us--we needn't be so bitter; and life is
uncertain enough at its safest--we needn't waste its opportunities. God
bless my soul! Here sit I, after a dozen battles and some of the worst
climates in the world, and by yonder lych gate lies your mother, who
didn't move five miles, I suppose, from your aunt's apron-strings,--dead
in her teens; my golden-haired daughter, whom I never saw!"
Jackanapes was terribly troubled.
"Don't cry, grandfather," he pleaded, his own blue eyes round with
tears. "I will love you very much, and I will try to be very good. But I
should like to be a soldier."
"You shall, my boy; you shall. You've more claims for a commission than
you know of. Cavalry, I suppose; eh, ye young Jackanapes? Well, well; if
you live to be an honor to your country, this old heart shall grow young
again with pride for you; and if you die in the service of your
country--egad, sir, it can but break for ye!"
And beating the region which he said was all waistcoats, as if they
stifled him, the old man got up and strode out on to the Green.
CHAPTER IV
_Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends._--John 15:13.
Twenty and odd years later the Gray Goose was still alive, and in full
possession of her faculties, such as they were. She lived slowly and
carefully, and she lived long. So did Miss Jessamine; but the General
was dead.
He had lived on the Green for many years, during which he and the
Postman saluted each other with a punctiliousness that it almost drilled
one to witness. He would have completely spoiled Jackanapes if Miss
Jessamine's conscience would have let him; otherwise he somewhat
dragooned his neighbors, and was as positive about parish matters as a
rate-payer about the army. A stormy-tempered, tender-hearted soldier,
irritable with the suffering of wounds of which he never spoke, whom all
the village followed to his grave with tears.
The General's death was a great shock to Miss Jessamine, and her nephew
stayed with her for some little time after the funeral. Then he was
obliged to join his regiment, which was ordered abroad.
One effect of the conquest which the General had gained over the
affections of the village was a considerable abatement of the popular
prejudice against "the military." Indeed, the village was now somewhat
importantly represented in the army. There was the General himself, and
the Postman, and the Black Captain's tablet in the church, and
Jackanapes, and Tony Johnson, and a Trumpeter.
Tony Johnson had no more natural taste for fighting than for riding, but
he was as devoted as ever to Jackanapes. And that was how it came about
that Mr. Johnson bought him a commission in the same cavalry regiment
that the General's grandson (whose commission had been given him by the
Iron Duke) was in; and that he was quite content to be the butt of the
mess where Jackanapes was the hero; and that when Jackanapes wrote home
to Miss Jessamine, Tony wrote with the same purpose to his
mother,--namely, to demand her congratulations that they were on active
service at last, and were ordered to the front. And he added a
postscript, to the effect that she could have no idea how popular
Jackanapes was, nor how splendidly he rode the wonderful red charger
which he had named after his old friend Lollo.
* * * * *
"Sound Retire!"
A Boy Trumpeter, grave with the weight of responsibilities and
accoutrements beyond his years, and stained so that his own mother would
not have known him, with the sweat and dust of battle, did as he was
bid; and then, pushing his trumpet pettishly aside, adjusted his weary
legs for the hundredth time to the horse which was a world too big for
him, and muttering, "'Tain't a pretty tune," tried to see something of
this his first engagement before it came to an end.
Being literally in the thick of it, he could hardly have seen less or
known less of what happened in that particular skirmish if he had been
at home in England. For many good reasons,--including dust and smoke,
and that what attention he dared distract from his commanding officer
was pretty well absorbed by keeping his hard-mouthed troop-horse in
hand, under pain of execration by his neighbors in the melee. By and by,
when the newspapers came out, if he could get a look at one before it
was thumbed to bits, he would learn that the enemy had appeared from
ambush in overwhelming numbers, and that orders had been given to fall
back, which was done slowly and in good order, the men fighting as they
retired.
Born and bred on the Goose Green, the youngest of Mr. Johnson's
gardener's numerous offspring, the boy had given his family no "peace"
till they let him "go for a soldier" with Master Tony and Master
Jackanapes. They consented at last, with more tears than they shed when
an elder son was sent to jail for poaching; and the boy was perfectly
happy in his life, and full of _esprit de corps_. It was this which had
been wounded by having to sound retreat for "the young gentlemen's
regiment," the first time he served with it before the enemy; and he was
also harassed by having completely lost sight of Master Tony. There had
been some hard fighting before the backward movement began, and he had
caught sight of him once, but not since. On the other hand, all the
pulses of his village pride had been stirred by one or two visions of
Master Jackanapes whirling about on his wonderful horse. He had been
easy to distinguish, since an eccentric blow had bared his head without
hurting it; for his close golden mop of hair gleamed in the hot sunshine
as brightly as the steel of the sword flashing round it.
Of the missiles that fell pretty thickly, the Boy Trumpeter did not take
much notice. First, one can't attend to everything, and his hands were
full; secondly, one gets used to anything; thirdly, experience soon
teaches one, in spite of proverbs, how very few bullets find their
billet. Far more unnerving is the mere suspicion of fear or even of
anxiety in the human mass around you. The Boy was beginning to wonder if
there were any dark reason for the increasing pressure, and whether they
would be allowed to move back more quickly, when the smoke in front
lifted for a moment, and he could see the plain, and the enemy's line
some two hundred yards away. And across the the plain between them, he
saw Master Jackanapes galloping alone at the top of Lollo's speed, their
faces to the enemy, his golden head at Lollo's ear.
But at this moment noise and smoke seemed to burst out on every side;
the officer shouted to him to sound Retire! and between trumpeting and
bumping about on his horse, he saw and heard no more of the incidents of
his first battle.
Tony Johnson was always unlucky with horses, from the days of the
giddy-go-round onwards. On this day--of all days in the year--his own
horse was on the sick list, and he had to ride an inferior,
ill-conditioned beast, and fell off that, at the very moment when it was
matter of life or death to be able to ride away. The horse fell on him,
but struggled up again, and Tony managed to keep hold of it. It was in
trying to remount that he discovered, by helplessness and anguish, that
one of his legs was crushed and broken, and that no feat of which he was
master would get him into the saddle. Not able even to stand alone,
awkwardly, agonizingly, unable to mount his restive horse, his life was
yet so strong within him! And on one side of him rolled the dust and
smoke-cloud of his advancing foes, and on the other, that which covered
his retreating friends.
He turned one piteous gaze after them, with a bitter twinge, not of
reproach, but of loneliness; and then, dragging himself up by the side
of his horse, he turned the other way and drew out his pistol, and
waited for the end. Whether he waited seconds or minutes he never knew,
before some one gripped him by the arm.
"_Jackanapes! God bless you!_ It's my left leg. If you _could_ get me
on--"
It was like Tony's luck that his pistol went off at his horse's tail,
and made it plunge; but Jackanapes threw him across the saddle.
"Hold on anyhow, and stick your spur in. I'll lead him. Keep your head
down; they're firing high."
And Jackanapes laid his head down--to Lollo's ear.
It was when they were fairly off, that a sudden upspringing of the enemy
in all directions had made it necessary to change the gradual retirement
of our force into as rapid a retreat as possible. And when Jackanapes
became aware of this, and felt the lagging and swerving of Tony's horse,
he began to wish he had thrown his friend across his own saddle and left
their lives to Lollo.
When Tony became aware of it, several things came into his head: 1. That
the dangers of their ride for life were now more than doubled; 2. That
if Jackanapes and Lollo were not burdened with him they would
undoubtedly escape; 3. That Jackanapes's life was infinitely valuable,
and his--Tony's--was not; 4. That this, if he could seize it, was the
supremest of all the moments in which he had tried to assume the virtues
which Jackanapes had by nature; and that if he could be courageous and
unselfish now--
He caught at his own reins and spoke very loud,--
"Jackanapes! It won't do. You and Lollo must go on. Tell the fellows I
gave you back to them with all my heart. Jackanapes, if you love me,
leave me!"
There was a daffodil light over the evening sky in front of them, and it
shone strangely on Jackanapes's hair and face. He turned with an odd
look in his eyes that a vainer man than Tony Johnson might have taken
for brotherly pride. Then he shook his mop, and laughed at him,
"_Leave you?_ To save my skin? No, Tony, not to save my soul!"
CHAPTER V
MR. VALIANT _summoned. His Will. His last
Words._
Then said he, "I am going to my Father's. . . . My
Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my
Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill to him
that can get it." . . . And as he went down
deeper, he said, "Grave, where is thy Victory?"
So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded
for him on the other side.
BUNYAN, _Pilgrim's Progress_
Coming out of a hospital tent, at headquarters, the surgeon cannoned
against, and rebounded from, another officer,--a sallow man, not young,
with a face worn more by ungentle experiences than by age, with weary
eyes that kept their own counsel, iron-gray hair, and a moustache that
was as if a raven had laid its wing across his lips and sealed them.
"Well?"
"Beg pardon, Major. Didn't see you. Oh, compound fracture and bruises.
But it's all right; he'll pull through."
"Thank God."
It was probably an involuntary expression; for prayer and praise were
not much in the Major's line, as a jerk of the surgeon's head would have
betrayed to an observer. He was a bright little man, with his feelings
showing all over him, but with gallantry and contempt of death enough
for both sides of his profession; who took a cool head, a white
handkerchief, and a case of instruments, where other men went hot
blooded with weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or female, of
the regiment. Not even the major's taciturnity daunted him.
"Didn't think he'd as much pluck about him as he has. He'll do all right
if he doesn't fret himself into a fever about poor Jackanapes."
"Whom are you talking about?" asked the Major, hoarsely.
"Young Johnson. He--"
"What about Jackanapes?"
"Don't you know? Sad business. Rode back for Johnson, and brought him
in; but, monstrous ill-luck, hit as they rode. Left lung--"
"Will he recover?"
"No. Sad business. What a frame--what limbs--what health--and what good
looks! Finest young fellow--"
"Where is he?"
"In his own tent," said the surgeon, sadly.
The Major wheeled and left him.
* * * * *
"Can I do anything else for you?"
"Nothing, thank you. Except--Major! I wish I could get you to appreciate
Johnson."
"This is not an easy moment, Jackanapes."
"Let me tell you, sir--_he_ never will--that if he could have driven me
from him, he would be lying yonder at this moment, and I should be safe
and sound."
The Major laid his hand over his mouth, as if to keep back a wish he
would have been ashamed to utter.
"I've known old Tony from a child. He's a fool on impulse, a good man
and a gentleman in principle. And he acts on principle, which it's not
every--Some water, please! Thank you, sir. It's very hot, and yet one's
feet get uncommonly cold. Oh, thank you, thank you. He's no fire-eater,
but he has a trained conscience and a tender heart, and he'll do his
duty when a braver and more selfish man might fail you. But he wants
encouragement; and when I'm gone--"
"He shall have encouragement. You have my word for it. Can I do nothing
else?"
"Yes, Major. A favor."
"Thank you, Jackanapes."
"Be Lollo's master, and love him as well as you can. He's used to it."
"Wouldn't you rather Johnson had him?"
The blue eyes twinkled in spite of mortal pain.
"Tony _rides_ on principle, Major. His legs are bolsters, and will be to
the end of the chapter. I couldn't insult dear Lollo; but if you don't
care--"
"While I live--which will be longer than I desire or deserve--Lollo
shall want nothing but--you. I have too little tenderness for--My dear
boy, you're faint. Can you spare me for a moment?"
"No, stay--Major!"
"What? What?"
"My head drifts so--if you wouldn't mind."
"Yes! Yes!"
"Say a prayer by me. Out loud, please; I am getting deaf."
"My dearest Jackanapes--my dear boy--"
"One of the Church Prayers--Parade Service, you know."
"I see. But the fact is--God forgive me, Jackanapes!--I'm a very
different sort of fellow to some of you youngsters. Look here, let me
fetch--"
But Jackanapes's hand was in his, and it would not let go.
There was a brief and bitter silence.
"'Pon my soul I can only remember the little one at the end."
"Please," whispered Jackanapes.
Pressed by the conviction that what little he could do it was his duty
to do, the Major, kneeling, bared his head, and spoke loudly, clearly,
and very reverently,--
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ--"
Jackanapes moved his left hand to his right one, which still held the
Major's.
"The love of God--"
And with that--Jackanapes died.
CHAPTER VI
Und so ist der blaue Himmel groesser als jedes
Gewoelk darin, und dauerhafter dazu.
--JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Jackanapes's death was sad news for the Goose Green, a sorrow just
qualified by honorable pride in his gallantry and devotion. Only the
Cobbler dissented; but that was his way. He said he saw nothing in it
but foolhardiness and vainglory. They might both have been killed, as
easy as not; and then where would ye have been? A man's life was a man's
life, and one life was as good as another. No one would catch him
throwing his away. And, for that matter, Mrs. Johnson could spare a
child a great deal better than Miss Jessamine.
But the parson preached Jackanapes's funeral sermon on the text,
"Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his
life for my sake shall find it"; and all the village went and wept to
hear him.
Nor did Miss Jessamine see her loss from the Cobbler's point of view. On
the contrary, Mrs. Johnson said she never to her dying day should
forget how, when she went to condole with her, the old lady came
forward, with gentlewomanly self-control, and kissed her, and thanked
God that her dear nephew's effort had been blessed with success, and
that this sad war had made no gap in her friend's large and happy
home-circle.
"But she's a noble, unselfish woman," sobbed Mrs. Johnson, "and she
taught Jackanapes to be the same; and that's how it is that my Tony has
been spared to me. And it must be sheer goodness in Miss Jessamine, for
what can she know of a mother's feelings? And I'm sure most people seem
to think that if you've a large family you don't know one from another
any more than they do, and that a lot of children are like a lot of
store apples,--if one's taken it won't be missed."
Lollo--the first Lollo, the Gypsy's Lollo--very aged, draws Miss
Jessamine's bath-chair slowly up and down the Goose Green in the
sunshine.
The Ex-postman walks beside him, which Lollo tolerates to the level of
his shoulder. If the Postman advances any nearer to his head, Lollo
quickens his pace; and were the Postman to persist in the injudicious
attempt, there is, as Miss Jessamine says, no knowing what might happen.
In the opinion of the Goose Green, Miss Jessamine has borne her troubles
"wonderfully." Indeed, to-day, some of the less delicate and less
intimate of those who see everything from the upper windows say (well,
behind her back) that "the old lady seems quite lively with her military
beaux again."
The meaning of this is, that Captain Johnson is leaning over one side of
her chair, while by the other bends a brother officer who is staying
with him, and who has manifested an extraordinary interest in Lollo. He
bends lower and lower, and Miss Jessamine calls to the Postman to
request Lollo to be kind enough to stop, while she is fumbling for
something which always hangs by her side, and has got entangled with her
spectacles.
It is a twopenny trumpet, bought years ago in the village fair; and over
it she and Captain Johnson tell, as best they can, between them, the
story of Jackanapes's ride across the Goose Green; and how he won
Lollo--the Gypsy's Lollo--the racer Lollo--dear Lollo--faithful
Lollo--Lollo the never vanquished--Lollo the tender servant of his old
mistress. And Lollo's ears twitch at every mention of his name.
Their hearer does not speak, but he never moves his eyes from the
trumpet; and when the tale is told, he lifts Miss Jessamine's hand and
presses his heavy black moustache in silence to her trembling fingers.
The sun, setting gently to his rest, embroiders the somber foliage of
the oak tree with threads of gold. The Gray Goose is sensible of an
atmosphere of repose, and puts up one leg for the night. The grass glows
with a more vivid green, and, in answer to a ringing call from Tony, his
sisters fluttering over the daisies in pale-hued muslins, come out of
their ever-open door, like pretty pigeons from a dovecote.
And if the good gossips' eyes do not deceive them, all the Miss Johnsons
and both the officers go wandering off into the lanes, where bryony
wreaths still twine about the brambles.
* * * * *
A sorrowful story, and ending badly?
Nay, Jackanapes, for the End is not yet.
A life wasted that might have been useful?
Men who have died for men, in all ages, forgive the thought!
There is a heritage of heroic example and noble obligation, not reckoned
in the Wealth of Nations, but essential to a nation's life; the contempt
of which, in any people, may, not slowly, mean even its commercial fall.
Very sweet are the uses of prosperity, the harvests of peace and
progress, the fostering sunshine of health and happiness, and length of
days in the land.
But there be things--oh, sons of what has deserved the name of Great
Britain, forget it not!--"the good of" which and "the use of" which are
beyond all calculation of worldly goods and earthly uses: things such as
Love, and Honor, and the Soul of Man, which cannot be bought with a
price, and which do not die with death. And they who would fain live
happily ever after should not leave these things out of the lessons of
their lives.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "The political men declare war, and generally for commercial
interests; but when the nation is thus embroiled with its neighbors, the
soldier . . . draws the sword at the command of his country. . . . One
word as to thy comparison of military and commercial persons. What manner
of men be they who have supplied the Caffres with the firearms and
ammunition to maintain their savage and deplorable wars? Assuredly they
are not military. . . . Cease then, if thou wouldst be counted among the
just, to vilify soldiers" (W. Napier, _Lieutenant-General_, November,
1851). [Author's Note.]
[4] The Mail Coach it was that distributed over the face of the land,
like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news of
Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo. . . . The grandest
chapter of our experience, within the whole Mail-Coach service, was on
those occasions when we went down from London with the news of Victory.
Five years of life it was worth paying down for the privilege of an
outside place.--(De Quincey.) [Author's Note.]
[5] "Brunswick's fated chieftain" fell at Quatre Bras the day before
Waterloo; but this first (very imperfect) list, as it appeared in the
newspapers of the day, did begin with his name and end with that of an
Ensign Brown. [Author's Note.]
383
The story that follows was first published in
_Harper's Round Table_, June 25, 1895, as the
winner of first place in a short story contest
conducted by that periodical. The author at
that time was seventeen years of age. It seems
quite fitting that a writer beginning his
career in such fashion should finally write the
most scholarly historical and critical account
of the development of the short story, _The
Short Story in English_ (1909). Mr. Canby was
for several years assistant professor of
English in the Sheffield Scientific School,
Yale University, and is now the editor of _The
Literary Review_, the literary section of the
New York _Evening Post_. ("Betty's Ride" is
used here by special arrangement with the
author.)
BETTY'S RIDE: A TALE OF THE REVOLUTION
HENRY S. CANBY
The sun was just rising and showering his first rays on the gambrel-roof
and solid stone walls of a house surrounded by a magnificent grove of
walnuts, and overlooking one of the beautiful valleys so common in
southeastern Pennsylvania. Close by the house, and shaded by the same
great trees, stood a low building of the most severe type, whose
time-stained bricks and timbers green with moss told its age without the
aid of the half-obliterated inscription over the door, which read,
"Built A. D. 1720." One familiar with the country would have pronounced
it without hesitation a Quaker meeting-house, dating back almost to the
time of William Penn.
When Ezra Dale had become the leader of the little band of Quakers which
gathered here every First Day, he had built the house under the
walnut-trees, and had taken his wife Ann and his little daughter Betty
to live there. That was in 1770, seven years earlier, and before war had
wrought sorrow and desolation throughout the country.
The sun rose higher, and just as his beams touched the broad stone step
in front of the house the door opened, and Ann Dale, a sweet-faced woman
in the plain Quaker garb, came out, followed by Betty, a little
blue-eyed Quakeress of twelve years, with a gleam of spirit in her face
which ill became her plain dress.
"Betty," said her mother, as they walked out towards the great
horse-block by the road-side, "thee must keep house to-day. Friend
Robert has just sent thy father word that the redcoats have not crossed
the Brandywine since Third Day last, and thy father and I will ride to
Chester to-day, that there may be other than corn-cakes and bacon for
the friends who come to us after monthly meeting. Mind thee keeps near
the house and finishes thy sampler."
"Yes, mother," said Betty; "but will thee not come home early? I shall
miss thee sadly."
Just then Ezra appeared, wearing his collarless Quaker coat, and leading
a horse saddled with a great pillion, into which Ann laboriously climbed
after her husband, and with a final warning and "farewell" to Betty,
clasped him tightly around the waist lest she should be jolted off as
they jogged down the rough and winding lane into the broad Chester
highway.
Friend Ann had many reasons for fearing to leave Betty alone for a whole
day, and she looked back anxiously at her waving "farewell" with her
little bonnet.
It was a troublous time.
The Revolution was at its height, and the British, who had a short time
before disembarked their army near Elkton, Maryland, were now encamped
near White Clay Creek, while Washington occupied the country bordering
on the Brandywine. His force, however, was small compared to the extent
of the country to be guarded, and bands of the British sometimes crossed
the Brandywine and foraged in the fertile counties of Delaware and
Chester. As Betty's father, although a Quaker and a non-combatant, was
known to be a patriot, he had to suffer the fortunes of war with his
neighbors.
Thus it was with many forebodings that Betty's mother watched the slight
figure under the spreading branches of a great chestnut, which seemed to
rustle its innumerable leaves as if to promise protection to the little
maid. However, the sun shone brightly, the swallows chirped as they
circled overhead, and nothing seemed farther off than battle and
bloodshed.
Betty skipped merrily into the house, and snatching up some broken
corn-cake left from the morning meal, ran lightly out to the paddock
where Daisy was kept, her own horse, which she had helped to raise from
a colt.
"Come thee here, Daisy," she said, as she seated herself on the top rail
of the mossy snake fence. "Come thee here, and thee shall have some of
thy mistress's corn-cake. Ah! I thought thee would like it. Now go and
eat all thee can of this good grass, for if the wicked redcoats come
again, thee will not have another chance, I can tell thee."
Daisy whinnied and trotted off, while Betty, feeding the few chickens
(sadly reduced in numbers by numerous raids), returned to the house, and
getting her sampler, sat down under a walnut-tree to sew on the stint
which her mother had given her.
All was quiet save the chattering of the squirrels overhead and the
drowsy hum of the bees, when from around the curve in the road she heard
a shot; then another nearer, and then a voice shouting commands, and the
thud of hoof-beats farther down the valley. She jumped up with a
startled cry: "The redcoats! The redcoats! Oh, what shall I do!"
Just then the foremost of a scattered band of soldiers, their buff and
blue uniforms and ill-assorted arms showing them to be Americans,
appeared in full flight around the curve in the road, and springing over
the fence, dashed across the pasture straight for the meeting-house.
Through the broad gateway they poured, and forcing open the door of the
meeting-house, rushed within and began to barricade the windows.
Their leader paused while his men passed in, and seeing Betty, came
quickly towards her.
"What do you here, child?" he said, hurriedly. "Go quickly, before the
British reach us, and tell your father that, Quaker or no Quaker, he
shall ride to Washington, on the Brandywine, and tell him that we, but
one hundred men, are besieged by three hundred British cavalry in
Chichester Meeting-house, with but little powder left. Tell him to make
all haste to us."
Turning, he hastened into the meeting-house, now converted into a fort,
and as the doors closed behind him Betty saw a black muzzle protruding
from every window.
With trembling fingers the little maid picked up her sampler, and as the
thud of horses' hoofs grew louder and louder, she ran fearfully into the
house, locked and bolted the massive door, and then flying up the broad
stairs, she seated herself in a little window overlooking the
meeting-house yard. She had gone into the house none too soon. Up the
road, with their red coats gleaming and their harness jangling, was
sweeping a detachment of British cavalry, never stopping until they
reached the meeting-house--and then it was too late.
A sheet of flame shot out from the wall before them, and half a dozen
troopers fell lifeless to the ground, and half a dozen riderless horses
galloped wildly down the road. The leader shouted a sharp command, and
the whole troop retreated in confusion.
Betty drew back shuddering, and when she brought herself to look again
the troopers had dismounted, had surrounded the meeting-house, and were
pouring volley after volley at its doors and windows. Then for the first
time Betty thought of the officer's message, and remembered that the
safety of the Americans depended upon her alone, for her father was
away, no neighbor within reach, and without powder she knew they could
not resist long.
Could she save them? All her stern Quaker blood rose at the thought, and
stealing softly to the paddock behind the barn, she saddled Daisy and
led her through the bars into the wood road, which opened into the
highway just around the bend. Could she but pass the pickets without
discovery there would be little danger of pursuit; then there would be
only the long ride of eight miles ahead of her.
Just before the narrow wood road joined the broader highway Betty
mounted Daisy by means of a convenient stump, and starting off at a
gallop, had just turned the corner when a voice shouted "Halt!" and a
shot whistled past her head. Betty screamed with terror, and bending
over, brought down her riding-whip with all her strength upon Daisy,
then, turning for a moment, saw three troopers hurriedly mounting.
Her heart sank within her, but, beginning to feel the excitement of the
chase, she leaned over and patting Daisy on the neck, encouraged her to
do her best. Onward they sped. Betty, her curly hair streaming in the
wind, the color now mounting to, now retreating from her cheeks, led by
five hundred yards.
But Daisy had not been used for weeks, and already felt the unusual
strain. Now they thundered over Naaman's Creek, now over Concord, with
the nearest pursuer only four hundred yards behind; and now they raced
beside the clear waters of Beaver Brook, and as Betty dashed through its
shallow ford, the thud of horse's hoofs seemed just over her shoulder.
Betty, at first sure of success, now knew that unless in some way she
could throw her pursuers off her track she was surely lost. Just then
she saw ahead of her a fork in the road, the lower branch leading to the
Brandywine, the upper to the Birmingham Meeting-house. Could she but get
the troopers on the upper road while she took the lower, she would be
safe; and, as if in answer to her wish, there flashed across her mind
the remembrance of the old cross-road which, long disused, and with its
entrance hidden by drooping boughs, led from a point in the upper road
just out of sight of the fork down across the lower, and through the
valley of the Brandywine. Could she gain this road unseen she still
might reach Washington.
Urging Daisy forward, she broke just in time through the dense growth
which hid the entrance, and sat trembling, hidden behind a dense growth
of tangled vines, while she heard the troopers thunder by. Then, riding
through the rustling woods, she came at last into the open, and saw
spread out beneath her the beautiful valley of the Brandywine, dotted
with the white tents of the Continental army.
Starting off at a gallop, she dashed around a bend in the road into the
midst of a group of officers riding slowly up from the valley.
"Stop, little maiden, before you run us down," said one, who seemed to
be in command. "Where are you going in such hot haste?"
"Oh, sir," said Betty, reining in Daisy, "can thee tell me where I can
find General Washington?"
"Yes, little Quakeress," said the officer who had first spoken to her;
"I am he. What do you wish?"
Betty, too exhausted to be surprised, poured forth her story in a few
broken sentences, and (hearing as if in a dream the hasty commands for
the rescue of the soldiers in Chichester Meeting-house) fell forward in
her saddle, and, for the first time in her life, fainted, worn out by
her noble ride.
A few days later, when recovering from the shock of her long and
eventful ride, Betty, awaking from a deep sleep, found her mother
kneeling beside her little bed, while her father talked with General
Washington himself beside the fireplace; and it was the proudest and
happiest moment of her life when Washington, coming forward and taking
her by the hand, said, "You are the bravest little maid in America, and
an honor to your country."
Still the peaceful meeting-house and the gambrel-roofed home stand
unchanged, save that their time-beaten timbers and crumbling bricks have
taken on a more sombre tinge, and under the broad walnut-tree another
little Betty sits and sews.
If you ask it, she will take down the great key from its nail, and
swinging back the new doors of the meeting-house, will show you the old
worm-eaten ones inside, which, pierced through and through with bullet-holes,
once served as a rampart against the enemy. And she will tell you, in the
quaint Friend's language, how her great-great-grandmother carried, over a
hundred years ago, the news of the danger of her countrymen to Washington,
on the Brandywine, and at the risk of her own life saved theirs.
384
Some two decades ago thousands were reading
about the highly romantic career of Charles
Brandon in _When Knighthood Was in Flower_
(1898), and other thousands were applauding
Julia Marlowe's impersonation of the beautiful
and fascinating Princess Mary in the dramatic
version of that book. The author was Charles
Major (1856-1913), an Indiana lawyer turned
novelist, who wrote, also, the equally romantic
story of _Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall_
(1902). Between these two pieces of delightful
romance, he wrote a series of sketches of
pioneer life in Indiana under the title of _The
Bears of Blue River_ (1901). It is an account
of boy life in the early days, full of dramatic
interest, simply written, and entirely worthy
of the high place which it has already taken
among stories of its type. The first adventure
in that book follows by special arrangement
with the publishers. (Copyright. The Macmillan
Company, New York.)
THE BIG BEAR
CHARLES MAJOR
Away back in the "twenties," when Indiana was a baby state, and great
forests of tall trees and tangled underbrush darkened what are now her
bright plains and sunny hills, there stood upon the east bank of Big
Blue River, a mile or two north of the point where that stream crosses
the Michigan road, a cozy log cabin of two rooms--one front and one
back.
The house faced the west, and stretching off toward the river for a
distance equal to twice the width of an ordinary street, was a
blue-grass lawn, upon which stood a dozen or more elm and sycamore
trees, with a few honey-locusts scattered here and there. Immediately at
the water's edge was a steep slope of ten or twelve feet. Back of the
house, mile upon mile, stretched the deep dark forest, inhabited by deer
and bears, wolves and wildcats, squirrels and birds, without number.
In the river the fish were so numerous that they seemed to entreat the
boys to catch them, and to take them out of their crowded quarters.
There were bass and black suckers, sunfish and catfish, to say nothing
of the sweetest of all, the big-mouthed redeye.
South of the house stood a log barn, with room in it for three horses
and two cows; and enclosing this barn, together with a piece of ground,
five or six acres in extent, was a palisade fence, eight or ten feet
high, made by driving poles into the ground close together. In this
enclosure the farmer kept his stock, consisting of a few sheep and
cattle, and here also the chickens, geese, and ducks were driven at
nightfall to save them from "varmints," as all prowling animals were
called by the settlers.
The man who had built this log hut, and who lived in it and owned the
adjoining land at the time of which I write, bore the name of Balser
Brent. "Balser" is probably a corruption of Baltzer, but, however that
may be, Balser was his name, and Balser was the hero of the bear stories
which I am about to tell you.
Mr. Brent and his young wife had moved to the Blue River settlement from
North Carolina, when young Balser was a little boy five or six years of
age. They had purchased the "eighty" upon which they lived, from the
United States, at a sale of public land held in the town of Brookville
on Whitewater, and had paid for it what was then considered a good round
sum--one dollar per acre. They had received a deed for their "eighty"
from no less a person than James Monroe, then President of the United
States. This deed, which is called a patent, was written on sheepskin,
signed by the President's own hand, and is still preserved by the
descendants of Mr. Brent as one of the title-deeds to the land it
conveyed. The house, as I have told you, consisted of two large rooms,
or buildings, separated by a passageway six or eight feet broad which
was roofed over, but open at both ends--on the north and south. The back
room was the kitchen, and the front room was parlor, bedroom, sitting
room and library all in one.
At the time when my story opens Little Balser, as he was called to
distinguish him from his father, was thirteen or fourteen years of age,
and was the happy possessor of a younger brother, Jim, aged nine, and a
little sister one year old, of whom he was very proud indeed.
On the south side of the front room was a large fireplace. The chimney
was built of sticks, thickly covered with clay. The fireplace was almost
as large as a small room in one of our cramped modern houses, and was
broad and deep enough to take in backlogs which were so large and heavy
that they could not be lifted, but were drawn in at the door and rolled
over the floor to the fireplace.
The prudent father usually kept two extra backlogs, one on each side of
the fireplace, ready to be rolled in as the blaze died down; and on
these logs the children would sit at night, with a rough slate made from
a flat stone, and do their "ciphering," as the study of arithmetic was
then called. The fire usually furnished all the light they had, for
candles and "dips," being expensive luxuries, were used only when
company was present.
The fire, however, gave sufficient light, and its blaze upon a cold
night extended halfway up the chimney, sending a ruddy, cozy glow to
every nook and corner of the room.
The back room was the storehouse and kitchen; and from the beams and
along the walls hung rich hams and juicy sidemeat, jerked venison, dried
apples, onions, and other provisions for the winter. There was a
glorious fireplace in this room also, and a crane upon which to hang
pots and cooking utensils.
The floor of the front room was made of logs split in halves with the
flat, hewn side up; but the floor of the kitchen was of clay, packed
hard and smooth.
The settlers had no stoves, but did their cooking in round pots called
Dutch ovens. They roasted their meats on a spit or steel bar like the
ramrod of a gun. The spit was kept turning before the fire, presenting
first one side of the meat and then the other, until it was thoroughly
cooked. Turning the spit was the children's work.
South of the palisade enclosing the barn was the clearing--a tract of
twenty or thirty acres of land, from which Mr. Brent had cut and burned
the trees. On this clearing the stumps stood thick as the hair on an
angry dog's back; but the hard-working farmer ploughed between and
around them, and each year raised upon the fertile soil enough wheat and
corn to supply the wants of his family and his stock, and still had a
little grain left to take to Brookville, sixty miles away, where he had
bought his land, there to exchange for such necessities of life as
could not be grown upon the farm or found in the forests.
The daily food of the family all came from the farm, the forest, or the
creek. Their sugar was obtained from the sap of the sugar-trees; their
meat was supplied in the greatest abundance by a few hogs, and by the
inexhaustible game of which the forests were full. In the woods were
found deer just for the shooting; and squirrels, rabbits, wild turkeys,
pheasants, and quails, so numerous that a few hours' hunting would
supply the table for days. The fish in the river, as I told you, fairly
longed to be caught.
One day Mrs. Brent took down the dinner horn and blew upon it two strong
blasts. This was a signal that Little Balser, who was helping his father
down in the clearing, should come to the house. Balser was glad enough
to drop his hoe and to run home. When he reached the house his mother
said:
"Balser, go up to the drift and catch a mess of fish for dinner. Your
father is tired of deer meat three times a day, and I know he would like
a nice dish of fried redeyes at noon."
"All right, mother," said Balser. And he immediately took down his
fishing-pole and line, and got the spade to dig bait. When he had
collected a small gourdful of angle-worms, his mother called to him:
"You had better take a gun. You may meet a bear; your father loaded the
gun this morning, and you must be careful in handling it."
Balser took the gun, which was a heavy rifle considerably longer than
himself, and started up the river toward the drift, about a quarter of a
mile away.
There had been rain during the night and the ground near the drift was
soft.
Here, Little Balser noticed fresh bear tracks, and his breath began to
come quickly. You may be sure he peered closely into every dark thicket,
and looked behind all the large trees and logs, and had his eyes wide
open lest perchance "Mr. Bear" should step out and surprise him with an
affectionate hug, and thereby put an end to Little Balser forever.
So he walked on cautiously, and, if the truth must be told, somewhat
tremblingly, until he reached the drift.
Balser was but a little fellow, yet the stern necessities of a settler's
life had compelled his father to teach him the use of a gun; and
although Balser had never killed a bear, he had shot several deer, and
upon one occasion had killed a wildcat, "almost as big as a cow," he
said.
I have no doubt the wildcat seemed "almost as big as a cow" to Balser
when he killed it, for it must have frightened him greatly, as wildcats
were sometimes dangerous animals for children to encounter. Although
Balser had never met a bear face to face and alone, yet he felt, and
many a time had said, that there wasn't a bear in the world big enough
to frighten him, if he but had his gun.
He had often imagined and minutely detailed to his parents and little
brother just what he would do if he should meet a bear. He would wait
calmly and quietly until his bearship should come within a few yards of
him, and then he would slowly lift his gun. Bang! and Mr. Bear would be
dead with a bullet in his heart.
But when he saw the fresh bear tracks, and began to realize that he
would probably have an opportunity to put his theories about bear
killing into practice, he began to wonder if, after all, he would
become frightened and miss his aim. Then he thought of how the bear, in
that case, would be calm and deliberate, and would put _his_ theories
into practice by walking very politely up to him, and making a very
satisfactory dinner of a certain boy whom he could name. But as he
walked on and no bear appeared, his courage grew stronger as the
prospect of meeting the enemy grew less, and he again began saying to
himself that no bear could frighten him, because he had his gun and he
could and would kill it.
So Balser reached the drift; and having looked carefully about him,
leaned his gun against a tree, unwound his fishing-line from the pole,
and walked out to the end of a log which extended into the river some
twenty or thirty feet.
Here he threw in his line, and soon was so busily engaged drawing out
sunfish and redeyes, and now and then a bass, which was hungry enough to
bite at a worm, that all thought of the bear went out of his mind.
After he had caught enough fish for a sumptuous dinner he bethought him
of going home, and as he turned toward the shore, imagine, if you can,
his consternation when he saw upon the bank, quietly watching him, a
huge black bear.
If the wildcat had seemed as large as a cow to Balser, of what size do
you suppose that bear appeared? A cow! An elephant, surely, was small
compared with the huge black fellow standing upon the bank.
It is true Balser had never seen an elephant, but his father had, and so
had his friend Tom Fox, who lived down the river; and they all agreed
that an elephant was "purt nigh as big as all outdoors."
The bear had a peculiar, determined expression about him that seemed to
say:
"That boy can't get away; he's out on the log where the water is deep,
and if he jumps into the river I can easily jump in after him and catch
him before he can swim a dozen strokes. He'll _have_ to come off the log
in a short time, and then I'll proceed to devour him."
About the same train of thought had also been rapidly passing through
Balser's mind. His gun was on the bank where he had left it, and in
order to reach it he would have to pass the bear. He dared not jump into
the water, for any attempt to escape on his part would bring the bear
upon him instantly. He was very much frightened, but, after all, was a
cool-headed little fellow for his age; so he concluded that he would not
press matters, as the bear did not seem inclined to do so, but so long
as the bear remained watching him on the bank would stay upon the log
where he was, and allow the enemy to eye him to his heart's content.
There they stood, the boy and the bear, each eyeing the other as though
they were the best of friends, and would like to eat each other, which,
in fact, was literally true.
Time sped very slowly for one of them, you may be sure; and it seemed to
Balser that he had been standing almost an age in the middle of Blue
River on that wretched shaking log, when he heard his mother's dinner
horn, reminding him that it was time to go home.
Balser quite agreed with his mother and gladly would he have gone, I
need not tell you; but there stood the bear, patient, determined, and
fierce; and Little Balser soon was convinced in his mind that his time
had come to die.
He hoped that when his father should go home to dinner and find him
still absent, he would come up the river in search of him, and frighten
away the bear. Hardly had this hope sprung up in his mind, when it
seemed that the same thought had also occurred to the bear, for he began
to move down toward the shore end of the log upon which Balser was
standing.
Slowly came the bear until he reached the end of the log, which for a
moment he examined suspiciously, and then, to Balser's great alarm,
cautiously stepped out upon it and began to walk toward him.
Balser thought of the folks at home, and, above all, of his baby sister;
and when he felt that he should never see them again, and that they
would in all probability never know of his fate, he began to grow
heavy-hearted and was almost paralyzed with fear.
On came the bear, putting one great paw in front of the other, and
watching Balser intently with his little black eyes. His tongue hung
out, and his great red mouth was open to its widest, showing the sharp,
long, glittering teeth that would soon be feasting on a first-class boy
dinner.
When the bear got within a few feet of Balser--so close he could almost
feel the animal's hot breath as it slowly approached--the boy grew
desperate with fear, and struck at the bear with the only weapon he
had--his string of fish.
Now, bears love fish and blackberries above all other food; so when
Balser's string of fish struck the bear in the mouth, he grabbed at
them, and in doing so lost his foothold on the slippery log and fell
into the water with a great splash and plunge.
This was Balser's chance for life, so he flung the fish to the bear, and
ran for the bank with a speed worthy of the cause.
When he reached the bank his self-confidence returned, and he remembered
all the things he had said he would do if he should meet a bear.
The bear had caught the fish, and again had climbed upon the log, where
he was deliberately devouring them.
This was Little Balser's chance for death--to the bear. Quickly
snatching up the gun, he rested it in the fork of a small tree near by,
took deliberate aim at the bear, which was not five yards away, and shot
him through the heart. The bear dropped into the water dead, and floated
downstream a little way, where he lodged at a ripple a short distance
below.
Balser, after he had killed the bear, became more frightened than he had
been at any time during the adventure, and ran home screaming. That
afternoon his father went to the scene of battle and took the bear out
of the water. It was very fat and large, and weighed, so Mr. Brent said,
over six hundred pounds.
Balser was firmly of the opinion that he himself was also very fat and
large, and weighed at least as much as the bear. He was certainly
entitled to feel "big"; for he had got himself out of an ugly scrape in
a brave, manly, and cool-headed manner, and had achieved a victory of
which a man might have been proud.
The news of Balser's adventure soon spread among the neighbors and he
became quite a hero; for the bear he had killed was one of the largest
that had ever been seen in that neighborhood, and, besides the gallons
of rich bear oil it yielded, there were three or four hundred pounds of
bear meat; and no other food is more strengthening for winter diet.
There was also the soft, furry skin, which Balser's mother tanned, and
with it made a coverlid for Balser's bed, under which he and his little
brother lay many a cold night, cozy and "snug as a bug in a rug."
385
The selection that follows may serve as an
example of an effective Christmas story in the
latest fashion. It was not written especially
for young people, but neither were many of the
books that now stand on the shelf that holds
their favorites. It is not only one of the
great short stories, but one of the shortest of
great-stories. It is quite worthy of use in
company with Dickens' _Christmas Carol_, Henry
van Dyke's _The Other Wise Man_, and Thomas
Nelson Page's _Santa Claus's Partner_, at the
Christmas season, and it has the advantages of
extreme brevity, a fresh breeziness of style,
surprise in the plot, and romantic interest.
The magi brought various gifts to the Child in
the manger--gold, frankincense, myrrh--but only
one gift, that of love. O. Henry does not often
moralize, but no reader ever finds fault with
his concluding paragraph. The author's real
name was William Sidney Porter. He was born in
Greensboro, N. C., in 1862, and died in New
York City, in 1910, the most widely read of
short-story writers. "The Gift of the Magi" is
taken from the volume called _The Four Million_
by special arrangement with the publishers.
(Copyright, Doubleday, Page & Co. New York.)
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
O. HENRY
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the
grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned
with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the
next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch
and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that
life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles
predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first
stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8.00
per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had
that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go,
and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.
Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James
Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of
prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the
income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as
though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and
reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs.
James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all
very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a
grey fence in a grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she
had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving
every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a
week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated.
They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something
fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being
worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have
seen a pier-glass in an $8.00 flat. A very thin and very agile person
may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal
strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being
slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her
eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within
twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its
full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which
they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been
his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the
Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have
let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her
Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all
his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his
watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from
envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like
a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself
almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and
quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or
two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of
skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered
out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All
Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame,
large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at
the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed
metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.
There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all
of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in
design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by
meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even
worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be
Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to
both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home
with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly
anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he
sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap
that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence
and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went
to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is
always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls
that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at
her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second
look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what
could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying pan was on the back of
the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on
the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she
heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she
turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent
prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered;
"Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and
very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened
with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of
quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in
them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger,
nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments
that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with
that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut
off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without
giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I
just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!'
Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice--what a beautiful,
nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not
arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well,
anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and
gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you.
Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden
serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I
put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For
ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential
object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a
year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you
the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not
among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think
there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that
could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package
you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an
ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to
hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of
all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise
shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful
vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had
simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of
possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have
adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up
with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him
eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with
a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have
to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I
want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands
under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a
while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get
the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought
gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving
Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones,
possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And
here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two
foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other
the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of
these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the
wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.
Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
SECTION IX
NATURE LITERATURE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrews, Jane, _The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children_.
Atkinson, Eleanor S., _Greyfriars Bobby_.
Bertelli, Luigi, _The Prince and His Ants_.
Brown, Dr. John, _Rab and His Friends_.
Bullen, Frank, _The Cruise of the Cachelot_.
Burgess, Thornton W., _Old Mother West Wind Stories_.
Burroughs, John, _Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers_. _Wake Robin._
Chapman, William G., _Green-Timber Trails: Wild Animal Stories
of the Upper Fur Country_.
Ford, Sewell, _Horses Nine_.
Hawkes, Clarence, _Shaggycoat_.
Hudson, W. H., _A Little Boy Lost_.
Jordan, David Starr, _Science Sketches_.
Kellogg, Vernon L., _Insect Stories_. _Nuova, the New Bee._
Kingsley, Charles, _Madame How and Lady Why_.
Kipling, Rudyard, _Just-So Stories_. _The Jungle Book_ (Two
Series).
London, Jack, _The Call of the Wild_.
Long, William J., _Wood-Folk Comedies_. _A Little Brother to
the Bear._
Miller, Joaquin, _True Bear Stories_.
Miller, Olive Thorne, _The Children's Book of Birds_.
Mills, Enos A., _Scotch_. _The Thousand Year Old Pine._
Muir, John, _Stickeen_. _Our National Parks._
Ollivant, Alfred, _Bob, Son of Battle_.
"Ouida" (Louisa de la Ramee), _Moufflou_. _The Dog of Flanders._
Paine, Albert Bigelow, _Hollow-Tree Nights and Days_. _Arkansaw
Bear._
Potter, Beatrix, _Peter Rabbit_. _Benjamin Bunny._
Roberts, Charles G. D., _Kings in Exile_. _Children of the Wild._
Saunders, Marshall, _Beautiful Joe_.
Segur, Sophie, Comtesse de, _The Story of a Donkey_.
Seton, Ernest Thompson, _Wild Animals at Home_. _The Biography of
a Grizzly._
Sewell, Anna, _Black Beauty_.
Sharp, Dallas Lore, _Beyond the Pasture Bars_. _A Watcher in the
Woods._
Terhune, Albert Payson, _Lad: A Dog_.
Thoreau, Henry David, _A Week on the Concord and Merrimac
Rivers_.
Walton, Izaak, _The Compleat Angler_.
White, Gilbert, _The Natural History of Selborne_.
The three books that stand at the end of this
brief list are probably not ones that any
teacher would recommend indiscriminately to
pupils of the grades. They are the greatest of
the classic books in nature literature and, in
a way, constitute the goal of nature lovers.
SECTION IX. NATURE LITERATURE
INTRODUCTORY
_What it is._ In recent years teachers have heard much talk about
"nature study" in the grades. The demand for this study has led
publishers to print many so-called "nature books" that have neither
scientific fact nor literary worth to justify their existence. Confusion
may be avoided and time may be saved if teachers will remember that
nature literature, as here defined, is a form of _literature_, and that
its purpose therefore is primarily to present truth (not necessarily
facts) in an entertaining way.
The selections in this section are not intended to furnish material for
a scientific study of nature. They are nature literature. Some of them
present scientific facts that add to the literary worth by making the
stories more entertaining, but the selections are given because they
illustrate various types of nature literature and the work of famous
writers of nature literature, not because they present scientific facts.
_Some types of nature literature._ One of the oldest forms of nature
literature is the beast tale in which animals are represented as talking
and acting like human beings. Stories of this type entertain while they
reveal the general nature of various kinds of animals. Fables should not
be called nature literature, because their chief purpose is to criticize
the follies of human beings. Some of the Negro folk tales that Joel
Chandler Harris collected are nature literature of this type. Beast
tales, however, are not all old. Stories by such modern authors as
Thornton W. Burgess and Albert Bigelow Paine, who are represented in
this section, may be called beast tales. They are popular in the primary
grades.
Another type of nature literature, quite different from that just
discussed, has been produced during the last century by students of
nature who endeavor to hold strictly to facts in their writing. This may
be called realistic nature literature. Henry Thoreau, John Burroughs,
Olive Thorne Miller, and Dallas Lore Sharp may be mentioned as writers
of this kind of literature. As we read their books, we usually feel that
they are endeavoring to relate incidents as they actually occurred. Also
we recognize that they are great students of nature, for they perceive
details that we might not notice and they draw or suggest conclusions
that we may accept as true, although we might never think of drawing the
conclusions. Nature literature of this kind may be no less entertaining
than fairy tales, for it may, in a pleasing way, reveal wonders in
nature. The selections by Dallas Lore Sharp and Olive Thorne Miller in
this section are of this kind. Most of the writings of Henry Thoreau and
John Burroughs are in a style too difficult for pupils in the grades.
A third type may be called nature romance. Its purpose is both to
entertain and to awaken sympathy and love for animals. Stories of this
kind, like other romances, idealize the characters and may have a strong
appeal to the emotions. Of the stories in this section, we may classify
as nature romance Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit," Sewell Ford's "Pasha,
the Son of Selim," Ouida's "Moufflou," and Rudyard Kipling's "Moti
Guj--Mutineer."
A fourth kind of nature literature, sometimes called nature fiction, has
been developed within the last quarter of a century and is already
recognized as excellent. The plot is created by the author, although it
may be based on fact, and usually is simple and rambling. One purpose of
these stories is to show truly how animals live and act, just as one
purpose of a novel or typical short story is to show truly how people
live and act. If the author is a skillful story-teller and a good
student of nature, the story may make the reader feel that he has become
acquainted with a particular kind of animal and even with an individual
animal. For example, the story "Last Bull," by Charles G. D. Roberts,
has an effect on the reader not entirely unlike that of one of Cooper's
_Leatherstocking Tales_. Prominent among the authors of this very
interesting and instructive form of literature may be mentioned Charles
G. D. Roberts, Ernest Thompson Seton, William J. Long, and Dallas Lore
Sharp.
_Its place in the grades._ Nature literature seems to have a place of
increasing importance in schools, especially in grades above the third.
Many excellent books of what we have called the fiction type and the
realistic type have a charming spirit of outdoor life and adventure that
makes them pleasing substitutes for the objectionable dime novel. One
should not assume that these nature stories would be of less interest
and value to the country child than to the city child. Too often country
children have not been taught to think of animals as "little brothers of
the field and the air." These nature stories, without any spirit of
preaching or moralizing, show children how to enjoy nature, whether it
be in the country or the city. They teach the child to form habits of
observation that encourage healthful recreation. A boy who has
understood the spirit of Roberts, Seton, and Sharp is not likely to find
the village poolroom attractive. Nature literature, however, need not be
taught merely for moral and practical purposes, for it has come to be
literature of artistic worth, and as such it has earned a place among
other kinds of literature for children.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
A good summary article is "The Rise of the
Nature Writers," by F. W. Halsey, in _Review of
Reviews_, Vol. XXVI, p. 567 (November, 1902).
The most valuable critical article is "The
Literary Treatment of Nature" in John
Burroughs, _Ways of Nature_ (also in _Atlantic
Monthly_, Vol. XCIV, p. 38 [July, 1904]). In
the violent controversy about "nature-faking"
which raged some years ago, two articles will
give clearly the positions of the contending
parties: first, the attack by John Burroughs in
"Real and Sham Natural History," _Atlantic
Monthly_, Vol. XCI, p. 298 (March, 1903), and,
second, the reply to Burroughs by William J.
Long in "The School of Nature Study and Its
Critics," _North American Review_, Vol. CLXXVI,
p. 688 (May, 1903).
386
One of the most popular series for very young
children is that known as the _Peter Rabbit
Books_ after the favorite hero of the early
tales. The author is Beatrix Potter, an
Englishwoman. In plan these little books
resemble the "toy-books" of the eighteenth
century in having a bit of text on the
left-hand page face a picture on the right. The
entire text of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is
given, but of course text and pictures are so
completely one that much is lost by separating
them. Children should meet Peter Rabbit before
their school days begin.
THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT
BEATRIX POTTER
Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were
Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.
They lived with their mother in a sand bank, underneath the root of a
very big fir tree.
"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the
fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden. Your
father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. Now
run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out."
Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, and went through
the wood to the baker's. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five
currant buns.
Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down
the lane to gather blackberries; but Peter, who was very naughty, ran
straight to Mr. McGregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate.
First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some
radishes; and then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some
parsley.
But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr.
McGregor!
Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but
he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, "Stop
thief!"
Peter was most dreadfully frightened; he rushed all over the garden, for
he had forgotten the way back to the gate.
He lost one of his shoes amongst the cabbages, and the other shoe
amongst the potatoes.
After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think
he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a
gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It
was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.
Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears; but his sobs were
overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great
excitement, and implored him to exert himself.
Mr. McGregor came up with a sieve, which he intended to pop upon the top
of Peter; but Peter wriggled out just in time, leaving his jacket behind
him, and rushed into the tool-shed, and jumped into a can. It would have
been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had not had so much water in
it.
Mr. McGregor was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the tool-shed,
perhaps hidden underneath a flower-pot. He began to turn them over
carefully, looking under each.
Presently Peter sneezed--"Kerty-schoo!" Mr. McGregor was after him in no
time, and tried to put his foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window,
upsetting three plants. The window was too small for Mr. McGregor, and
he was tired of running after Peter. He went back to his work.
Peter sat down to rest; he was out of breath and trembling with fright,
and he had not the least idea which way to go. Also he was very damp
with sitting in that can.
After a time he began to wander about, going lippity--lippity--not very
fast, and looking all around.
He found a door in a wall; but it was locked, and there was no room for
a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath.
An old mouse was running in and out over the stone doorstep, carrying
peas and beans to her family in the wood. Peter asked her the way to the
gate, but she had such a large pea in her mouth that she could not
answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry.
Then he tried to find his way straight across the garden, but he became
more and more puzzled. Presently, he came to a pond where Mr. McGregor
filled his water-cans. A white cat was staring at some goldfish; she sat
very, very still, but now and then the tip of her tail twitched as if it
were alive. Peter thought it best to go away without speaking to her; he
had heard about cats from his cousin, little Benjamin Bunny.
He went back towards the tool-shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he
heard the noise of a hoe,--scr-r-ritch scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter
scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he
came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow and peeped over. The first
thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was turned towards
Peter, and beyond him was the gate!
Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow, and started running as
fast as he could go, along a straight walk behind some black
currant-bushes.
Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care.
He slipped underneath the gate, and was safe at last in the wood outside
the garden.
Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to
frighten the blackbirds.
Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the
big fir-tree.
He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the
floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy
cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the
second little jacket and a pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a
fortnight!
I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.
His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a
doze of it to Peter!
"One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time."
But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries
for supper.
387
The next selection illustrates well the kind of
stories in the _Bedtime Story_ series of twenty
volumes by Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874--). The
books of this series are entitled _Adventures
of Johnny Chuck_, _Adventures of Buster Bear_,
_Adventures of Ol' Mistah Buzzard_, etc. These
books and the _Old Mother West Wind_ series of
eight volumes by the same author are enjoyed by
children in the second and third grades. Mr.
Burgess is an American author who has been
editor of several American magazines. (The
following selection is from _Old Mother West
Wind_, by permission of the publishers, Little,
Brown & Co., Boston.)
JOHNNY CHUCK FINDS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD
THORNTON W. BURGESS
Old Mother West Wind had stopped to talk with the Slender Fir Tree.
"I've just come across the Green Meadows," said Old Mother West Wind,
"and there I saw the Best Thing in the World."
Striped Chipmunk was sitting under the Slender Fir Tree and he couldn't
help hearing what Old Mother West Wind said. "The Best Thing in the
World--now what can that be?" thought Striped Chipmunk. "Why, it must be
heaps and heaps of nuts and acorns! I'll go and find it."
So Striped Chipmunk started down the Lone Little Path through the wood
as fast as he could run. Pretty soon he met Peter Rabbit.
"Where are you going in such a hurry, Striped Chipmunk?" asked Peter
Rabbit.
"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World," replied
Striped Chipmunk, and ran faster.
"The Best Thing in the World," said Peter Rabbit, "why, that must be a
great pile of carrots and cabbage! I think I'll go and find it."
So Peter Rabbit started down the Lone Little Path through the wood as
fast as he could go after Striped Chipmunk.
As they passed the great hollow tree Bobby Coon put his head out. "Where
are you going in such a hurry?" asked Bobby Coon.
"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted
Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit, and both began to run faster.
"The Best Thing in the World," said Bobby Coon to himself, "why, that
must be a whole field of sweet milky corn! I think I'll go and find it."
So Bobby Coon climbed down out of the great hollow tree and started down
the Lone Little Path through the wood as fast as he could go after
Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit, for there is nothing that Bobby Coon
likes to eat so well as sweet milky corn.
At the edge of the wood they met Jimmy Skunk.
"Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Jimmy Skunk.
"Down in the Green Meadows to find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted
Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon. Then they all tried to
run faster.
"The Best Thing in the World," said Jimmy Skunk. "Why, that must be
packs and packs of beetles!" And for once in his life Jimmy Skunk began
to hurry down the Lone Little Path after Striped Chipmunk and Peter
Rabbit and Bobby Coon.
They were all running so fast that they didn't see Reddy Fox until he
jumped out of the long grass and asked:
"Where are you going in such a hurry?"
"To find the Best Thing in the World!" shouted Striped Chipmunk and
Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and Jimmy Skunk, and each did his best to
run faster.
"The Best Thing in the World," said Reddy Fox to himself. "Why, that
must be a whole pen full of tender young chickens, and I must have
them."
So away went Reddy Fox as fast as he could run down the Lone Little Path
after Striped Chipmunk, Peter Rabbit, Bobby Coon and Jimmy Skunk.
By and by they all came to the house of Johnny Chuck.
"Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Johnny Chuck.
"To find the Best Thing in the World," shouted Striped Chipmunk and
Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and Jimmy Skunk and Reddy Fox.
"The Best Thing in the World," said Johnny Chuck. "Why I don't know of
anything better than my own little home and the warm sunshine and the
beautiful blue sky."
So Johnny Chuck stayed at home and played all day among the flowers with
the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind and was as happy as
could be.
But all day long Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and
Jimmy Skunk and Reddy Fox ran this way and ran that way over the Green
Meadows trying to find the Best Thing in the World. The sun was very,
very warm and they ran so far and they ran so fast that they were very,
very hot and tired, and still they hadn't found the Best Thing in the
World.
When the long day was over they started up the Lone Little Path past
Johnny Chuck's house to their own homes. They didn't hurry now for they
were so very, very tired! And they were cross--oh so cross! Striped
Chipmunk hadn't found a single nut. Peter Rabbit hadn't found so much as
the leaf of a cabbage. Bobby Coon hadn't found the tiniest bit of sweet
milky corn. Jimmy Skunk hadn't seen a single beetle. Reddy Fox hadn't
heard so much as the peep of a chicken. And all were as hungry as hungry
could be.
Half way up the Lone Little Path they met Old Mother West Wind going to
her home behind the hill. "Did you find the Best Thing in the World?"
asked Old Mother West Wind.
"No!" shouted Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and Jimmy
Skunk and Reddy Fox all together.
"Johnny Chuck has it," said Old Mother West Wind. "It is being happy
with the things you have and not wanting things which some one else has.
And it is called Con-tent-ment."
388
Albert Bigelow Paine (1861--), an American
author at one time connected with the editorial
department of _St. Nicholas Magazine_, has for
more than twenty years been known as the
biographer of Mark Twain. He is a popular
writer of stories for children. Pupils in the
fifth grade like his story _The Arkansaw Bear_.
Some of his books suitable for the third and
fourth grades are _Hollow-Tree Nights and
Days_, _The Hollow Tree_, and _The Deep Woods_.
("Mr. 'Possum's Sick Spell" is from _Hollow-Tree
Nights and Days_, and is used by permission of
the publishers, Harper & Brothers, New York.)
MR. 'POSSUM'S SICK SPELL
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
Once upon a time, said the Story Teller, something very sad nearly
happened in the Hollow Tree. It was Mr. 'Possum's turn, one night, to
go out and borrow a chicken from Mr. Man's roost, and coming home he
fell into an old well and lost his chicken. He nearly lost himself, too,
for the water was icy cold and Mr. 'Possum thought he would freeze to
death before he could climb out, because the rocks were slippery and he
fell back several times.
As it was, he got home almost dead, and next morning was sicker than he
had ever been before in his life. He had pains in his chest and other
places, and was all stuffed up in his throat and very scared. The 'Coon
and the Crow who lived in the Hollow Tree with him were scared, too.
They put him to bed in the big room down-stairs, and said they thought
they ought to send for somebody, and Mr. Crow said that Mr. Owl was a
good hand with sick folks, because he looked so wise and didn't say
much, which always made the patient think he knew something.
So Mr. Crow hurried over and brought Mr. Owl, who put on his glasses and
looked at Mr. 'Possum's tongue, and felt of his pulse, and listened to
his breathing, and said that the cold water seemed to have struck in and
that the only thing to do was for Mr. 'Possum to stay in bed and drink
hot herb tea and not eat anything, which was a very bad prescription for
Mr. 'Possum, because he hated herb tea and was very partial to eating.
He groaned when he heard it and said he didn't suppose he'd ever live to
enjoy himself again, and that he might just as well have stayed in the
well with the chicken, which was a great loss and doing no good to
anybody. Then Mr. Owl went away, and told the Crow outside that Mr.
'Possum was a very sick man, and that at his time of life and in his
state of flesh his trouble might go hard with him.
So Mr. Crow went back into the kitchen and made up a lot of herb tea and
kept it hot on the stove, and Mr. 'Coon sat by Mr. 'Possum's bed and
made him drink it almost constantly, which Mr. 'Possum said might cure
him if he didn't die of it before the curing commenced.
He said if he just had that chicken, made up with a good platter of
dumplings, he believed it would do him more good than anything, and he
begged the 'Coon to go and fish it out, or to catch another one, and try
it on him, and then if he did die he would at least have fewer regrets.
But the Crow and the 'Coon said they must do as Mr. Owl ordered, unless
Mr. 'Possum wanted to change doctors, which was not a good plan until
the case became hopeless, and that would probably not be before some
time in the night. Mr. 'Coon said, though, there was no reason why that
nice chicken should be wasted, and as it would still be fresh, he would
rig up a hook and line and see if he couldn't save it. So he got out his
fishing things and made a grab hook and left Mr. Crow to sit by Mr.
'Possum until he came back. He could follow Mr. 'Possum's track to the
place, and in a little while he had the fine, fat chicken, and came home
with it and showed it to the patient, who had a sinking spell when he
looked at it, and turned his face to the wall and said he seemed to have
lived in vain.
Mr. Crow, who always did the cooking, said he'd better put the chicken
on right away, under the circumstances, and then he remembered a bottle
of medicine he had once seen sitting on Mr. Man's window-sill outside,
and he said while the chicken was cooking he'd just step over and get
it, as it might do the patient good, and it didn't seem as if anything
now could do him any harm.
So the Crow dressed the nice chicken and put it in the pot with the
dumplings, and while Mr. 'Coon dosed Mr. 'Possum with the hot herb tea
Mr. Crow slipped over to Mr. Man's house and watched a good chance when
the folks were at dinner, and got the bottle and came back with it and
found Mr. 'Possum taking a nap and the 'Coon setting the table; for the
dinner was about done and there was a delicious smell of dumplings and
chicken, which made Mr. 'Possum begin talking in his sleep about
starving to death in the midst of plenty. Then he woke up and seemed to
suffer a good deal, and the Crow gave him a dose of Mr. Man's medicine,
and said that if Mr. 'Possum was still with them next morning they'd
send for another doctor.
Mr. 'Possum took the medicine and choked on it, and when he could speak
said he wouldn't be with them. He could tell by his feelings, he said,
that he would never get through this day of torture, and he wanted to
say some last words. Then he said that he wanted the 'Coon to have his
Sunday suit, which was getting a little tight for him and would just
about fit Mr. 'Coon, and that he wanted the Crow to have his pipe and
toilet articles, to remember him by. He said he had tried to do well by
them since they had all lived together in the Hollow Tree, and he
supposed it would be hard for them to get along without him, but that
they would have to do the best they could. Then he guessed he'd try to
sleep a little, and closed his eyes. Mr. 'Coon looked at Mr. Crow and
shook his head, and they didn't feel like sitting down to dinner right
away, and pretty soon when they thought Mr. 'Possum was asleep they
slipped softly up to his room to see how sad it would seem without him.
Well, they had only been gone a minute when Mr. 'Possum woke up, for the
smell of that chicken and dumpling coming in from Mr. Crow's kitchen was
too much for him. When he opened his eyes and found that Mr. 'Coon and
Mr. Crow were not there, and that he felt a little better--perhaps
because of Mr. Man's medicine--he thought he might as well step out and
take one last look at chicken and dumpling, anyway.
It was quite warm, but, being all in a sweat, he put the bed-sheet
around him to protect him from the draughts and went out to the stove
and looked into the pot, and when he saw how good it looked he thought
he might as well taste of it to see if it was done. So he did, and it
tasted so good and seemed so done that he got out a little piece of
dumpling on a fork, and blew on it to cool it, and ate it, and then
another piece and then the whole dumpling, which he sopped around in the
gravy after each bite. Then when the dumpling was gone he fished up a
chicken leg and ate that and then a wing, and then the gizzard and felt
better all the time, and pretty soon poured out a cup of coffee and
drank that, all before he remembered that he was sick abed and not
expected to recover. Then he happened to think and started back to bed,
but on the way there he heard Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow talking softly in
his room and he forgot again that he was so sick and went up to see
about it.
Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow had been quite busy up in Mr. 'Possum's room.
They had looked at all the things, and Mr. Crow remarked that there
seemed to be a good many which Mr. 'Possum had not mentioned, and which
they could divide afterward. Then he picked up Mr. 'Possum's pipe and
tried it to see if it would draw well, as he had noticed, he said, that
Mr. 'Possum sometimes had trouble with it, and the 'Coon went over to
the closet and looked at Mr. 'Possum's Sunday suit, and pretty soon got
it out and tried on the coat, which wouldn't need a thing done to it to
make it fit exactly. He said he hoped Mr. 'Possum was resting well,
after the medicine, which he supposed was something to make him sleep,
as he had seemed drowsy so soon after taking it. He said it would be
sad, of course, though it might seem almost a blessing, if Mr. 'Possum
should pass away in his sleep, without knowing it, and he hoped Mr.
'Possum would rest in peace and not come back to distress people, as one
of Mr. 'Coon's own ancestors had done, a good while ago. Mr. 'Coon said
his mother used to tell them about it when she wanted to keep them at
home nights, though he didn't really believe in such things much, any
more, and he didn't think Mr. 'Possum would be apt to do it, anyway,
because he was always quite a hand to rest well. Of course, _any one_
was likely to _think_ of such things, he said, and get a little nervous,
especially at a time like this--and just then Mr. 'Coon looked toward
the door that led down to the big room, and Mr. Crow he looked toward
that door, too, and Mr. 'Coon gave a great jump, and said:
"Oh, my goodness!" and fell back over Mr. 'Possum's trunk.
And Mr. Crow he gave a great jump, too, and said:
"Oh, my gracious!" and fell back over Mr. 'Possum's chair.
For there in the door stood a figure shrouded all in white, all except
the head, which was Mr. 'Possum's, though very solemn, its eyes looking
straight at Mr. 'Coon, who still had on Mr. 'Possum's coat, though he
was doing his best to get it off, and at Mr. Crow, who still had Mr.
'Possum's pipe, though he was trying every way to hide it, and both of
them were scrabbling around on the floor and saying, "Oh, Mr. 'Possum,
go away--please go away, Mr. 'Possum--we always loved you, Mr.
'Possum--we can prove it."
But Mr. 'Possum looked straight at Mr. 'Coon, and said in a deep voice:
"What were you doing with my Sunday coat on?"
And Mr. 'Coon tried to say something, but only made a few weak noises.
And Mr. 'Possum looked at Mr. Crow and said:
"What were you doing with my pipe?"
And a little sweat broke out on Mr. Crow's bill, and he opened his mouth
as if he were going to say something, but couldn't make a sound.
Then Mr. 'Possum said, in a slow voice, so deep that it seemed to come
from down in the ground:
"_Give me my things!_"
And Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow said, very shaky:
"Oh y-yes, Mr. 'Possum, w-we meant to, a-all the t-time."
And they tried to get up, but were so scared and weak they couldn't, and
all at once Mr. 'Possum gave a great big laugh and threw off his sheet
and sat down on a stool, and rocked and laughed, and Mr. 'Coon and Mr.
Crow realized then that it was Mr. 'Possum himself, and not just his
appearance, as they had thought. Then they sat up, and pretty soon began
to laugh, too, though not very gaily at first, but feeling more cheerful
every minute, because Mr. 'Possum himself seemed to enjoy it so much.
Then Mr. 'Possum told them about everything, and how Mr. Man's medicine
must have made him well, for all his pains and sorrows had left him, and
he invited them down to help finish up the chicken which had cost him so
much suffering.
So then they all went down to the big room and the Crow brought in the
big platter of dumplings, and a pan of biscuits and some molasses, and a
pot of coffee, and they all sat down and celebrated Mr. 'Possum's
recovery. And when they were through, and everything was put away, they
smoked, and Mr. 'Possum said he was glad he was there to use his
property a little more, and that probably his coat would fit him again
now, as his sickness had caused him to lose flesh. He said that Mr.
Man's medicine was certainly wonderful, but just then Mr. Rabbit dropped
in, and when they told him about it, he said of course the medicine
might have had some effect, but that the dumplings and chicken caused
the real cure. He said there was an old adage to prove that--one that
his thirty-fifth great-grandfather had made for just such a case of this
kind. This, Mr. Rabbit said, was the adage:
"If you want to live forever
Stuff a cold and starve a fever."
Mr. 'Possum's trouble had come from catching cold, he said, so the
dumplings were probably just what he needed. Then Mr. Owl dropped in to
see how his patient was, and when he saw him sitting up, and smoking,
and well, he said it was wonderful how his treatment had worked, and the
Hollow Tree people didn't tell him any different, for they didn't like
to hurt Mr. Owl's feelings.
389
Prominent among writers of the new realistic
nature literature is Dallas Lore Sharp
(1870--), professor of English in Boston
University. Mr. Sharp's stories and descriptive
sketches of nature reveal charming details in
out-of-door life that the ordinary observer
overlooks, and they encourage the reader to
seek entertainment in fields and woods. Most of
his nature writings are suitable for pupils in
grades from the fifth to the eighth. Some of
his books are _Beyond the Pasture Bars_, _A
Watcher in the Woods_, _Roof and Meadow_, and
_Where Rolls the Oregon_. ("Wild Life in the
Farm Yard," from _Beyond the Pasture Bars_, is
used by permission of The Century Co., New York
City.)
WILD LIFE IN THE FARM-YARD
DALLAS LORE SHARP
I want you to visit a farm where there are turkeys and geese and
guineas. If you live in New York City or in Chicago you may not be able
to do so for some time. Then take a trip to the market or to the
zooelogical gardens. But most of you live close enough to the country, so
that you could easily find a farmer who would invite you out to see his
prize gobbler and his great hissing gander.
However, I shall not wait to _send_ you for I am going to _take_
you--now--out to an old farm that I loved as a boy where there are
turkeys and geese and guineas and pigs and pigeons, cows and horses and
mules, cats and dogs, chickens and bees and sheep, and a hornets' nest
and a nest of flying squirrels in the same old grindstone apple-tree,
and a pair of barn owls in the old wagon house, and--I don't know what
else; for there was everything on the old farm when I was a boy, and I
suppose we shall find everything there yet.
I want you to see the turkeys. I want you to follow an old hen turkey to
her stolen nest. I want you to watch the old gobbler turkey take his
family to bed--to roost, I mean. For unless you are a boy, and are
living in the wild portions of Georgia and the southeastern states, you
may never see a wild turkey. For that reason I want you to watch this
tame turkey, because he is almost as wild as a wild turkey in everything
except his fear of you. He has been tamed, we know, since the year 1526,
yet not one of his wild habits has been changed.
So it is with the house cat. We have tamed the house cat, but we have
not changed the wild, night-prowling hunter in him. You have to smooth a
cat the right way, or the _wild_ cat in him will scratch and bite you.
Have you never seen his tail twitch, his eyes blaze, his claws work as
he has crouched watching at a rat's hole, or crawled stealthily upon a
bird in the meadow grass?
So, if you will watch, you shall see a real wild turkey in the tamest
old gobbler on the farm.
Watch him go to roost. Watch him get _ready_ to go to roost, I should
say, for a turkey seems to begin to think of roosting about noon-time,
especially in the winter; and it takes him from about noon till night to
make up his mind that he really must go to roost.
He comes along under the apple-tree of a December afternoon and looks up
at the leafless limbs where he has been roosting since summer. He
stretches his long neck, lays his little brainless head over on one
side, then over on the other. He takes a good _long_ look at the limb.
Then bobs his head--one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-_ten_
times, or perhaps twenty-two or -three times, and takes a still _longer_
look at the limb, saying to himself--_quint, quint, quint, quint!_ which
means: "I think I'll go to roost! I think _I'll_ go to roost! I think
I'll go to _roost_! I think I'll _go_ to roost! I think I'll go _to_
roost! I _think_ I'll go to roost!" He _thinks_ he will, but he hasn't
made up his mind quite.
Then he stretches his long neck again, lays his little witless head on
the side again, bobs and bobs, looks and looks and looks, says _quint,
quint, quint, quint_--"I _think_ I'll go to roost," but is just as
undecided as ever.
He does the performance over and over again and would never go to roost
if the darkness did not come and compel him. He would stand under that
tree stretching, turning, looking, bobbing, "squinting," _thinking_,
until he thought his head off, saying all the while--
One for the money; two for the show;
Three to get ready; and four to--_get ready to go!_
But after a while, along toward dusk (and awfully suddenly!)--_flop!
gobble! splutter! whoop!_--and there he is, up on the limb, safe! Really
safe! But it was an exceedingly close call.
And this is the very way the wild turkey acts. The naturalists who had a
chance to study the great flocks of wild turkeys years ago describe
these same absurd actions. This lack of snap and decision is not
something the tame turkey has learned in the farm-yard. The fact is he
does not seem to have learned anything during his 350 years in the
barn-yard, nor does he seem to have forgotten anything that he knew as a
wild turkey in the woods, except his fear of man.
Late in October the wild turkeys of a given neighborhood would get
together in flocks of from ten to a hundred and travel on foot through
the rich bottom lands in search of food. In these journeys the males
would go ahead, apart from the females, and lead the way. The hens, each
conducting her family in a more or less separate group, came straggling
leisurely along in the rear. As they advanced, they would meet other
flocks, thus swelling their numbers.
After a time they were sure to come to a river--a dreadful thing, for,
like the river of the old song, it was a river _to cross_. Up and down
the banks would stalk the gobblers, stretching their necks out over the
water and making believe to start, as they do when going to roost in the
apple-trees.
All day long, all the next day, all the third day, if the river was
wide, they would strut and cluck along the shore, making up their minds.
The ridiculous creatures have wings; they can fly; but they are afraid!
After all these days, however, the whole flock has mounted the tallest
trees along the bank. One of the gobblers has come forward as leader in
the emergency. Suddenly, from his perch, he utters a single cluck--the
signal for the start,--and every turkey sails into the air. There is a
great flapping--and the terrible river is crossed.
A few weak members fall on the way over, but not to drown. Drawing their
wings close in against their sides, and spreading their round fan-like
tails to the breeze, they strike out as if born to swim, and come
quickly to land.
The tame turkey-hen is notorious for stealing her nest. The wild hen
steals hers--not to plague her owner, of course, as is the common belief
about the domestic turkey, but to get away from the gobbler, who, in
order to prolong the honeymoon, will break the eggs as fast as they are
laid. He has just enough brains to be sentimental, jealous, and
boundlessly fond of himself. His wives, too, are foolish enough to
worship him, until--there is an egg in the nest. That event makes them
wise. They understand this strutting coxcomb, and quietly turning their
backs on him, leave him to parade alone.
There are crows, also, and buzzards from whom the wild turkey hen must
hide the eggs. Nor dare she forget her own danger while sitting, for
there are foxes, owls, and prowling lynxes ready enough to pounce upon
her. On the farm there are still many of these enemies besides the worst
of them all, the farmer himself.
For a nest the wild hen, like the tame turkey of the pasture, scratches
a slight depression in the ground, usually under a thick bush, sometimes
in a hollow log, and there lays from twelve to twenty eggs, which are
somewhat smaller and more elongated than the tame turkey's, but of the
same color: dull cream, sprinkled with reddish dots.
I have often hunted for stolen turkey nests, and hunted in vain, because
the cautious mother had covered her eggs when leaving them. This is one
of the wild habits that has persisted. The wild hen, as the hatching
approaches, will not trust even this precaution, however, but remains
without food and drink upon the nest until the chicks can be led off.
She can scarcely be driven from the nest, often allowing herself to be
captured first.
Mother-love burns fierce in her. Such helpless things are her chicks!
She hears them peeping in the shell and breaks it to help them out. She
preens and dries them and keeps them close under her for days.
Not for a week after they are hatched does she allow them out in a rain.
If, after that, they get a cold wetting, the wild mother, it is said,
will feed the buds of the spice-bush to her brood, as our grandmothers
used to administer mint tea to us.
The tame hen does seem to have lost something of this wild-mother skill,
doubtless because for many generations she has been entirely freed of
the larger part of the responsibility.
I never knew a tame mother turkey to doctor her infants for vermin. But
the wild hen will. The woods are full of ticks and detestable vermin as
deadly as cold rains. When her brood begins to lag and pine, the wild
mother knows, and leading them to some old ant-hill, she gives them a
sousing dust-bath. The vermin hate the odor of the ant-scented dust, and
after a series of these baths disappear.
This is wise; and if this report be true, then the wild turkey is as
wise and far-seeing a mother as the woods contain. One observer even
tells of three hens that stole off together and fixed up a nest between
themselves. Each put in her eggs--forty-two in all--and each took turns
guarding, so that the nest was never left alone.
What special enemy caused this unique partnership the naturalist does
not say. The three mothers built together, brooded together, and
together guarded the nest. But how did those three mothers divide the
babies?
I said I wanted you to visit a farm where there are turkeys. And you
will have to if you would see the turkey at home. For, though I have
traveled through the South, and been in the swamps and river "bottoms"
there all along the Savannah, with wild turkeys around me, I have never
seen a live one.
I was in a small steamboat on the Savannah River one night. We were tied
up till morning along the river bank under the trees of the deep swamp.
Twilight and the swamp silence had settled about us. The moon came up. A
banjo had been twanging, but the breakdown was done, the shuffling feet
quiet. The little cottonboat had become a part of the moonlit silence
and the river swamp.
Two or three roustabouts were lounging upon some rosin-barrels near by,
under the spell of the round autumnal moon. There was frost in the air,
and fragrant odors, but not a sound, not a cry or call of beast or bird,
until, suddenly, breaking through the silence with a jarring eery echo,
was heard the hoot of the great horned owl.
One of the roustabouts dropped quickly to the deck and held up his hand
for silence. We all listened. And again came the uncanny
_Whoo-hoo-hoo-whoo-you-oh-oh!_
"Dat ol' King Owl," whispered the darky. "Him's lookin' fer turkey. Ol'
gobbler done gone hid, I reckon. Listen! Ol' King Owl gwine make ol'
gobbler talk back."
We listened, but there was no frightened "gobble" from the tree-tops.
There were wild turkeys all around me in the swamp; but, though I sat up
until the big southern moon rode high overhead, I heard no answer, no
challenge to the echoing hoot of the great owl. The next day a colored
boy brought aboard the boat a wild turkey which he had shot in the
swamp; but I am still waiting to see and hear the great bronze bird
alive in its native haunts.
390
Vernon L. Kellogg (1867--) is a professor in
Leland Stanford Junior University whose
writings have been chiefly scientific. His
_Insect Stories_, from which the next selection
is taken, is an interesting and instructive
group of stories suitable for pupils in the
third, fourth, or fifth grade. A later book is
called _Nuova, the New Bee_. ("The Vendetta" is
used by permission of the publishers, Henry
Holt & Co., New York City.)
THE VENDETTA
VERNON L. KELLOGG
This is the story of a fight. In the first story of this book, I said
that Mary and I had seen a remarkable fight one evening at sundown on
the slopes of the bare brown foothills west of the campus. It was not a
battle of armies--we have seen that, too, in the little world we
watch,--but a combat of gladiators, a struggle between two champions
born and bred for fighting, and particularly for fighting each other.
One champion was Eurypelma, the great, black, hairy, eight-legged,
strong-fanged tarantula of California, and the other was Pepsis, a
mighty wasp in dull-blue mail, with rusty-red wings and a poisonous
javelin of a sting that might well frighten either you or me. Do you
have any wasp in your neighborhood of the ferocity and strength and size
of Pepsis? If not, you can hardly realize what a terrible creature she
is. With her strong hard-cased body an inch and a half long, borne on
powerful wings that expand fully three inches, and her long and strong
needle-pointed sting that darts in and out like a flash and is always
full of virulent poison, Pepsis is certainly queen of all the wasp
amazons. But if that is so, no less is Eurypelma greatest, most
dreadful, and fiercest, and hence king, of all the spiders in this
country. In South America and perhaps elsewhere in the tropics, live the
fierce bird-spiders with thick legs extending three inches or more on
each side of their ugly hairy bodies. Eurypelma, the California
tarantula, is not quite so large as that, nor does he stalk, pounce on
and kill little birds as his South American cousin is said to do, but he
is nevertheless a tremendous and fear-inspiring creature among the small
beasties of field and meadow.
But not all Eurypelmas are so ferocious; or at least are not ferocious
all the time. There are individual differences among them. Perhaps it is
a matter of age or health. Anyway, I had a pet tarantula which I kept in
an open jar in my room for several weeks, and I could handle him with
impunity. He would sit gently on my hand, or walk deliberately up my
arm, with his eight, fixed, shining, little reddish eyes staring hard
at me, and his long seven-jointed hairy legs swinging gently and
rhythmically along, without a sign of hesitation or excitement. His hair
was almost gray and perhaps this hoariness and general sedateness
betokened a ripe old age. But his great fangs were unblunted, his supply
of poison undiminished, and his skill in striking and killing his prey
still perfect, as often proved at his feeding times. He is quite the
largest Eurypelma I have ever seen. He measures--for I still have his
body, carefully stuffed, and fastened on a block with legs all spread
out--five inches from tip to tip of opposite legs.
At the same time that I had this hoary old tarantula, I had another
smaller, coal-black fellow who went into a perfect ecstasy of anger and
ferocity every time any one came near him. He would stand on his hind
legs and paw wildly with fore legs and palpi, and lunge forward fiercely
at my inquisitive pencil. I found him originally in the middle of an
entry into a classroom, holding at bay an entire excited class of art
students armed with mahl-sticks and paint-brushes. The students were
mostly women, and I was hailed as deliverer and greatest _dompteur_ of
beasts when I scooped Eurypelma up in a bottle and walked off with him.
But this is not telling of the sundown fight that Mary and I saw
together. We had been over to the sand-cut by the golf links, after
mining-bees, and were coming home with a fine lot of their holes and
some of the bees themselves, when Mary suddenly called to me to "see the
nice tarantula."
Perhaps nice isn't the best word for him, but he certainly was an
unusually imposing and fluffy-haired and fierce-looking brute of a
tarantula. He had rather an owly way about him, as if he had come out
from his hole too early and was dazed and half-blinded by the light.
Tarantulas are night prowlers; they do all their hunting after dark, dig
their holes and, indeed, carry on all the various businesses of their
life in the night-time. The occasional one found walking about in
daytime has made a mistake, someway, and he blunders around quite like
an owl in the sunshine.
All of a sudden, while Mary and I were smiling at this too early bird of
a tarantula, he went up on his hind legs in fighting attitude, and at
the same instant down darted a great tarantula hawk, that is, a Pepsis
wasp. Her armored body glinted cool and metallic in the red sunset
light, and her great wings had a suggestive shining of dull fire about
them. She checked her swoop just before reaching Eurypelma, and made a
quick dart over him, and then a quick turn back, intending to catch the
tarantula in the rear. But lethargic and owly as Eurypelma had been a
moment before, he was now all alertness and agility. He had to be. He
was defending his life. One full fair stab of the poisoned javelin,
sheathed but ready at the tip of the flexible, blue-black body hovering
over him, and it would be over with Eurypelma. And he knew it. Or
perhaps he didn't. But he acted as if he did. He was going to do his
best not to be stabbed; that was sure. And Pepsis was going to do her
best to stab; that also was quickly certain.
At the same time Pepsis knew--or anyway acted as if she did--that to be
struck by one or both of those terrible vertical, poison-filled fangs
was sure death. It would be like a blow from a battle-axe, with the
added horror of mortal poison poured into the wound.