Part III

In the Woods

I. Really in the Woods

II. The First Night and Morning

III. A Crippled Warrior and the Mud-Albums

IV. A "Massacree" of Palefaces

V. The Deer Hunt

VI. War Bonnet, Teepee and Coups

VII. Campercraft

VIII. The Indian Drum

IX. The Cat and the Skunk

X. The Adventures of a Squirrel family

XI. How to See the Woodfolk

XII. Indian Signs and Getting Lost

XIII. Tanning Skins and Making Moccasins

XIV. Caleb's Philosophy

XV. A Visit from Raften

XVI. How Yan Knew the Ducks Afar

XVII. Sam's Woodcraft Exploit

XVIII. The Owls and the Night-School

XIX. The Trial of Grit

XX. The White Revolver

XXI. The Triumph of Guy

XXII. The Coon Hunt

XXIII. The Banshee's Wail and the Huge Night Prowler

XXIV. Hawkeye Claims Another Grand Coup

XXV. The Three-fingered Tramp

XXVI. Winning Back the farm

XXVII. The Rival Tribe

XXVIII. White Man's Woodcraft

XXIX. The Long Swamp

XXX. A New Kind of Coon

XXXI. On the Old Camp Ground

XXXII. The New War Chief

List of Full Pages

Part I

1. "Gazing spellbound in that window"

2. "He already knew the Downy Woodpecker"

3. "Yan's Toilet"

4. "The Coon Track"

5. "There in his dear cabin were three tramps"

6. "It surely was a Lynx"

Part II

7. "The wigwam was a failure"

8. "Get out o' this now, or I'll boot ye"

9. "Pattern for Teepee"

10. "Pattern of Thunder Bull's Teepee and of Black

Bull's Teepee"

11. "'Clicker-a-clicker!' he shrieked ... and down like

a dart"

12. "Rubbing-sticks for fire-making"

13. "The Archery Outfit"

14. "The dam was a great success"

15. "Ugh! Heap sassy"

16. "There stood Raften, spectator of the whole affair"

Part III

17. "If ye kill any Song-birds, I'll use the rawhoide

on ye"

18. "Where's the axe?"

19. "He soon appeared, waving a branch"

20. "The War Bonnet"

21. "The old Cat raged and tore"

22. "Indian Signs"

23. "The Two Smokes"

24. "The Fish and River Ducks"

25. "The Sea Ducks"

26. "Owl-stuffing plate"

27. "Guy gave a leap of terror and fell"

28. "Well, sonny, cookin' dinner?"

29. "He nervously fired and missed"

I

Glimmerings

Yan was much like other twelve-year-old boys in having a keen interest

in Indians and in wild life, but he differed from most in this, that

he never got over it. Indeed, as he grew older, he found a yet keener

pleasure in storing up the little bits of woodcraft and Indian lore

that pleased him as a boy.

His father was in poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined

tastes, but indolent--a failure in business, easy with the world and

stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's

wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere

with the boy's education, he forbade them altogether.

There was certainly no reason to accuse Yan of neglecting school. He

was the head boy of his class, although there were many in it older

than himself. He was fond of books in general, but those that dealt

with Natural Science and Indian craft were very close to his heart.

Not that he had many--there were very few in those days, and the

Public Library had but a poor representation of these. "Lloyd's

Scandinavian Sports," "Gray's Botany" and one or two Fenimore Cooper

novels, these were all, and Yan was devoted to them. He was a timid,

obedient boy in most things, but the unwise command to give up what

was his nature merely made him a disobedient boy--turned a good boy

into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey

openly, but he used to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields

and woods, and at each new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite

thrill of mingled pleasure and pain--the pain because he had no name

for it or means of learning its nature.

The intense interest in animals was his master passion, and thanks to

this, his course to and from school was a very crooked one, involving

many crossings of the street, because thereby he could pass first a

saloon in whose window was a champagne advertising chromo that

portrayed two Terriers chasing a Rat; next, directly opposite this,

was a tobacconist's, in the window of which was a beautiful effigy of

an Elephant, laden with tobacco. By going a little farther out of his

way, there was a game store where he might see some Ducks, and was

sure, at least, of a stuffed Deer's head; and beyond that was a

furrier shop, with an astonishing stuffed Bear. At another point he

could see a livery stable Dog that was said to have killed a Coon, and

at yet another place on Jervie Street was a cottage with a high

veranda, under which, he was told, a chained Bear had once been kept.

He never saw the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found

pleasure in passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand

streets, according to a schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed

years ago and could still be smelled on damp nights. He always

stopped, if passing near on a wet night, and sniffed and enjoyed that

Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a leakage of

sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure he originally found in

it.

[Illustration: "Gazing spellbound in that window"]

Yan had no good excuse for these weaknesses, and he blushed for shame

when his elder brother talked "common sense" to him about his follies.

He only knew that such things fascinated him.

But the crowning glory was a taxidermist's shop kept on Main Street by

a man named Sander. Yan spent, all told, many weeks gazing spellbound,

with his nose flat white against that window. It contained some Fox

and Cat heads grinning ferociously, and about fifty birds beautifully

displayed. Nature might have got some valuable hints in that window

on showing plumage to the very best advantage. Each bird seemed more

wonderful than the last.

There were perhaps fifty of them on view, and of these, twelve had

labels, as they had formed part of an exhibit at the Annual County

Fair. These labels were precious truths to him, and the birds:

Osprey Partridge or Ruffed Grouse

Kingfisher Bittern

Bluejay Highholder

Rosebreasted Grosbeak Sawwhet Owl

Woodthrush Oriole

Scarlet Tanager * * * * * * *

were, with their names, deeply impressed on his memory and added to

his woodlore, though not altogether without a mixture of error. For

the alleged Woodthrush was not a Woodthrush at all, but turned out

to be a Hermit Thrush. The last bird of the list was a long-tailed,

brownish bird with white breast. The label was placed so that Yan

could not read it from outside, and one of his daily occupations was

to see if the label had been turned so that he could read it. But it

never was, so he never learned the bird's name.

After passing this for a year or more, he formed a desperate plan. It

was nothing less than to _go inside_. It took him some months to

screw up courage, for he was shy and timid, but oh! he was so hungry

for it. Most likely if he had gone in openly and asked leave, he

would have been allowed to see everything; but he dared not. His home

training was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious

of the small birds in the window--a Sawwhet Owl then grit his teeth

and walked in. How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang! Then

there succeeded a still more appalling silence, then a step and the

great man himself came.

"How--how--how much is that Owl?"

"Two dollars."

Yan's courage broke down now. He fled. If he had been told ten cents,

it would have been utterly beyond reach. He scarcely heard what the

man said. He hurried out with a vague feeling that he had been in

heaven but was not good enough to stay there. He saw nothing of the

wonderful things around him.

II

Spring

Yan, though not strong, revelled in deeds of brawn. He would rather

have been Samson than Moses--Hercules than Apollo. All his tastes

inclined him to wild life. Each year when the spring came, he felt the

inborn impulse to up and away. He was stirred through and through when

the first Crow, in early March, came barking over-head. But it fairly

boiled in his blood when the Wild Geese, in long, double, arrow-headed

procession, went clanging northward. He longed to go with them.

Whenever a new bird or beast appeared, he had a singular prickling

feeling up his spine and his back as though he had a mane that was

standing up. This feeling strengthened with his strength.

All of his schoolmates used to say that they "liked" the spring, some

of the girls would even say that they "dearly loved" the spring, but

they could not understand the madness that blazed in Yan's eyes when

springtime really came--the flush of cheek--the shortening breath--the

restless craving for action--the chafing with flashes of rebellion at

school restraints--the overflow of nervous energy--the bloodthirst

in his blood--the hankering to run--to run to the north, when the

springtime tokens bugled to his every sense.

Then the wind and sky and ground were full of thrill. There was

clamour everywhere, but never a word. There was stirring within and

without. There was incentive in the yelping of the Wild Geese; but it

was only tumult, for he could not understand why he was so stirred.

There were voices that he could not hear--messages that he could not

read; all was confusion of tongues. He longed only to get away.

"If only I could get away. If--if--Oh, God!" he stammered in torment

of inexpression, and then would gasp and fling himself down on some

bank, and bite the twigs that chanced within reach and tremble and

wonder at himself.

Only one thing kept him from some mad and suicidal move--from joining

some roving Indian band up north, or gypsies nearer--and that was the

strong hand at home.

III

His Adjoining Brothers

Yan had many brothers, but only those next him in age were important

in his life. Rad was two years older--a strong boy, who prided himself

on his "common sense." Though so much older, he was Yan's inferior

at school. He resented this, and delighted in showing his muscular

superiority at all opportunities. He was inclined to be religious,

and was strictly proper in his life and speech. He never was known to

smoke a cigarette, tell a lie, or say "gosh" or "darn." He was plucky

and persevering, but he was cold and hard, without a human fiber or a

drop of red blood in his make-up. Even as a boy he bragged that he had

no enthusiasms, that he believed in common sense, that he called a

spade a spade, and would not use two words where one would do. His

intelligence was above the average, but he was so anxious to be

thought a person of rare sagacity and smartness, unswayed by emotion,

that nothing was too heartless for him to do if it seemed in line

with his assumed character. He was not especially selfish, and yet he

pretended to be so, simply that people should say of him significantly

and admiringly: "Isn't he keen? Doesn't he know how to take care of

himself?" What little human warmth there was in him died early, and he

succeeded only in making himself increasingly detested as he grew up.

His relations to Yan may be seen in one incident.

Yan had been crawling about under the house in the low wide cobwebby

space between the floor beams and the ground. The delightful sensation

of being on an exploring expedition led him farther (and ultimately to

a paternal thrashing for soiling his clothes), till he discovered a

hollow place near one side, where he could nearly stand upright. He

at once formed one of his schemes--to make a secret, or at least a

private, workroom here. He knew that if he were to ask permission

he would be refused, but if he and Rad together were to go it might

receive favourable consideration on account of Rad's self-asserted

reputation for common sense. For a wonder, Rad was impressed with the

scheme, but was quite sure that they had "better not go together to

ask Father." He "could manage that part better alone," and he did.

Then they set to work. The first thing was to deepen the hole from

three feet to six feet everywhere, and get rid of the earth by working

it back under the floor of the house. There were many days of labour

in this, and Yan stuck to it each day after returning from school.

There were always numerous reasons why Rad could not share in the

labour. When the ten by fourteen-foot hole was made, boards to line

and floor it were needed. Lumber was very cheap--inferior, second-hand

stuff was to be had for the asking--and Yan found and carried boards

enough to make the workroom. Rad was an able carpenter and now took

charge of the construction. They worked together evening after

evening, Yan discussing all manner of plans with warmth and

enthusiasm--what they would do in their workshop when finished--how

they might get a jig-saw in time and saw picture frames, so as to

make some money. Rad assented with grunts or an occasional Scripture

text--that was his way. Each day he told Yan what to go on with while

he was absent.

The walls were finished at length; a window placed in one side; a door

made and fitted with lock and key. What joy! Yan glowed with pleasure

and pride at the triumphant completion of his scheme. He swept up the

floor for the finishing ceremony and sat down on the bench for a grand

gloat, when Rad said abruptly:

"Going to lock up now." That sounded gratifyingly important. Yan

stepped outside. Rad locked the door, put the key in his pocket, then

turning, he said with cold, brutal emphasis:

"Now you keep out of my workshop from this on. _You_ have nothing

to do with it. It's mine. I got the permission to make it." All of

which he could prove, and did.

* * * * *

Alner, the youngest, was eighteen months younger than Yan, and about

the same size, but the resemblance stopped there. His chief aim in

life was to be stylish. He once startled his mother by inserting into

his childish prayers the perfectly sincere request: "Please, God,

make me an awful swell, for Jesus sake." Vanity was his foible, and

laziness his sin.

He could be flattered into anything that did not involve effort. He

fairly ached to be famous. He was consuming with desire to be pointed

out for admiration as the great this, that or the other thing--it did

not matter to him what, as long as he could be pointed out. But he

never had the least idea of working for it. At school he was a sad

dunce. He was three grades below Yan and at the bottom of his grade.

They set out for school each day together, because that was a paternal

ruling; but they rarely reached there together. They had nothing in

common. Yan was full of warmth, enthusiasm, earnestness and energy,

but had a most passionate and ungovernable temper. Little put him in a

rage, but it was soon over, and then an equally violent reaction set

in, and he was always anxious to beg forgiveness and make friends

again. Alner was of lazy good temper and had a large sense of humour.

His interests were wholly in the playground. He had no sympathy with

Yan's Indian tastes--"Indians in nasty, shabby clothes. Bah! Horrid!"

he would scornfully say.

These, then, were his adjoining brothers.

What wonder that Yan was daily further from them.

IV

The Book

But the greatest event of Yan's then early life now took place. His

school readers told him about Wilson and Audubon, the first and last

American naturalists. Yan wondered why no other great prophet had

arisen. But one day the papers announced that at length he had

appeared. A work on the Birds of Canada, by ..., had come at last,

price one dollar.

Money never before seemed so precious, necessary and noble a thing.

"Oh! if I only had a dollar." He set to work to save and scrape. He

won marbles in game, swopped marbles for tops, tops for jack-knives as

the various games came around with strange and rigid periodicity. The

jack-knives in turn were converted into rabbits, the rabbits into cash

of small denominations. He carried wood for strange householders;

he scraped and scraped and saved the scrapings; and got, after some

months, as high as ninety cents. But there was a dread fatality

about that last dime. No one seemed to have any more odd jobs; his

commercial luck deserted him. He was burnt up with craving for that

book. None of his people took interest enough in him to advance the

cash even at the ruinous interest (two or three times cent per cent)

that he was willing to bind himself for. Six weeks passed before he

achieved that last dime, and he never felt conscience-clear about it

afterward.

He and Alner had to cut the kitchen wood. Each had his daily

allotment, as well as other chores. Yan's was always done faithfully,

but the other evaded his work in every way. He was a notorious little

fop. The paternal poverty did not permit his toilet extravagance to

soar above one paper collar per week, but in his pocket he carried a

piece of ink eraser with which he was careful to keep the paper collar

up to standard. Yan cared nothing about dress--indeed, was inclined to

be slovenly. So the eldest brother, meaning to turn Alner's weakness

to account, offered a prize of a twenty-five-cent necktie of the

winner's own choice to the one who did his chores best for a month.

For the first week Alner and Yan kept even, then Alner wearied, in

spite of the dazzling prize. The pace was too hot. Yan kept on his

usual way and was duly awarded the twenty-five cents to be spent on a

necktie. But in the store a bright thought came tempting him. Fifteen

cents was as much as any one should spend on a necktie--that's sure;

the other ten would get the book. And thus the last dime was added to

the pile. Then, bursting with joy and with the pride of a capitalist,

he went to the book-shop and asked for the coveted volume.

He was tense with long-pent feeling. He expected to have the

bookseller say that the price had gone up to one thousand dollars, and

that all were sold. But he did not. He turned silently, drew the book

out of a pile of them, hesitated and said, "Green or red cover?"

"Green," said Yan, not yet believing. The book-man looked inside, then

laid it down, saying in a cold, business tone, "Ninety cents."

"Ninety cents," gasped Yan. Oh! if only he had known the ways of

booksellers or the workings of cash discounts. For six weeks had

he been barred this happy land--had suffered starvation; he had

misappropriated funds, he had fractured his conscience and all to

raise that ten cents--that unnecessary dime.

He read that book reverentially all the way home. It did not give him

what he wanted, but that doubtless was his own fault. He pored over

it, studied it, loved it, never doubting that now he had the key to

all the wonders and mysteries of Nature. It was five years before

he fully found out that the text was the most worthless trash ever

foisted on a torpid public. Nevertheless, the book held some useful

things; first, a list of the bird names; second, some thirty vile

travesties of Audubon and Wilson's bird portraits.

These were the birds thus maligned:

Duck Hawk Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Sparrow Hawk Bobolink

White-headed Eagle Meadow Lark

Great Horned Owl Bluejay

Snowy Owl Ruffed Grouse

Red-headed Woodpecker Great Blue Heron

Golden-winged Woodpecker Bittern

Barn-swallow Wilson's Snipe

Whip-poor-will Long-biller Curlew

Night Hawk Purple Gallinule

Belted Kingfisher Canada Goose

Kingbird Wood Duck

Woodthrush Hooded Merganser

Catbird Double-crested Cormorant

White-bellied Nuthatch Arctic Tern

Brown Creeper Great Northern Diver

Bohemian Chatterer Stormy Petrel

Great Northern Shrike Arctic Puffin

Shore Lark Black Guillemot

[Illustration: "He already knew the Downy Woodpecker"]

But badly as they were presented, the pictures were yet information,

and were entered in his memory as lasting accessions to his store of

truth about the Wild Things.

Of course, he already knew some few birds whose names are familiar

to every schoolboy: the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Wild Canary,

Woodpecker, Barn-swallow, Wren, Chickadee, Wild Pigeon, Humming-bird,

Pewee, so that his list was steadily increased.

V

The Collarless Stranger

Oh, sympathy! the noblest gift of God to man.

The greatest bond there is twixt man and man.

The strongest link in any friendship chain.

The single lasting hold in kinship's claim.

The only incorrosive strand in marriage bonds.

The blazing torch where genius lights her lamp.

The ten times noble base of noblest love.

More deep than love--more strong than hate--the biggest thing

in all the universe--the law of laws.

Grant but this greatest gift of God to man--this single link

concatenating grant, and all the rest are worthless or comprised.

Each year the ancient springtime madness came more strongly on Yan.

Each year he was less inclined to resist it, and one glorious day of

late April in its twelfth return he had wandered northward along to a

little wood a couple of miles from the town. It was full of unnamed

flowers and voices and mysteries. Every tree and thicket had a

voice--a long ditch full of water had many that called to him.

"_Peep-peep-peep_," they seemed to say in invitation for him to

come and see. He crawled again and again to the ditch and watched

and waited. The loud whistle would sound only a few rods away,

"_Peep-peep-peep_," but ceased at each spot when he came

near--sometimes before him, sometimes behind, but never where he was.

He searched through a small pool with his hands, sifted out sticks and

leaves, but found nothing else. A farmer going by told him it was only

a "spring Peeper," whatever that was, "some kind of a critter in the

water."

Under a log not far away Yan found a little Lizard that tumbled out of

sight into a hole. It was the only living thing there, so he decided

that the "Peeper" must be a "Whistling Lizard." But he was determined

to see them when they were calling. How was it that the ponds all

around should be full of them calling to him and playing hide and seek

and yet defying his most careful search? The voices ceased as soon as

he came near, to be gradually renewed in the pools he had left. His

presence was a husher. He lay for a long time watching a pool, but

none of the voices began again in range of his eye. At length, after

realizing that they were avoiding him, he crawled to a very noisy pond

without showing himself, and nearer and yet nearer until he was within

three feet of a loud peeper in the floating grass. He located the spot

within a few inches and yet could see nothing. He was utterly baffled,

and lay there puzzling over it, when suddenly all the near Peepers

stopped, and Yan was startled by a footfall; and looking around, he

saw a man within a few feet, watching him.

Yan reddened--a stranger was always an enemy; he had a natural

aversion to all such, and stared awkwardly as though caught in crime.

The man, a curious looking middle-aged person, was in shabby clothes

and wore no collar. He had a tin box strapped on his bent shoulders,

and in his hands was a long-handled net. His features, smothered in a

grizzly beard, were very prominent and rugged. They gave evidence of

intellectual force, with some severity, but his gray-blue eyes had a

kindly look.

He had on a common, unbecoming, hard felt hat, and when he raised it

to admit the pleasant breeze Yan saw that the wearer had hair like his

own--a coarse, paleolithic mane, piled on his rugged brow, like a mass

of seaweed lodged on some storm-beaten rock.

"F'what are ye fynding, my lad?" said he in tones whose gentleness was

in no way obscured by a strong Scottish tang.

Still resenting somewhat the stranger's presence, Yan said:

"I'm not finding anything; I am only trying to see what that Whistling

Lizard is like."

The stranger's eyes twinkled. "Forty years ago Ah was laying by a pool

just as Ah seen ye this morning, looking and trying hard to read the

riddle of the spring Peeper. Ah lay there all day, aye, and mony

anither day, yes, it was nigh onto three years before Ah found it oot.

Ah'll be glad to save ye seeking as long as Ah did, if that's yer

mind. Ah'll show ye the Peeper."

Then he raked carefully among the leaves near the ditch, and soon

captured a tiny Frog, less than an inch long.

"Ther's your Whistling Lizard: he no a Lizard at all, but a Froggie.

Book men call him _Hyla pickeringii_, an' a gude Scotchman he'd

make, for ye see the St. Andrew's cross on his wee back. Ye see the

whistling ones in the water put on'y their beaks oot an' is hard to

see. Then they sinks to the bottom when ye come near. But you tak

this'n home and treat him well and ye'll see him blow out his throat

as big as himsel' an' whistle like a steam engine."

Yan thawed out now. He told about the Lizard he had seen.

"That wasna a Lizard; Ah niver see thim aboot here. It must a been

a two-striped _Spelerpes_. A _Spelerpes_ is nigh kin to a

Frog--a kind of dry-land tadpole, while a Lizard is only a Snake with

legs."

This was light from heaven. All Yan's distrust was gone. He warmed to

the stranger. He plied him with questions; he told of his getting the

Bird Book. Oh, how the stranger did snort at "that driveling trash."

Yan talked of his perplexities. He got a full hearing and intelligent

answers. His mystery of the black ground-bird with a brown mate was

resolved into the Common Towhee. The unknown wonderful voice in the

spring morning, sending out its "_cluck, cluck, cluck, clucker_,"

in the distant woods, the large gray Woodpecker that bored in some

high stub and flew in a blaze of gold, and the wonderful spotted bird

with red head and yellow wings and tail in the taxidermist's window,

were all resolved into one and the same--the Flicker or Golden-winged

Woodpecker. The Hang-nest and the Oriole became one. The unknown

poisonous-looking blue Hornet, that sat on the mud with palpitating

body, and the strange, invisible thing that made the mud-nests inside

old outbuildings and crammed them with crippled Spiders, were both

identified as the Mud-wasp or _Pelopæus_.

A black Butterfly flew over, and Yan learned that it was a Camberwell

Beauty, or, scientifically, a _Vanessa antiopa_, and that this

one must have hibernated to be seen so early in the spring, and yet

more, that this beautiful creature was the glorified spirit of the

common brown and black spiney Caterpillar.

The Wild Pigeons were flying high above them in great flocks as they

sat there, and Yan learned of their great nesting places in the far

South, and of their wonderful but exact migrations without regard to

anything but food; their northward migration to gather the winged nuts

of the Slippery Elm in Canada; their August flight to the rice-fields

of Carolina; their Mississippi Valley pilgrimage when the acorns and

beech-mast were falling ripe.

What a rich, full morning that was. Everything seemed to turn up for

them. As they walked over a piney hill, two large birds sprang from

the ground and whirred through the trees.

"Ruffed Grouse or 'patridge', as the farmers call them. There's a pair

lives nigh aboots here. They come on this bank for the Wintergreen

berries."

And Yan was quick to pull and taste them. He filled his pockets with

the aromatic plant--berries and all--and chewed it as he went. While

they walked, a faint, far drum-thump fell on their ears. "What's

that?" he exclaimed, ever on the alert. The stranger listened and

said:

"That's the bird ye ha' just seen; that's the Cock Partridge drumming

for his mate."

The Pewee of his early memories became the Phoebe of books. That day

his brookside singer became the Song-sparrow; the brown triller, the

Veery Thrush. The Trilliums, white and red, the Dogtooth Violet, the

Spring-beauty, the Trailing Arbutus--all for the first time got

names and became real friends, instead of elusive and beautiful, but

depressing mysteries.

The stranger warmed, too, and his rugged features glowed; he saw in

Yan one minded like himself, tormented with the knowledge-hunger, as

in youth he himself had been; and now it was a priceless privilege to

save the boy some of what he had suffered. His gratitude to Yan grew

fervid, and Yan--he took in every word; nothing that he heard was

forgotten. He was in a dream, for he had found at last the greatest

thing on earth--sympathy--broad, intelligent, comprehensive sympathy.

That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan's mind--not

his memory, that was a thing of the past--but in his mind, his living

present.

And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged

stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the

smell of the Wintergreen.

Smell's appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than

that of any other sense. The Indians know this; many of them, in time,

find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it

by them in the medicine bag. It is very real and dear to them--that

handful of Pine needles, that lump of Rat-musk, or that piece of

Spruce gum. It adds the crown of happy memory to their reveries.

And yet this belief is one of the first attacked by silly White-men,

who profess to enlighten the Red-man's darkness. They, in their

ignorance, denounce it as absurd, while men of science know its simple

truth.

Yan did not know that he had stumbled on a secret of the Indian

medicine bag. But ever afterward that wonderful day was called back to

him, conjured up by his "medicine," this simple, natural magic, the

smell of the Wintergreen.

He appreciated that morning more than he could tell, and yet he did a

characteristic foolish thing, that put him in a wrong light and left

him so in the stranger's mind.

It was past noon. They had long lingered; the Stranger spoke of the

many things he had at home; then at length said he must be going.

"Weel, good-by, laddie; Ah hope Ah'll see you again." He held out his

hand. Yan shook it warmly; but he was dazed with thinking and with

reaction; his diffidence and timidity were strong; he never rose to

the stranger's veiled offer. He let him go without even learning his

name or address.

When it was too late, Yan awoke to his blunder. He haunted all those

woods in hopes of chancing on him there again, but he never did.

VI

Glenyan

Oh! what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! How their trumpet clang

went thrilling in his heart, to smite there new and hidden chords that

stirred and sang response. Was there ever a nobler bird than that

great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood

of life, a song of home and of peace--of stirring deeds and hunting

in far-off climes--of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet

with cooling drink. A song of wind and marching, a song of bursting

green and grinding ice--of Arctic secrets and of hidden ways. A song

of a long black marsh, a low red sky, and a sun that never sets.

An Indian jailed for theft bore bravely through the winter, but when

the springtime brought the Gander-clang in the black night sky, he

started, fell, and had gone to his last, long, hunting home.

Who can tell why Jericho should fall at the trumpet blast?

Who can read or measure the power of the Honker-song?

Oh, what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! And yet, was it a new

song? No, the old, old song, but Yan heard it with new ears. He was

learning to read its message. He wandered on their trailless track, as

often as he could, northward, ever northward, up the river from the

town, and up, seeking the loneliest ways and days. The river turned to

the east, but a small stream ran into it from the north: up that Yan

went through thickening woods and walls that neared each other, on and

up until the walls closed to a crack, then widened out into a little

dale that was still full of original forest trees. Hemlock, Pine,

Birch and Elm of the largest size abounded and spread over the clear

brook a continuous shade. Fox vines trailed in the open places, the

rarest wild-flowers flourished, Red-squirrels chattered from the

trees. In the mud along the brook-side were tracks of Coon and Mink

and other strange fourfoots. And in the trees overhead, the Veery, the

Hermit-thrush, or even a Woodthrush sang his sweetly solemn strain, in

that golden twilight of the midday forest. Yan did not know them all

by name as yet, but he felt their vague charm and mystery. It seemed

such a far and lonely place, so unspoiled by man, that Yan persuaded

himself that surely he was the first human being to stand there, that

it was his by right of discovery, and so he claimed it and named it

after its discoverer--Glenyan.

This place became the central thought in his life. He went there at

all opportunities, but never dared to tell any one of his discovery.

He longed for a confidant sometimes, he hankered to meet the stranger

and take him there, and still he feared that the secret would get out.

This was his little kingdom; the Wild Geese had brought him here, as

the Seagulls had brought Columbus to a new world--where he could lead,

for brief spells, the woodland life that was his ideal. He was tender

enough to weep over the downfall of a lot of fine Elm trees in town,

when their field was sold for building purposes, and he used to suffer

a sort of hungry regret when old settlers told how plentiful the Deer

used to be. But now he had a relief from these sorrows, for surely

there was one place where the great trees should stand and grow as in

the bright bygone; where the Coon, the Mink and the Partridge should

live and flourish forever. No, indeed, no one else should know of it,

for if the secret got out, at least hosts of visitors would come and

Glenyan be defiled. No, better that the secret should "die with him,"

he said. What that meant he did not really know, but he had read the

phrase somewhere and he liked the sound of it. Possibly he would

reveal it on his deathbed.

Yes, that was the proper thing, and he pictured a harrowing scene of

weeping relatives around, himself as central figure, all ceasing their

wailing and gasping with wonder as he made known the mighty secret of

his life--delicious! it was almost worth dying for.

So he kept the place to himself and loved it more and more. He would

look out through the thick Hemlock tops, the blots of Basswood green

or the criss-cross Butternut leafage and say: "My own, my own." Or

down by some pool in the limpid stream he would sit and watch the

arrowy Shiners and say: "You are mine, all; you are mine. You shall

never be harmed or driven away."

A spring came from the hillside by a green lawn, and here Yan would

eat his sandwiches varied with nuts and berries that he did not like,

but ate only because he was a wildman, and would look lovingly up the

shady brookland stretches and down to the narrow entrance of the glen,

and say and think and feel. "This is mine, my own, my very own."

VII

The Shanty

He had none but the poorest of tools, but he set about building a

shanty. He was not a resourceful boy. His effort to win the book

had been an unusual one for him, as his instincts were not at all

commercial. When that matter came to the knowledge of the Home

Government, he was rebuked for doing "work unworthy of a gentleman's

son" and forbidden under frightful penalties "ever again to resort to

such degrading ways of raising money."

They gave him no money, so he was penniless. Most boys would have

possessed themselves somehow of a good axe and spade. He had neither.

An old plane blade, fastened to a stick with nails, was all the axe

and spade he had, yet with this he set to work and offset its poorness

as a tool by dogged persistency. First, he selected the quietest

spot near the spring--a bank hidden by a mass of foliage. He knew no

special reason for hiding it, beyond the love of secrecy. He had

read in some of his books "how the wily scouts led the way through a

pathless jungle, pulled aside a bough and there revealed a comfortable

dwelling that none without the secret could possibly have discovered,"

so it seemed very proper to make it a complete mystery--a sort of

secret panel in the enchanted castle--and so picture himself as the

wily scout leading his wondering companions to the shanty, though, of

course, he had not made up his mind to reveal his secret to any one.

He often wished he could have the advantage of Rad's strong arms and

efficacious tools; but the workshop incident was only one of many that

taught him to leave his brother out of all calculation.

Mother Earth is the best guardian of a secret, and Yan with his crude

spade began by digging a hole in the bank. The hard blue clay made the

work slow, but two holidays spent in steady labour resulted in a hole

seven feet wide and about four feet into the bank.

In this he set about building the shanty. Logs seven or eight feet

long must be got to the place--at least twenty-five or thirty would

be needed, and how to cut and handle them with his poor axe was a

question. Somehow, he never looked for a better axe. The half-formed

notion that the Indians had no better was sufficient support, and he

struggled away bravely, using whatever ready sized material he could

find. Each piece as he brought it was put into place. Some boys would

have gathered the logs first and built it all at once, but that

was not Yan's way; he was too eager to see the walls rise. He had

painfully and slowly gathered logs enough to raise the walls three

rounds, when the question of a door occurred to him. This, of course,

could not be cut through the logs in the ordinary way; that required

the best of tools. So he lifted out all the front logs except the

lowest, replacing them at the ends with stones and blocks to sustain

the sides. This gave him the sudden gain of two logs, and helped the

rest of the walls that much. The shanty was now about three feet high,

and no two logs in it were alike: some were much too long, most were

crooked and some were half rotten, for the simple reason that these

were the only ones he could cut. He had exhausted the logs in the

neighbourhood and was forced to go farther. Now he remembered seeing

one that might do, half a mile away on the home trail (they were

always "trails"; he never called them "roads" or "paths"). He went

after this, and to his great surprise and delight found that it was

one of a dozen old cedar posts that had been cut long before and

thrown aside as culls, or worthless. He could carry only one at a

time, so that to bring each one meant a journey of a mile, and the

post got woefully heavy each time before that mile was over. To

get those twelve logs he had twelve miles to walk. It took several

Saturdays, but he stuck doggedly to it. Twelve good logs completed

his shanty, making it five feet high and leaving three logs over for

rafters. These he laid flat across, dividing the spaces equally. Over

them he laid plenty of small sticks and branches till it was thickly

covered. Then he went down to a rank, grassy meadow and, with his

knife, cut hay for a couple of hours. This was spread thickly on the

roof, to be covered with strips of Elm bark then on top of all he

threw the clay dug from the bank, piling it well back, stamping on it,

and working it down at the edges. Finally, he threw rubbish and leaves

over it, so that it was confused with the general tangle.

Thus the roof was finished, but the whole of the front was open. He

dreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found,

first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inches

through. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs of

holes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle of

the front ground log.

Into each of these he put a pair of upright sticks, leading up to the

eave log, one inside and one outside of it, then packed the earth

around them in the holes. Next, he went to the brook-side and cut a

number of long green willow switches about half an inch thick at the

butt. These switches he twisted around the top of each pair of stakes

in a figure 8, placing them to hold the stake tight against the bottom

and top logs at the front.

Down by the spring he now dug a hole and worked water and clay

together into mortar, then with a trowel cut out of a shingle, and

mortar carried in an old bucket, he built a wall within the stakes,

using sticks laid along the outside and stones set in mud till the

front was closed up, except a small hole for a window and a large hole

for a door.

Now he set about finishing the inside. He gathered moss in the woods

and stuffed all the chinks in the upper parts, and those next the

ground he filled with stones and earth. Thus the shanty was finished;

but it lacked a door.

The opening was four feet high and two feet wide, so in the woodshed

at home he cut three boards, each eight inches wide and four feet

high, but he left at each end of one a long point. Doing this at home

gave him the advantage of a saw. Then with these and two shorter

boards, each two feet long and six inches wide, he sneaked out to

Glenyan, and there, with some nails and a stone for a hammer, he

fastened them together into a door. In the ground log he pecked a hole

big enough to receive one of the points and made a corresponding hole

in the under side of the top log. Then, prying up the eave log, he put

the door in place, let the eave log down again, and the door was hung.

A string to it made an outside fastening when it was twisted around a

projecting snag in the wall, and a peg thrust into a hole within made

an inside fastener. Some logs, with fir boughs and dried grass, formed

a bunk within. This left only the window, and for lack of better cover

he fastened over it a piece of muslin brought from home. But finding

its dull white a jarring note, he gathered a quart of butternuts, and

watching his chance at home, he boiled the cotton in water with the

nuts and so reduced it to a satisfactory yellowish brown.

His final task was to remove all appearance of disturbance and to

fully hide the shanty in brush and trailing vines. Thus, after weeks

of labour, his woodland home was finished. It was only five feet high

inside, six feet long and six feet wide--dirty and uncomfortable--but

what a happiness it was to have it.

Here for the first time in his life he began to realize something

of the pleasure of single-handed achievement in the line of a great

ambition.

VIII

Beginnings of Woodlore

During this time Yan had so concentrated all his powers on the shanty

that he had scarcely noticed the birds and wild things. Such was his

temperament--one idea only, and that with all his strength.

His heart was more and more in his kingdom now he longed to come

and live here. But he only dared to dream that some day he might be

allowed to pass a night in the shanty. This was where he would lead

his ideal life--the life of an Indian with all that is bad and cruel

left out. Here he would show men how to live without cutting down all

the trees, spoiling all the streams, and killing every living thing.

He would learn how to get the fullest pleasure out of the woods

himself and then teach others how to do the same. Though the birds and

Fourfoots fascinated him, he would not have hesitated to shoot one

had he been able, but to see a tree cut down always caused him

great distress. Possibly he realized that the bird might be quickly

replaced, but the tree, never.

To carry out his plan he must work hard at school, for books had

much that he needed. Perhaps some day he might get a chance to see

Audubon's drawings, and so have all his bird worries settled by a

single book.

That summer a new boy at school added to Yan's savage equipment. This

boy was neither good nor bright; he was a dunce, and had been expelled

from a boarding school for misconduct, but he had a number of

schoolboy accomplishments that gave him a tinge of passing glory.

He could tie a lot of curious knots in a string. He could make a

wonderful birdy warble, and he spoke a language that he called Tutnee.

Yan was interested in all, but especially the last. He teased and

bribed till he was admitted to the secret. It consisted in spelling

every word, leaving the five vowels as they are, but doubling each

consonant and putting a "u" between. Thus "b" became "bub," "d" "dud,"

"m" "mum," and so forth, except that "c" was "suk," "h" "hash," "x"

"zux," and "w" "wak."

The sample given by the new boy, "sus-hash-u-tut u-pup yak-o-u-rur

mum-o-u-tut-hash," was said to be a mode of enjoining silence.

This language was "awful useful," the new boy said, to keep the other

fellows from knowing what you were saying, which it certainly did. Yan

practised hard at it and within a few weeks was an adept. He could

handle the uncouth sentences better than his teacher, and he was

singularly successful in throwing in accents and guttural tones that

imparted a delightfully savage flavour, and he rejoiced in jabbering

away to the new boy in the presence of others so that he might bask in

the mystified look on the faces of those who were not skilled in the

tongue of the Tutnees.

He made himself a bow and arrows. They were badly made and he could

hit nothing with them, but he felt so like an Indian when he drew the

arrow to its head, that it was another pleasure.

He made a number of arrows with hoop-iron heads, these he could

file at home in the woodshed. The heads were jagged and barbed and

double-barbed. These arrows were frightful-looking things. They seemed

positively devilish in their ferocity, and were proportionately

gratifying. These he called his "war arrows," and would send one into

a tree and watch it shiver, then grunt "Ugh, heap good," and rejoice

in the squirming of the imaginary foe he had pierced.

He found a piece of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor

moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping

knife; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until

he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch

for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, might do duty as a

kill-tally. He made a sheath for the knife out of scraps of leather

left off the moccasins. Some water-colours, acquired by a school swap,

and a bit of broken mirror held in a split stick, were necessary parts

of his Indian toilet. His face during the process of make-up was

always a battle-ground between the horriblest Indian scowl

and a grin of delight at his success in diabolizing his visage with

the paints. Then with painted face and a feather in his hair he would

proudly range the woods in his little kingdom and store up every scrap

of woodlore he could find, invent or learn from his schoolmates.

[Illustration: Yan's toilet]

Odd things that he found in the woods he would bring to his shanty:

curled sticks, feathers, bones, skulls, fungus, shells, an old

cowhorn--things that interested him, he did not know why. He made

Indian necklaces of the shells, strung together alternately with

the backbone of a fish. He let his hair grow as long as possible,

employing various stratagems, even the unpalatable one of combing it

to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours

with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard,

and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was

pleasure in hearing disparaging remarks about the darkness of his

complexion. He tried to do everything as an Indian would do it,

striking Indian poses, walking carefully with his toes turned in,

breaking off twigs to mark a place, guessing at the time by the sun,

and grunting "Ugh" or "Wagh" when anything surprised him. Disparaging

remarks about White-men, delivered in supposed Indian dialect, were

an important part of his pastime. "Ugh, White-men heap no good" and

"Wagh, paleface--pale fool in woods," were among his favourites.

He was much influenced by phrases that caught his ear. "The brown

sinewy arm of the Indian," was one of them. It discovered to him that

his own arms were white as milk. There was, however, a simple remedy.

He rolled up his sleeves to the shoulder and exposed them to the full

glare of the sun. Then later, under the spell of the familiar phrase,

"The warrior was naked to the waist," he went a step further--he

determined to be brown to the waist--so discarded his shirt during the

whole of one holiday. He always went to extremes. He remembered now

that certain Indians put their young warriors through an initiation

called the Sun-dance, so he danced naked round the fire in the blazing

sun and sat around naked all one day.

He noticed a general warmness before evening, but it was at night that

he really felt the punishment of his indiscretion. He was in a burning

heat. He scarcely slept all night. Next day he was worse, and his arm

and shoulder were blistered. He bore it bravely, fearing only that the

Home Government might find it out, in which case he would have fared

worse. He had read that the Indians grease the skin for sunburn, so he

went to the bathroom and there used goose grease for lack of Buffalo

fat. This did give some relief, and in a few days he was better and

had the satisfaction of peeling the dead skin from his shoulders and

arms.

Yan made a number of vessels out of Birch bark, stitching the edges

with root fibers, filling the bottom with a round wooden disc, and

cementing the joints with pine gum so that they would hold water.

In the distant river he caught some Catfish and brought them

home--that, is, to his shanty. There he made a fire and broiled

them--very badly--but he ate them as a great delicacy. The sharp bone

in each of their side fins he saved, bored a hole through its thick

end, smoothed it, and so had needles to stitch his Birch bark. He kept

them in a bark box with some lumps of resin, along with some bark

fiber, an Indian flint arrow-head given him by a schoolmate, and

the claws of a large Owl, found in the garbage heap back of the

taxidermist's shop.

One day on the ash heap in their own yard in town he saw a new,

strange bird. He was always seeing new birds, but this was of unusual

interest. He drew its picture as it tamely fed near him. A dull, ashy

gray, with bronzy yellow spots on crown and rump, and white bars on

its wings. His "Birds of Canada" gave no light; he searched through

all the books he could find, but found no clew to its name. It was

years afterward before he learned that this was the young male Pine

Grosbeak.

Another day, under the bushes not far from his shanty, he found a

small Hawk lying dead. He clutched it as a wonderful prize, spent an

hour in looking at its toes, its beak, its wings, its every feather;

then he set to work to make a drawing of it. A very bad drawing it

proved, although it was the labour of days, and the bird was crawling

with maggots before he had finished. But every feather and every spot

was faithfully copied, was duly set down on paper. One of his

friends said it was a Chicken-hawk. That name stuck in Yan's memory.

Thenceforth the Chicken-hawk and its every marking were familiar to

him. Even in after years, when he had learned that this must have been

a young "Sharp-shin," the name "Chicken-hawk" was always readier on

his lips.

But he met with another and a different Hawk soon afterward. This one

was alive and flitting about in the branches of a tree over his head.

It was very small--less than a foot in length. Its beak was very

short, its legs, wings and tail long; its head was bluish and its back

coppery red; on the tail was a broad, black crossbar. As the bird flew

about and balanced on the boughs, it pumped its tail. This told him

it was a Hawk, and the colours he remembered were those of the male

Sparrow-hawk, for here his bird book helped with its rude travesty of

"Wilson's" drawing of this bird. Yet two other birds he saw close at

hand and drew partly from memory. The drawings were like this, and

from the picture on a calendar he learned that one was a Rail; from

a drawing in the bird book that the other was a Bobolink. And these

names he never forgot. He had his doubts about the sketching at

first--it seemed an un-Indian thing to do, until he remembered that

the Indians painted pictures on their shields and on their teepees. It

was really the best of all ways for him to make reliable observation.

The bookseller of the town had some new books in his window about this

time. One, a marvellous work called "Poisonous Plants," Yan was eager

to see. It was exposed in the window for a time. Two of the large

plates were visible from the street; one was Henbane, the other

Stramonium. Yan gazed at them as often as he could. In a week they

were gone; but the names and looks were forever engraved on his

memory. Had he made bold to go in and ask permission to see the work,

his memory would have seized most of it in an hour.

IX

Tracks

In the wet sand down by the edge of the brook he one day found some

curious markings--evidently tracks. Yan pored over them, then made a

life-size drawing of one. He shrewdly suspected it to be the track of

a Coon--nothing was too good or wild or rare for his valley. As soon

as he could, he showed the track to the stableman whose dog was said

to have killed a Coon once, and hence the man must be an authority on

the subject.

"Is that a Coon track?" asked Yan timidly.

"How do I know?" said the man roughly, and went on with his work. But

a stranger standing near, a curious person with shabby clothes, and

a new silk hat on the back of his head, said, "Let me see it." Yan

showed it.

"Is it natural size?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yep, that's a Coon track, all right. You look at all the big trees

near about whar you saw that; then when you find one with a hole in

it, you look on the bark and you will find some Coon hars. Then you

will know you've got a Coon tree."

[Illustration: The Coon track]

Yan took the earliest chance. He sought and found a great Basswood

with some gray hairs caught in the bark. He took them home with him,

not sure what kind they were. He sought the stranger, but he was gone,

and no one knew him.

How to identify the hairs was a question; but he remembered a friend

who had a Coon-skin carriage robe. A few hairs of these were compared

with those from the tree and left no doubt that the climber was a

Coon. Thus Yan got the beginning of the idea that the very hairs of

each, as well as its tracks, are different. He learned, also, how wise

it is to draw everything that he wished to observe or describe. It

was accident, or instinct on his part, but he had fallen on a sound

principle; there is nothing like a sketch to collect and convey

accurate information of form--there is no better developer of true

observation.

One day he noticed a common plant like an umbrella. He dug it up by

the root, and at the lower end he found a long white bulb. He tasted

this. It was much like a cucumber. He looked up "Gray's School

Botany," and in the index saw the name, Indian Cucumber. The

description seemed to tally, as far as he could follow its technical

terms, though like all such, without a drawing it was far from

satisfactory. So he added the Indian Cucumber to his woodlore.

On another occasion he chewed the leaves of a strange plant because he

had heard that that was the first test applied by the Indians. He soon

began to have awful pains in his stomach. He hurried home in agony.

His mother gave him mustard and water till he vomited, then she boxed

his ears. His father came in during the process and ably supplemented

the punishment. He was then and there ordered to abstain forever from

the woods. Of course, he did not. He merely became more cautious about

it all, and enjoyed his shanty with the added zest of secret sin.

X

Biddy's Contribution

An Irish-Canadian servant girl from Sanger now became a member of

their household. Her grandmother was an herb-doctor in great repute.

She had frequently been denounced as a witch, although in good

standing as a Catholic. This girl had picked up some herb-lore, and

one day when all the family were visiting the cemetery she darted into

various copses and produced plants which she named, together with the

complaint that her grandmother used them for.

"Sassafras, that makes tea for skin disease; Ginseng, that's good to

sell; Bloodroot for the blood in springtime; Goldthread, that cures

sore mouths; Pipsissewa for chills and fever; White-man's Foot, that

springs up wherever a White-man treads; Indian cup, that grows where

an Indian dies; Dandelion roots for coffee; Catnip tea for a cold;

Lavender tea for drinking at meals; Injun Tobacco to mix with boughten

tobacco; Hemlock bark to dye pink; Goldthread to dye yellow, and

Butternut rinds for greenish."

All of these were passing trifles to the others, but to Yan they were

the very breath of life, and he treasured up all of these things

in his memory. Biddy's information was not unmixed with error and

superstition:

"Hold Daddy Longlegs by one leg and say, 'tell me where the cows are,'

and he will point just right under another leg, and onct he told me

where to find my necklace when I lost it.

"Shoot the Swallows and the cows give bloody milk. That's the way old

Sam White ruined his milk business--shooting Swallows.

"Lightning never strikes a barn where Swallows nest. Paw never rested

easy after the new barn was built till the Swallows nested in it. He

had it insured for a hundred dollars till the Swallows got round to

look after it.

"When a Measuring-worm crawls on you, you are going to get a new suit

of clothes. My brother-in-law says they walk over him every year in

summer and sure enough, he gets a new suit. But they never does it in

winter, cause he don't get new clothes then.

"Split a Crow's tongue and he will talk like a girl. Granny knowed a

man that had a brother back of Mara that got a young Crow and

split his tongue an' he told Granny it was _just_ like a girl

talking--an' Granny told me!

"Soak a Horse-hair in rainwater and it will turn into a Snake. Ain't

there lots uv Snakes around ponds where Horses drink? Well!

"Kill a Spider an' it will rain to-morrow. Now, that's worth knowin'.

I mind one year when the Orangeman's picnic was comin', 12th of July,

Maw made us catch twenty Spiders and we killed them all the day

before, and law, how it did rain on the picnic! Mebbe we didn't laugh.

Most of them hed to go home in boats, that's what our paper said. But

next year they done the same thing on us for St. Patrick's Day, but

Spiders is scarce on the 16th of March, an' it didn't rain so much as

snow, so it was about a stand-off.

"Toads gives warts. You seen them McKenna twins--their hands is a

sight with warts. Well, I seen them two boys playing with Toads like

they was marbles. So! An' they might a-knowed what was comin'. Ain't

every Toad just covered with warts as thick as he can stick?

"That there's Injun tobacco. The Injuns always use it, and Granny

does, too, sometimes." (Yan made special note of this--he must get

some and smoke it, if it was _Indian_.)

"A Witch-hazel wand will bob over a hidden spring and show where to

dig. Denny Scully is awful good at it. He gets a dollar for showing

where to sink a well, an' if they don't strike water it's because they

didn't dig where he said, or spiled the charm some way or nuther, and

hez to try over.

"Now, that's Dandelion. Its roots makes awful good coffee. Granny

allers uses it. She says that it is healthier than store coffee, but

Maw says she likes boughten things best, and the more they cost the

better she likes them.

"Now, that's Ginseng. It has a terrible pretty flower in spring.

There's tons and tons of it sent to China. Granny says the Chinese

eats it, to make them cheerful, but they don't seem to eat enough.

"There's Slippery Elm. It's awfully good for loosening up a cold, if

you drink the juice the bark's bin biled in. One spring Granny made a

bucketful. She set it outside to cool, an' the pig he drunk it all up,

an' he must a had a cold, for it loosened him up so he dropped his

back teeth. I seen them myself lying out there in the yard. Yes, I

did.

"That's Wintergreen. Lots of boys I know chew that to make the girls

like them. Lots of them gits a beau that way, too. I done it myself

many's a time.

"Now, that is what some folks calls Injun Turnip, an' the children

calls it Jack-in-a-Pulpit, but Granny calls it 'Sorry-plant,' cos she

says when any one eats it it makes them feel sorry for the last fool

thing they done. I'll put some in your Paw's coffee next time he licks

yer and mebbe that'll make him quit. It just makes me sick to see ye

gettin' licked fur every little thing ye can't help.

"A Snake's tongue is its sting. You put your foot on a Snake and see

how he tries to sting you. An' his tail don't die till sundown. I seen

that myself, onct, an' Granny says so, too, an' what Granny don't know

ain't knowledge--it's only book-larnin'."

These were her superstitions, most of them more or less obviously

absurd to Yan; but she had also a smattering of backwoods lore and Yan

gleaned all he could.

She had so much of what he wanted to know that he had almost made up

his mind to tell her where he went each Saturday when he had finished

his work.

A week or two longer and she would have shared the great secret, but

something took place to end their comradeship.

XI

Lung Balm

One day as this girl went with him through a little grove on the edge

of the town, she stopped at a certain tree and said:

"If that ain't Black-cherry!"

"You mean Choke-cherry."

"No, Black-cherry. Choke-cherry ain't no good; but Black-cherry bark's

awful good for lung complaint. Grandma always keeps it. I've been

feeling a bit queer meself" [she was really as strong as an ox].

"Guess I'll git some." So she and Yan planned an expedition together.

The boldness of it scared the boy. The girl helped herself to a

hatchet in the tool box--the sacred tool box of his father.

Yan's mother saw her with it and demanded why she had it. With ready

effrontery she said it was to hammer in the hook that held the

clothesline, and proceeded to carry out the lie with a smiling face.

That gave Yan a new lesson and not a good one. The hatchet was at once

put back in the box, to be stolen more carefully later on.

Biddy announced that she was going to the grocery shop. She met Yan

around the corner and they made for the lot. Utterly regardless of

property rights, she showed Yan how to chip off the bark of the

Black-cherry. "Don't chip off all around; that's bad luck--take it

on'y from the sunny side." She filled a basket with the pieces and

they returned home.

Here she filled a jar with bits of the inner layer, then, pouring

water over it, let it stand for a week. The water was then changed to

a dark brown stuff with a bitter taste and a sweet, aromatic smell.

"It's terrible good," she said. "Granny always keeps it handy. It

cures lots of people. Now there was Bud Ellis--the doctors just guv

him up. They said he didn't have a single lung left, and he come

around to Granny. He used to make fun of Granny; but now he wuz plumb

scairt. At first Granny chased him away; then when she seen that he

was awful sick, she got sorry and told him how to make Lung Balm. He

was to make two gallons each time and bring it to her. Then she took

and fixed it so it was one-half as much and give it back to him. Well,

in six months if he wasn't all right."

Biddy now complained nightly of "feelin's" in her chest. These

feelings could be controlled only by a glass or two of Lung Balm.

Her condition must have been critical, for one night after several

necessary doses of Balm her head seemed affected. She became

abusive to the lady of the house and at the end of the month a less

interesting help was in her place.

There were many lessons good and bad that Yan might have drawn from

this; but the only one that he took in was that the Black-cherry bark

is a wonderful remedy. The family doctor said that it really was so,

and Yan treasured up this as a new and precious fragment of woodcraft.

Having once identified the tree, he was surprised to see that it was

rather common, and was delighted to find it flourishing in his own

Glenyan.

This made him set down on paper all the trees he knew, and he was

surprised to find how few they were and how uncertain he was about

them.

Maple--hard and soft.

Beach.

Elm--swamp and slippery.

Ironwood.

Birch--white and black.

Ash--white and black.

Pine.

Cedar.

Balsam.

Hemlock and Cherry.

He had heard that the Indians knew the name and properties of every

tree and plant in the woods, and that was what he wished to be able to

say of himself.

One day by the bank of the river he noticed a pile of empty shells of

the fresh-water Mussel, or Clam. The shells were common enough, but

why all together and marked in the same way? Around the pile on the

mud were curious tracks and marks. There were so many that it was hard

to find a perfect one, but when he did, remembering the Coon track,

he drew a picture of it. It was too small to be the mark of his old

acquaintance. He did not find any one to tell him what it was, but one

day he saw a round, brown animal hunched up on the bank eating a clam.

It dived into the water at his approach, but it reappeared swimming

farther on. Then, when it dived again, Yan saw by its long thin

tail that it was a Muskrat, like the stuffed one he had seen in the

taxidermist's window.

He soon learned that the more he studied those tracks the more

different kinds he found. Many were rather mysterious, so he could

only draw them and put them aside, hoping some day for light. One

of the strangest and most puzzling turned out to be the trail of a

Snapper, and another proved to be merely the track of a Common Crow

that came to the water's edge to drink.

The curios that he gathered and stored in his shanty increased in

number and in interest. The place became more and more part of

himself. Its concealment bettered as the foliage grew around it again,

and he gloried in its wild seclusion and mystery, and wandered through

the woods with his bow and arrows, aiming harmless, deadly blows at

snickering Red-squirrels--though doubtless he would have been as sorry

as they had he really hit one.

Yan soon found out that he was not the only resident of the shanty.

One day as he sat inside wondering why he had not made a fireplace, so

that he could sit at an indoor fire, he saw a silent little creature

flit along between two logs in the back wall. He remained still. A

beautiful little Woodmouse, for such it was, soon came out in plain

view and sat up to look at Yan and wash its face. Yan reached out for

his bow and arrow, but the Mouse was gone in a flash. He fitted a

blunt arrow to the string, then waited, and when the Mouse returned he

shot the arrow. It missed the Mouse, struck the log and bounded back

into Yan's face, giving him a stinging blow on the cheek. And as Yan

rolled around grunting and rubbing his cheek, he thought, "This is

what I tried to do to the Woodmouse." Thenceforth, Yan made no attempt

to harm the Mouse; indeed, he was willing to share his meals with it.

In time they became well acquainted, and Yan found that not one, but a

whole family, were sharing with him his shanty in the woods.

Biddy's remark about the Indian tobacco bore fruit. Yan was not a

smoker, but now he felt he must learn. He gathered a lot of this

tobacco, put it to dry, and set about making a pipe--a real Indian

peace pipe. He had no red sandstone to make it of, but a soft red

brick did very well. He first roughed out the general shape with his

knife, and was trying to bore the bowl out with the same tool, when

he remembered that in one of the school-readers was an account of the

Indian method of drilling into stone with a bow-drill and wet sand.

One of his schoolmates, the son of a woodworker, had seen his father

use a bow-drill. This knowledge gave him new importance in Yan's eyes.

Under his guidance a bow-drill was made, and used much and on many

things till it was understood, and now it did real Indian service by

drilling the bowl and stem holes of the pipe.

He made a stem of an Elderberry shoot, punching out the pith at home

with a long knitting-needle. Some white pigeon wing feathers trimmed

small, and each tipped with a bit of pitch, were strung on a stout

thread and fastened to the stem for a finishing touch; and he would

sit by his camp fire solemnly smoking--a few draws only, for he did

not like it--then say, "Ugh, heap hungry," knock the ashes out, and

proceed with whatever work he had on hand.

Thus he spent the bright Saturdays, hiding his accouterments each

day in his shanty, washing the paint from his face in the brook, and

replacing the hated paper collar that the pride and poverty of his

family made a daily necessity, before returning home. He was a little

dreamer, but oh! what happy dreams. Whatever childish sorrow he found

at home he knew he could always come out here and forget and be happy

as a king--be a real King in a Kingdom wholly after his heart, and all

his very own.

XII

A Crisis

At school he was a model boy except in one respect--he had strange,

uncertain outbreaks of disrespect for his teachers. One day he amused

himself by covering the blackboard with ridiculous caricatures of the

principal, whose favourite he undoubtedly was. They were rather clever

and proportionately galling. The principal set about an elaborate plan

to discover who had done them. He assembled the whole school and began

cross-examining one wretched dunce, thinking him the culprit. The lad

denied it in a confused and guilty way; the principal was convinced of

his guilt, and reached for his rawhide, while the condemned set up a

howl. To the surprise of the assembly, Yan now spoke up, and in a tone

of weary impatience said:

"Oh, let him alone. I did it."

His manner and the circumstances were such that every one laughed. The

principal was nettled to fury. He forgot his manhood; he seized Yan

by the collar. He was considered a timid boy; his face was white; his

lips set. The principal beat him with the rawhide till the school

cried "Shame," but he got no cry from Yan.

That night, on undressing for bed, his brother Rad saw the long black

wales from head to foot, and an explanation was necessary. He was

incapable of lying; his parents learned of his wickedness, and new and

harsh punishments were added. Next day was Saturday. He cut his usual

double or Saturday's share of wood for the house, and, bruised and

smarting, set out for the one happy spot he knew. The shadow lifted

from his spirit as he drew near. He was already forming a plan for

adding a fireplace and chimney to his house. He followed the secret

path he had made with aim to magnify its secrets. He crossed the open

glade, was, nearly at the shanty, when he heard voices--loud, coarse

voices--_coming from his shanty_. He crawled up close. The door

was open. There in his dear cabin were three tramps playing cards and

drinking out of a bottle. On the ground beside them were his shell

necklaces broken up to furnish poker chips. In a smouldering fire

outside were the remains of his bow and arrows.

Poor Yan! His determination to be like an Indian under torture

had sustained him in the teacher's cruel beating and in his home

punishments, but this was too much. He fled to a far and quiet corner

and there flung himself down and sobbed in grief and rage--he would

have killed them if he could. After an hour or two he came trembling

back to see the tramps finish their game and their liquor; then they

defiled the shanty and left it in ruins.

The brightest thing in his life was gone--a King discrowned,

dethroned. Feeling now every wale on his back and legs, he sullenly

went home.

This was late in the summer. Autumn followed last, with shortening

days and chilly winds. Yan had no chance to see his glen, even had he

greatly wished it. He became more studious; books were his pleasure

now. He worked harder than ever, winning honour at school, but

attracting no notice at the home, where piety reigned.

The teachers and some of the boys remarked that Yan was getting very

thin and pale. Never very robust, he now looked like an invalid; but

at home no note was taken of the change. His mother's thoughts were

all concentrated on his scapegrace younger brother. For two years she

had rarely spoken to Yan peaceably. There was a hungry place in

his heart as he left the house unnoticed each morning and saw his

graceless brother kissed and darlinged. At school their positions

were reversed. Yan was the principal's pride. He had drawn no more

caricatures, and the teacher flattered himself that that beating was

what had saved the pale-faced head boy.

He grew thinner and heart-hungrier till near Christmas, when the

breakdown came.

* * * * *

"He is far gone in consumption," said the physician. "He cannot live

over a month or two"

[Illustration: "There in his dear cabin were three tramps"]

"He _must_ live," sobbed the conscience-stricken mother. "He must

live--O God, he must live."

All that suddenly awakened mother's love could do was done. The

skilful physician did his best, but it was the mother that saved him.

She watched over him night and day; she studied his wishes and comfort

in every way. She prayed by his bedside, and often asked God to

forgive her for her long neglect. It was Yan's first taste of

mother-love. Why she had ignored him so long was unknown. She was

simply erratic, but now she awoke to his brilliant gifts, his steady,

earnest life, already purposeful.

XIII

The Lynx

As winter waned, Yan's strength returned. He was wise enough to use

his new ascendency to get books. The public librarian, a man of broad

culture who had fought his own fight, became interested in him, and

helped him to many works that otherwise he would have missed.

"Wilson's Ornithology" and "Schoolcraft's Indians" were the most

important. And they were sparkling streams in the thirst-parched land.

In March he was fast recovering. He could now take long walks; and one

bright day of snow he set off with his brother's Dog. His steps bent

hillward. The air was bright and bracing, he stepped with unexpected

vigour, and he made for far Glenyan, without at first meaning to go

there. But, drawn by the ancient attraction, he kept on. The secret

path looked not so secret, now the leaves were off; but the Glen

looked dearly familiar as he reached the wider stretch.

His eye fell on a large, peculiar track quite fresh in the snow. It

was five inches across, big enough for a Bear track, but there were no

signs of claws or toe pads. The steps were short and the tracks had

not sunken as they would for an animal as heavy as a Bear.

As one end of each showed the indications of toes, he could see what

way it went, and followed up the Glen. The dog sniffed at it uneasily,

but showed no disposition to go ahead. Yan tramped up past the ruins

of his shanty, now painfully visible since the leaves had fallen, and

his heart ached at the sight. The trail led up the valley, and crossed

the brook on a log, and Yan became convinced that he was on the track

of a large Lynx. Though a splendid barker, Grip, the dog, was known to

be a coward, and now he slunk behind the boy, sniffing at the great

track and absolutely refusing to go ahead.

Yan was fascinated by the long rows of footprints, and when he came

to a place where the creature had leaped ten or twelve feet without

visible cause, he felt satisfied that he had found a Lynx, and the

love of adventure prompted him to go on, although he had not even a

stick in his hand or a knife in his pocket. He picked up the best club

he could find--a dry branch two feet long and two inches through, and

followed. The dog was now unwilling to go at all; he hung back, and

had to be called at each hundred yards.

They were at last in the dense Hemlock woods at the upper end of the

valley, when a peculiar sound like the call of a deep-voiced cat was

heard.

_Yow! Yow! Yowl!_

Yan stood still. The dog, although a large and powerful retriever,

whimpered, trembled and crawled up close.

The sound increased in volume. The yowling _meouw_ came louder,

louder and nearer, then suddenly clear and close, as though the

creature had rounded a point and entered an opening. It was positively

blood-curdling now. The dog could stand it no more; he turned and went

as fast as he could for home, leaving Yan to his fate. There was no

longer any question that it was a Lynx. Yan had felt nervous before

and the abject flight of the dog reacted on him. He realized how

defenseless he was, still weak from his illness, and he turned and

went after the dog. At first he walked. But having given in to his

fears, they increased; and as the yowling continued he finally ran his

fastest. The sounds were left behind, but Yan never stopped until he

had left the Glen and was once more in the open valley of the river.

Here he found the valiant retriever trembling all over. Yan received

him with a contemptuous kick, and, boylike, as soon as he could find

some stones, he used them till Grip was driven home.

* * * * *

Most lads have some sporting instinct, and his elder brother, though

not of Yan's tastes, was not averse to going gunning when there was a

prospect of sport.

Yan decided to reveal to Rad the secret of his glen. He had never been

allowed to use a gun, but Rad had one, and Yan's vivid account of his

adventure had the desired effect. His method was characteristic.

[Illustration: "It surely was a Lynx."]

"Rad, would you go huntin' if there was lots to hunt?"

"Course I would."

"Well, I know a place not ten miles away where there are all kinds of

wild animals--hundreds of them."

"Yes, you do, I don't think. Humph!"

"Yes, I do; and I'll tell you, if you will promise never to tell a

soul."

"Ba-ah!"

"Well, I just had an adventure with a Lynx up there now, and if you

will come with your gun we can get him."

Then Yan related all that had passed, and it lost nothing in his

telling. His brother was impressed enough to set out under Yan's

guidance on the following Saturday.

Yan hated to reveal to his sneering, earthy-minded brother all the

joys and sorrows he had found in the Glen, but now that it seemed

compulsory he found keen pleasure in playing the part of the crafty

guide. With unnecessary caution he first led in a wrong direction,

then trying, but failing, to extort another promise of secrecy, he

turned at an angle, pointed to a distant tree, saying with all the

meaning he could put into it: "Ten paces beyond that tree is a trail

that shall lead us into the secret valley." After sundry other

ceremonies of the sort, they were near the inway, when a man came

walking through the bushes. On his shoulders he carried something.

When he came close, Yan saw to his deep disgust that that something

was the Lynx--yes, it surely was _his_ Lynx.

They eagerly plied the man with questions. He told them that he had

killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last

week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler from up

north.

This was all intensely fascinating to Yan, but in it was a jarring

note. Evidently this man considered the Glen--his Glen--as an

ordinary, well-known bit of bush, possibly part of his farm--not by

any means the profound mystery that Yan would have had it.

The Lynx was a fine large one. The stripes on its face and the wide

open yellow eyes gave a peculiarly wild, tiger-like expression that

was deeply gratifying to Yan's romantic soul.

It was not so much of an adventure as a might-have-been adventure;

but it left a deep impress on the boy, and it also illustrated the

accuracy of his instincts in identifying creatures that he had never

before seen, but knew only through the slight descriptions of very

unsatisfactory books.

XIV

Froth

From now on to the spring Yan was daily gaining in strength, and he

and his mother came closer together. She tried to take an interest in

the pursuits that were his whole nature. But she also strove hard to

make him take an interest in her world. She was a morbidly religious

woman. Her conversation was bristling with Scripture texts. She had

a vast store of them--indeed, she had them all; and she used them on

every occasion possible and impossible, with bewildering efficiency.

If ever she saw a group of young people dancing, romping, playing any

game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say,

"Children, are you sure you can ask God's blessing on all this? Do you

think that beings with immortal souls to save should give rein to such

frivolity! I fear you are sinning, and be sure your sin will find

you out. Remember, that for every idle word and deed we must give an

account to the Great Judge of Heaven and earth."

She was perfectly sincere in all this, but she never ceased, except

during the time of her son's illness, when, under orders from the

doctor, she avoided the painful topic of eternal happiness and tried

to simulate an interest in his pursuits. This was the blessed truce

that brought them together.

He found a confidante for the first time since he met the collarless

stranger, and used to tell all his loves and fears among the woodfolk

and things. He would talk about this or that bird or flower, and hoped

to find out its name, till the mother would suddenly feel shocked that

any being with an immortal soul to save could talk so seriously

about anything outside of the Bible; then gently reprove her son and

herself, too, with a number of texts.

He might reply with others, for he was well equipped. But her

unanswerable answer would be: "There is but one thing needful. What

profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

These fencing bouts grew more frequent as Yan grew stronger and the

doctor's inhibition was removed.

After one of unusual warmth, Yan realized with a chill that all her

interest in his pursuits had been an affected one. He was silent a

long time, then said: "Mother! you like to talk about your Bible. It

tells you the things that you long to know, that you love to learn.

You would be unhappy if you went a day without reading a chapter or

two. That is your nature; God made you so.

"I have been obliged to read the Bible all my life. Every day I read a

chapter; but I do not love it. I read it because I am forced to do it.

It tells me nothing I want to know. It does not teach me to love God,

which you say is the one thing needful. But I go out into the woods,

and every bird and flower I see stirs me to the heart with something,

I do not know what it is; only I love them: I love them with all my

strength, and they make me feel like praying when your Bible does not.

They are my Bible. This is my nature. God made me so."

The mother was silent after this, but Yan could see that she was

praying for him as for a lost soul.

A few days later they were out walking in the early spring morning.

A Shore-lark on a clod whistled prettily as it felt the growing

sunshine.

Yan strained his eyes and attention to take it in. He crept up near

it. It took wing, and as it went he threw after it a short stick he

was carrying. The stick whirled over and struck the bird. It fell

fluttering. Yan rushed wildly after it and caught it in spite of his

mother's calling him back.

He came with the bird in his hand, but it did not live many minutes.

His mother was grieved and disgusted. She said. "So this is the great

love you have for the wild things; the very first spring bird to sing

you must club to death. I do not understand your affections. Are not

two sparrows sold for one farthing, and yet not one of them falls to

the ground without the knowledge of your heavenly Father."

Yan was crushed. He held the dead bird in his hand and said,

contradictorily, as the tears stood in his eyes, "I wish I hadn't; but

oh, it was so beautiful."

He could not explain, because he did not understand, and yet was no

hypocrite.

Weeks later a cheap trip gave him the chance for the first time in his

life to see Niagara. As he stood with his mother watching the racing

flood, in the gorge below the cataract, he noticed straws, bubbles and

froth, that seemed to be actually moving upstream. He said:

"Mother, you see the froth how it seems to go up-stream."

"Well!"

"Yet we know it is a trifle and means nothing. We know that just below

the froth is the deep, wide, terrible, irresistible, arrowy flood,

surging all the other way."

"Yes, my son."

"Well, Mother, when I killed the Shore-lark, that was froth going the

wrong way, I did love the little bird. I know now why I killed it.

Because it was going away from me. If I could have seen it near and

could have touched it, or even have heard it every day, I should never

have wished to harm it. I didn't mean _to kill it_, only _to

get it_. You gather flowers because you love to keep them near you,

not because you want to destroy them. They die and you are sorry. I

only tried to gather the Shore-lark as you would a flower. It died,

and I was very, very sorry."

"Nevertheless," the mother replied, "the merciful man is merciful unto

his beast. He who hearkens when the young Ravens cry, surely took note

of it, and in His great Book of Remembrance it is written down against

you."

And from that time they surely drifted apart.

PART II

SANGER & SAM

I

The New Home

Yan was now fourteen years old long-legged, thin, and growing fast The

doctor marked this combination and said: "Send him on a farm for a

year."

Thus it was that an arrangement was made for Yan to work for his board

at the farmhouse of William Raften of Sanger.

Sanger was a settlement just emerging from the early or backwoods

period.

The recognized steps are, first, the frontier or woods where all

is unbroken forest and Deer abound; next the backwoods where small

clearings appear; then a settlement where the forest and clearings are

about equal and the Deer gone; last, an agricultural district, with

mere shreds of forest remaining.

Thirty years before, Sanger had been "taken up" by a population

chiefly from Ireland, sturdy peasantry for the most part, who brought

with them the ancient feud that has so long divided Ireland--the

bitter quarrel between the Catholics or "Dogans" (why so called none

knew) and Protestants, more usually styled "Prattisons." The colours

of the Catholics were green and white; of the Protestants orange

and blue; and hence another distinctive name of the latter was

"Orangemen."

These two factions split the social structure in two vertically. There

were, in addition, several horizontal lines of cleavage which, like

geological seams, ran across both segments.

In those days, the early part of the nineteenth century, the British

Government used to assist desirable persons who wished to emigrate to

Canada from Ireland. This aid consisted of a free ocean passage. Many

who could not convince the Government of their desirability and yet

could raise the money, came with them, paying their regular steerage

rate of $15. These were alike to the outside world, but not to

themselves. Those who paid their way were "passengers," and were, in

their own opinion, many social worlds above the assisted ones, who

were called "Emmy Grants." This distinction was never forgotten among

the residents of Sanger.

Yet two other social grades existed. Every man and boy in Sanger was

an expert with the axe; was wonderfully adroit. The familiar phrase,

"He's a good man," had two accepted meanings: If obviously applied to

a settler during the regular Saturday night Irish row in the little

town of Downey's Dump, it meant he was an able man with his fists;

but if to his home life on the farm, it implied that he was unusually

dexterous with the axe. A man who fell below standard was despised.

Since the houses of hewn logs were made by their owners, they

reflected the axemen's skill. There were two styles of log

architecture; the shanty with corners criss-cross, called hog-pen

finish, and the other, the house with the corners neatly finished,

called dovetail finish. In Sanger it was a social black eye to live in

a house of the first kind. The residents were considered "scrubs" or

"riff-raff" by those whose superior axemanship had provided the

more neatly finished dwelling. A later division crept in among the

"dovetailers" themselves when a brickyard was opened. The more

prosperous settlers put up neat little brick houses. To the surprise

of all, one Phil O'Leary, a poor but prolific Dogan, leaped at once

from a hog-pen log to a fine brick, and caused no end of perplexity

to the ruling society queens, simply paralyzing the social register,

since his nine fat daughters now had claims with the best. Many,

however, whose brick houses were but five years old, denounced the

O'Learys as upstarts and for long witheld all social recognition.

William Raften, as the most prosperous man in the community, was

first to appear in red bricks. His implacable enemy, Char-less (two

syllables) Boyle, egged on by his wife, now also took the red brick

plunge, though he dispensed with masons and laid the bricks himself,

with the help of his seventeen sons. These two men, though Orangemen

both, were deadly enemies, as the wives were social rivals. Raften was

the stronger and richer man, but Boyle, whose father had paid his own

steerage rate, knew all about Raften's father, and always wound up

any discussion by hurling in Raften's teeth: "Don't talk to me, ye

upstart. Everybody knows ye are nothing but a Emmy Grant." This was

the one fly in the Raften ointment. No use denying it. His father

had accepted a free passage, true, and Boyle had received a free

homestead, but what of that--that counted for nothing. Old Boyle had

been a "PASSENGER," old Raften an "EMMY GRANT."

This was the new community that Yan had entered, and the words Dogan

and Prattison, "green" and "orange and blue," began to loom large,

along with the ideas and animosities they stood for.

The accent of the Sangerite was mixed. First, there was a rich Irish

brogue with many Irish words; this belonged chiefly to the old folks.

The Irish of such men as Raften was quite evident in their speech, but

not strong enough to warrant the accepted Irish spelling of books,

except when the speaker was greatly excited. The young generation

had almost no Irish accent, but all had sifted down to the peculiar

burring nasal whine of the backwoods Canadian.

Mr. and Mrs. Raften met Yan at the station. They had supper together

at the tavern and drove him to their home, where they showed him into

the big dining-room--living-room--kitchen. Over behind the stove was

a tall, awkward boy with carroty hair and small, dark eyes set much

aslant in the saddest of faces. Mrs. Raften said, "Come, Sam, and

shake hands with Yan." Sam came sheepishly forward, shook hands in a

flabby way, and said, in drawling tones, "How-do," then retired behind

the stove to gaze with melancholy soberness at Yan, whenever he could

do so without being caught at it. Mr. and Mrs. Raften were attending

to various matters elsewhere, and Yan was left alone and miserable.

The idea of giving up college to go on a farm had been a hard one for

him to accept, but he had sullenly bowed to his father's command and

then at length learned to like the prospect of getting away from

Bonnerton into the country. After all, it was but for a year, and it

promised so much of joy. Sunday-school left behind. Church reduced to

a minimum. All his life outdoors, among fields and woods--surely this

spelled happiness; but now that he was really there, the abomination

of desolation seemed sitting on all things and the evening was one

of unalloyed misery. He had nothing to tell of, but a cloud of black

despair seemed to have settled for good on the world. His mouth was

pinching very hard and his eyes blinking to keep back the tears when

Mrs. Raften came into the room. She saw at a glance what was wrong.

"He's homesick," she said to her husband. "He'll be all right

to-morrow," and she took Yan by the hand and led him upstairs to bed.

Twenty minutes later she came to see if he was comfortable. She tucked

the clothes in around him, then, stooping down for a good-night kiss,

she found his face wet with tears. She put her arms about him for a

moment, kissed him several times, and said, "Never mind, you will feel

all right to-morrow," then wisely left him alone.

Whence came that load of misery and horror, or whither it went, Yan

never knew. He saw it no more, and the next morning he began to

interest himself in his new world.

William Raften had a number of farms all in fine order and clear

of mortgages; and each year he added to his estates. He was sober,

shrewd, even cunning, hated by most of his neighbours because he was

too clever for them and kept on getting richer. His hard side was for

the world and his soft side for his family. Not that he was really

soft in any respect. He had had to fight his life-battle alone,

beginning with nothing, and the many hard knocks had hardened him, but

the few who knew him best could testify to the warm Irish heart that

continued unchanged within him, albeit it was each year farther

from the surface. His manners, even in the house, were abrupt and

masterful. There was no mistaking his orders, and no excuse for not

complying with them. To his children when infants, and to his wife

only, he was always tender, and those who saw him cold and grasping,

overreaching the sharpers of the grain market, would scarcely have

recognized the big, warm-hearted happy-looking father at home an hour

later when he was playing horse with his baby daughter or awkwardly

paying post-graduate court to his smiling wife.

He had little "eddication," could hardly read, and was therefore

greatly impressed with the value of "book larnin'," and determined

that his own children should have the "best that money could git in

that line," which probably meant that they should read fluently. His

own reading was done on Sunday mornings, when he painfully spelled out

the important items in a weekly paper; "important" meant referring

to the produce market or the prize ring, for he had been known and

respected as a boxer, and dearly loved the exquisite details of the

latest bouts. He used to go to church with his wife once a month to

please her, and thought it very unfair therefore that she should take

no interest in his favourite hobby--the manly art.

Although hard and even brutal in his dealings with men, he could not

bear to see an animal ill used. "The men can holler when they're hurt,

but the poor dumb baste has no protection." He was the only farmer in

the country that would not sell or shoot a worn-out horse. "The poor

brute has wurruked hard an' hez airned his kape for the rest av his

days." So Duncan, Jerry and several others were "retired" and lived

their latter days in idleness, in one case for more than ten years.

Raften had thrashed more than one neighbour for beating a horse, and

once, on interfering, was himself thrashed, for he had the ill-luck to

happen on a prizefighter. But that had no lasting effect on him. He

continued to champion the dumb brute in his own brutal way.

Among the neighbours the perquisites of the boys were the calfskins.

The cows' milk was needed and the calves of little value, so usually

they were killed when too young for food. The boys did the killing,

making more or less sport of it, and the skins, worth fifty cents

apiece green and twenty-five cents dry, at the tannery, were their

proper pay. Raften never allowed his son to kill the calves. "Oi can't

kill a poor innocent calf mesilf an' I won't hev me boy doin' it," he

said. Thus Sam was done out of a perquisite, and did not forget the

grievance.

Mrs. Raften was a fine woman, a splendid manager, loving her home and

her family, her husband's loyal and ablest supporter, although she

thought that William was sometimes a "leetle hard" on the boys. They

had had a large family, but most of the children had died. Those

remaining were Sam, aged fifteen, and Minnie, aged three.

Yan's duties were fixed at once. The poultry and half the pigs and

cows were to be his charge. He must also help Sam with various other

chores.

There was plenty to do and clear rules about doing it. But there was

also time nearly every day for other things more in the line of his

tastes; for even if he were hard on the boys in work hours, Raften

saw to it that when they did play they should have a good time. His

roughness and force made Yan afraid of him, and as it was Raften's

way to say nothing until his mind was fully made up, and then say it

"strong," Yan was left in doubt as to whether or not he was giving

satisfaction.

II

Sam

Sam Raften turned out to be more congenial than he looked. His slow,

drawling speech had given a wrong impression of stupidity, and, after

a formal showing of the house under Mr. Raften, a real investigation

was headed by Sam. "This yer's the paaar-le-r," said he, unlocking a

sort of dark cellar aboveground and groping to open what afterward

proved to be a dead, buried and almost forgotten window. In Sanger

settlement the farmhouse parlour is not a room; it is an institution.

It is kept closed all the week except when the minister calls, and

the one at Raften's was the pure type. Its furniture consisted of six

painted chairs (fifty cents each), two rockers ($1.49), one melodeon

(thirty-two bushels of wheat--the agent asked forty), a sideboard made

at home of the case the melodeon came in, one rag carpet woofed at

home and warped and woven in exchange for wool, one center-table

varnished (!) ($9.00 cash, $11.00 catalogue). On the center-table was

one tintype album, a Bible, and some large books for company use.

Though dusted once a week, they were never moved, and it was years

later before they were found to have settled permanently into the

varnish of the table. In extremely uncostly frames on the wall were

the coffin-plates of the departed members of the family. It was the

custom at Sanger to honour the dead by bringing back from the funeral

the name-plate and framing it on a black background with some supposed

appropriate scripture text.

The general atmosphere of the room was dusty and religious as it

was never opened except on Sundays or when the parson called, which

instituted a sort of temporary Sunday, and the two small windows were

kept shut and plugged as well as muffled always, with green paper

blinds and cotton hangings. It was a thing apart from the rest of the

house--a sort of family ghost-room: a chamber of horrors, seen but

once a week.

But it contained one thing at least of interest--something that at

once brought Sam and Yan together. This was a collection of a score

of birds' eggs. They were all mixed together in an old glass-topped

cravat box, half full of bran. None of them were labelled or properly

blown. A collector would not have given it a second glance, but it

proved an important matter. It was as though two New Yorkers, one

disguised as a Chinaman and the other as a Negro, had accidently

met in Greenland and by chance one had made the sign of the secret

brotherhood to which they both belonged.

"Do you like these things?" said Yan, with sudden interest and warmth,

in spite of the depressing surroundings.

"You bet," said Sam. "And I'd a-had twice as many only Da said it was

doing no good and birds was good for the farm."

"Well, do you know their names?"

"Wall, I should say so. I know every Bird that flies and all about it,

or putty near it," drawled Sam, with an unusual stretch for him, as he

was not given to bragging.

"I wish I did. Can't I get some eggs to take home?"

"No; Da said if I wouldn't take any more he'd lend me his Injun Chief

gun to shoot Rabbits with."

"What? Are there Rabbits here?"

"Wall, I should say so. I got three last winter."

"But I mean _now_," said Yan, with evident disappointment.

"They ain't so easy to get at _now_, but we can try. Some day

when all the work's done I'll ask Da for his gun."

"When all the work's done," was a favourite expression of the Raftens

for indefinitely shelving a project, it sounded so reasonable and was

really so final.

Sam opened up the lower door of the sideboard and got out some flint

arrow-heads picked up in the ploughing, the teeth of a Beaver dating

from the early days of the settlement, and an Owl very badly stuffed.

The sight of these precious things set Yan all ablaze. "Oh!" was all

he could say. Sam was gratified to see such effect produced by the

family possessions and explained, "Da shot that off'n the barn an' the

hired man stuffed it."

The boys were getting on well together now. They exchanged

confidences all day as they met in doing chores. In spite of the long

interruptions, they got on so well that Sam said after supper, "Say,

Yan, I'm going to show you something, but you must promise never

to tell--Swelpye!" Of course Yan promised and added the absolutely

binding and ununderstandable word--"Swelpme."

"Le's both go to the barn," said Sam.

When they were half way he said: "Now I'll let on I went back

for something. You go on an' round an' I'll meet you under the

'rusty-coat' in the orchard." When they met under the big russet apple

tree, Sam closed one of his melancholy eyes and said in a voice of

unnecessary hush, "Follow me." He led to the other end of the orchard

where stood the old log house that had been the home before the

building of the brick one. It was now used as a tool house. Sam led up

a ladder to the loft (this was all wholly delightful). There at the

far end, and next the little gable pane, he again cautioned secrecy,

then when on invitation Yan had once more "swelped" himself, he

rummaged in a dirty old box and drew out a bow, some arrows, a rusty

steel trap, an old butcher knife, some fish-hooks, a flint and steel,

a box full of matches, and some dirty, greasy-looking stuff that he

said was dried meat. "You see," he explained, "I always wanted to be a

hunter, and Da was bound I'd be a dentist. Da said there was no money

in hunting, but one day he had to go to the dentist an' it cost four

dollars, an' the man wasn't half a day at the job, so he wanted me to

be a dentist, but I wanted to be a hunter, an' one day he licked me

and Bud (Bud, that's my brother that died a year ago. If you hear Ma

talk you'll think he was an angel, but I always reckoned he was a

crazy galoot, an' he was the worst boy in school by odds). Wall, Da

licked us awful for not feeding the hogs, so Bud got ready to clear

out, an' at first I felt just like he did an' said I'd go too, an'

we'd j'ine the Injuns. Anyhow, I'd sure go if ever I was licked again,

an' this was the outfit we got together. Bud wanted to steal Da's gun

an' I wouldn't. I tell you I was hoppin' mad that time, an' Bud was

wuss--but I cooled off an' talked to Bud. I says, 'Say now, Bud, it

would take about a month of travel to get out West, an' if the Injuns

didn't want nothin' but our scalps that wouldn't be no fun, an' Da

ain't really so bad, coz we sho'ly did starve them pigs so one of

'em died.' I reckon we deserved all we got--anyhow, it was all dumb

foolishness about skinnin' out, though I'd like mighty well to be a

hunter. Well, Bud died that winter. You seen the biggest coffin plate

on the wall? Well, that's him. I see Ma lookin' at it an' cryin' the

other day. Da says he'll send me to college if I'll be a dentist or a

lawyer--lawyers make lots of money: Da had a lawsuit once--an' if I

don't, he says I kin go to--you know."

Here was Yan's own kind of mind, and he opened his heart. He told all

about his shanty in the woods and how he had laboured at and loved it.

He was full of enthusiasm as of old, boiling over with purpose and

energy, and Sam, he realized, had at least two things that he had

not--ability with tools and cool judgment. It was like having the best

parts of his brother Rad put into a real human being. And remembering

the joy of his Glen, Yan said:

"Let's build a shanty in the woods by the creek; your father won't

care, will he?"

"Not he, so long as the work's done."

III

The Wigwam

The very next day they must begin. As soon as every chore was done

they went to the woods to select a spot.

The brook, or "creek," as they called it, ran through a meadow, then

through a fence into the woods. This was at first open and grassy, but

farther down the creek it was joined by a dense cedar swamp. Through

this there was no path, but Sam said that there was a nice high place

beyond. The high ground seemed a long way off in the woods, though

only a hundred yards through the swamp, but it was the very place for

a camp--high, dry and open hard woods, with the creek in front and the

cedar swamp all around. Yan was delighted. Sam caught no little of the

enthusiasm, and having brought an axe, was ready to begin the shanty.

But Yan had been thinking hard all morning, and now he said: "Sam, we

don't want to be _White_ hunters. They're no good; we want to be

Indians."

"Now, that's just where you fool yourself," said Sam. "Da says there

ain't nothin' an Injun can do that a White-man can't do better."

"Oh, what are you talking about?" said Yan warmly. "A White hunter

can't trail a moccasined foot across a hard granite rock. A White

hunter can't go into the woods with nothing but a knife and make

everything he needs. A White hunter can't hunt with bows and arrows,

and catch game with snares, can he? And there never yet was a White

man could make a Birch canoe." Then, changing his tone, Yan went on:

"Say, now, Sam, we want to be the best kind of hunters, don't we, so

as to be ready for going out West. Let's be Injuns and do everything

like Injuns."

After all, this had the advantage of romance and picturesqueness, and

Sam consented to "try it for awhile, anyhow." And now came the point

of Yan's argument. "Injuns don't live in shanties; they live in

teepees. Why not make a teepee instead?"

"That would be just bully," said Sam, who had seen pictures enough to

need no description, "but what are we to make it of?"

"Well," answered Yan, promptly assuming the leadership and rejoicing

in his ability to speak as an authority, "the Plains Injuns make their

teepees of skins, but the wood Injuns generally use Birch bark."

"Well, I bet you can't find skins or Birch bark enough in this woods

to make a teepee big enough for a Chipmunk to chaw nuts in."

"We can use Elm bark."

"That's a heap easier," replied Sam, "if it'll answer, coz we cut a

lot o' Elm logs last winter and the bark'll be about willin' to peel

now. But first let's plan it out."

This was a good move, one Yan would have overlooked. He would probably

have got a lot of material together and made the plan afterward, but

Sam had been taught to go about his work with method.

So Yan sketched on a smooth log his remembrance of an Indian teepee.

"It seems to me it was about this shape, with the poles sticking up

like that, a hole for the smoke here and another for the door there."

"Sounds like you hain't never seen one," remarked Sam, with more point

than politeness, "but we kin try it. Now 'bout how big?"

Eight feet high and eight feet across was decided to be about right.

Four poles, each ten feet long, were cut in a few minutes, Yan

carrying them to a smooth place above the creek as fast as Sam cut

them.

"Now, what shall we tie them with?" said Yan.

"You mean for rope?"

"Yes, only we must get everything in the woods; real rope ain't

allowed."

"I kin fix that," said Sam; "when Da double-staked the orchard fence,

he lashed every pair of stakes at the top with Willow withes."

"That's so--I quite forgot," said Yan. In a few minutes they were

at work trying to tie the four poles together with slippery stiff

Willows, but it was no easy matter. They had to be perfectly tight or

they would slip and fall in a heap each time they were raised, and it

seemed at length that the boys would be forced to the impropriety of

using hay wire, when they heard a low grunt, and turning, saw William

Raften standing with his hands behind him as though he had watched

them for hours.

The boys were no little startled. Raften had a knack of turning up at

any point when something was going on, taking in the situation fully,

and then, if he disapproved, of expressing himself in a few words of

blistering mockery delivered in a rich Irish brogue. Just what view

he would take of their pastime the boys had no idea, but awaited with

uneasiness. If they had been wasting time when they should have been

working there is no question but that they would have been sent with

contumely to more profitable pursuits, but this was within their

rightful play hours, and Raften, after regarding them with a searching

look, said slowly: "Bhoys!" (Sam felt easier; his father would have

said "_Bhise_" if really angry.) "Fhat's the good o' wastin' yer

time" (Yan's heart sank) "wid Willow withes fur a job like that? They

can't be made to howld. Whoi don't ye git some hay woire or coord at

the barrun?"

The boys were greatly relieved, but still this friendly overture might

be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent.

So Yan said, presently, "We ain't allowed to use anything but what the

Indians had or could get in the woods."

"An' who don't allow yez?"

"The rules."

"Oh," said William, with some amusement. "Oi see! Hyar."

He went into the woods looking this way and that, and presently

stopped at a lot of low shrubs.

"Do ye know what this is, Yan?"

"No, sir."

"Le's see if yer man enough to break it aff."

Yan tried. The wood was brittle enough, but the bark, thin, smooth and

pliant, was as tough as leather, and even a narrow strip defied his

strength.

"That's Litherwood," said Raften. "That's what the Injuns used; that's

what we used ourselves in the airly days of this yer settlement."

The boys had looked for a rebuke, and here was a helping hand. It all

turned on the fact that this was "play hours," Raften left with a

parting word: "In wan hour an' a half the pigs is fed."

"You see Da's all right when the work ain't forgot," said Sam, with

a patronizing air. "I wonder why I didn't think o' that there

Leatherwood meself. I've often heard that that's what was used fur

tying bags in the old days when cord was scarce, an' the Injuns used

it for tying their prisoners, too. Ain't it the real stuff?"

Several strips were now used for tying four poles together at the top,

then these four were raised on end and spread out at the bottom to

serve as the frame of the teepee, or more properly wigwam, since it

was to be made of bark.

After consulting, they now got a long, limber Willow rod an inch

thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with

Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next

they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These were

lashed at their upper ends to the Willow rod, and now they were ready

for the bark slabs. The boys went to the Elm logs and again Sam's able

use of the axe came in. He cut the bark open along the top of one log,

and by using the edge of the axe and some wooden wedges they pried off

a great roll eight feet long and four feet across. It was a pleasant

surprise to see what a wide piece of bark the small log gave them.

Three logs yielded three fine large slabs and others yielded pieces of

various sizes. The large ones were set up against the frame so as to

make the most of them. Of course they were much too big for the top,

and much too narrow for the bottom; but the little pieces would do to

patch if some way could be found to make them stick.

Sam suggested nailing them to the posts, and Yan was horrified at the

idea of using nails. "No Indian has any nails."

"Well, what _would_ they use?" said Sam.

"They used thongs, an'--an'--maybe wooden pegs. I don't know, but

seems to me that would be all right."

"But them poles is hard wood," objected the practical Sam. "You can

drive Oak pegs into Pine, but you can't drive wooden pegs into hard

wood without you make some sort of a hole first. Maybe I'd better

bring a gimlet."

"Now, Sam, you might just as well hire a carpenter--_that_

wouldn't be Indian at all. Let's play it right. We'll find some way. I

believe we can tie them up with Leatherwood."

So Sam made a sharp Oak pick with his axe, and Yan used it to pick

holes in each piece of bark and then did a sort of rude sewing till

the wigwam seemed beautifully covered in. But when they went inside

to look they were unpleasantly surprised to find how many holes

there were. It was impossible to close them all because the bark was

cracking in so many places, but the boys plugged the worst of them and

then prepared for the great sacred ceremony--the lighting of the fire

in the middle.

They gathered a lot of dry fuel, then Yan produced a match.

"That don't look to me very Injun," drawled Sam critically. "I don't

think Injuns has matches."

"Well, they don't," admitted Yan, humbly. "But I haven't a flint and

steel, and don't know how to work rubbing-sticks, so we just got to

use matches, _if_ we _want_ a fire."

"Why, of course we want a fire. I ain't kicking," said Sam. "Go ahead

with your old leg-fire sulphur stick. A camp without a fire would be

'bout like last year's bird's nest or a house with the roof off."

Yan struck a match and put it to the wood. It went out. He struck

another--same result. Yet another went out.

Sam remarked:

"Pears to me you don't know much about lightin' a fire. Lemme show

you. Let the White hunter learn the Injun somethin' about the woods,"

said he with a leer.

Sam took the axe and cut some sticks of a dry Pine root. Then with his

knife he cut long curling shavings, which he left sticking in a fuzz

at the end of each stick.

"Oh, I've seen a picture of an Indian making them. They call them

'prayer-sticks,'" said Yan.

"Well, prayer-sticks is mighty good kindlin'" replied the other. He

struck a match, and in a minute he had a blazing fire in the middle of

the wigwam.

"Old Granny de Neuville, she's a witch--she knows all about the woods,

and cracked Jimmy turns everything into poetry what she says. He says

she says when you want to make a fire in the woods you take--

"First a curl of Birch bark as dry as it kin be,

Then some twigs of soft-wood, dead, but on the tree,

Last o' all some Pine knots to make the kittle foam,

An' thar's a fire to make you think you're settin' right at home."

"Who's Granny de Neuville?"

"Oh, she's the old witch that lives down at the bend o' the creek."

"What? Has she got a granddaughter named Biddy?" said Yan, suddenly

remembering that his ancient ally came from this part of Sanger.

"Oh, my! Hain't she? Ain't Biddy a peach--drinks like a fish, talks

everybody to death about the time she resided in Bonnerton. Gits a

letter every mail begging her to come back and 'reside' with them some

more."

"Ain't this fine," said Yan, as he sat on a pile of Fir boughs in the

wigwam.

"Looks like the real thing," replied Sam from his seat on the other

side. "But say, Yan, don't make any more fire; it's kind o' warm here,

an' there seems to be something wrong with that flue--wants sweepin',

prob'ly--hain't been swep' since I kin remember."

The fire blazed up and the smoke increased. Just a little of it

wandered out of the smoke-hole at the top, then it decided that this

was a mistake and thereafter positively declined to use the vent. Some

of it went out by chinks, and a large stream issued from the door, but

by far the best part of it seemed satisfied with the interior of the

wigwam, so that in a minute or less both boys scrambled out. Their

eyes were streaming with smoke-tears and their discomfiture was

complete.

"'Pears to me," observed Sam, "like we got them holes mixed. The dooer

should 'a 'been at the top, sence the smoke has a fancy for usin' it,

an' then _we'd_ had a chance."

"The Indians make it work," said Yan; "a White hunter ought to know

how."

"Now's the Injun's chance," said Sam. "Maybe it wants a dooer to

close, then the smoke would have to go out."

They tried this, and of course some of the smoke was crowded out, but

not till long after the boys were.

"Seems like what does get out by the chinks is sucked back agin by

that there double-action flue," said Sam.

It was very disappointing. The romance of sitting by the fire in one's

teepee appealed to both of the boys, but the physical torture of

the smoke made it unbearable. Their dream was dispelled, and Sam

suggested, "Maybe we'd better try a shanty."

"No," said Yan, with his usual doggedness. "I know it can be done,

because the Indians do it. We'll find out in time."

But all their efforts were in vain. The wigwam was a failure, as far

as fire was concerned. It was very small and uncomfortable, too; the

wind blew through a hundred crevices, which grew larger as the Elm

bark dried and cracked. A heavy shower caught them once, and they were

rather glad to be driven into their cheerless lodge, but the rain came

abundantly into the smoke-hole as well as through the walls, and they

found it but little protection.

[Illustration: "The wigwam was a failure."]

"Seems to me, if anything, a _leetle_ wetter in here than

outside," said Sam, as he led in a dash for home.

That night a heavy storm set in, and next day the boys found their

flimsy wigwam blown down--nothing but a heap of ruins.

Some time after, Raften asked at the table in characteristic stern

style, "Bhoys, what's doin' down to yer camp? Is yer wigwam finished?"

"No good," said Sam. "All blowed down."

"How's that?"

"I dunno'. It smoked like everything. We couldn't stay in it."

"Couldn't a-been right made," said Raften; then with a sudden

interest, which showed how eagerly he would have joined in this forty

years ago, he said, "Why don't ye make a rale taypay?"

"Dunno' how, an' ain't got no stuff."

"Wall, now, yez have been pretty good an' ain't slacked on the wurruk,

yez kin have the ould wagon kiver. Cousin Bert could tache ye how to

make it, if he wuz here. Maybe Caleb Clark knows," he added, with a

significant twinkle of his eye. "Better ask him." Then he turned to

give orders to the hired men, who, of course, ate at the family table.

"Da, do you care if we go to Caleb?"

"I don't care fwhat ye do wid him," was the reply.

Raften was no idle talker and Sam knew that, so as soon as "the law

was off" he and Yan got out the old wagon cover. It seemed like an

acre of canvas when they spread it out. Having thus taken possession,

they put it away again in the cow-house, their own domain, and Sam

said: "I've a great notion to go right to Caleb; he sho'ly knows more

about a teepee than any one else here, which ain't sayin' much."

"Who's Caleb?"

"Oh, he's the old Billy Goat that shot at Da oncet, just after Da beat

him at a horse trade. Let on it was a mistake: 'twas, too, as he

found out, coz Da bought up some old notes of his, got 'em cheap, and

squeezed him hard to meet them. He's had hard luck ever since.

"He's a mortal queer old duck, that Caleb. He knows heaps about the

woods, coz he was a hunter an' trapper oncet. My! wouldn't he be down

on me if he knowed who was my Da, but he don't have to know."

IV

The Sanger Witch

The Sanger Witch dwelt in the bend of the creek,

And neither could read nor write;

But she knew in a day what few knew in a week,

For hers was the second sight.

"Read?" said she, "I am double read;

You fools of the ink and pen

Count never the eggs, but the sticks of the nest,

See the clothes, not the souls of men."

--Cracked Jimmy's Ballad of Sanger.

The boys set out for Caleb's. It was up the creek away from the camp

ground. As they neared the bend they saw a small log shanty, with some

poultry and a pig at the door.

"That's where the witch lives," said Sam.

"Who--old Granny de Neuville?"

"Yep, and she just loves me. Oh, yes; about the same way an old hen

loves a Chicken-hawk. 'Pears to me she sets up nights to love me."

"Why?"

"Oh, I guess it started with the pigs. No, let's see: first about the

trees. Da chopped off a lot of Elm trees that looked terrible nice

from her windy. She's awful queer about a tree. She hates to see 'em

cut down, an' that soured her same as if she owned 'em. Then there

wuz the pigs. You see, one winter she was awful hard up, an' she had

two pigs worth, maybe, $5.00 each--anyway, she said they was, an' she

ought to know, for they lived right in the shanty with her--an' she

come to Da (I guess she had tried every one else first) an' Da he

squeezed her down an' got the two pigs for $7.00. He al'ays does that.

Then he comes home an' says to Ma, 'Seems to me the old lady is

pretty hard put. 'Bout next Saturday you take two sacks of flour and

some pork an' potatoes around an' see that she is fixed up right.'

Da's al'ays doin' them things, too, on the quiet. So Ma goes with

about $15.00 worth o' truck. The old witch was kinder 'stand off.'

She didn't say much. Ma was goin' slow, not knowin' just whether to

give the stuff out an' out, or say it could be worked for next year,

or some other year, when there was two moons, or some time when the

work was all done. Well, the old witch said mighty little until the

stuff was all put in the cellar, then she grabs up a big stick an'

breaks out at Ma:

"'Now you git out o' my house, you dhirty, sthuck-up thing. I ain't

takin' no charity from the likes o' you. That thing you call your

husband robbed me o' my pigs, an' we ain't any more'n square now, so

git out an' don't you dar set fut in my house agin'.

"Well, she was sore on us when Da bought her pigs, but she was five

times wuss after she clinched the groceries. 'Pears like they soured

on her stummick."

"What a shame, the old wretch," said Yan, with ready sympathy for the

Raftens.

"No," replied Sam; "she's only queer. There's lots o' folk takes her

side. But she's awful queer. She won't have a tree cut if she can help

it, an' when the flowers come in the spring she goes out in the woods

and sets down beside 'em for hours an' calls 'em 'Me beauty--me little

beauty,' an' she just loves the birds. When the boys want to rile her

they get a sling-shot an' shoot the birds in her garden an' she just

goes crazy. She pretty near starves herself every winter trying to

feed all the birds that come around. She has lots of 'em to feed right

out o' her hand. Da says they think its an old pine root, but she has

a way o' coaxin' 'em that's awful nice. There she'll stand in freezin'

weather calling them 'Me beauties'.

"You see that little windy in the end?" he continued, as they came

close to the witch's hut. "Well, that's the loft, an' it's full o' all

sorts o' plants an' roots."

"What for?"

"Oh, for medicine. She's great on hairbs."

"Oh, yes, I remember now Biddy did say that her Granny was a herb

doctor."

"Doctor? She ain't much of a doctor, but I bet she knows every plant

that grows in the woods, an' they're sure strong after they've been up

there for a year, with the cat sleepin' on them."

"I wish I could go and see her."

"Guess we can," was the reply.

"Doesn't she know you?"

"Yes, but watch me fix her," drawled Sam. "There ain't nothin' she

likes better'n a sick pusson."

Sam stopped now, rolled up his sleeves and examined both arms,

apparently without success, for he then loosed his suspenders, dropped

his pants, and proceeded to examine his legs. Of course, all boys

have more or less cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. Sam

selected his best, just below the knee, a scratch from a nail in the

fence. He had never given it a thought before, but now he "reckoned

it would do." With a lead pencil borrowed from Yan he spread a hue

of mortification all around it, a green butternut rind added the

unpleasant yellowish-brown of human decomposition, and the result

was a frightful looking plague spot. By chewing some grass he made a

yellowish-green dye and expectorated this on the handkerchief which he

bound on the sore. He then got a stick and proceeded to limp painfully

toward the witch's abode. As they drew near, the partly open door was

slammed with ominous force. Sam, quite unabashed, looked at Yan and

winked, then knocked. The bark of a small dog answered. He knocked

again. A sound now of some one moving within, but no answer. A third

time he knocked, then a shrill voice: "Get out o' that. Get aff my

place, you dirthy young riff-raff."

Sam grinned at Yan. Then drawling a little more than usual, he said:

"It's a poor boy, Granny. The doctors can't do nothin' for him," which

last, at least, was quite true.

There was no reply, so Sam made bold to open the door. There sat the

old woman glowering with angry red eyes across the stove, a cat in her

lap, a pipe in her mouth, and a dog growling toward the strangers.

"Ain't you Sam Raften?" she asked fiercely.

"Yes, marm. I get hurt on a nail in the fence. They say you kin git

blood-p'isinin' that way," said Sam, groaning a little and trying to

look interesting. The order to "get out" died on the witch's lips. Her

good old Irish heart warmed to the sufferer. After all, it was rather

pleasant to have the enemy thus humbly seek her aid, so she muttered:

"Le's see it."

Sam was trying amid many groans to expose the disgusting mess he had

made around his knee, when a step was heard outside. The door opened

and in walked Biddy.

She and Yan recognized each other at once. The one had grown much

longer, the other much broader since the last meeting, but the

greeting was that of two warm-hearted people glad to see each other

once more.

"An' how's yer father an' yer mother an' how is all the fambily? Law,

do ye mind the Cherry Lung-balm we uster make? My, but we wuz greenies

then! Ye mind, I uster tell ye about Granny? Well, here she is.

Granny, this is Yan. Me an' him hed lots o' fun together when I

'resided' with his mamma, didn't we, Yan? Now, Granny's the one to

tell ye all about the plants."

A long groan from Sam now called all attention his way.

"Well, if it ain't Sam Raften," said Biddy coldly.

"Yes, an' he's deathly sick," added Granny. "Their own docther guv him

up an said mortal man couldn't save him nohow, so he jest hed to come

to me."

Another long groan was ample indorsement.

"Le's see. Gimme my scissors, Biddy; I'll hev to cut the pant leg

aff."

"No, no," Sam blurted out with sudden vigour, dreading the

consequences at home. "I kin roll it up."

"Thayer, thot'll do. Now I say," said the witch. "Yes, sure enough,

thayer _is_ proud flesh. I moight cut it out," said she, fumbling

in her pocket (Sam supposed for a knife, and made ready to dash for

the door), "but le's see, no--that would be a fool docther trick. I

kin git on without."

"Yes, sure," said Sam, clutching at the idea, "that's just what a fool

doctor would do, but you kin give me something to take that's far

better."

"Well, sure an' I kin," and Yan and Sam breathed more freely.

"Shwaller this, now," and she offered him a tin cup of water into

which she spilled some powder of dry leaves. Sam did so. "An' you

take this yer bundle and bile it in two gallons of wather and drink a

glassful ivery hour, an' hev a loive chicken sphlit with an axe an'

laid hot on the place twicet ivery day, till the proud flesh goes, an'

it'll be all right wid ye--a fresh chicken ivery toime, moind ye."

"Wouldn't--turkeys--do--better?" groaned Sam, feebly. "I'm me mother's

pet, Granny, an' expense ain't any objek"--a snort that may have meant

mortal agony escaped him.

"Niver moind, now. Sure we won't talk of yer father an' mother;

they're punished pretty bad already. Hiven forbid they don't lose

the rest o' ye fur their sins. It ain't meself that 'ud bear ony

ill-will."

A long groan cut short what looked like a young sermon.

"What's the plant, Granny?" asked Yan, carefully avoiding Sam's gaze.

"Shure, an' it grows in the woods."

"Yes, but I want to know what it's like and what it's called."

"Shure, 'tain't like nothin' else. It's just like itself, an' it's

called Witch-hazel.

"'Witch-hazel blossoms in the faal,

To cure the chills and Fayvers aall,'

"as cracked Jimmy says."

"I'll show you some av it sometime," said Biddy.

"Can it be made into Lung-balm?" asked Yan, mischievously.

"I guess we'll have to go now," Sam feebly put in. "I'm feeling much

better. Where's my stick? Here, Yan, you kin carry my medicine, an'

be _very_ keerful of it."

Yan took the bundle, not daring to look Sam in the face.

Granny bade them both come back again, and followed to the door with a

hearty farewell. At the same moment she said:

"Howld on!" Then she went to the one bed in the room, which also was

the house, turned down the clothes, and in the middle exposed a lot of

rosy apples. She picked out two of the best and gave one to each of

the boys.

"Shure, Oi hev to hoide them thayer fram the pig, for they're the

foinest iver grew."

"I know they are," whispered Sam, as he limped out of hearing, "for

her son Larry stole them out of our orchard last fall. They're the

only kind that keeps over. They're the best that grow, but a trifle

too warm just now."

"Good-by, and thank you much," said Yan.

"I-feel-better-already," drawled Sam. "That tired feeling has left me,

an' sense tryin' your remedy I have took no other," but added aside,

"I wish I could throw up the stuff before it pisens me," and then,

with a keen eye to the picturesque effect, he wanted to fling his

stick away and bound into the woods.

It was all Yan could do to make him observe some of the decencies

and limp a little till out of sight. As it was, the change was quite

marked and the genial old witch called loudly on Biddy to see with

her own eyes how quickly she had helped young Raften "afther all the

dochters in the country hed giv him up."

"Now for Caleb Clark, Esq., Q.C.," said Sam.

"Q.C.?" inquired his friend.

"Some consider it means Queen's Counsel, an' some claims as it stands

for Queer Cuss. One or other maybe is right."

"You're stepping wonderfully for a crippled boy the doctors have given

up," remarked Yan.

"Yes; that's the proud flesh in me right leg that's doin' the high

steppin'. The left one is jest plain laig."

"Let's hide this somewhere till we get back," and Yan held up the

bundle of Witch-hazel.

"I'll hide that," said Sam, and he hurled the bundle afar into the

creek.

"Oh, Sam, that's mean. Maybe she wants it herself."

"Pooh, that's all the old brush is good for. I done more'n me duty

when I drank that swill. I could fairly taste the cat in it."

"What'll you tell her next time?"

"Well, I'll tell her I put the sticks in the right place an' where

they done the most good. I soaked 'em in water an' took as much as I

wanted of the flooid.

"She'll see for herself I really did pull through, and will be a

blamed sight happier than if I drank her old pisen brushwood an' had

to send for a really truly doctor."