THE NEW HOME
TWICE a day now Silvergray left the little ones, to forage for herself,
soon after sunrise and just before sunset. It was on the morning outing
that she went house hunting. And Bannertail went too. Ever he led to the
cosey home in his old red oak. But there is a right that is deeply
rooted in custom, in logic, and in female instinct, that it is the
she-one's privilege to select, prepare, and own the home. Every
suggestion that he made by offered lead or actual entry, was scorned and
the one who made it, snubbed. She did her own selecting, and, strangest
thing of all, she chose the rude stick nest of a big-winged Hawk,
abandoned now, for the Hawk himself, with his long-clawed mate, was
nailed to the end of the barn.
[Illustration]
Winter storm and beaming sun had purged and purified the rough old
aerie; it was high on a most unclimbable tree, yet sheltered in the
wood, and here Silvergray halted in her search. All about the nest and
tree she climbed, and smelled to find the little owner marks, of musk or
rasping teeth, if such there should be--the marks that would have warned
her that this place was already possessed. But none there were. The
place was without taint, bore only through and through the clean, sweet
odor of the woods and wood.
And this is how she took possession: She rubbed her body on the rim of
the nest, she nibbled off projecting twiglets, she climbed round and
round the trunk below and above, thus leaving her foot and body scent
everywhere about, then gathered a great mouthful of springtime twigs,
with their soft green leaves, and laid them in the Hawk nest for the
floor-cloth of her own.
[Illustration]
She went farther, and found a sassafras, with its glorious flaming smell
of incense, its redolence of aromatic purity, and with a little surge of
joy instinctive she gathered bundle after bundle of the sweet, strong
twigs, spread them out for the rug and matting of the house. And
Bannertail did the same, and for a while they worked in harmony. Then
was struck a harsh, discordant note.
Crossing the forest floor Bannertail found a rag, a mitten that some
winter woodcutter had cast away, and, still obsessed with the nursery
garnish of his own farm-kitten days, he pounced on this and bore it
gleefully to the nest that they were abuilding. And Silvergray, what
said she, as the evil thing was brought? She had no clear ideas, no
logic from the other ill-starred home. She could not say: "There was
hoodoo on it, and this ragged woollen mitt seems hoodoo-like to me." But
these were her strange reactions. "The smell of that other nest was like
this; that smell is linked with every evil memory. I do not want it
here." Her instinct, the inherited wisdom of her forebears, indorsed
this view, and as she sniffed and sniffed, the smell inspired her with
intense hostility, a hostility that in the other nest was somewhat
offset by the smell of her loved brood, but this was not--it was wholly
strange and hostile. Her neck hair rose, her tail trembled a little, as,
acting under the new and growing impulse of violent dislike, she hurled
the offending rag far from the threshold of her nest. Flop it went to
the ground below. And Bannertail, not quite understanding, believed
this to be an accident. Down he went as fast as his fast feet could
carry him, seized on the ragged mitten, brought it again to the
home-building. But the instinct that had been slow arousing was now
dominant in Silvergray. With an angry chatter she hurled the accursed
thing afar, and made it clear by snort and act that "such things come
not there."
This was the strenuous founding of the new nest, and these were among
the hidden springs of action and of unshaped thoughts that ruled the
founding.
The nest was finished in three days. A rain roof over all of fresh flat
leaves, an inner lining of chewed cedar bark, an abundance of aromatic
sassafras, one or two little quarrels over accidental rags that
Bannertail still seemed to think worth while. But the new nest was
finished, pure and sweet with a consecrating, plague-defying aroma of
cedar and of sassafras to be its guardian angel.
[Illustration]
_THE MOVING OF THE YOUNG_