MOTHER CAREY'S LASH
THE wise men tell us that it is the same as the venom of Snakes. They
tell us that it comes when the fool-trap toadstool is grown stale, and
by these ye may know its hidden presence: When the cap is old and
upturned at the edge, when hell-born maggots crawl and burrow and revel
in the stem, when drops of gummy, poisonous yellow blood ooze forth,
when both its smells--the warning smell of the crawling hundred-legger
and the alluring smell of strong green butternuts--are multiplied to
fourfold power.
[Illustration]
Their day was nearly over. They were now like old worn hags, whose
beauty is gone, and with it their power to please--hags who have become
embittered and seek only to destroy. So the fool-trap toadstools waited,
silently as hunters' deadfalls wait, until the moment comes to strike.
[Illustration]
It was the same sweet piny woods, the same bright sparkling stream, and
the Song-hawk wheeled and sang the same loud song, as Bannertail came
once again to seek his earth-born food, to gratify his growing lust.
And Mother Carey led him on.
Plentifully strewn were the unholy madcaps, broad bent and wrinkled now,
their weird aroma stronger and to a morbid taste more alluring. Even yet
a tiny warning came as he sniffed their rancid, noxious aura. The nut
allurement, too, was strong, and Bannertail rejoiced.
The feast was like the other, but shorter, more restrained. There were
little loathsome whiffs and acrid hints that robbed it of its zest.
Long before half a meal, the little warden that dwells somewhere betwixt
mouth and maw began to send offensive messages to his brain, and even
with a bite between his teeth there set in strong a fearful devastating
revulsion, a climax of disgust, a maw-revolt, an absolute loathing.
His mouth was dripping with its natural juice, something gripped his
throat, the last morsel was there and seemed to stick. He tight closed
his eyes, violently shook his head. The choking lump was shaken out.
Pains shot through his body. Limbs and lungs were cramped. He lay flat
on the bank with head down-hill. He jerked his head from side to side
with violent insistence. His stomach yielded most of the fateful mass.
But the poison had entered into his body, already was coursing in his
veins.
Writhing with agony, overwhelmed with loathing, he lay almost as dead,
and the smallest enemy he ever had might now and easily have wreaked the
limit of revenge. It was accident so far as he was concerned that made
him crawl into a dense thicket and like dead to lie all that day and the
night and the next day. And dead he would have been but for the unusual
vigor of his superb body. Good Mother Carey kept his enemies away.
Back at the home nest the mate and family missed him, not much or
pointedly, as would folk of a larger brain and life, but they missed
him; and from the tall, smooth shaft that afternoon the little mother
sent a long "_qua_" call. But there was no answering "_qua_." She had no
means of knowing; she had no way of giving help had she known.
The sun was low on Jersey hills that second day when poor broken
Bannertail, near-dead Bannertail, came to himself, his much-enfeebled
self. His head was throbbing, his body was cramped with pain, his mouth
was dry and burning. Down-hill he crawled and groped slowly to the
running stream and drank. It revived him a little, enough so he could
crawl up the bank and seek a dry place under a log to lie in peace--sad,
miserable, moaning peace.
Three days he suffered there, but the fever had turned on that first
night; from the moment of that cooling drink he was on the mend. For
food he had no wish, but daily and deeply he drank at the stream.
On that third day he was well enough to scramble up the hill; he passed
a scattering group of the earthy madcaps. Oh, how he loathed them; their
very smell set his mouth a-dripping, refusing its own proper juice.
[Illustration]
Good things there were to eat on the ground, but he had little appetite,
though for three days he had not eaten. He passed by fat white grubs and
even nuts, but when he found some late wild strawberries he munched them
eagerly. Their acid sweetness, their fragrant saneness, were what his
poor sick body craved. He rested, then climbed a leaning tree. He had
not strength for a real climb. In an old abandoned Flicker hole he
curled himself in safety, and strong, gentle Mother Nature, Mother
Carey, loving ever the brave ones that never give up, now spread her
kindly influence, protecting, round about him and gave him blessed,
blessed sleep.
[Illustration]
_HIS AWAKENING_