GATHERING THE GREAT NUT HARVEST
IN the Leaf-falling-moon, October, the husks began to dry and split, and
the nuts to fall of themselves. Then was seen a wild, exciting time, the
stirring of habits and impulses laid in the foundations of the race.
[Illustration]
No longer wabbly or vague, as in that first autumn, but fully aroused
and dominating was the instinct to gather and bury every precious,
separate nut. Bannertail had had to learn slowly and partly by seeing
the Redsquirrels making off with the prizes. But he had learned, and his
brood had the immediate stimulus of seeing him and their mother at
work; and because he was of unusual force, it drove him hard, with an
urge that acted like a craze. He worked like mad, seizing, stripping,
smelling, appraising, marking, weighing every nut he found.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
What, weighing it? Yes, every nut was weighed by the wise harvester.
How? By delicate muscular sense. It was held for a moment between the
paws, and if it seemed far under weight it was cast aside as worm-eaten,
empty, worthless; if big, but merely light in weight, that meant
probably a fat worm was within. Then that nut was split open and the
worm devoured. A wormy nut was never stored. If the nut was heavy,
round, and perfect, the fine balance in the paws and the subtle sense of
smell asserted the fact, and then it was owner-marked. How? By turning
it round three times in the mouth, in touch with the tongue. This left
the personal touch of that Squirrel on it, and would protect it in a
measure from being carried off by other Graysquirrels, especially when
food abounded. Then, rushing off several hops from the place where the
last nut was buried, Bannertail would dig deep in the ground, his full
arm's length, ram down the nut held in his teeth; then, pushing back the
earth with snout and paws, would tamp that down, replacing the twigs and
dry leaves so the nut was safely hidden. Then to the next, varying the
exercise by dashing, not after the visiting Graysquirrels--they kept
their distance--but after some thieving Chipmunk or those pestiferous
Redsquirrels who sought sometimes to unearth his buried treasure. Or, he
would dart noisily up the tree, to chase the Bluejays who were trying to
rob them of the nuts not yet fallen; then back to earth again, where was
his family--Silvergray, Brownhead, and Nyek-nyek--inspired by his
example, all doing as he did, working like beavers, seizing, husking,
weighing, marking, digging, dig-dig-digging and burying nuts all day
long. Hundreds of these little graves they dug, till the ground under
every parent tree was a living, crowded burying-ground of the tree's own
children. Morning, noon, and evening they worked, as long as there was
light enough to see.
A cool night and another drying day brought down another hickory shower.
And the Graycoats worked without ceasing. They were tired out that
night. They had driven off a score of robbers, they had buried at least
a thousand nuts, each in a separate hole. The next day was an even more
strenuous time. For seven full days they worked, and then the precious
nut harvest was over. Acorns--red and white and yellow--might come
later, and some be buried and some not. The Bluejays, Woodpeckers, and
the Redsquirrels would get a handsome share, and pile them up in
storehouses, a day's gathering in one place, for such is their way, but
the hickory-nuts were the precious things that counted for the
Bannertail brood. Ten thousand at least had the Graycoats buried, each
an arm's length down, and deftly hidden, with the trash of the forest
floor replaced.
This undoubtedly was their only impulse, to bury the rich nuts for
future use as food. But Nature's plan was larger. There were other foods
in the woods at this season. The Squirrels would not need the precious
hickories for weeks or months; all sign that might mark the burial-place
would be gone. When really driven by need the Squirrels would come and
dig up these caches. Memory of the locality first, then their exquisite
noses would be their guides. They would find most of the nuts again.
But not all. Some would escape the diggers, and what would happen to
these? _They would grow._ Yes, that was Nature's plan. The acorns
falling and lying on the ground can burst their thin coats, send down a
root and up a shoot at once, but the hickory must be buried or it will
dry up before it grows. This is the hickory's age-old compact with the
Graysquirrel: You bury my nuts for me, plant my children, and you may
have ninety-five per cent of the proceeds for your trouble, so long only
as you save the other five per cent and give them a chance to grow up
into hickory-trees.
[Illustration]
This is the unwritten but binding bargain that is observed each year.
And this is the reason why there are hickory-trees wherever there are
Graysquirrels. Where the Graycoats have died out the hickory's days are
numbered. And foolish man, who slays the Graysquirrel in his reckless
lust for killing, is also destroying the precious hickory-trees, whose
timber is a mainstay of the nation-feeding agriculture of the world. He
is like the fool on a tree o'erhanging the abyss, who saws the very limb
on which depends his life.
_AND TO-DAY_