WHAT HE SAW WHEN HE KEPT STILL
The Child was beginning to feel that if he could not move very soon
he'd burst.
Of course, under Uncle Andy's precise instructions he had settled
himself in the most comfortable position possible before starting upon
the tremendous undertaking of keeping perfectly still for a long time.
To hold oneself perfectly still and to keep the position as tirelessly
as the most patient of the wild creatures themselves--this, he had been
taught by Uncle Andy, was one of the first essentials to the
acquirement of true woodcraft, as only such stillness and such patience
could admit one to anything like a real view of the secrets of the
wild. Even the least shy of the wilderness folk are averse to going
about their private and personal affairs under the eyes of strangers,
and what the Child aspired to was the knowledge of how to catch them
off their guard. He would learn to see for himself how the rabbits and
the partridges, the woodchucks and the weasels, the red deer, the
porcupines, and all the other furtive folk who had their habitations
around the tranquil shores of Silverwater, were really accustomed to
behave themselves when they felt quite sure no one was looking.
Before consenting to the Child's initiation, Uncle Andy had impressed
upon him with the greatest care the enormity of breaking the spell of
stillness by even the slightest and most innocent-seeming movement.
"You see," had said Uncle Andy, "it's this way! When we get to the
place where we are going to hide and watch, you may think that we're
quite alone. But not so. From almost every bush, from surely every
thicket, there'll be at least one pair of bright eyes staring at
us--maybe several pairs. They'll be wondering what we've come for;
they'll be disliking us for being so clumsy and making such a racket,
and they'll be keeping just as still as so many stones in the hope that
we won't see them--except, of course, certain of the birds, which fly
in the open and are used to being seen, and don't care a hang for us
because they think us such poor creatures in not being able to fly--"
At this point the Child had interrupted:
"Wouldn't they be surprised," he murmured, "if we did?"
"I expect they've got some surprises coming to them that way one of
these days!" agreed Uncle Andy. "But, as I was saying, we'll be well
watched ourselves for a while. But it's a curious thing about the wild
creatures, or at least about a great many of them, that for all their
keenness their eyes don't seem to _distinguish_ things as sharply as we
do. The very slightest movement they detect, sometimes at an
astonishing distance. But when a person is perfectly motionless for a
long time, they seem to confuse him with the stumps and stones and
bushes in a most amazing fashion. Perhaps it is that the eyes of some
of them have not as high a power of differentiation as ours. Perhaps
it is that when a fellow is a long time still they think he's dead.
We'll have to let the scientists work that out for us. But if you go
on the way you're beginning (and I'm bound to say you're doing very
well indeed, considering that you're not _very_ big), you'll often have
occasion to observe that some of the wild creatures, otherwise no
fools, are more afraid of a bit of colored rag fluttering in the wind
than of an able-bodied man who sits staring right at them, if only he
doesn't stir a finger. But only let him wiggle that finger, his very
littlest one, and off they'll be."
The Child put his hand behind his back and wiggled his little finger
gently, smiling to think what sharp eyes it would take to see _that_
motion. But his Uncle, as if divining his thoughts, went on to say:
"It's not as if those sly, shy watchers were all in front of you, you
know. The suspicious eyes will be all around you. Perhaps it may be a
tiny wood-mouse peering from under a root two or three steps behind
you. You have been perfectly still, say, for ten minutes, and the
mouse is just beginning to think that you may be something quite
harmless. She rubs her whiskers, and is just about to come out when,
as likely as not, you move your fingers a little, behind your
back"--here the Child blushed guiltily, and thrust both his grimy
little fists well to the front--"feeling quite safe because you don't
see the movement yourself.
"Well, the mouse sees it. She realizes at once that you aren't dead,
after all--in fact, that you're a dangerous deceiver. She wisks
indignantly back into her hole. Somebody else sees her alarm, and
follows her example, and in two seconds it's gone all about the place
that you're not a stump or a stone or a harmless dead thing waiting to
be nibbled at, but a terrible enemy lying in wait for them all. So you
see how important it is to keep still, with the real stillness of dead
things."
The Child winked his eyes rapidly. "But I can't keep from _winking_,
Uncle Andy," he protested. "I'll promise not to wiggle my fingers or
wrinkle my nose. But if I don't wink my eyes sometimes they'll begin
to smart and get full of tears, and then I won't be able to see
anything--and then all the keeping still will be just wasted."
"Of course, you won't be able to keep from winking," agreed Uncle Andy.
"And, of course, you won't be able to keep from _breathing_. But you
mustn't make a noise about either process."
"How can I make a noise winking?" demanded the Child in a voice of
eager surprise. If such a thing were possible he wanted to learn how
at once.
"Oh, nonsense!" returned Uncle Andy. "Now, listen to me! We're nearly
there, and I don't want to have to do any more talking, because the
quieter we are now the sooner the wild folk will get over their first
suspiciousness. Now, after we once get fixed, you won't move a muscle,
not even if two or three mosquitoes alight on you at once and begin to
help themselves?"
"No!" agreed the Child confidently. He was accustomed to letting
mosquitoes bite him, just for the fun of seeing their gray, scrawny
bodies swell up and redden till they looked like rubies.
"Well, we'll hope there won't be any mosquitoes!" said Uncle Andy
reassuringly. "And if a yellow-jacket lights on your sock and starts
to crawl up under the leg of your knickers, you won't stir?"
"N-no!" agreed the Child, with somewhat less confidence. He had had
such an experience before, and remembered it with a pang. Then he
remembered that he had enough string in his pockets to tie up both legs
so securely that not the most enterprising of wasps could get under.
His confidence returned. "No, Uncle Andy!" he repeated, with earnest
resolution.
"Umph! We'll see," grunted Uncle Andy doubtfully, not guessing what
the Child had in mind. But when he saw him, with serious face, fish
two bits of string from the miscellaneous museum of his pocket and
proceed to frustrate the problematical yellow-jacket he grinned
appreciatively.
The place for the watching had been well chosen by Uncle Andy--a big
log to lean their backs against, a cushion of deep, dry moss to sit
upon, and a tiny, leafy sapling of silver poplar twinkling its
light-hung leaves just before their faces, to screen them a little
without interfering with their view. Their legs, to be sure, stuck out
beyond the screen of the poplar sapling, in plain sight of every forest
wayfarer. But legs were of little consequence so long as they were not
allowed to kick.
For just about a minute the Child found it easy to keep still. In the
second minute his nose itched, and he began to wonder how long they had
been there. In the third minute he realized that there was a hard
little stick in the moss that he was sitting on. In the fourth minute
it became a big stick, and terribly sharp, so that he began to wonder
if it would pierce right through him and make him a cripple for life.
He feared that perhaps Uncle Andy had never thought of a danger like
this, and he felt that he ought to call attention to it. But before he
had quite made up his mind to such a desperate measure the fifth minute
came--and with it the yellow-and-black wasp, which made the Child
forget all about the stick in the moss. The wasp alighted on the red,
mosquito-bitten, naked skin above the top of the Child's sock, and
then, sure enough, started to go exploring up under the leg of his
knickers. The Child felt nervous for a moment--and then triumphant.
He just saved himself from laughing out loud at the thought of how he
had fooled the inquisitive insect.
And so passed the fifth and sixth minutes. The seventh and eighth were
absorbed in bitter doubts of Uncle Andy. The Child felt quite sure
that he had been quite still for at least an hour. If nothing
interesting had happened in all that time, then nothing interesting was
going to happen, nothing interesting could happen. An awful distrust
assailed him. Was it possible that Uncle Andy had merely adopted this
base means of teaching him to keep still? Was it possible that even
now Uncle Andy (whose face was turned the other way) was either
laughing deeply in his sleeve or sleeping the undeservedly peaceful
sleep of the successful deceiver?
To do the Child justice, he felt ashamed of such doubts as soon as he
had fairly confronted himself with them. Then, in the ninth minute,
both legs began to fill up with pins and needles. This occupied his
attention. It was an axiom with him that under such painful conditions
one should at once get up and move around. Placed thus between two
directly conflicting duties, his conscience was torn. Then he
remembered his promise. His grit was good, and he determined to keep
his promise at all costs, no matter at what fatal consequence to his
legs. And he derived considerable comfort from the thought that, if
his leg should never be any use any more, his Uncle Andy would at least
be stricken with remorse.
Then, as the tenth minute dragged its enormous, trailing length along,
came that terrible feeling already alluded to--that he must either move
or burst. With poignant self-pity he argued the two desperate
alternatives within his soul. But, fortunately for him, before he felt
himself obliged to come to any final decision, something happened, and
his pain and doubts were forgotten.
Two big yellow-gray snowshoe rabbits came hopping lazily past, one just
ahead of the other. One jumped clean over Uncle Andy's out-stretched
feet, as if they were of no account or interest whatever to a rabbit.
The other stopped and thumped vigorously on the ground with his strong
hind foot. At this signal the first one also stopped. They both sat
up on their haunches, ears thrust forward in intense interrogation, and
gazed at the two moveless figures behind the poplar sapling.
The one immediately in front of him absorbed all the Child's attention.
Its great, bulging eyes surveyed him from head to foot, at first with
some alarm, then with half-contemptuous curiosity. Its immensely long
ears see-sawed meditatively, and its queer three-cornered mouth
twinkled incessantly as if it were talking to itself. At last,
apparently having decided that the Child was nothing worth taking
further notice of, it dropped on all fours, nibbled at a leaf,
discarded it, and hopped off to find more tasty provender. Its
companion, having "sized up" Uncle Andy in the same way, presently
followed. But being of the more suspicious disposition, it stopped
from time to time to glance back and assure itself that the strange,
motionless things behind the poplar sapling were not attempting to
follow it.
The Child was immensely interested. He thought of a lot of questions
to ask as soon as he should be allowed to speak, and he resolved to
remember every one of them. But just as he was getting them arranged a
small, low, long-bodied, snaky-slim, yellowish beast came gliding by
and drove them all clean out of his head. It was a weasel. It almost
bumped into the Child's feet before it noticed them. Then it jumped
back, showing its keen teeth in a soundless snarl of its narrow,
pointed muzzle, and surveyed the Child with the cruellest little eyes
that he had ever even imagined. The savage eyes stared him full in the
face, a red light like a deep-buried spark coming into them, till he
thought the creature was going to spring at his throat. Then gradually
the spark died out, as the little furry reassured itself. The
triangular face turned aside. The working, restless nose sniffed
sharply, catching the fresh scent of the two rabbits, and in the next
instant the creature was off, in long, noiseless bounds, upon the hot
trail. The Child knew enough of woodcraft to realize at once the
meaning of its sudden departure, and he murmured sympathetically in his
heart, "Oh, I do hope he won't catch them!"
All thoughts of the weasel and the rabbits, however, were speedily
driven from his mind, for at this moment he noticed a fat, yellowish
grub, with a chestnut-colored head, crawling up his sleeve. He hated
grubs, and wondered anxiously if it had any unpleasant design of
crawling down his neck. He squirmed inwardly at the idea. But just as
he was coming to the conclusion that _that_ was something he'd _never_
be able to stand, a most unexpected ally came to his rescue. With a
blow that _almost_ made him jump out of his jacket, something lit on
the fat grub. It was a big black hornet, with white bands across its
shining body. She gave the grub a tiny prick with the tip of her
envenomed sting, which caused it to roll up into a tight ball and lie
still. Then straddling it, and holding it in place with her front pair
of legs, she cut into it with her powerful mandibles and began to suck
its juices. The Child's nose wrinkled in spite of himself at sight of
this unalluring banquet, but he stared with all eyes. There was
something terrifying to him in the swiftness and efficiency of the
great hornet. Presently the grub, not having received quite a big
enough dose of its captor's anaesthetic, came to under the devouring
jaws and began to lash out convulsively. Another touch of the medicine
in the hornet's tail, however, promptly put a stop to that, and once
more it tightened up into an unresisting ball. Then straddling it
again firmly, and handling it cleverly with its front legs as a raccoon
might handle a big apple, she bit into it here and there, sucking
eagerly with a quick, pumping motion of her body. The fat ball got
smaller and smaller, till soon it was very little bigger than an
ordinary sweet pea. The hornet turned it over and over impatiently, to
see if anything more was to be got out of it; then she spurned it
aside, and bounced into the air with a deep hum. She had certainly
been very amusing, but the Child drew a breath of relief when she was
gone. He had caught the copper-red flicker of her sting, as it barely
touched the victim, and it seemed to him like a jet of live flame.
When the hornet was gone the Child began once more to remember that
little stick in the soft moss beneath him. How had he ever forgotten
it? He decided that he must have been sitting on it for hours and
hours. But just as it was beginning fairly to burn its way into his
flesh, a queer little rushing sound close at his side brought his heart
into his throat. It was such a vicious, menacing little sound.
Glancing down, he saw that a tiny wood-mouse had darted upon a big
brown-winged butterfly and captured it. The big wings flapped
pathetically for a few seconds; but the mouse bit them off, to save
herself the bother of lagging useless material home to her burrow. She
was so near that the Child could have touched her by reaching out his
hand. But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a rotten
stump. Less, in fact, for she might have tried to gnaw into him if he
had been a rotten stump, in the hope of finding some wood-grubs.
The mouse dragged away the velvety body of the butterfly to her hole
under the roots. She was no more than just in time, for no sooner was
she out of sight than along came a fierce-eyed little shrew-mouse, the
most audacious and pugnacious of the mouse tribe, who would undoubtedly
have robbed her of her prey, and perhaps made a meal of her at the same
time. He nosed at the wings of the butterfly, nibbled at them, decided
they were no good, and then came ambling over to the Child's feet.
Shoe-leather! That was something quite new to him. He nibbled at it,
didn't seem to think much of it, crept along up to the top of the shoe,
sniffed at the sock, and came at last plump upon the Child's bare leg.
"Was he going to try a nibble at that, too?" wondered the Child
anxiously, his blue eyes getting very big and round. But no. This
live, human flesh--_unmistakably_ alive--and the startling Man smell of
it, were too much for the nerves of his shrewship. With a squeak of
indignation and alarm he sprang backward and scurried off among the
weed-stalks.
"_There_, now!" thought the Child, in intense vexation. "He's gone and
given the alarm!" But, as good luck would have it, he had done nothing
of the kind. For a red fox, trotting past just then at a distance of
not more than ten or a dozen feet, served to all observers as a more
than ample explanation of the shrew's abrupt departure. The fox turned
his head at the sound of the scurry and squeak, and very naturally
attributed it to his own appearance on the scene. But at the same time
he caught sight of those two motionless human shapes sitting rigid
behind the poplar sapling. They were so near that his nerves received
a shock. He jumped about ten feet; and then, recovering himself with
immense self-possession, he sat up on his haunches to investigate. Of
course, he was quite familiar with human beings and their ways, and he
knew that they never kept still in that unnatural fashion unless they
were either asleep or dead. After a searching scrutiny--head sagely to
one side and mouth engagingly half open--he decided that they might be
either dead or asleep, whichever they chose, for all he cared. He rose
to his feet and trotted off with great deliberation, leaving on the
still air a faint, half-musky odor which the Child's nostrils were keen
enough to detect. As he went a bluejay which had been sitting on the
top of a near-by tree caught sight of him, darted down, and flew along
after him, uttering harsh screeches of warning to the rest of the small
folk of the wilderness. It is not pleasant even in the wilderness to
have "Stop thief! Stop thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!" screeched after
you by a bluejay. And the fox glanced up at the noisy bird as if he
would have been ready to give two fat geese and a whole litter of
rabbits for the pleasure of crunching her impudent neck.
All this while there had been other birds in view besides the
bluejay--chick-a-dees and nut-hatches hunting their tiny prey among the
dark branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear
call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their
zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker
running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and
_rat-tat-tat-tatting_ in a most businesslike and determined manner.
But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the
four-footed kindreds. Just now, however, a bird came on the scene
which interested him extremely. It was a birch-partridge (or ruffled
grouse) hen, accompanied by a big brood of her tiny, nimble chicks.
They looked no bigger than chestnuts as they swarmed about her,
crowding to snatch the dainties which she kept turning up for them.
The Child watched them with fascinated eyes, not understanding how
things so tiny and so frail as these chicks could be so amazingly quick
and strong in their movements. Suddenly, at a little distance through
the bushes, he caught sight of the red fox coming back, with an air of
having forgotten something. The Child longed to warn the little
partridge mother, but, realizing that he must not, he waited with
thumping heart for a tragedy to be enacted before him.
He had no need to worry, however. The little mother saw the fox before
he caught sight of her. The Child saw her stiffen herself suddenly,
with a low _chit_ of warning which sounded as if it might have come
from anywhere. On the instant every chick had vanished. The Child
realized that it was impossible for even such active creatures as they
were to have run away so quickly as all that. So he knew that they had
just made themselves invisible by squatting absolutely motionless among
the twigs and moss which they so exactly resembled in coloring.
The fox, meanwhile, had been gazing around in every direction but the
right one, to try and see where that partridge cry had come from. He
liked partridge, and it was some time since he had had any. All at
once he was surprised and pleased to see a hen partridge, apparently
badly wounded, drop fluttering on the moss almost under his nose. He
sprang forward to seize her, but she managed to flutter feebly out of
his reach. It was obviously her last effort, and he was not in the
least discouraged. She proved, however, to have many such last
efforts, and the last the Child saw of the fox he was still hopefully
jumping at her, as he disappeared from view among the underbrush.
About three minutes later there was a hard whirr of wings, and the
triumphant little mother reappeared. She alighted on the very spot
whence she had first caught sight of the fox, stood for a moment
stiffly erect, while she stared about her with keen, bright eyes, and
then she gave a soft little call. Instantly the chicks were all about
her, apparently springing up out of the ground as at the utterance of a
spell. And proudly she led them away to another feeding ground.
What more the Child might have seen had time been allowed him will
never be known, for now the session was interrupted. He was hoping for
a porcupine to come by, or a deer, or a moose. He was half-hoping,
half-fearing that it might be a bear, or a big Canadian lynx with
dreadful eyes and tufted ears. But before any of these more formidable
wonders arrived he heard a sound of rushing--of eager, desperate
flight. Then a rabbit came into view--he felt sure it was one of the
two who appeared at the beginning of his watch. The poor beast was
plainly in an ecstasy of terror, running violently, but as it were
aimlessly, and every now and then stopping short, all of a-tremble, as
if despair were robbing it of its powers. It ran straight past the
poplar sapling, swerved off to the right, and disappeared; but the
Child could hear the sound of its going and perceived that it was
making a circle. A couple of seconds later came the weasel, running
with its nose in the air, as if catching the scent from the air rather
than from the fugitive's tracks.
The weasel did not seem to be in any hurry at all. It was the picture
of cool, deadly, implacable determination. And the Child hated it
savagely. Just opposite the poplar sapling it paused, seeming to
listen. Then it bounded into the bushes on a short circle, saving
itself unnecessary effort, as if it had accurately estimated the
tactics of its panic-stricken quarry. A few moments later the rabbit
reappeared, running frantically. Just as it came once more before the
poplar sapling--not more than a couple of yards from the Child's feet,
out from under a neighboring bush sprang the weasel, confronting it
fairly. With a scream the rabbit stopped short and crouched in its
tracks, quivering, to receive its doom.
The weasel leaped straight at its victim's throat. But it never
arrived. For at that moment the Child gave vent to a shrill yell of
indignation and jumped at the slayer with hands, eyes and mouth wide
open. He made such a picture that Uncle Andy exploded. The astonished
weasel vanished. The rabbit, shocked back into its senses, vanished
also, but in another direction. And the Child, pulling himself
together, turned to his uncle with a very red face.
"I'm sorry!" he said sheepishly. "I'm so sorry, Uncle Andy. But I
just _couldn't_ help it. I didn't think."
"Oh, well!" said Uncle Andy, getting up and stretching, and rubbing his
stiffened legs tenderly. "I can't say that I blame you I came mighty
near doing the same thing myself when that fool of a rabbit squealed."