The third day the chicks were much stronger on their feet. They
no longer had to go around an acorn; they could even scramble over
pine-cones, and on the little tags that marked the places for their
wings, were now to be seen blue rows of fat blood-quills.
Their start in life was a good mother, good legs, a few reliable
instincts, and a germ of reason. It was instinct, that is, inherited
habit, which taught them to hide at the word from their mother; it was
instinct that taught them to follow her, but it was reason which made
them keep under the shadow of her tail when the sun was smiting down,
and from that day reason entered more and more into their expanding
lives.
Next day the blood-quills had sprouted the tips of feathers. On the
next, the feathers were well out, and a week later the whole family of
down-clad babies were strong on the wing.
And yet not all--poor little Runtie had been sickly from the first. He
bore his half-shell on his back for hours after he came out; he ran less
and cheeped more than his brothers, and when one evening at the onset
of a skunk the mother gave the word 'Kwit, kwit' (Fly, fly), Runtie was
left behind, and when she gathered her brood on the piney hill he was
missing, and they saw him no more.
Meanwhile, their training had gone on. They knew that the finest
grasshoppers abounded in the long grass by the brook; they knew that the
currant-bushes dropped fatness in the form of smooth, green worms; they
knew that the dome of an ant-hill rising against the distant woods stood
for a garner of plenty; they knew that strawberries, though not really
insects, were almost as delicious; they knew that the huge danaid
butterflies were good, safe game, if they could only catch them, and
that a slab of bark dropping from the side of a rotten log was sure to
abound in good things of many different kinds; and they had learned,
also, that yellow-jackets, mud-wasps, woolly worms, and hundred-leggers
were better let alone.
It was now July, the Moon of Berries. The chicks had grown and
flourished amazingly during this last month, and were now so large that
in her efforts to cover them the mother was kept standing all night.
They took their daily dust-bath, but of late had changed to another
higher on the hill. It was one in use by many different birds, and at
first the mother disliked the idea of such a second-hand bath. But the
dust was of such a fine, agreeable quality, and the children led the way
with such enthusiasm, that she forgot her mistrust.
After a fortnight the little ones began to droop and she herself did not
feel very well. They were always hungry, and though they ate enormously,
they one and all grew thinner and thinner. The mother was the last to be
affected. But when it came, it came as hard on her--a ravenous hunger, a
feverish headache, and a wasting weakness. She never knew the cause. She
could not know that the dust of the much-used dust-bath, that her true
instinct taught her to mistrust at first, and now again to shun, was
sown with parasitic worms, and that all of the family were infested.
No natural impulse is without a purpose. The mother-bird's knowledge of
healing was only to follow natural impulse. The eager, feverish craving
for something, she knew not what, led her to eat, or try, everything
that looked eatable and to seek the coolest woods. And there she found a
deadly sumac laden with its poison fruit.
A month ago she would have passed it by, but now she tried the
unattractive berries. The acrid burning juice seemed to answer some
strange demand of her body; she ate and ate, and all her family joined
in the strange feast of physic. No human doctor could have hit it
better; it proved a biting, drastic purge, the dreadful secret foe was
downed, the danger passed. But not for all--Nature, the old nurse, had
come too late for two of them. The weakest, by inexorable law, dropped
out. Enfeebled by the disease, the remedy was too severe for them. They
drank and drank by the stream, and next morning did not move when the
others followed the mother. Strange vengeance was theirs now, for
a skunk, the same that could have told where Runtie went, found and
devoured their bodies and died of the poison they had eaten.
Seven little partridges now obeyed the mother's call. Their individual
characters were early shown and now developed fast. The weaklings were
gone, but there were still a fool and a lazy one. The mother could not
help caring for some more than for others, and her favorite was the
biggest, he who once sat on the yellow chip for concealment. He was not
only the biggest, strongest, and handsomest of the brood, but best of
all, the most obedient. His mother's warning 'rrrrr' (danger) did
not always keep the others from a risky path or a doubtful food, but
obedience seemed natural to him, and he never failed to respond to her
soft 'K-reet' (Come), and of this obedience he reaped the reward, for
his days were longest in the land.
August, the Molting Moon, went by; the young ones were now three parts
grown. They knew just enough to think themselves wonderfully wise. When
they were small it was necessary to sleep on the ground so their mother
could shelter them, but now they were too big to need that, and the
mother began to introduce grownup ways of life. It was time to roost in
the trees. The young weasels, foxes, skunks, and minks were beginning
to run. The ground grew more dangerous each night, so at sundown Mother
Partridge called 'K-reet,' and flew into a thick, low tree.
The little ones followed, except one, an obstinate little fool who
persisted in sleeping on the ground as heretofore. It was all right that
time, but the next night his brothers were awakened by his cries. There
was a slight scuffle, then stillness, broken only by a horrid sound
of crunching bones and a smacking of lips. They peered down into the
terrible darkness below, where the glint of two close-set eyes and a
peculiar musty smell told them that a mink was the killer of their fool
brother.
Six little partridges now sat in a row at night, with their mother in
the middle, though it was not unusual for some little one with cold feet
to perch on her back.
Their education went on, and about this time they were taught
'whirring.' A partridge can rise on the wing silently if it wishes, but
whirring is so important at times that all are taught how and when to
rise on thundering wings. Many ends are gained by the whirr. It warns
all other partridges near that danger is at hand, it unnerves the
gunner, or it fixes the foe's attention on the whirrer, while the others
sneak off in silence, or by squatting, escape notice.
A partridge adage might well be 'foes and food for every moon.'
September came, with seeds and grain in place of berries and ant-eggs,
and gunners in place of skunks and minks.
The partridges knew well what a fox was, but had scarcely seen a dog. A
fox they knew they could easily baffle by taking to a tree, but when
in the Gunner Moon old Cuddy came prowling through the ravine with his
bob-tailed yellow cur, the mother spied the dog and cried out, 'Kwit!
kwit!' (Fly, fly). Two of the brood thought it a pity their mother
should lose her wits so easily over a fox, and were pleased to show
their superior nerve by springing into a tree in spite of her earnestly
repeated 'Kwit! kwit!' and her example of speeding away on silent wings.
Meanwhile, the strange bob-tailed fox came under the tree and yapped
and yapped at them. They were much amused at him and at their mother and
brothers, so much that they never noticed a rustling in the bushes
till there was a loud Bang! bang! and down fell two bloody, flopping
partridges, to be seized and mangled by the yellow cur until the gunner
ran from the bushes and rescued the remains.