One day late in the Acorn Moon, that is, about mid-October, as the
grouse family were basking with full crops near a great pine log on the
sunlit edge of the beaver-meadow, they heard the far-away bang of a
gun, and Redruff, acting on some impulse from within, leaped on the log,
strutted up and down a couple of times, then, yielding to the elation of
the bright, clear, bracing air, he whirred his wings in loud defiance.
Then, giving fuller vent to this expression of vigor, just as a colt
frisks to show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until,
unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery
of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the
near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His
brother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise, so
did his mother, but from that time she began to be a little afraid of
him.
In early November comes the moon of a weird foe. By a strange law of
nature, not wholly without parallel among mankind, all partridges go
crazy in the November moon of their first year. They become possessed of
a mad hankering to get away somewhere, it does not matter much where.
And the wisest of them do all sorts of foolish things at this period.
They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the country by night and are
cut in two by wires, or dash into lighthouses, or locomotive headlights.
Daylight finds them in all sorts of absurd places, in buildings, in open
marshes, perched on telephone wires in a great city, or even on board
of coasting vessels. The craze seems to be a relic of a bygone habit
of migration, and it has at least one good effect, it breaks up the
families and prevents the constant intermarrying, which would surely be
fatal to their race. It always takes the young badly their first year,
and they may have it again the second fall, for it is very catching; but
in the third season it is practically unknown.
Redruff's mother knew it was coming as soon as she saw the frost grapes
blackening, and the maples shedding their crimson and gold. There was
nothing to do but care for their health and keep them in the quietest
part of the woods.
The first sign of it came when a flock of wild geese went honking
southward overhead. The young ones had never before seen such
long-necked hawks, and were afraid of them. But seeing that their mother
had no fear, they took courage, and watched them with intense interest.
Was it the wild, clanging cry that moved them, or was it solely the
inner prompting then come to the surface? A strange longing to follow
took possession of each of the young ones. They watched those arrowy
trumpeters fading away to the south, and sought out higher perches to
watch them farther yet, and from that time things were no more the same.
The November Moon was waxing, and when it was full, the November madness
came.
The least vigorous of the flock were most affected. The little family
was scattered. Redruff himself flew on several long erratic night
journeys. The impulse took him southward, but there lay the boundless
stretch of Lake Ontario, so he turned again, and the waning of the Mad
Moon found him once more in the Mud Creek Glen, but absolutely alone.
V
Food grew scarce as winter wore on. Redruff clung to the old ravine and
the piney sides of Taylor's Hill, but every month brought its food and
its foes. The Mad Moon brought madness, solitude, and grapes; the Snow
Moon came with rosehips; and the Stormy Moon brought browse of birch and
silver storms that sheathed the woods in ice, and made it hard to keep
one's perch while pulling off the frozen buds. Redruff's beak grew
terribly worn with the work, so that even when closed there was still
an opening through behind the hook. But nature had prepared him for the
slippery footing; his toes, so slim and trim in September, had sprouted
rows of sharp, horny points, and these grew with the growing cold,
till the first snow had found him fully equipped with snow-shoes and
icecreepers. The cold weather had driven away most of the hawks and
owls, and made it impossible for his four-footed enemies to approach
unseen, so that things were nearly balanced.
His flight in search of food had daily led him farther on, till he
had discovered and explored the Rosedale Creek, with its banks of
silver-birch, and Castle Frank, with its grapes and rowan berries, as
well as Chester woods, where amelanchier and Virginia-creeper swung
their fruit-bunches, and checkerberries glowed beneath the snow.
He soon found out that for some strange reason men with guns did not go
within the high fence of Castle Frank. So among these scenes he lived
his life, learning new places, new foods, and grew wiser and more
beautiful every day.
He was quite alone so far as kindred were concerned, but that scarcely
seemed a hardship. Wherever he went he could see the jolly chickadees
scrambling merrily about, and he remembered the time when they had
seemed such big, important creatures. They were the most absurdly
cheerful things in the woods. Before the autumn was fairly over they had
begun to sing their famous refrain, 'Spring Soon,' and kept it up with
good heart more or less all through the winter's direst storms, till
at length the waning of the Hunger Moon, our February, seemed really
to lend some point to the ditty, and they redoubled their optimistic
announcement to the world in an 'I-told-you-so' mood. Soon good support
was found, for the sun gained strength and melted the snow from the
southern slope of Castle Frank Hill, and exposed great banks of fragrant
wintergreen, whose berries were a bounteous feast for Redruff, and,
ending the hard work of pulling frozen browse, gave his bill the needed
chance to grow into its proper shape again. Very soon the first bluebird
came flying over and warbled as he flew 'The spring is coming.' The
sun kept gaining, and early one day in the dark of the Wakening Moon of
March there was a loud 'Caw, caw,' and old Silver-spot, the king-crow,
came swinging along from the south at the head of his troops and
officially announced,
'THE SPRING HAS COME'
All nature seemed to respond to this, the opening of the birds' New
Year, and yet it was something within that chiefly seemed to move them.
The chickadees went simply wild; they sang their 'Spring now, spring now
now--Spring now now,' so persistently that one wondered how they found
time to get a living.
And Redruff felt it thrill him through and through. He sprang with
joyous vigor on a stump and sent rolling down the little valley, again
and again, a thundering 'Thump, thump, thump, thunderrrrrrrrr,' that
wakened dull echoes as it rolled, and voiced his gladness in the coming
of the spring.
Away down the valley was Cuddy's shanty. He heard the drum-call on the
still morning air and 'reckoned there was a cock patridge to git,' and
came sneaking up the ravine with his gun. But Redruff skimmed away
in silence, nor rested till once more in Mud Creek Glen. And there he
mounted the very log where first he had drummed and rolled his loud
tattoo again and again, till a small boy who had taken a short cut to
the mill through the woods, ran home, badly scared, to tell his mother
he was sure the Indians were on the war-path, for he heard their
war-drums beating in the glen.
Why does a happy boy holla? Why does a lonesome youth sigh? They don't
know any more than Redruff knew why every day now he mounted some dead
log and thumped and thundered to the woods; then strutted and admired
his gorgeous blazing ruffs as they flashed their jewels in the sunlight,
and then thundered out again. Whence now came the strange wish for
someone else to admire the plumes? And why had such a notion never come
till the Pussywillow Moon?
'Thump, thump, thunder-r-r-r-r-r-rrrr'
'Thump, thump, thunder-r-r-r-r-r-rrrr'
he rumbled again and again.
Day after day he sought the favorite log, and a new beauty, a rose-red
comb, grew out above each clear, keen eye, and the clumsy snowshoes were
wholly shed from his feet. His ruff grew finer, his eye brighter, and
his whole appearance splendid to behold, as he strutted and flashed in
the sun. But--oh! he was so lonesome now.
Yet what could he do but blindly vent his hankering in this daily
drum-parade, till on a day early in loveliest May, when the trilliums
had fringed his log with silver stars, and he had drummed and longed,
then drummed again, his keen ear caught a sound, a gentle footfall
in the brush. He turned to a statue and watched; he knew he had been
watched. Could it be possible? Yes! there it was--a form--another--a shy
little lady grouse, now bashfully seeking to hide. In a moment he was
by her side. His whole nature swamped by a new feeling--burnt up with
thirst--a cooling spring in sight. And how he spread and flashed his
proud array! How came he to know that that would please? He puffed
his plumes and contrived to stand just right to catch the sun, and he
strutted and uttered a low, soft chuckle that must have been as good as
the 'sweet nothings' of another race, for clearly now her heart was won.
Won, really, days ago, if only he had known. For full three days she
had come at the loud tattoo and coyly admired him from afar, and felt a
little piqued that he had not yet found out her, so close at hand. So it
was not quite all mischance, perhaps, that little stamp that caught his
ear. But now she meekly bowed her head with sweet, submissive grace--the
desert passed, the parch-burnt wanderer found the spring at last.
Oh, those were bright, glad days in the lovely glen of the unlovely
name. The sun was never so bright, and the piney air was balmier sweet
than dreams. And that great noble bird came daily on his log, sometimes
with her and sometimes quite alone, and drummed for very joy of being
alive. But why sometimes alone? Why not forever with his Brownie bride?
Why should she stay to feast and play with him for hours, then take some
stealthy chance to slip away and see him no more for hours or till next
day, when his martial music from the log announced him restless for her
quick return? There was a woodland mystery here he could not clear. Why
should her stay with him grow daily less till it was down to minutes,
and one day at last she never came at all. Nor the next, nor the next,
and Redruff, wild, careered on lightning wing and drummed on the old
log, then away up-stream on another log, and skimmed the hill to another
ravine to drum and drum. But on the fourth day, when he came and loudly
called her, as of old, at their earliest tryst, he heard a sound in the
bushes, as at first, and there was his missing Brownie bride with ten
little peeping partridges following after.
Redruff skimmed to her side, terribly frightening the bright-eyed
downlings, and was just a little dashed to find the brood with claims
far stronger than his own. But he soon accepted the change, and
thenceforth joined himself to the brood, caring for them as his father
never had for him.