his new honours with the air of one who was used to them, though he
caused some criticism by switching his tail in an unknightly fashion.
Seated high on a sofa cushion, he purred contentedly and received the
homage of his loyal retainers. He closed his eyes, bristled up his
whiskers and smiled like a Cheshire cat. Even Sir Jingo McBore could not
have given him any pointers on noble and knightly conduct. I am afraid
that if he receives much more homage of this kind he will become too
haughty to associate with the other cats and will pose as "the cat that
walks alone." Still his nature may not be changed entirely by his
new-found honours. I noticed that once in a while he would stretch out a
paw in a sleepy way and spread his claws as if he were dreaming of mice,
for he has been a famous mouser. I hate to think that he may become a
social butterfly on account of his title, but a stanza from Calverly
haunts my memory. As nearly as I can remember it runs like this:
"In vain they set the cream jug out
And cull the choice sardine,
I fear he never more will be
The cat that he has been."
_LII.--A Spring Orgy_
Yesterday the children called me to see an amusing exhibition that
breathes the spirit of spring. The house cat, fat and lazy, had found a
little patch of catnip that had started showing signs of growth. He was
biting at it as if he were going to eat grass like an ox. After he
managed to get some fragments of leaves into his mouth and had swallowed
them he lay down and began to roll over. He kicked his legs into the
air, rolled around, wallowed and otherwise acted foolishly. The catnip
seemed to fill him with a spring madness that induced all kinds of
foolish excesses. Finally he jumped into the air with the playfulness of
a kitten and rushed around the corner of the house, switching his tail
and acting as if he had renewed his youth. By the way, I may as well
record an observation about this cat while I am at it. He is inclined to
be pampered in the matter of food, for he is always around begging when
any one is eating, but in spite of this fact he is a famous mouser.
Hardly a day passes that I do not see him coming out of the orchard with
a mouse, and some days he gets two or three. I have heard it said that
only well-fed cats are good mousers, and I think there may be something
in it. They go mousing just as a well-fed sportsman goes hunting.
BIRDS
[Illustration]
_LIII.--A Disgusted Blackbird_
I know it was a low-down thing to do, but I did it with the best of
intentions--though I am afraid the blackbirds will never understand.
They will probably think that after the good work they did in eating
white grubs, cut-worms and other pests while I was preparing the corn
ground, I should have treated them differently. But it was just because
they did so much good work that I treated them so badly. I was so
grateful to them that I did not want to treat them in the usual way when
the corn came up. In past years it was the custom to loaf around with a
double-barrelled shot-gun about the time the corn was coming through the
ground, but this year the blackbirds were unusually plentiful, and as
the season was late they probably had many broods of young to feed.
Anyway they came to the corn field in flocks and followed the plough,
disc and harrow, picking up every worm and bug that came in sight. They
demonstrated the fact that they are true friends of the farmer, even
though they may have faults. So when it came time to plant the corn we
gave the seed grain a good coating of tar, and then rolled it in ashes
to dry it. This used to be a common practice many years ago, though I
haven't seen any one doing it of late years. It certainly made the corn
about as unappetising as anything possibly could, so I was not
surprised, when I went to the corn field a few mornings after the
planting, to find a blackbird sitting on the fence, coughing and
spitting and using unparliamentary language. But I will take part of
that back. Some of the language used by parliamentarians during the past
few months has been of a kind that makes me wonder if any kind of
language can possibly be unparliamentary. But to get back to the
blackbird. He evidently thought I had played it low down on him after
the way he had helped me in the matter of grubs, and I had no way of
telling him that like a lot of human beings who do disagreeable things
to one another I had done it "for his own good." A little tar and ashes
in his beak was a greater kindness to him than a charge of bird shot.
* * * * *
Now, I dare say there will be some scientific persons who will sniff
superior and say that my remarks about the blackbird coughing, spitting
and cussing are only nonsensical romancing. That is the trouble with
scientists. They observe things in nature in so matter-of-fact a way
that they never get at the real truth. Moreover, I have long been
convinced that only the observations we make about ourselves are of any
use in trying to get at the feelings of others. For instance, I can
remember a time when I would loaf along and observe a man digging in a
ditch. Seeing him at so excellent and necessary a task I would imagine
that he was full of fine ideas about the nobility of labour and the
great virtue of the work he was doing, and I might even try to write a
song of ditching to express what he felt but was unable to voice. Lately
I did some ditching, and I know that my earlier observations were all
wrong. If a man came along wearing summer flannels and paused to observe
me and tried to understand my emotions and thoughts while doing a very
necessary piece of ditching, my thoughts would have run somewhat as
follows: "I wonder what that pop-eyed rabbit means by standing there
gaping at me. I wonder if I couldn't accidentally splash him with some
of this mud." And all the time I was doing a noble piece of work and
knew it, but that was the way I felt about it. I am willing to bet a
cookie that when I was doing my observing in comfort on the dry bank the
thoughts of the man sloshing around in the ditch were much like those
expressed above. And I am by no means inclined to confine this method of
interpretation and observation to human beings. My dealings with birds
and animals have convinced me that each of them has as distinct a
character and personality as any human being. So when I try to imagine
the emotions of a blackbird that has sampled a grain of tarred corn,
that he has dug up with much labour, I merely try to imagine what I
would do and say if some one whom I had helped with his work had put
coal tar in my salad. I am afraid that having more capacity for spitting
I would spit harder than the blackbird, and having command of a larger
vocabulary I would use worse language and more of it. Making my
observations in this way I have no compunctions about explaining the
state of mind of the blackbird as I did, and I defy any scientist in the
lot to prove that I am wrong. And the best of it all is that the
blackbirds soon got wise and stopped trying to dig out my corn.
_LIV.--A Visitor_
Yesterday morning a distinguished visitor spent a few minutes with me in
the sugar bush. To be exact, I was aware of his presence for a few
minutes. He may have been with me for quite a while, though I didn't
notice him. When I got to the wood-lot I had only one idea, and that was
to save sap. It had been running all night. Some buckets were
overflowing and others brimming dangerously, and I had to hustle around
with a pail before giving attention to anything else. When I put a stop
to the waste I lit the fire under the pan and got the work of boiling it
properly started. Then I had leisure to notice that the crows were
making a racket. Glancing towards the centre of the disturbance, I was
surprised to see a huge bird sitting in the top of the biggest maple,
about fifteen rods from where I was working. My first thought was that
it was a great horned owl, but it was altogether too large. Although the
crows were noisy they did not approach very near the object of their
wrath, which seemed royally unconscious of their clamour. I walked
towards the tree--the sole remnant of the original forest, a huge maple
that is over three feet in diameter at the base, and which reaches fully
thirty feet above the second-growth trees by which it is surrounded.
When I was within about forty yards of the tree my visitor stretched his
neck and turned to look at me. It was a magnificent bald eagle--the
first I had ever seen outside of a zoological garden. I was near enough
to catch the glint of his fierce eye. He gave me "the once-over" with an
expression of haughty disdain, such as I have seen on the face of a bank
President who has been forced to look at something that has spoiled his
day. Then he turned toward the rising sun, leaned forward as if making
obeisance, and launched himself into the morning with a wide beat of
wings. He paid no attention to the pursuing crows. After a few powerful
strokes he swung up on a vast spiral and sailed away to the east.
Although he was so unsociable, I was glad to have seen him, and I had a
really exciting story to tell the children when they got home from
school in the evening.
_LV.--A Farewell_
I feel safe in announcing that the great blue heron that spent the
summer spearing for frogs and tonging for clams in the Government drain
has finally gone south. By this time he is probably toning up his
digestion on a diet of young alligators and electric eels while
"Hid from view
By the tall, liana'd, unsunned boughs
O'erbrooding the dark bayou."
For a time it looked as if he intended staying with us all winter. The
bird books say that the blue herons leave for the south about the middle
of September, and I was ready to bid him good-bye about the time we were
picking the apples, but he lingered on through October. When November
came and he was still wading in the drain or flapping slowly across the
fields, with Sheppy trying frantically to bite his trailing toes, I
began to be afraid that something ailed him. But he flew strong at all
times, and some other explanation must be found for his lingering in
the lap of winter. And he lingered in winter's lap all right. Every week
in November he was seen quite as frequently as during the summer. Even
the first flurries of snow did not drive him away. As the streams were
still free from ice he probably found no difficulty in getting his
living, and he put off the trip south as long as he dared. The last time
I saw him was on the 5th of December, when he crossed over, flying high
and headed due south. Something about him, as they say in novels, told
me that this would be positively his last appearance for the season.
There was a snowstorm in progress at the time, and it was freezing.
Canada was no place for a bird that, according to the best scientific
authorities, should have gone south almost three months ago. He has not
been seen since that last flight, and as the streams are not only frozen
over but drifted full of snow, it is not likely that we shall see him
again. Sheppy now has to take his exercise by chasing sparrows.
GENERAL
A BALLAD OF BUGS
My Dooley potatoes have bugs on their tops,
Hard ones and soft ones that eat day and night;
There is something the matter with all of my crops--
A bug or a worm or a pest or a blight.
My orchard of apples, in which I delight,
Is a codling moth heaven--my cherries have slugs--
O pity the farmer who works with his might--
Chanting a ballad whose burden is bugs.
The tomato worm crawls, the grasshopper hops,
The aphid sucks juice, the rose chafers bite,
The curculio stings till the little plum drops
And the damage they do on the farm is a fright.
In vain we seek help from the fellows who write
Of "Production and Thrift"--intellectual mugs--
The farmer must hustle and keep up the fight--
Chanting a ballad whose burden is bugs.
The bug on the farm with his appetite stops,
When his "tummy" is filled he is ready for flight,
But the Big Bugs who work in the law-making shops
Are grabbing for all that is lying in sight.
They have tariffs and tricks like good old "vested right"
And the voter they lead by his long hairy lugs.
They are the pests that I want to indict--
Chanting a ballad whose burden is bugs.
ENVOY.
Prince, our exploiters, with insolent spite,
Picture the farmers as mossbacks and thugs,
But you, if you knew them, would pity their plight,
Chanting a ballad whose burden is bugs.
_LVI.--The Whole Bunch_
All the signs seem to be right for doing a bulletin on the farm live
stock. During the past week three correspondents have asked me about
Sheppy and old Fenceviewer, and last night at milking time the whole
aggregation forced themselves on my attention. It happened this way: In
the afternoon two little pigs that are taking the rest cure and
fattening for winter pork, managed to break out of their pen in the
orchard and raid the shed where the chop feed and skim-milk are kept. As
no one had time to fix their pen they were put in the cow-stable for
safe keeping. That started the whole chain of circumstances. When it
came milking time we couldn't put in the cows because of the pigs. We
had to milk in the field. While the milking was in progress the colts
came galloping up to nose around for salt and they scared the cows. I
started to throw clods and sticks at the colts to drive them away, and
that started the turkey gobbler swearing at me. By the time I got the
colts scattered and the cows gathered again I found that a titled cat
was helping himself from the pail of milk that I had incautiously placed
on the ground. Just because there was a nail loose in the pigpen I got
in trouble with all the live stock. Hence this article. I have a feeling
that there is a moral connected with that--let me see. Isn't there an
improving tale about the horseshoe nail that was lost which caused the
horseshoe to be lost, which caused the horse to be lost, which caused
the man to be lost, etc.? Anyway, I didn't stop to puzzle out the moral.
I simply kicked the cat in the wishbone and resumed the task of milking
a fly-bitten cow with an active tail. In the humour I was in she was
mighty lucky that I didn't kick her, too.
* * * * *
I don't like to accuse cows of being interested in politics, but they
are acting very much like it. For the past week they have been doing a
lot of bawling, both by day and by night, and I can't for the life of me
make out what they are bawling about. That sounds as if they were
indulging in political discussions, doesn't it? Besides, one day last
week Fenceviewer II. bolted the convention. Word was brought to the
house that she was missing from the pasture field. As I was busy at
something else I sent the two littlest boys to hunt for her. Not being
versed in the guile of cows and being full of youthful pity they went to
the well in the woods to see, if by any chance, she had fallen in. When
I got through with my chore I joined the hunt, but I didn't go to look
in the well. No, indeed. I headed straight for the oat field. I didn't
know how she could get in, but as the oat field was the nearest point
where she could get into mischief I knew she would be there. And I was
not disappointed. As soon as I reached the field I saw her horns and the
red line of her back above the waving heads. A hurried investigation
showed that she had entered by the Government drain. The last time the
drain had been flooded a lot of grass got caught on the barbed wires
that served as a water fence, and not only covered the barbs, but
weighed down the wires so that she could step through. Calling the boys
to help me, we drove her out and fixed the fence. Now, wouldn't you
regard the action of that cow as having a political colouring? She left
the others to get into a place where the pasture was better--a customary
political move. But I hope the cows do not become too political, for I
have noticed that political leaders are so confused that they no longer
favour us with illuminating interviews, and I am afraid that if the cows
get too much mixed up they will not give down either.
* * * * *
Of course, I may be wrong in accusing the turkey gobbler of cursing, but
I do not think so. No matter what language man uses, if he speaks as
earnestly as that gobbler and in the same tone of voice, it is perfectly
safe for a policeman to run him in on a charge of using "profane and
abusive language," and the court interpreter will show that he was
right. Moreover, the gobbler has had family troubles to try his temper
this summer. Two flocks of his children were raised by hens, and in
spite of his strutting and blandishments they refuse to have anything to
do with him. Instead they obey the clucking of the mother hen, and
"tweet" disdainfully at their haughty sire. In addition, his lawful
spouse doesn't seem to care to have him around while she is looking
after her flock. She is apparently a suffragette and quite competent to
look after her own affairs. Even when a thunderstorm comes up the
youngsters do not turn to the old man for protection. That led to a
rather pathetic picture a short time ago. A sudden storm roused the
paternal instinct in the old fellow. Taking his place near the little
flock he spread out his tail and ample wings so that they touched the
ground and offered an excellent shelter, but the ungrateful creatures
refused to notice him. No wonder his temper seems to have gone bad. He
is forced to flock by himself and the lonely life leads him to brood on
his wrongs. Since the beginning of the hay harvest he has roosted on the
front ladder of the hayrack, and when either man or beast has passed him
he has gobbled viciously and "cursed them by their gods." If there is
any truth in the old saying that curses, like chickens, come home to
roost, that turkey will have a terrible time of it if the curses he has
uttered this summer ever decide to hold an old home week. Though he is a
big bird, only a small percentage of them will be able to find a
roosting place.
Even though Sheppy did not figure in the rumpus when I was chasing away
the colts that scared the cows and led to my kicking the titled cat, he
was in the offing, with his tongue hanging out. He had done his work of
bringing the cows to the pasture gate, and was in a position to watch
the disturbance with the air of one who had done his work properly and
did not need to concern himself with vulgar rows. At the present time
Sheppy lacks something of his customary steam owing to a rather serious
blood-letting. One afternoon he came to the door with blood dripping
freely from the end of his tail. I thought he would be competent to look
after his wounds, but I was mistaken. When next I looked at him the
blood was still flowing freely. On catching him I found that he had
somehow severed an artery in his tail, and I had to improvise a
tourniquet to stop the flow. Everything was satisfactory until next day,
when the tight cord seemed to hurt him. He worried it off with his
teeth, and the blood started to spurt again. After I had bound up his
wound again I started to investigate to find out how the accident
occurred. Happening to remember that the mowing machine was standing in
the barnyard, with the mowing-bar in the air, I examined it. Between a
guard and a blade of the knife I found a bunch of Sheppy's hair.
Evidently when passing the mower he had wagged an affable tail against
the knife and it had got caught. In getting away he almost clipped a
couple of inches off the end of his tail. He hasn't seemed so spunky
since losing so much blood, but if there is anything in ancient medical
lore, he probably stands the heat better.
_LVII.--Human Nature in Dumb Creatures_
It is a mistake to suppose that any quality, habit, trick, failing,
weakness, virtue or other characteristic is peculiar to mankind. The
dumb creatures about the place have every one of them. If I were to
watch them carefully I feel sure that I could find instances of
everything from the Seven Deadly Sins to the Seven Cardinal Virtues, and
that without leaving the barnyard. It is all very well for us to talk
about getting rid of our animal natures as if that would mark an upward
step in our development but what interests me is how to rid the dumb
creatures of what can only be described as their human natures. It is
always the human things they do that arouse my wrath or make me laugh.
For instance, our old gobbler gives every evening one of the most human
exhibitions of over-bearing meanness that I have ever witnessed. I
thought it was only society people, and a particularly annoying brand of
them at that, who had the habit of waiting until other people were
comfortably seated at a concert or theatre and then walking in,
disturbing every one and perhaps making quite a few get up to make way
for them as they progressed towards their seats. I thought this trick
was confined to people who wished to show their importance, and new
clothes and didn't mind how much they bothered other people. But since
watching our gobbler going to roost I have come to the conclusion that
this kind of conduct on the part of society people at public
entertainments is not due to vanity or a desire to show off but to
fundamental cussedness and a wicked delight in causing as much
discomfort as possible to other people.
* * * * *
The old gobbler has become expert at ascending the roof of the stable
and not only does the trick with ease but puts frills on it. When
roosting time comes round each evening, the mother hen and her flock of
young gobblers and hens go to roost quietly and circumspectly like
ordinary folks. The old gobbler, on the contrary, waits around and picks
up grains of oats about the stacks and hunts for crickets and keeps up
an air of being busy until it is almost dark and the rest of his tribe
are settled for the night--or think they are. When he finally makes up
his mind that it is bedtime he stretches his neck a few times, first in
one direction and then in another, and takes a look at the top of the
stable with one eye and then with the other and at last makes a flying
leap or a leaping fly that lands him on the ridge-board. That would be
all right if he were satisfied after he got there, but he is not. He
insists on roosting on the extreme north end of the ridge-board and he
always flies up on the south end. There is no reason why he should not
fly up at the north end but he never does it and I am inclined to think
from watching his actions that he flies up on the south end on purpose.
Anyway, as soon as he gets up and gets his balance he starts to walk
towards the north along the ridge-board. As soon as he comes to the
first of his offspring he gives a sharp peck with his bill and the
youngster gets up squeaking and moves along ahead of him. Presently he
has them all huddled on the ridge-board along the north end and the fun
begins. The polite thing for him to do would be to step down on the
shingles and walk around them, but does he do it? I should say not. He
gives the nearest youngster a vicious peck that makes him jump in the
air and land sprawling a few feet down on the shingles. In rapid
succession he deals with the fourteen youngsters and their mother in
the same way and for a few minutes the roof is covered with squeaking,
sprawling, protesting turkeys. As he pecks them out of his way he walks
along the ridge-board to his chosen roosting place and when he finally
reaches it he stretches his neck arrogantly while the others scramble
back to the top and settle down for the night. When they have settled
down the old bully settles down also with as much dignity as a dowager
who has disturbed a whole seatful of music lovers at a concert or opera.
You needn't tell me that there isn't something human about a gobbler
that does such things as that.
* * * * *