[Illustration:
“She made them gallop around an imaginary ring.”
See page 79.]
The Book of Clever
Beasts
Studies in Unnatural History
By
Myrtle Reed
Illustrated by Peter Newell
[Illustration: wolf drawing]
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1904
_By_ Myrtle Reed
---
Love Letters of a Musician
Later Love Letters of a Musician
The Spinster Book
Lavender and Old Lace
Pickaback Songs
The Shadow of Victory
The Master’s Violin
The Book of Clever Beasts
[Illustration: cat drawing]
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY
MYRTLE REED
Published, October, 1904
[Illustration: crow drawing]
Dedicated to
Lovers of Truth
Everywhere
[Illustration: owl drawing]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LITTLE UPSIDAISI 1
II. JAGG, THE SKOOTAWAY GOAT 22
III. SNOOF 51
IV. KITCHI-KITCHI 82
V. JIM CROW 108
VI. HOOP-LA 136
VII. JENNY RAGTAIL 168
VIII. HOOT-MON 198
IX. APPENDIX 225
[Illustration: bear drawing]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“She made them gallop around an imaginary ring” _Frontispiece_
“Instinctively, I followed them” 20
“There was something very human in the grateful 36
look he gave me just before closing his eyes”
“Her little hand rested confidingly in his great 68
paw”
“She arrived on the fair, open page of my 94
observation ledger, sooty, panting, but
thoroughly happy”
“Put the crotch under his wing, and with this 116
improvised crutch, went back to the cabin”
“Hoop-La sat beside me, with her hands on her 154
sides, rocking and swaying in a spasm of
merriment”
“In plain sight of the whole school, punished him 186
severely with a lady’s slipper”
“Coquetting like lovers on a moonlight night” 204
[Illustration: rabbit drawing]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Although practically all the Nature Books of recent years have been
carefully studied in order to gather material for this volume, the
author desires to make grateful acknowledgment of her indebtedness to
the following works, which have proved particularly helpful and
suggestive:
JOHN BURROUGHS:
_Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers._
“Real and Sham Natural History,” _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1903.
WILLIAM DAVENPORT HULBERT:
_Forest Neighbours._
ERNEST INGERSOLL:
_Wild Life of Orchard and Field._
WILLIAM J. LONG:
_A Little Brother to the Bear._
_Beasts of the Field._
_Ways of Wood Folk._
_Wood Folk at School._
_Secrets of the Woods._
_Wilderness Ways._
“The Modern School of Nature Study and its Critics,” _North
American Review_, May, 1903.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS:
_The Heart of the Ancient Wood._
_The Kindred of the Wild._
ERNEST THOMPSON-SETON:
_Wild Animals I Have Known._
_Lives of the Hunted._
MASON A. WALTON:
_A Hermit’s Wild Friends._
[Illustration: duck drawing]
THE BOOK OF CLEVER BEASTS
[Illustration: goat drawing]
LITTLE UPSIDAISI
I shall never forget the day I first saw him! That, indeed, was a day to
be marked in my note-book with a red cross. I kept red ink and maltese
ink in my cabin, to be used when things did or did not happen, as the
case might be. By this simple method I was enabled to keep track of the
notes suitable for the magazines which pay the best, reserving the
others for the periodicals which reimburse their army of contributors at
the starvation rate of a cent a word, no distinction being made between
long and short words. It is depressing, when you think of it, that a
long scientific name brings no more than a plain Anglo-Saxon word in one
syllable, and that only a cent apiece is paid for new words coined for
the occasion and which have never before been printed in any book.
But I digress. It was early in the Spring when my physician said to me:
“My dear Mr. Johnson-Sitdown, you are getting dashed dotty.” This was a
pleasing allusion to my employment, for, as the discerning reader has
long since guessed, I was a telegraph operator in a great city, where
the click of the instrument was superadded to the roar of the elevated
trains, the rumble of the surface cars, and the nerve-destroying
concussions made by the breaking of the cable during rush hours morning
and evening.
“What you need,” said this gifted scientist to me, “is absolute rest and
quiet. If you do not pack up and take to the woods within three days
from the receipt of this notice, I will not answer for the consequences.
Your brain is slowly but surely giving way. Your batteries are becoming
exhausted and must be renewed if measurable currents are to be expected.
I recommend new cells, rather than recharging from a dynamo. Get busy
now, and let me see you no more until September first.”
Face to face with my death warrant, as it were, I unhesitatingly obeyed.
Fortunately, my grandmother had left me a small log cabin in a clearing,
this being her ancestral domicile and the only piece of real estate she
possessed at the time of her long-delayed demise some months back.
Without waiting to inspect it, I hurried to my new home, accompanied
only by a few books on Natural History—which, as I afterward discovered,
were by ignorant and untrustworthy writers, seeking to prey upon the
credulity of the uninstructed public,—and Tom-Tom, my Cat.
I had not intended to take Tom-Tom, but his fine animal instinct warned
him of my impending departure, and he sat upon my bookcase and wailed
piteously all through my packing. My foolish heart has always been
strangely tender toward the lower animals, and I hastened to reassure
Tom-Tom. After a little, I made him understand that wherever I went he
should go also, and he frisked about my apartment like a wild thing at
play, waving his tail madly in the exuberance of his joy.
Among the ignorant, the waving of a tail by any member of the Cat family
is taken to mean anger. According to my own observations, it may also
indicate joy. Darwin has distinguished several canine emotions which are
distinctively expressed in the bark. Correlatively, I have tabulated
eight emotions expressed by the _caudalis appendagis felinis_, according
to the method of waving it—down, up, right, left, twice to the right,
once to the left, then up, and so on. These discoveries I reserve for a
future article, as I began to tell about Little Upsidaisi.
When I reached my home in the wilderness, it was nearly nightfall. I had
only time to unpack my books, place them upon a rough shelf I hastily
constructed, draw out the rude table which happened to be in a corner of
my cabin, and place upon it my observation ledger, my pocket note-book,
and my red and maltese inks.
Tom-Tom watched my proceedings with great interest, and after I had
built my camp-fire, just outside the cabin door, we ate our frugal meal
of bologna, wienerwursts, pretzels, and canned salmon, relying upon the
cracker-box for bread, which Tom-Tom did not seem to care for. I was too
tired to make either bread or coffee, but promised myself both for
breakfast the following morning.
Before retiring, I made a pilgrimage to the beach and secured nearly a
peck of fine sand. I scattered this all about my cabin, that in the
morning I might see what visitors had left their cards, so to speak,
upon this tell-tale medium of communication.
My first night in the clearing was uneventful. The unusual quiet kept me
awake, and I thought that if someone would only pound a tin pan under my
window, I could soon lose consciousness. The Cat purred methodically in
the hollow of my arm, but even with the noise of my Tom-Tom in my ears,
it was four o’clock, according to my jewelled repeater, before I finally
got to sleep.
When I awoke, it was broad day, and after dressing hurriedly, I ran out
to look at the sand, which the Cat had not disturbed, being sound asleep
still. Poor Tom-Tom! Perhaps he, too, found a cabin in the wilderness an
unusual resting place.
Much to my delight, though hardly to my surprise, the sand was covered
with a fine tracery, almost like lace-work. The prints of tiny toes were
to be discovered here and there, and now and then a broad sweep,
evidently made by a tail.
I would have thought it the work of fairies, dancing in the moonlight,
had I not dedicated my life to Science. As it was, I surmised almost
instantly that it was the Field Mouse—the common species, known as
_rodentia feminis scarus_, and reference to my books proved me right.
By measuring the prints, according to the metric system, with delicate
instruments I had brought for the purpose, I soon discovered that these
tracks were all made by the same individual. The Bertillon method has
its uses, but unfortunately I was not sufficiently up in my calling, as
yet, to reconstruct the entire animal from a track. I have since done
it, but I could not then.
Tom-Tom came out into the sunlight, waving his glorious, plumed tail,
yawning, and loudly demanding food. I called him to me, using the old,
familiar Cat-call which I have always employed with the species, and the
faithful pet made a great bound toward me. Suddenly he stopped, as if
caught on a foul half-way to the grand stand, and began to sniff
angrily. His back arched, his tail enlarged, and began to wave in a
circle. Great agitation possessed Tom-Tom, and he, too, was scrutinising
the sand.
Wondering at his fine instinct, I hastened to his side, and, thereupon,
my pet unmistakably hissed. It required a magnifying-glass and some
reconstruction of line before I could make out what had so disturbed
him, but at last I discovered that a rude picture of a Cat had been
drawn in the sand, evidently by a tail tipped with malice, immediately
in front of my cabin door!
Truth compels me to state that the hideous caricature was not unlike
Tom-Tom in its essential lines. No wonder he was angry! Before I could
get a photograph of the spot, however, Tom-Tom had clawed it out of
existence. Nothing remained but to soothe his ruffled feelings, which I
did with a fresh Fish newly caught from the lake.
During the day, I meditated upon my nocturnal visitor. Evidently he had
drawn the Cat in the sand as a warning to others of his kind, as some
specimens of the genus _homo_ mark gate-posts. That night I made the
sand smooth before retiring, and in the morning I looked anxiously for
further messages, but there was nothing there. A charm had evidently
been set against my cabin door.
I began to consider getting rid of Tom-Tom, feeling sure that the Mice
would know it if I did so, but after long study, I concluded that it was
better to keep my faithful companion than to wait in loneliness for
problematical visitors.
The health-giving weeks passed by, and I gained in strength each day.
When I went there, I was so weak that I could not have spanked a baby,
but I soon felt equal to discharging a cook.
Frequently I went far away from the cabin, in the search for food and
firewood, leaving Tom-Tom at home to keep house. The intelligent animal
missed me greatly, but seldom offered to go along, his padded feet not
being suited to the long overland journeys. I made him some chamois-skin
boots out of some of the Natural History Shams I found in print, and,
for a few times, he gallantly accompanied me, but it soon became evident
that he preferred to stay at home and bear his loneliness, rather than
to face dangers that he knew not of.
When I returned from my hunting trips with a string of Fish, a load of
wood, a basket of Quail on toast, or some other woodland delicacy,
Tom-Tom, who was watching from the roof of the cabin, would sight me
from afar off, and after putting on his boots to protect his tender
feet, would come to meet me by leaps and bounds, purring like a
locomotive under full steam. Words cannot describe my joy at this
hospitable greeting, and I made up my mind that I would love and cherish
Tom-Tom, even though I never saw a Mouse again.
However, as we became accustomed to our new home, Tom-Tom regained some
part of his former courage, and at times would wander quite a distance
from the cabin. His method was really very original and deserves
recording, as I have not since found it in any book on Natural History.
At the time, I marked it among my own observations, appropriately
enough, with a maltese cross.
With the long, prolonged howl which meant farewell, Tom-Tom plunged into
the depths of the forest, stopping at the first tree to sharpen his
claws. Suspecting that he was in search of game for our Sunday dinner, I
followed him cautiously at a respectful interval. Strangely enough, I
found that the trees leading to the left, for a long way into the wood,
were scarred with Tom-Tom’s claws. It was some time before the
significance of this burst upon me. He was blazing his trail through the
woods that he might not get lost coming home.
As time went on, these absences became more frequent, and once he even
stayed out all night. In the morning the delicate tracery was again seen
in the sand around my cabin door, only this time there was no picture of
a Cat.
While I was engaged with my household tasks, I felt myself observed.
Turning, I saw upon my door-sill a little white-throated Field Mouse,
sitting upright, and waving a friendly paw at me in salutation. It was
Little Upsidaisi! I always called him that, thinking the Indian name
much more musical than our own.
As soon as he saw me looking at him, he hurried away, but the memory of
the hunted look in his bright eyes haunted me for many a day.
I saw very little of Tom-Tom now. For days together he would remain away
from home, and I was lonely indeed. Late one afternoon, as I returned
from my hunting trip, I saw a picture of a Cat newly drawn in the sand,
and after it, very distinctly, was placed a large interrogation point.
Fully understanding the work of that wonderful tail, I took the point of
my umbrella and printed in large letters, “NO,” underlining it to make
it more emphatic. After that, Upsidaisi came every day, selecting such
times as the Cat was out. He seemed to feel that he had a friend and
protector in me.
Before many weeks had passed, Upsidaisi had become more bold. He
practically lived in the cabin, and took refuge in my sleeve or trouser
leg upon approach of the Cat. Tom-Tom, engrossed with affairs of his
own, seemed unconscious of his rival’s presence, and this was well, for
Upsidaisi was faithful and Tom-Tom was not.
How well I remember the day when Tom-Tom came in suddenly, and saw
Upsidaisi sitting on the edge of my plate, helping himself daintily to
fried bacon with a straw from the broom neatly slit at one end! There
was a low growl from the Cat and a snort of terror from Upsidaisi as he
ran down my neck for safety. I wore larger collars in those days, that
the panics of my little friend might not cause a stricture in my
œsophagus.
After that, it was war to the knife, as I too well understood, and I
could only tremble and wait for the end. Both of my pets were aflame
with jealousy, and there could be but one result. The end of a wild
animal is always a tragedy.
One day, when Little Upsidaisi was asleep in my hat, I followed
Tom-Tom’s trail into the woods, paying close attention to the marks upon
the trees. Far away, so far away that I no longer wondered how the Cat
had worn out eight separate and distinct boots in as many weeks, I came
upon a nest at the foot of a pine tree, in the hollow formed by the
outspreading roots, and lined with the fragrant pine needles.
A large, matronly, black and white Cat sat proudly on the nest, brooding
over her young. She trembled at my approach, but did not seek safety in
flight. With a few kind words I lifted her, and discovered six squalling
little ones under her. One black, yellow, and white egg was not yet
hatched, but I could see that very soon a little tortoise-shell kitten
would claim her maternal care.
So this was the explanation of Tom-Tom’s defection! Where he had found
his mate, I did not know. Close by was a square of red blanket, which
had been mysteriously cut out of my bed covering, and my best tin cup,
freshly filled with cream, was within the mother’s easy reach. One of
Tom-Tom’s worn-out shoes, at a little distance from the nest, completed
the evidence.
I took pains, after this, to scatter desirable food and clothing for
mother and children along Tom-Tom’s ghostly trail. The next day these
were always missing, and Tom-Tom seemed grateful in his dumb way, though
he presumed too far upon my sympathies and took to petty larceny.
For instance, I had a little black box, with a hinged cover, upon my
table. I kept in it pens, postage stamps, and other small implements of
the writer’s craft. One day I found my pens neatly piled upon my table
and the stamps blowing about the cabin. Upon searching for the box, I
found it, carefully placed at the foot of a tree, and freshly filled
with catnip. Upon the cover were scratched these words: “Magdalene
Tom-Tom, from her devoted Cat-band.” I inferred from this that the
tortoise-shell egg had hatched and that the seven youngsters were all
lively. I meditated reclaiming my property, but after thinking it over,
concluded to let the incident pass without comment. It might be in
celebration of some sentimental anniversary, and Tom-Tom’s peace of mind
might be at stake; but I took the precaution to lock up everything else
which I wished to keep.
Upon the shelf in the cabin was a cigar box where Little Upsidaisi
slept. I had made a very soft nest for him with some returned
manuscripts, and endeavoured to keep food and drink in one corner of it.
Thus, at any hour of the day or night, he might be safe from the Cat and
well provided for.
After a little, as the trying duties of paternity relaxed, Tom-Tom, thin
and pale as he was, took to spending a part of his evenings at home, and
I trembled lest his acute senses should lead him to the cigar box. It
was tightly closed, except for the little opening gnawed just below the
cover, which made sort of a slot for Little Upsidaisi’s tail and kept it
from being pinched when he got into the box.
Still, things went on smoothly, and Tom-Tom claimed his old place in my
affections, ignorant of the fact that his rival slept in the cigar box
above. There was a period of three days, once, when Tom-Tom did not
leave the cabin, and I did not go out either, as I thought it safer to
remain. There was no telling what might happen in my absence.
At the end of the third day, I sat at my little table, recording various
valuable observations in my ledger, when suddenly a terrible thought
struck me. I had forgotten to feed Little Upsidaisi!
I dared not make any attempt at it while Tom-Tom was watching me, and
though I tried more than once, I could not decoy him out of the cabin. I
wondered what had become of my little pet, and feared to find him
stretched out stark and stiff upon the returned manuscripts. My heart
reproached me bitterly.
Strangely enough, I was recording in my journal at that instant the fact
that the Field Mice seemed to have no method of communication with the
outside world, except the picture language made with the sharpened tip
of the tail. While I was considering what to do, and whether or not to
use force and temporarily eject Tom-Tom, a faint, far-away tapping
assailed my ears, which my anxious mind soon traced to the cigar box
upon the shelf.
At the succession of taps, my hair stood up in astonishment and I rose
to my feet with such violence that Tom-Tom was frightened. _Little
Upsidaisi was attempting to communicate with me by means of the Morse
code!_
I am well aware that this will not be believed by the reader, but I can
only set down my own observations and trust to later explorations to
substantiate my claims.
Tap-tap-tap, the ghostly message came, and, trembling with excitement
though I was, I managed to make out the words:
“What do you take me for? Do you want to starve me to death? Can’t you
get rid of that blanked Cat?” Courtesy to my readers compels me to use
the word “blanked” in place of the profane adjective Little Upsidaisi
applied to Tom-Tom.
A desperate expedient possessed me. After tapping out a few words for
Upsidaisi’s comfort, I made a low Kitten cry, such as used to perplex my
teacher in my younger days. With every sense instantly alert, Tom-Tom
erected his tail and started off down the trail like a blue streak.
I supplied the exhausted Mouse with food and drink, and bade him be
patient until the following day, using the form of speech which he so
readily understood.
Tom-Tom soon returned with the air of a fire engine which has just
chased up a false alarm. He watched me very closely, and the following
day, as I tapped out a message of hope to Upsidaisi, I noted a gleam of
intelligence in Tom-Tom’s green eyes. I began to wonder, but I had no
time to frame a definite thought, for, with a prolonged meow, Tom-Tom
scratched on the floor vigorously, and my accustomed ears soon made out,
through the bewildering succession of dots and dashes, another message
in the Morse code.
“Where is that blamed Mouse?” it said. “My Kittens are about to be
weaned and require solid food.”
There was a terrible cry of pain from the shelf, and before I could
protest or interfere in any way, Little Upsidaisi was out of the cabin,
running like mad, with Tom-Tom in full pursuit.
Instinctively, I followed them—through the dense undergrowth, over open
fields, through barbed wire fences, along unblazed forest trails, and so
on, with Upsidaisi always several lengths in the lead.
Even if I would, I could not interfere, and I had long since learned
that it is the truest kindness to let the animals fight it out among
themselves, since the fittest must survive and the weakest be crushed to
the wall.
Now and then I heard a sob from the grass, where the Mouse was running
in deathly fear, and deep, harsh breathings from Tom-Tom, who was now
gaining his second wind and plunging ever closer to his hapless victim.
A little ahead was the railroad track, which much surprised me. I had
been so interested that I had kept no account of the distance and it
came to me with something of a shock that we had run over ten miles.
On went the mad struggle for life. There was a whistle near by, and I
knew the express was coming. Upsidaisi was nowhere in sight, and Tom-Tom
was nosing through the long grass eagerly. Then there was a little
glimmer of white and silver in the sun, and Upsidaisi flew across the
track just as the express rounded the curve. Tom-Tom followed, heedless
of his danger, and the cow-catcher, striking his tense body, threw him
so far up into the air that the corpse has not yet been recovered.
I stood aghast at the fiendish cleverness of it. Little Upsidaisi had
decoyed his enemy to the track, at the very moment the express was to
pass!
Scarcely conscious of what I did, I picked up the exhausted Mouse and
walked home in a brown study. My soul was torn with grief at the loss of
my pet, but the new facts in Natural History that I had learned were
worth some sacrifice.
As I sat at my table, writing in my journal, I heard a low, mournful
sound from the shelf and then the words, tapped out in the Morse code:
“Forgive me; I had to do it.”
[Illustration: “Instinctively, I followed them.”]
I foolishly paid no attention, but went on writing down the noble ideas
that surged hotly through my brain. Later on—I shall never know how much
later—I heard the dull sound of a falling body, and the pungent odour of
cyanide of potassium filled the room. The bottle of it which I kept on
the shelf to attract butterflies had been opened and drained to the
dregs.
Close by it, with the glaze of death over his bright eyes, lay
Upsidaisi. Heart-broken by my coldness, the little Mouse had committed
suicide.
* * * * *
Little feet, little feet, shall I see your delicate tracery no more
around the door of my cabin in the wilderness? The end of a wild animal
is always a tragedy.
[Illustration: cat drawing]
JAGG, THE SKOOTAWAY GOAT
After the tragical deaths of Tom-Tom and Upsidaisi, my life was
strangely lonely. No one who has not experienced it can realise the
subtle, almost spiritual attachment which may exist between man and his
kindred of the wild. The Squirrels barked at each other, but there was
no bark for me except on the oak tree at my cabin door. The little Birds
sang, but not for me. Whenever I approached a thicket where the woodland
chorus was in rehearsal, trying to learn the Bird-calls which are
printed in the books, there was a spontaneous silence which seemed to
possess a positive rather than a negative quality.
I felt like a marked man. In my fevered fancy I could hear the wood
creatures saying to one another: “There goes the man who lived with
Little Upsidaisi. By the way, have you seen Upsidaisi lately? What a
brute the man looks, to be sure! Come, let us skip, while we have the
time.”
So it was that I seemed to be the centre of an ever-widening circle of
departure. Feet pattered away from me in a continual diminuendo, dying
at last into that mournful, unchanging silence which encompassed me like
a blanket of gloom.
It is not my intention to depress the reader, but the scientific
observer must make accurate records, and my mental state at the time may
have been partially responsible for what followed.
Regularly, I took my walk of fourteen miles into town. At first I had
contented myself with weekly visits to the post-office, but as the
returned manuscripts augmented, I went every morning and took my simple
breakfast at a restaurant. For some occult reason, I have never been
able to make coffee even remotely resembling that customarily prepared
by my immediate ancestor on the feminine side.
The long, business-like envelopes which I received every morning
contributed largely to my local importance, and the gossip of the place
buzzed eternally about my head. According to some, I was an insurance
agent. Others admitted me to the bar without examination, and a certain
keen observer, well up in the guileful ways of commerce, thought I had
paid two dollars to get my name on somebody’s “list,” thereby being
guaranteed “lots of mail.”
Fortunately, no hint of my true calling escaped, and the rejection
blanks continued to accumulate. I have preserved these with the idea of
incorporating them in a psychological treatise on _The Gentle Art of
Turning Down_, which will be printed as soon as I get a publisher for
the noble, epoch-making volume upon which I am at present engaged.
I had learned that editors were variable, and were not always what they
seemed. A rejection was merely an indication of the man’s mood at the
time he got my piece, and I have, more than once, sold the same thing to
him later for a goodly sum. I offer no explanation of this, as my field
is limited to animal, rather than human observations, and the Labour
Union to which I belong is very strict in such matters. I may be
permitted to add, however, that one editor, to whom I sent a mental
fledgling for the second or third time, wrote me a personal letter in
which he said that he was no more of a fool now than he was three months
ago. I do not know what he could have meant by the statement, but I
record it in the hope that someone else may.
For a long period there had been nothing in my note-book but maltese
crosses and items pertaining to the weather and to my daily tasks. One
morning it rained so hard that I was obliged to postpone my walk to town
until afternoon. I made the journey in the usual time, secured the
customary number of returned manuscripts, and bought stamps to send them
out again. I thought, as I turned away, that the pursuit of literature
was little more than sending out manuscripts to get money to buy stamps
to send out manuscripts to get money to buy stamps to send out
manuscripts to get money to buy stamps to—but I forbear. My meditations
ran on like this for three pages or more, and the end was like the
beginning, so what’s the use?
As I approached the station, I saw several of my fellow-townsmen headed
for the north-east. They had a determined, yet pleasantly excited air
which interested me, and I went back to make inquiries of the
postmaster.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
“Hey?”
“I asked where they were going.”
“Who?”
I inclined my head toward the company on the far horizon. I could not
incline it much, for it was heavy, being full of books.
“Oh,” said the postmaster. “Them. Over to Porcupine Hill.”
“Porcupine Hill!” I repeated in astonishment. “Where is it?”
“Follow your nose,” he replied, somewhat brusquely, slamming down the
window in a way which indicated that the interview was ended.
My pulses throbbed with new joy, for here, at last, was a diversion. I
lost no time in following my nose, first taking the precaution to point
that useful organ in a bee-line with the disappearing company.
Ultimately I joined them, to their surprise if not their pleasure.
“We’re late,” said one of them. “The show’s just beginning.”
I quickened my steps to a run, and was presently brought up with a round
turn against a rope stretched across the foot of the hill. Several
strange-looking balls were rolling from the crest toward us, and a man
with a note-book was registering bets, all of which, however, were in
small coin.
“What is it?” I inquired in a loud, clear voice which commanded instant
attention.
“Porcupines,” answered a courteous gentleman in blue overalls, a hickory
shirt, and one suspender. “Every afternoon at two, when it ain’t
raining, they roll down that there hill.”
“You be n’t a detective, be you?” asked an agitated voice at my elbow.
It was the postmaster.
“I am not,” I returned, with freezing dignity.
“All right,” continued the postmaster. “Here, bookie, ten to one on
Salina Ann. Salina’s a high roller,” he explained, turning to me, “but
she ain’t in this race.”
The Porcupines came in at our feet, a huge dark one rolling under the
wire three lengths ahead. Dizzy, exhausted, and panting, he sat up
straight for a moment, launched a playful quill at the bookmaker, and
shambled off around the hillside.
Upon the crest of a distant hill, a single figure sat in monumental
silence. It had two points at the top, and I wondered what it might be.
At last I concluded that it was a rock.
Throughout the long, sunny afternoon, I watched the interesting pastime
with keen enjoyment. Had not my exchequer been so pitifully low, I
should have staked a dime or so myself upon Salina Ann. She won three
races in succession and finally retired, giddy, but triumphant.
When the last race was over, as much as four dollars had changed hands,
and there were loud protests against the system of bookmaking employed.
As an outsider, I was appealed to, but I declined to interfere, and,
remembering the long fourteen-mile walk which lay between me and my
cabin, I loosened up for the home stretch, noting, as I started, that
the peculiar, pointed rock had disappeared from the opposite hill.
During the ninth mile from the Porcupine track, I was acutely conscious
of observation. Little Brothers of the Woods can always feel the bright
eyes that are turned upon them from the thickets. I paused several
times, but heard nothing and saw nothing, though I put on my glasses and
thus gained a sort of second sight.
Afterward, I meditated. Perhaps the ban upon me had been removed and the
forest folk no longer feared to look at me. I made one maltese cross in
my note-book, drawing a red circle about it to indicate possibilities,
and entered a full account of the Porcupine race, which so far,
according to my knowledge, has been described by only one other writer.
My sleep was more nearly normal that night than it had been since the
lamentable occurrences chronicled in the previous chapter.
For a time, my life was as usual. I arose in the morning, just before
sunrise, and took a cold bath in the lake. Then I built a fire and made
coffee. I had postponed my trips to town until afternoon in order to
attend the Porcupine races, and this condemned me to drink my own
coffee, but many sacrifices must be made by the earnest student. I would
wash the dishes, swishing them back and forth in the lake, sweep and
dust the cabin, and, by nine o’clock, be ready to devote myself to
literature.
I worked until twelve, when I prepared luncheon, cleared up again, cut
wood if I needed it, and started for town. I had timed myself and
learned that it took me just forty minutes to walk the fourteen miles. I
thus had ample time to go to the post-office, and usually reached
Porcupine Hill a few minutes before the entertainment began.
It must have been two weeks later that, in the same section of the
homeward trail, I again felt myself keenly observed. It was disquieting,
more especially as I beat about among the bushes for a long time without
finding anything. I meditated that night in two separate meditations of
one hour each, but came to no conclusions.
By the pitiless light of high noon and the baldly truthful report of my
grandmother’s cracked mirror, opportunely left in the cabin, I
discovered that I was moulting at the top, and cast about for some means
to remedy the condition, not caring to be a front row observer at the
noble drama of Unnatural History. While in town that day, I purchased a
small flask of whiskey, as I had seen in the beauty columns, more than
once, that it was a good hair tonic, but I did not know whether to apply
it internally or externally.
I attended the Porcupine race that afternoon, and lost forty-three cents
on Salina Ann, who flunked miserably every time. Much depressed, I
started homeward, just at sunset, and, in a quiet place, I attempted to
improve my spirits by taking a teaspoonful of the hair tonic. I learned
immediately that the remedy was not meant to be used internally, and I
did not doubt that external application would produce a crop of tresses
which might well be the envy of a professional musician.
A little nearer my cabin than before, I was once more conscious of the
fact that I was not alone. Somewhat excited, I crept into the thicket
and swung my knapsack about violently. I distinctly detected a strange
odour, which was like nothing else on earth, but otherwise all was as
usual except for an inexplicable breeze blowing directly against the
wind.
Fancy an Indian blanket, of Angora wool, which has been used by three
tribes indiscriminately, year in and year out, in sickness and in
health, hanging on a clothes line with a high wind blowing. Let the wind
be blowing from the east and the scientific observer be standing just
west of the blanket. It will give you a faint idea of what I met in the
thicket, though at the time I wrongly attributed it to the
misapplication of the hair tonic.
On reaching my cabin I discovered that the flask had dropped out of my
knapsack when I swung it through the undergrowth, but, rather than go
back, I determined to spend another fifty cents the next day, provided
that I could do so without drawing upon myself unjust suspicion.
The next day—ah, with what emotion I write those words! How little do we
dream, as we close our eyes in peaceful slumber, what the next day may
bring forth! Careless, happy, even whistling as was my wont, I performed
my simple household tasks, rejoicing in the fragrant morning air, the
cheery chatter of the Squirrels, and the progress of the pan of bread I
was baking over my open fire.
From the woods at the left came a brisk breeze. Someone seemed to be
airing a blanket such as I have described above. Before I had time to
investigate, a huge white ball rolled toward me, with no visible means
of propulsion. There was no incline and the speed of it was tremendous.
Deep, pointed excavations marked the trail over which it came, and my
hair was raised far beyond the potential power of the lost tonic. So
swiftly that I was breathless with wonder, the thing rolled into my
fire.
Then there was a shrill cry of pain, but the momentum was too great, and
it went straight on through, stopping on the other side of my woodland
hearthstone, singed, and apparently dead. Trembling with excitement, I
made my way toward it, but before I could offer my sympathetic
assistance, it had assorted itself and was standing up on four singed
and shaky legs.
It was Jagg.
How a Goat had penetrated that fastness, where the hands of few white
men had ever trod, was beyond me, but it was a condition and not a
theory which confronted me. Here, at my hospitable door, so lately made
desolate by the departure of Tom-Tom and Little Upsidaisi, was a new and
wonderful creature. The singeing had overpowered the Indian blanket
_motif_ and made way for the softer notes of the hair tonic. Jagg was
plainly intoxicated, and immediately upon my recognition of it, I named
him.
His suffering was pathetic. The burns were merely superficial, but he
was very much soiled, and his head was swollen far beyond its normal
limits. His tongue, which he promptly offered for my inspection, was
dark brown and fuzzy. He sat down, stroked his brow wearily with one of
his four feet (fore, if you prefer), and stuttered out an hysterical
bleat.
My friends in the telegraph office used to characterise me occasionally
as a Goat, and I am not prepared to admit that there is not something in
the theory of reincarnation, for at that moment a great pity dominated
me.
“Jagg, old man,” I said, tenderly, “you have misjudged your capacity and
you are full. Come.”
He followed me into the cabin, eager, yet shamefaced, and I lifted him
to my bed. I anointed his burns with carron oil and tied a cold wet
bandage over his temples. He was only an ordinary Goat, with the
customary tuft of spinach in the maxillary region, now badly singed, but
there was something very human in the grateful look he gave me just
before closing his eyes for twenty-one hours of sodden sleep.
I rolled up in an extra blanket that night and slept on the floor of the
cabin, rather than disturb Jagg. We might have slept together without
violating any of the precepts of _The Ladies’ Own_, for, even in high
circles, people often sleep with Kids, but my natural instincts were
against it and I let Jagg have the bed.
In the morning, I closely scrutinised the ground over which my
butter-ball had come. At regular intervals were the deep, pointed
excavations before referred to, and I surmised that they had been made
by his horns. In them I appropriately planted goatsrue. My grandmother
had left some seeds of this herb on the shelf in the cabin, and I had
been intending to plant them for some time.
I followed the trail into the woods until I came to the thicket where I
had felt myself observed. The empty flask lay on the ground and
corroborated my suspicions. The branches were broken down all through
the shrubbery, and the bare earth was thick with tiny hoof-marks in
prints of two and three which were strangely suggestive of a waltz.
When I went back, Jagg came out of the cabin, very pale and repentant,
blinking sleepily and wagging his insignificant tail. I spoke a few kind
words to him and we breakfasted together.
In less than a week he had recovered his spirits, and his devotion to me
was really extraordinary. He followed me like an unpaid bill and never
took his eyes away from me except to sleep. At night he lay like a dog
in my cabin door, whither he had dragged his bed, and usually waked me
by prodding me playfully, in some sensitive spot, with the sharp tip of
one of his horns.
[Illustration:
“There was something very human in the grateful look he gave me just
before closing his eyes.”]
There was something mysterious in his eyes. They were fairly human in
their expressiveness, and his intelligence was also of that high order
which Man proudly claims as his own. I discovered it accidentally.
Most hermits, I find, are wont to relieve their solitude by declaiming
poetry, and I was no exception to the rule. I knew all of _Thanatopsis_
and most of _The Ancient Mariner_. When I recited these, Jagg always
listened with an air of polite interest. One morning, however, as I
built my fire, I chanced to repeat Cowper’s beautiful lines beginning:
“O for a lodge in some vast wilderness!”
Immediately my attention was attracted by Jagg. He tore about madly,
giving every evidence of joy, bleating loudly, and furiously wagging his
stub of a tail. He stood on his head, rising at once to the
perpendicular, then as swiftly reversed. Something happened then which I
could not explain, and I rubbed my eyes in wonder. A moment before he
had been there and now he was nowhere in sight. I never learned how he
did it, for he moved too rapidly for the eye to follow, but, according
to my theory, he put his four feet together and with a single powerful
muscular effort shot himself into space, alighting perhaps a quarter of
a mile distant, and returning when he pleased. This gave him his
sub-title in my records: “The Skootaway Goat.”
At first I was overjoyed to have the faithful animal with me, but, by
insensible degrees, his companionship began to pall. He went with me
once to the Porcupine race, but speedily made both of us unpopular.
Again, I locked him into the cabin, but no sooner had I returned than I
regretted it. He ate one of my note-books and thereby many priceless
observations are lost to the world.
I bought a rope and tied him to a tree, but he joined me at Porcupine
Hill with evident satisfaction at the reunion. I got a long chain from
the village and this foiled him only once. He filed it apart with tooth
and horn and acquired so insatiable an appetite for cold metal that he
even hunted my pockets at night for coins. Canned goods were eaten, tin
and all, as soon as I brought them home. I began to perceive, dimly,
that I must part with Jagg, and ultimately regarded the notion as a
relief measure passed by an overwhelming majority.
Yet ways and means were lacking, and also, possibly, the initiative. He
had grown into a very handsome animal by this time, and I was so
accustomed to him that the woods had an unfriendly, alien smell when I
fared forth alone. I had given up the thought of tying him, and he
usually went with me, quite as a matter of course.
At the post-office one morning, I received a letter from my lawyers,
stating that I had fallen heir to another ancestral estate about one
hundred miles south of my present habitation. My grandfather on my
mother’s side had just been reaped, and this testimonial of his
affection was left to me. I folded the letter idly and stood for some
moments, lost in deep thought. Jagg snatched it out of my hand and ate
it, but not before I had made myself master of its contents. Later on, I
was thankful for the ponderous verbiage with which the idea was
practically swamped, though, as it happened, the obscurity was useless,
the legal description of the property being appended.
Jagg ruminated for some time upon the letter, but experienced no
personal discomfort. He was very intelligent and doubtless believed,
with the great Macaulay, that “a page digested is better than a book
hurriedly read.”
Still we lived together—that is, Jagg lived, and I existed. The sight of
him, through constant attrition, became an annoyance, and finally an
irritation. He ate my clothes, tore all the love scenes out of my small
but choice library of fiction, and took my article on Natural History
Shams to ornament the head of his bed.
Before long I discovered an infallible method of communicating with him.
I would write my remarks on a small slip of paper, in my fine Italian
hand, and feed the paper to Jagg. As soon as it was assimilated into his
system, he understood, but his answers were limited. He could shake his
head when he meant “no” and nod when he meant “yes.” A bleat, of
indescribable tonality, meant that he was unfamiliar with the topic, or
else prevented by his personal handicap from making any sort of an
explanation.
For instance, one fine morning, just at sunrise, I wrote: “Jagg, I am
going to the village this afternoon. Will you be a nice Goatie and stay
at home?”
At nine o’clock, he grasped my meaning. Coming close to my knee he
looked up into my face with an expression of adoring love, and sadly but
firmly shook his head. I never knew him to lie, and at noon, when I
started, Jagg rioted along beside me.
In town, by this time, they had decided that I was an editor on my
Summer vacation, and they used to call us “The Two Bocks.” For some
reason, this irritated me to such an extent that I was ready to lay out
Jagg on his last bier, but I forebore to pull the trigger through a
lingering belief in re-incarnation. Suppose Jagg were my grandmother, or
some other distinguished ancestor? Moreover, I knew, through the subtle
workings of some sixth sense, that I could not lose him before his time.
It happened that the county authorities stopped the Porcupine races by
building barriers of chicken-coop netting here and there across the
hill, and the inhabitants of the village, to a man, blamed me for it. I
protested my innocence, but I was an outsider and my efforts were
futile. The gambling laws are rightfully stringent, but Lambs gambol, so
why not Porcupines?
“’Tain’t no use o’ lyin’ about it,” said the postmaster, shifting his
quid, “you’ve had it in fer us ever since Salina Ann lost you that there
forty-three cents. It was a day for the mud-larks and was heavy goin’,
and you should have known better than to bet on her, but you seemed to
have a hunch. It’s a gent’s sport, partook of by gents, and you’d orter
be able to take defeat like a gent, or else,” he added, with bitter
emphasis, “git!”
Two days later, a boycott was proclaimed against me. I could buy nothing
in the village except postage stamps, and I must either move or starve.
My heart was heavy, then I thought of my new possessions and the cloud
lifted. My medical adviser had chased me out of town until September
first, so I still had a month to live outdoors. I would go, I
decided—and I would lose Jagg. I did not doubt his ability to get his
living—he had got mine, whenever I had brought canned goods home.
I wrote out one morning: “Jagg, I am going to clean house,” and fed him
the slip. An hour or so later he came to me and nodded intelligently,
but I could see the lingering sadness upon his visage and, for the first
time, it struck me that Jagg might once have been married.
Under this safe disguise, I packed my things and swept out the cabin
with a broom and a pail of water. Jagg watched me intently, and I saw
that I would have to deceive him if I escaped. I pondered long after I
had resolved myself into a committee of ways and means, but my bright
ideas were all packed away with moth balls on the high shelf of my mind
until such time as I could get to my typewriter and begin anew the
bombardment of the magazines.
That night we sat in darkness, for Jagg had made a light luncheon of the
only remaining candle, but I was patient and bided my time, knowing that
on the morrow I would give him the last slip.
In the morning I began to scrub the cabin vigorously. When I went after
another cake of soap, I saw that there was nothing left but a piece of
the wrapper about the size of a curl paper, and, since I have the usual
masculine aversion to curl papers and wrappers, I gave an exclamation of
horror.
Jagg’s guilty face betrayed him, and I hastened to my table. “If you ate
that soap,” I wrote, “you will have to stay here while I go to town for
more. If you ate it, nod, and if you are willing to stay, nod. It will
be better for you if you decide to stay.” These last words I underlined
with red ink to give them a sinister significance.
After assimilation, Jagg came to me and nodded twice. He was evidently
sincere in his repentance, so I took my suit case, and my note-books,
and set out for the station with a light heart. He sat in the door of
the cabin, watching me wistfully, and the old, familiar, Indian-blanket
odour sensibly decreased as I progressed.
When I boarded the train, he was nowhere in sight, and my pulses
throbbed with exultation. Freedom at last, after weeks of Jagg! It was
too good to believe.
I found my new cabin occupied by a morose, hickory-shirted individual
christened “Abadiah,” but known simply as “Ab.” He refused to believe
that I was the rightful owner of the place, and I had no way of proving
it, as my evidence had been eaten. He said he’d just “squat” round there
until he saw a written order to move out, and I made the best of a bad
bargain. There were two cots in the cabin, so I did not mind
particularly, and it was not altogether unpleasant to have someone of my
own species with me after my long isolation.
Weary, but foolishly light-hearted, I went to sleep. When I awoke, I had
the same old uneasy feeling of being watched, and, rubbing my eyes, I
saw, sitting on the foot of my cot—who should it be but Jagg, chewing
the cud of reflection?