THE CROWS
Of all the wild life among the dunes, the crow is the most active and
conspicuous. He is ever present in the daytime, and his black form seems
to be intimately associated with nearly every mass and contour in the
landscape.
The artists and the poets can love him, but the hand of the prosaic and
the philistine is against him. His enemies are numberless, and his life
is one of constant combat and elusion. The owls seek him at night, and
during the day he meets antagonism in many forms. Some ornithologists
have tried to find justification for the crow, but the weight of the
testimony is against him. He pilfers the eggs and nestlings of the
songsters, invades the newly planted cornfields, and apparently abuses
every confidence reposed in him.
He has been known to take his family into fields of sprouting potatoes
and, when the plants were hardly out of the ground, feed its members on
the soft tubers which were used as seed. Even very young chickens and
ducks enter into his economies. He is an inveterate mischiefmaker, and
by those who fail to see the attractive sides of his character, is
looked upon as a general nuisance.
He cannot be considered valuable from a utilitarian point of view, but
as a picturesque element he possesses many charms. Notwithstanding the
sins laid at his door, this bird is of absorbing interest. His genteel
insolence, his ability to cope with the wiles of his persecutors, and
his complete self-assurance may well challenge our admiration.
He takes full charge of the dune country before the morning sun appears
above the horizon, and maintains his vigils until the evening shadows
relieve him from further responsibility. All of the happenings on the
sands, and among the pines, are subjected to his careful inspection and
noisy comment. His curiosity is intense, and any unusual object or event
will attract his excited scrutiny and an agitated assemblage of his
friends.
Like many people, he is both wise and foolish to a surprising degree. He
is crafty and circumspect in his methods of obtaining food and avoiding
most of his enemies, but shows a lack of judgment when his curiosity is
aroused.
He will approach quite near to a person sitting still, but will retreat
in great trepidation at the slightest movement. An old crow knows the
difference between a cane and a gun, but a man carrying a gun can ride a
horse much nearer to him than he can go on foot.
In the community life of the crows there is much material for study.
Their social organization is cohesive and effective. It is impossible
not to believe that they have a limited language. Different cries
produce different effects among them. They undoubtedly communicate with
each other. The older and wiser crows have qualities of leadership which
compel or attract the obedience of the sable hordes that follow them in
long processions through the air, to and from the feeding grounds, and
to the roosting-places at night.
The cries of the leaders are distinctive, and the entire band will wheel
and change the direction of its flight when the loud signal comes from
the head of the column. These bands often number several thousand
birds.
[Illustration:
(_From the Author’s Etching_)
NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP]
After spending the day in detached groups, they gather late in the
afternoon, and prepare for the flight to the roosting-grounds, which is
an affair of the utmost importance and ceremony. A single scout will
come ahead, and after slowly and carefully inspecting the area in the
forest where the night is usually spent, he returns in the direction
from which he came.
In a few minutes several crows come over the same course and apparently
verify the conditions. These also return, and a little later, perhaps
twenty or thirty more will appear and fly all over the territory under
consideration. They go and report to the main body beyond the hills, and
soon the horizon becomes black with the oncoming phalanxes, steadily
winging their way to the chosen spot.
For a long time the sky above it is filled with their dark forms,
circling and hovering over and among the trees. Much uncertainty seems
to agitate them, and there is a great deal of noisy confusion before
even comparative quiet comes. It requires about half an hour for them to
get comfortably settled after their arrival. Sentinels are posted and
they maintain a vigilant watch during the night.
I have sat quietly on a log and seen these multitudes settle into the
trees around me in the deep woods. Although perfectly motionless, I have
sometimes been detected by a watchful sentinel. His quick, loud note of
alarm arouses the entire aggregation, and the air is immediately filled
with the turmoil of discordant cries and beating wings. Sacred
precincts have been invaded, and an enemy is within the gates.
After much anxiety, and shifting of positions, confidence seems to be
finally restored, and the black masses on the bending boughs become
quiet.
A footfall on the dead leaves, the snapping of a twig, a suspicious
movement among the trees, or the hoot of an owl, may alarm the wary
watchers and start another uproar that will result in complete desertion
of the vicinity of the suspected danger.
When morning comes, various groups visit the beach and strut along the
shore, drinking and picking up stray morsels. Dead fish that have been
cast in by the waves, and numerous insects crawling on the sand, are
eagerly devoured. Usually before sunrise the crows have started out over
the country in detached flocks.
Like all the affairs of the crows, courtship is a serious and important
matter. The young male stretches his wings, struts dramatically, and
performs all kinds of crow feats to attract favorable glances from the
coy eyes of a black divinity who sits demurely still and waits. After
the manner of female kind, she will remain obdurate as long as
supplication continues. She will yield only when it ceases.
[Illustration: (_From the Author’s Etching_)
“THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE”]
Several days are spent in the wooing. It often has its vicissitudes. The
proverbial course of true love has its rough spots, for sometimes
shiny-coated rivals come which are insistent and boisterous. They
refuse to respect a privacy that is much desired, and create unwelcome
disturbances.
There are battles in the tree-tops that send many black feathers down
before the fickle beauty makes her final decision. She has little love
for defeated suitors, and her admiration is the spoil of the victor when
trouble comes.
When the love-making is over the happy pair begin the construction of
the nest, which is usually composed of broken twigs or small bits of
grape vine, and lined with moss or dead grass. It is generally built
about thirty feet from the ground among the strong branches in the deep
woods. It is jealously guarded, and combats with would-be intruders are
numerous and desperate. The sharp bills are effective weapons when the
home is at stake, and it is a bold invader who would risk contact with
them for the sake of the mottled eggs or the tender young in the nest.
The crow may be a subtle and artful villain, and his evil ways may have
brought him into disrepute, but he has picturesque quality. His black
form is often an effective accent in composition, and his presence adds
character and interest to the waste places.
The black roving flocks impart a peculiar charm to the white winter
landscapes. The bleak uplands and the solemn trees in the still bare
woods are enlivened by the dark busy forms. They seem undaunted by the
cold and but few of them migrate. During the winter storms they find
what refuge they can in the seclusion of the hollows in the deep woods,
and among the heavy foliage of the pines. They eke out a precarious
livelihood, with scanty food and uncertain shelter, until nature becomes
more heedful of their wants and again sends the springtime into the
world.
This bird has his own peculiar and special ways of living, which are
adapted to his own temperament and necessities. He is only a crow, and
nature never intended that he should adjust himself to the convenience
and desires of other forms of animal life. He is without ethics or
conscience, and in this he differs little from the man with a gun.
Some of the most pleasant memories of the dunes are clustered around
“Billy,” a pet crow which remained with us one summer through the
kindness of a naturalist friend. He was acquired at a tender age, a
small boy having abstracted him from a happy home in an old tree in the
deep woods.
[Illustration: (_From the Author’s Etching_)
“BILLY”]
His early life was devoted principally to bread and milk, hard boiled
eggs, bits of meat, and other food, with which he had to be constantly
supplied. A large cage was built for his protection as well as for his
confinement, until he could become domesticated and strong enough to
take care of himself.
He became clamorous at unreasonable morning hours, and required constant
attention during the day. His comical and whimsical ways soon found him
a place in our affections, and Billy became a member of the family.
He developed a decided character of his own. When he was old enough to
fly he was given his freedom, which he utilized in his own way. He would
spend a large part of his time in a nearby ravine, studying the problems
of crow life, but his visits to the house were frequent, and his demands
insistent when he was hungry.
He would almost invariably discover the departure of any one of us who
left the house, flying short distances ahead and waiting until he was
overtaken, or proudly riding on our heads or shoulders, if he was not
quite sure of the general direction of the expedition.
The berry patch was a great attraction to him, and if we took a basket
with us he would help himself to the fruit after it had been picked,
much preferring to have the picking done for him.
One of his delights was walking back and forth on the hammock. The loose
meshes seemed to fascinate him, and he would spend much time in studying
its intricacies and picking at the knots. He soon became distantly
acquainted with Gip, our black cocker spaniel. While no particular
intimacy developed between them, each seemed to understand that the
other was a part of the family. They finally got to the point where they
would eat out of the same dish.
Billy was a delightful companion on many sketching trips into the dunes,
and it was amusing to watch the perplexities of the wild crows when my
close association with one of their own kind was observed. They could
not understand the relationship, and it gave rise to much animated
discussion. Billy was immediately visited when he flew into a tree top,
and carefully looked over. Other crows joined in the consultations and
the final verdict was not always favorable, for hostility frequently
became evident, and poor Billy was compelled to leave the tree, often
with cruel wounds. He was probably regarded as a heretic and a
backslider, who had violated all crow traditions--a fit subject for
ostracism and seclusion beyond the pale.
He promptly responded to my call when he got into trouble, or thought it
might be lunch-time. He would watch with much interest the undoing of
the sandwiches, and would wait expectantly on my knee for the coveted
tid-bits which constituted his share of the meal.
When preparations were made for the return, Billy’s interest in the
day’s proceedings seemed to flag, and he would suddenly disappear, not
to be seen again until the next morning, when he would alight on the
rail of the back porch and loudly demand his breakfast.
I was never able to ascertain where he spent a great part of his time.
His identity was, of course, lost when he was with the other crows
unless he happened to get into a storm center near the house, and we
only knew him when he was with us.
He had the elemental love of color, which always begins with red, and
the vermilion on my palette seemed to exercise a spell over him. After
getting his bill into it, he would plume and pick his feathers, and I
have spent considerable time with a rag and benzine in trying to make
him presentable after he had produced quite good post-impressionistic
pictures on the feathers of his breast.
Occasionally he would take my pencils or brushes into the trees while I
was at work, and play with them for some time, but would not return
anything that he had once secured. I often had difficulty in recovering
lost articles, but usually he would accidentally drop them. In such
cases there would be a race between us, for he quickly became jealous of
their possession.
Billy was, to a certain extent, affectionate, and would often come to be
petted, alighting on my outstretched hand and holding his head down
toward me. When his head feathers were stroked gently, low, contented
sounds indicated the pleasure he took in the attention devoted to him.
Stories of the numerous little tricks and insinuating ways of this
interesting bird could occupy many pages, but enough has been told to
convey an idea of his character. Perhaps he may have been a rascal at
heart, but his ancestry was responsible for his moral shortcomings.
One morning we missed Billy, and we possibly have never seen him since.
He may have answered “the call of the wild” and joined the black company
that goes over into the back country in the morning and returns to the
bluffs at night, or he may have fallen a victim to indiscriminating
over-confidence in mankind--a misfortune that is not confined to crows.
He left tender recollections with us. He had an engaging personality,
and was a most admirable and lovable crow. Such an epitaph would be due
him if he has departed from life, and a more sincere tribute could not
be offered him if he still lives.
During the following year I was able to approach quite near to a crow
who seemed to show slight signs of recognition. A broken pinion in his
left wing, a reminiscence of a vicious battle in the fall, seemed to
complete the identification of Billy. He appeared to be making his
headquarters in the ravine. Further careful observation and
investigation convinced me that if this crow was actually Billy, he had
laid three eggs.
The name, however, meant much to us, and by simply changing its spelling
to “Billie,” we preserved its pleasant associations.
[Illustration:
A HAPPY HOME]
It was a contented couple whose nest was in the gnarled branches in the
ravine, where the little home was protected from the chill spring winds.
In due time small, queer-looking heads appeared above the edge of the
nest, with widely opened bills that clamored continuously for the bits
of food which the assiduous parents had to supply constantly. The nest
required much attention. Marauding red squirrels, owls, hawks, and other
enemies had to be kept away from the time the first egg was laid until
the fledglings were old enough to fly. Their first attempts resulted in
many falls, but they soon became experts, and one morning the entire
family was gone.
They probably flew over into the back country, where food was more
abundant and where they were subjected to less observation.
The nest was never used again. The twigs, little pieces of wild
grapevine, and moss of which it was made, have gradually fallen away
during the succeeding years, until but a few fragments remain in the
tree crotch. A red lead pencil was found under the tree. Possibly
“Billie” may have tucked it in among the twigs as a souvenir of former
ties, or its color may have suggested esthetic adornment of a happy
home.
[Illustration: “OLD SIPES”]
[Illustration] CHAPTER V
OLD SIPES
Beyond its barren wastes, inland, the dune country merges into the
fertile soil and comes into contact with the highly trained selfishness
which in this age of iron we call civilization. The steady waves of such
a civilization have thrown upon this desolate margin some of its human
derelicts--men who have failed in the strife and who have been cast
ashore. Their little huts of driftwood are scattered here and there at
long distances from each other, among the depressions and behind the big
masses of sand along the shore.
Their faces wear a dejected look. They walk with shambling step, and
their bearing is that of men who have received heavy blows in their
early struggles, which have extinguished the light in their lives. They
are, as a rule, morose and taciturn. They have become desocialized, and
have sullenly sunk into the hermit lives that harmonize with the dead
and tangled roots which the roving sands have left uncovered to bleach
and decay in the sun and rain.
They eke out a simple existence with their nets and set-lines in the
lake, and by shooting and trapping the small game which still lives in
this region. The driftwood supplies them with fuel in winter, and
occasional wreckage that is washed ashore sometimes adds conveniences
and comparative luxury to their impoverished abodes.
The world has gone on without them, and they are content to exist in
solitudes where time is measured by years, rather than by achievement.
Sometimes the bitterness of a broken heart, or the story of thwarted
hopes, will come to the surface out of the turbid memories which they
carry. When their confidence is inspired by sympathetic association,
they will often turn back some of the hidden pages in the stories of
their lives, which are almost always of vivid interest.
Feeble flashes will then light up from among the dying embers. The story
is not the one of success that the world loves to hear, but it is
usually the melodies in the minor keys that touch our hearts. Many of
the simple narratives, told under the roof of driftwood, before the rude
scrap iron stove, are full of homely philosophy, subtle wit, and tragic
interest.
“Old Sipes” was a grotesque character. He was apparently somewhere in
the seventies. He had but one eye, his whiskers were scraggly, unequal
in distribution, and uncertain as to direction. His old faded hat and
short gray coat were quite the worse for wear, and a few patches on his
trousers, put on with sail stitches, added a picturesque nautical
quality to his attire.
He lived in a small driftwood hut, compactly built, about sixteen feet
long, and perhaps ten feet wide. A rude bunk was built into one side of
the single room, and another was placed about three feet above it.
He explained this arrangement of the bunks with quite a long story about
a friend of his named Bill Saunders. It seems that he and Saunders had
once been shipmates. They had been around the world together, and had
cruised in many far-off waters. A howling gale and a lee shore had
finally put an inglorious end to the old ship and most of the crew, and
left Sipes and Bill on an unknown island in the South Pacific.
His stories of the man-eating sharks and other sea monsters which
infested these waters, were hair-raising, and his descriptions of the
wonderful natives whom they met, indicated that somewhere a race of
people exists that the ethnologists have never found--and would be much
astounded if they did. His accounts of man-apes and strange reptiles,
olive-skinned beauties, and fierce war-like men nearly seven feet tall,
would have made a modern marine novelist pale with envy.
No ship had ever sailed that was as stanch as the “Blue Porpoise,” and
no winds had ever blown before like those that took away her proud sails
and ripped the shrouds from her sides. No fish-poles had ever bent as
her masts did when the ropes parted, and no waves had ever soared as
high as those that broke in her faithful ribs, and cast the two
shipmates high on the sands of that distant island.
After years of waiting for a friendly sail, Bill married into the royal
family several times, and became a part of the kingdom. Sipes
persistently resisted blandishment for nearly five years, when a small
cloud of black smoke on the horizon gradually grew into a tramp steamer.
A boat came ashore for fresh water, and our hero gladly became a member
of the crew, leaving happy Bill in the land of luxury and promiscuous
matrimony. After a long voyage he was put ashore at some gulf port and
became a wanderer.
How he got into the sand hills he didn’t exactly know, but his idea was
to keep as far as possible away from salt water. He had developed an
antipathy for it, and felt that the lake would be quite sufficient for
his future needs.
I asked him how he spent his time, and he said, “mostly smokin’ an’
thinkin’ about Bill, an’ them sirenes, an’ their little black an’ tan
families, ’way off down there in the South Pacific.”
[Illustration: “THINKIN’ ABOUT BILL AN’ THEM SIRENES”]
He hoped that Bill would change his mind and come back to a decent
country. Perhaps Bill might find him here, and if he did the extra bunk
would come in handy. He said that somehow he didn’t feel so lonesome
with the other bunk above him, and, at night, he often thought that
maybe Bill was in it.
His idea of what constitutes companionship may appear a little crude to
some of us, but after all it is our point of view that makes us happy or
unhappy in this world.
I asked him if he thought Bill would be able to find him if he ever
tried to, and he replied, “never you mind--you leave that to Bill. He’s
a wonder.”
I regretted that he did not tell me all about what happened to Bill
after he had left him on the island. This would not have been at all
impossible if he had taken up the subject with the same compositional
ability that he applied to the rest of his narrative.
His conversational charms were somewhat marred by a slight impediment in
his speech, which he said had been acquired in trying to pronounce the
names of all the foreign parts he had visited. Now that he had got
settled down the impediment was becoming much less troublesome.
His brawny arms and chest were tattooed with fantastic oriental
designs--fiery-mouthed dragons, coiling snakes in blue and red, and
rising suns--which he said had been “put on by a Chink” when he was
ashore for three weeks in Hong Kong. The intricacy and elaborateness of
the work indicated that a large part of the three weeks must have been
spent with the tattoo expert, for he had absorbed much more of Chinese
art in the short time he had been in contact with it than most modern
scholars do in a lifetime.
In answer to a delicate allusion to his missing eye, he declared that it
had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of Japan. The
terrible winds had prevailed for nearly two weeks, and his shipmate,
Bill Saunders, had lost all of his clothes during the blow. The eye had
gone to leeward and was never recovered. He said it was glass anyway,
and he never thought much of it. How the original eye had been lost he
did not explain. He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place where
the eye ought to be, and said that “as long as there was nothin’ goin’
out,” he “didn’t want nothin’ comin’ in.”
His “live eye,” as he called it, had a wide range of expression. It was
shrewd and quizzical at times, occasionally merry, and often sad. It
would glitter fiercely when he talked of some of his “aversions,” or
told of wrongs he had suffered. In his reminiscent moods it would
remain half closed, and there was a certain far-away look that seemed to
wander in obscurity. This lone eye was the distinguishing feature of a
personality that seemed to dominate the little world around it.
I asked this ancient mariner if he had many visitors. He replied that
the artists bothered him some, but outside of that he seldom saw anybody
“’cept them I have business with, an’ them two guys that live about
three miles apart down the shore, an’ the game warden that comes ’long
oncet in a while. If people commence buttin’ in ’ere I’m goin’ to git
out, an’ go ’bout forty miles north, where I can’t hear the cars. I
ain’t got much to move. The stuff’ll all go in the boat, an’ I’ll just
take my ol’ flannel collar an’ the sock I keep it in, an’ skip.”
He seemed to feel that he could properly criticize most of the people he
had met, being practically free from frailties himself. Although he was
somewhat of a pessimist, there was seldom much heartfelt bitterness in
what he said. His mental attitude was usually that of a patronizing and
indulgent observer. His satirical comments were generally tempered with
unconscious humor. He knew that out beyond the margins of the yellow
hills lay a world of sin, for he had been in it, and his friend Bill was
in it now. His philosophy did not contemplate the possible redemption of
anybody he had ever met in the dunes, with one or two exceptions. He
thought that most of them were “headed fer the coals.”
“Happy Cal,” was one of his pet aversions, and from a human standpoint,
he considered him a total loss. They had once been friends, but Sipes
was now “miffed” and there was rancor in his heart. Cal had “gone off
som’eres,” but the wound was unhealed. The trouble originated over the
ownership of a bunch of tangled set-lines, which had got loose somewhere
out in the lake, and drifted ashore some years ago. It was conceded that
neither of them had owned the lines originally, but Cal thought they
ought to belong to him as he had seen them first.
Sipes descried the soggy mass and carried it up the beach to his shanty.
Cal came after the prize before daylight the next morning, but found
that he had been forestalled. Sipes spent two days in getting the
tangles out and had stretched the lines out to dry. One night they were
mysteriously visited and cut to pieces.
[Illustration]
A few days later a piece of board, nailed crosswise to a stake which was
driven into the sand, appeared about a mile down the shore, between the
two shanties. On it was the crude inscription:--“_The Partys that cut
them lines is knone_.”
While protesting that he was perfectly innocent, Cal looked upon this
as a deadly personal affront, and the _entente cordiale_ was forever
broken.
After this Sipes bored a small hole in the side of his shanty, through
which he could secretly reconnoiter the landscape in Cal’s direction
when occasion required. He was satisfied that Cal would be up to
something some day that he would catch him at, and thus even the score.
I had noticed a similar hole in the side of Cal’s hut, during a day that
I had spent with him two years before.
Since the disappearance of Cal the old man had used the peep hole to
enable him to avoid the visits of a certain other individual with whom
he had become disgusted. Through it he would study any distant
approaching figure on the shore that looked suspicious, with an old
brass marine spy glass, that he said “had bin on salt water.” If he was
not pleased with his inspection, he would quietly slip out on the
opposite side and disappear until the possible visitor had passed, or
had called and discovered that Mr. Sipes was not in. He referred to his
instrument as a “spotter,” and claimed that it saved him a lot of
misery. While more refined methods of accomplishing such an object are
often used, none could be more effective.
After learning what the orifice was for, I always felt highly flattered
when I found my old friend at home, although I sometimes had rather a
curious sensation, in walking up the shore, feeling that far away the
single brilliant eye of old Sipes might be twinkling at me through the
rickety old spy glass. Astronomers tell of unseen stars in the universe,
which are found only with the most powerful telescopes. These orbs,
isolated in awful space, may be scrutinizing our sphere with the same
curiosity as that behind the little spotter in the dim distance on the
beach.
I made a practice of taking a particularly good cigar with me on these
expeditions, especially for Sipes, which may have helped to account for
his almost invariable presence when I arrived. He would accept it with a
deprecating smile and a low bow. If the weather was pleasant he would
seat himself outside on the sand, with his back against the side of the
shanty, and extend his feet over the crosspiece of a dilapidated
saw-buck near the door. He would carefully remove the paper band from
the cigar, light it, and tilt it to a high angle. After a few whiffs of
the fragrant weed, he once sententiously remarked, “Say, this is the
life!--I’d ruther be settin’ right ’ere, smokin’ this ’ere _see_gar,
than to be some famous mutt commandin’ a ship.”
The cigar bands were always scrupulously saved. He hoped eventually to
get enough of them to paste around the edges of a picture which was
stuck up on his wall opposite the bunks, and was willing to smoke all
the cigars that might be necessary to furnish the requisite number of
bands for this frame, which he thought would “look fine.” The picture
had been taken from the colored supplement of some old sporting journal,
and depicted two prominent pugilists in violent action. When he had
“cussed out” nearly everybody else, he would take up the case of one of
these champions, who had gone into the ring once too often. His ornate
vocabulary came into splendid play on these occasions, and the
unfortunate “pug” had no professional reputation left when the old man
had finished his remarks.
There was an interesting and formidable array of armament in Sipes’s
shanty. In one corner stood an old-fashioned muzzle-loading, big bore
shotgun, weighing about sixteen pounds, with rusty barrels and one
broken hammer. The stock had once been split, but had been carefully
repaired and bound with wire. It was a murderous looking weapon.
A heavy rifle of antiquated pattern was suspended from a couple of hooks
above the bunks, but the old man explained that this piece of ordnance
was “no good,” as he “couldn’t git no catritches that ’ud fit it, an’ it
’ad a busted trigger an’ a bum lock.” He had traded some skins for it
years ago, and “the feller that ’ad it didn’t ’ave no catritches
neither. I was stung in that trade, but them skins wasn’t worth nothin’
neither. Some day I’ll trade it off to some feller that wants a good
rifle.”
On the shelf was a sinister looking firearm, which had once been a
smooth-bore army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot
of the breech. This he called his “scatter gun.” It was kept loaded with
about six ounces of black powder, and wadded on top of this was a
handful of pellets which he had made out of flour dough, mixed with red
pepper, and dried in the sun. He explained that, at three rods, such a
charge would go just under the skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it
’ud be hot stuff.” He was keeping it “fer a certain purpose,” the nature
of which he refused to divulge.
The intended destiny of the “hot stuff” was suggested by a story I
afterwards heard from “Catfish John.” It seems that an eccentric
character occasionally roamed along the beach who was a theological
fanatic. He had tried to convert Sipes, and had often left tracts around
the shanty when the owner was absent. He was intensely Calvinistic and
utterly uncompromising in his beliefs. John did not consider that he was
“quite all thar.” This unkempt individual projected his red bushy
whiskers and wild eyes through Sipes’ open window one night.
“Do you believe in infant damnation?” he roared.
“Wot?” asked the dumfounded Sipes.
“’Cause if ye don’t yer jest as sure to go to hell as the sun is to
rise tomorrer mornin’,” the intruder continued. He then left as suddenly
as he had come. “Sipes sailed a pufectly good egg after ’im, but it
didn’t stick,” remarked John.
It was Sipes’s custom to take the old shot gun over into the marshes of
the back country, and shoot ducks in the fall and spring. His ideas of
killing ducks were worthy of the Stone Age, for it was meat that he
sought, and not sport. He always “killed ’em settin’,” and would “lay
fer ’em ’till fifteen er twenty got in a bunch, an’ then let ’em ’ave
both bar’ls.
“I don’t allow nobody but me to shoot that gun. It kicks like it was
drivin’ some spiles, an’ so does my scatter gun. When it goes off one
end is pretty near as bad as the other. I fetch them ducks home an’ salt
down them I can’t use right off, an’ sometimes I git enough to last all
winter.”
I suggested that lighter charges might cause less recoil, and do just as
much execution.
“Not on yer life,” he replied, “if they ain’t no kick behind they won’t
be no kick forrads, an’ the shot won’t go no distance. Now just lemme
show you.”
In spite of my protest, he got the gun out, loaded it far beyond its
maximum efficiency, and fired it at a passing flock of sandpipers, that
were fortunately beyond range. The report was like a thunder clap, and
when the echoes died away, and it was evident that the innocent little
creatures had escaped unharmed, he explained that he “wasn’t any good at
shootin’ ’em flyin’, but them shot made ’em skip all right.”
I had my own suspicions as to what had made the little birds “skip.”
His supplies of ammunition were obtained for him at the general store in
the sleepy village by his old friend “Catfish John,” whose reward
consisted in portions of the bloody spoil from the marshes.
Sipes’s shanty would have been a most unpleasant place to approach if
hostility should develop inside of it. He “didn’t want no monkeyin’
’round that joint, an’ they wasn’t goin’ to be none.”
It was to the old man’s credit that he let most of the wild life alone
that he could not utilize. The crows, gulls, and herons along the beach
did not interest him. The songsters and the little shore birds were
exempt on account of their size. They required too much ammunition, and
it was too much trouble to pick them.
[Illustration:
THE DISTURBER IN THE RAVINE]
Occasionally a pair of eagles would soar around over the dune country.
These he longed to kill, but he could never get near enough to them. The
wary birds were inconsiderate, and “wouldn’t never light, ’cept away
off.”
A “hoot’n owl” somewhere in the ravine caused him many sleepless
nights. Its prolonged and unearthly cries frequently startled him from
dreams of his friend Bill off in the South Pacific, and he spent many
hours prowling softly around among the trees in the darkness, trying to
locate the offender. Probably the owl, in the wisdom of his kind, had
kept the silent stealthy figure under observation, and was careful not
to do any hooting within shooting distance,--certainly an example to be
emulated. He usually resumed his lamentations when Sipes returned to his
shanty.
The old man had this owl listed as one of his bitter enemies, and
annihilation awaited the wily bird if he ever found it. “One hoot’n
owl’s too dam’ many to have ’round,” he declared. “This critter reminds
me o’ one night when I was on a ship off the coast o’ South Ameriky.
“I was aloft on one o’ the yard-arms, an’ there was a little roll on the
sea. I seen some long white streaks o’ foam comin’, about two points
offen the lee bow, an’ there was sumpen that shined in the moonlight
mixed up in it. It seemed all yellow, an’ about two hundred feet long,
an’ it flopped up an’ down. When it got close, it opened up a mouth
pretty near half as big as the ship, an’ let out an awful yell. It
sounded like a hoot’n owl, only ten thousand times louder an’ deeper.
Then it dove down an’ went under the ship. The sails all shook, an’ my
blood was froze, so I couldn’t call out to the feller at the wheel, an’
I dropped off on to the deck.
“I never found out what the cussed thing was. If I’d bin drinkin’ very
much I’d ’a’ thought I had the jimmies. The wheel feller said he hadn’t
noticed nothin’, but I did all the same, an’ I’ll never fergit it.
“I had some ter’ble experiences off down there in that part o’ the
gorgofy. We sailed fer months an’ months, an’ never seen nothin’ but the
big waves an’ the sky. There was a lot o’ latitude an’ longitude, an’ me
an’ Bill used to offen wonder, when we was roostin’ out on the bowsprit
smokin’ at night, what ’ud happen if we butted into one o’ them lines
that’s always runnin’ up an’ down an’ sideways on them salt water maps.
“There was ter’ble perils all the time. Sometimes we’d run among
icebergs, an waterspouts, an’ cyclones, an’ we wallered in bilin’ seas,
an’ the skies was black as yer hat, an’ we got lost on the ocean a
couple o’ times, an’ we got smashed up on that island I told ye about.
You bet this lake’s plenty wet enough fer me, an’ I’m goin’ to spatter
’round right ’ere, an’ if Bill was only ’ere instid o’ cavortin’ ’round
with them South Pacific floozies, I’d be all right.”
Some of Sipes’s many sea yarns sounded suspiciously like stories I had
read in early youth, but I generally gave him the benefit of the doubt,
as he did not need to be strictly truthful to be entertaining. In one
instance he related a thrilling tale in which his experiences were
practically identical with those of the hero in a favorite yellow
covered treasure of years ago. I rather tactlessly called his attention
to that fact. He at once replied, “Now you see how queer some things git
’round in this world. _I was that feller._”
After that I considered comment hopeless, and simply listened.
Perhaps this lonely philosopher may have solved one of the problems of
existence that have baffled more serious and deeper thinkers. He has
perfectly adjusted himself to his environment, and his life is complete
and happy within it. Even his many aversions give him more pleasure than
pain. His memories afford him abundant and pleasant society, and he is
able, psychologically, to import his friend Bill when he needs him.
Beyond these things he apparently has no desires. To use his own
expression,--“the great an’ pow’rful o’ the earth ’as got nothin’ on
me.”
That priceless jewel, contentment, is his, and the kindly fates could do
little more for one who wore a crown.
[Illustration:
“HAPPY CAL”]
[Illustration: (_From the Author’s Etching_)
HAPPY CAL’S SHANTY]