Few knew the way to the little house in the rocks where the Little
Brother to the Bear lived. It was miles away from every other house
but one, in the heart of the big still woods. You had to leave the
highway where it dipped into a cool dark hollow among the pines, and
follow a lonely old road that the wood-choppers sometimes used in
winter, and that led you, if you followed it far enough, to a
tumble-down old mill on another cross-road, where the brook chattered
and laughed all day long at the rusty wheel, and the phoebe built
unmolested under the sagging beams, and you could sometimes hear a
trout jumping among the foam bubbles in the twilight. But you did not
go so far if you wanted to find where the Little Brother to the Bear
lived.
As you followed the wood road you came suddenly to a little clearing,
with a brook and a wild meadow and a ledge all covered with ferns. The
road twisted about here, as a road always does in going by a pretty
place, as if it were turning back for another look. There was a little
old house under the ledge wherein some shy, silent children lived; and
this was the only dwelling of man on the three-mile road. Just beyond,
at a point where the underbrush was thickest, an unnoticed cart path
stole away from the wood road and brought you to a little pond in the
big woods, at the spot where, centuries ago, the beavers had made a
dam and a deep place for stowing their winter's wood. If you took a
long pole and prodded deep in the mud here, you would sometimes find a
cut stick of the beaver's food wood, its conical ends showing the
strong tooth marks plainly, its bark still fresh and waiting to be
eaten when the little owner should come back again; for that is what
he cut it and put it there for, untold years ago. Very few ever
thought of this, however; those who came to the spot had all their
thoughts for the bullpouts that swarmed in the beaver's old storehouse
and that would bite well on dark days. There were ledges all about the
ancient dam and on both sides of the woodsy valley below; and among
the mossy, fern-covered rocks of these ledges one of the shy children,
with whom I had made friends, pointed out an arched doorway made by
two great stones leaning against each other.
"Thome animal livth in there. I theen him. I peeked, one day, an' I
theen hith eyeth wink; an', an', an' then I ran away," he said, his
own eyes all round with the wonder of the woods.
We made no noise, but lay down under a bush together and watched the
wonderful old doorway until it was time for the shy child to go home;
but nothing came out, nor even showed a shining inquisitive eye in
the doorway behind the screen of hanging ferns. Still we knew
something was in there, for I showed my little woodsman, to his great
wonder and delight, a short gray hair tipped with black clinging to
the rocks. Then we went away more cautiously than we came.
"Maybe it's a coon," I told the shy child, "for they are sleepyheads
and snooze all day. Foxy, too; they don't come out till dark and go in
again before daylight, so that boys can't find out where they live."
When the time of full moon came I went back to the little house among
the ledges, one afternoon, and hid under the same bush to watch until
something should come out. But first I looked all about and found near
by a huge hollow chestnut tree that the wood-choppers had passed by
for years as not worth the cutting. There were scratches and claw pits
everywhere in the rough bark, and just under the lower limbs was a big
dark knot hole that might be a doorway to a den. So I lay down in
hiding where I could see both the tree and the fern-screened archway
among the rocks by simply turning my head.
At twilight there were sudden scratchings in the hollow tree, mounting
higher and higher; then muffled grunts and whinings and
expostulations, as if little voices inside the tree were saying: _My
turn first. No, mine! E-e-e-e-ahh, get out!_ The whinings stopped
abruptly and a face appeared in the dark knot hole--a sharp, pointed
face with alert ears and bright eyes that looked out keenly over the
still woods where only shadows were creeping about and only a wild
duck disturbed the silence, quacking softly to her brood in the little
pond. Then the whining began again in the hollow tree, and four other
little faces pushed their sharp noses into the knot hole, filling it
completely, all watching and listening, and wiggling their chins down
on their fellows' heads so as to get a better view point, yet all
eager as children to be out and at play after their long sleep.
One impatient little fellow clawed his way upon his mother's back and
thrust his face out between her ears, and then I had a chance to see
it better--a wonderful face, full of whims and drollery, with a white
ring about its pointed muzzle, and a dark line running from the top of
its nose and spreading into ebony rings around each eye, as if he were
wearing queer smoked goggles, behind which the eyes twinkled and
shone, or grew sober with much gravity as he heard the duck quacking.
A keen face, yet very innocent, in which dog intelligence and fox
cunning and bear drollery mingled perfectly; a face full of surprises,
that set you smiling and thinking at once; a fascinating, inquisitive
face, the most lovable and contradictious among the Wood Folk,--the
face of Mooweesuk the coon, the Little Brother to the Bear, as Indian
and naturalist unite in calling him.
[Illustration: "The little ones came out of their den and began
playing together"]
The mother came out first and sagged away backwards down the tree,
swinging her head from side to side to look down and see how far yet,
in true bear fashion. The four little ones followed her, clawing and
whining their way to the bottom--all but one, who when half-way down
turned and jumped, landing on his mother's soft back to save
himself trouble. Then she led the way to the doorway among the rocks,
and the young followed in single file, winding about on her trail,
stopping and sniffing when she did, and imitating her every action,
just as young bear cubs do when roaming about the woods.
At the mouth of the den she stepped aside, and the young filed in out
of sight one after another. The mother looked and listened for a
moment, then scuttled away through the woods as a clear tremulous
whinny came floating in through the twilight. A moment later I saw her
on the shore of the pond with a larger coon, her mate probably, who
had been asleep in another hollow tree by himself; and the two went
off along the shore frogging and fishing together.
The mother had scarcely disappeared when the little ones came out of
their den and began playing together, rolling and tumbling about like
a litter of fox cubs, doing it for fun purely, yet exercising every
claw and muscle for the hard work that a coon must do when he is
called upon to take care of himself. After a time one of the cubs
left his brothers playing and went back to the chestnut tree by the
same way that he had come, following every turn and winding of the
back trail as if there were a path there--as there probably was, to
his eyes and nose, though mine could not find any. He climbed the tree
as if he were after something, and disappeared into the knot hole,
where I could hear the little fellow whining and scratching his way
down inside the tree. In a moment he reappeared with something in his
mouth. In the dusk I could not make out what it was, but as he came
back and passed within ten feet of where I was hiding I had my
field-glasses upon him and saw it plainly--a little knot of wood with
a crook in it, the solitary plaything which you will find, all smooth
from much handling, in almost every house where the Little Brother to
the Bear has lived.
He carried it back to where the young coons were playing, lay down
among them, and began to play by himself, passing the plaything back
and forth through his wonderful front paws, striking it up, catching
it, and rolling it around his neck and under his body, as a child does
who has but one plaything. Some of the other coons joined him, and the
little crooked knot went whirling back and forth between them, was
rolled and caught, and hidden and found again,--all in silent
intentness and with a pleasure that even in the twilight was
unmistakable.
In the midst of this quiet play there came a faint ripple and splash
of water, and the little coons dropped their plaything and stood
listening, eyes all bright behind their dark goggles, noses wiggling,
and ears cocked at the plashing on the pond shore. The mother was
there diligently sousing something that she had caught; and presently
she appeared and the little ones forgot their play in the joy of
eating. But it was too far away and the shadows were now too dark to
see what it was that she had brought home, and how she divided it
among them. When she went away again it had grown dark enough for
safety, and the young followed her in single file to the pond shore,
where I soon lost them among the cool shadows.
That was the beginning of a long acquaintance, cultivated sometimes by
day, more often by night; sometimes alone, when I would catch one of
the family fishing or clamming or grubbing roots or nest robbing;
sometimes with a boy, who caught two of the family in his traps; and
again with the hunters under the September moon, when some foxy old
coon would gather a freebooter band about him and lead them out to a
raid on the corn-fields. There each coon turned himself promptly into
an agent of destruction and, reveling in the unwonted abundance, would
pull down and destroy like a child savage, and taste twenty milky ears
of corn before he found one that suited him perfectly; and then, too
full for play or for roaming about to find all the hollow trees in the
woods, he would take himself off to the nearest good den and sleep
till he was hungry again and the low whinny of the old leader called
him out for another raid.
Could we have followed the family on this first night of their
wanderings, before the raids began and the dogs had scattered them,
we would have understood why Mooweesuk is called a brother to the
bear. Running he steps on his toes like a dog; and anatomically,
especially in the development of the skull and ear bones, he suggests
the prehistoric ancestor of both dog and wolf; but otherwise he is a
pocket-edition of Mooween in all his habits. The mother always leads,
like a bear, and the little ones follow in single file, noting
everything that the mother calls attention to. They sit on their
haunches and walk flat-footed, like a bear, leaving a track from their
hind feet like that of a dwarf baby. Everything eatable in the woods
ministers to their hunger, as it does to that of the greedy prowler in
the black coat. Now they stir up an ant's nest; now they grub into a
rotten log for worms and beetles. If they can find sweet sap, or a bit
of molasses in an old camp, they dip their paws in it and then lick
them clean, as Mooween does. They hunt now for wintergreen berries,
and now for a woodmouse. They find a shallow place in the brook when
the suckers are running and wait there till the big fish go by, when
they flip them out with their paws and scramble after them. From this
fishing they turn to lush water-grass, or to digging frogs and turtles
out of the mud; and the turtle's shell is cracked by dropping a stone
upon it. Now they steal into the coop and scuttle away with a chicken;
and after eating it they come back to the garden to crack a pumpkin
open and make a dessert of the seeds. Now they see a muskrat swimming
by in the pond with a mussel in his mouth, and they follow after him
along the bank; for Musquash has a curious habit of eating in regular
places--a flat rock, a stranded log, a certain tussock from which he
has cut away the grass--and will often gather half a dozen or more
clams and mussels before he sits down to dine. Mooweesuk watches till
he finds the place; then, while Musquash is gone away after more
clams, he will run off with all that he finds on the dining table. A
score of times, on the ponds and streams, I have read the record of
this little comedy. You can always tell the place where Musquash eats
by the pile of mussel shells in the water below it; and sometimes you
will find Mooweesuk's track stealing down to the place, and if you
follow it you will find where he cracked the clams that Musquash had
gathered.
There is another way in which Mooweesuk is curiously like a bear: he
wanders very widely, but he has regular beats, like Mooween, and if
not disturbed always comes back with more or less regularity to any
place where you have once seen him, and comes by the same unseen path.
Like Mooween, his knowledge of the woods is wide and accurate. He
knows--partly by searching them out, and partly from his mother, who
takes him and shows him where they are--every den and hollow tree that
will shelter a coon in times of trouble. He has always one den near a
corn-field, where he can sleep when too full or too lazy to travel; he
has one dry tree for stormy weather, and one cool mossy shell in deep
shadow for the hot summer days. He has at least one sunny nook in the
top of a hollow stub, where he loves to lie and soak in the fall
sunshine; and one favorite giant tree with the deepest and warmest
hollow, which he invariably uses for his long winter sleep. And
besides all these he has at least one tower of refuge near every path
of his, to which he can betake himself when sudden danger threatens
from dogs or men.
Though he walks and hunts and fights and feeds like a bear, Mooweesuk
has many habits of his own that Mooween has never approached. One of
these is his habit of nest robbing. Mooween does that, to be sure, for
he is fond of eggs; but he must confine himself largely to
ground-birds and to nests that he can reach by standing on his hind
legs. Therefore are the woodpeckers all safe from him. Mooweesuk, on
his part, can never see a hole in a tree without putting his nose into
it to find out whether it contains any eggs or young woodpeckers. If
it does contain them, he will reach a paw down, clinging close to the
tree and stretching and pushing his arm into the hole clear to his
shoulder, to see if perchance the nest be not a foolishly shallow one
and the eggs lie within reach of his paw--which suggests a monkey's,
by the way, in its handlike flexibility.
Once, on the edge of a wild orchard, I saw him rob a golden-winged
woodpecker's nest in this way. The mother bird flew out as Mooweesuk
came scratching up the tree, which assured him that he would find
something worth while within. He stretched in a paw, caught an egg,
and appeared to be rolling it up, holding it against the side of the
tunnel. When the egg was almost up to the entrance he put in his nose
to see the treasure. Then it slipped and fell back, and probably
broke. He tried another, got it up safely, and ate it whole where he
was. He tried a third, which slipped and broke like the first. At
this, with the taste of fresh egg in his mouth, he seemed to grow
impatient, or perhaps he got an idea from the yellow streaks on his
claws. He jabbed his paw down hard to break all the eggs, and drew it
up dripping. He licked it clean with his tongue and put it back again
into the yellow mess at the bottom. This was easy, and he kept it up
until his moist paw brought up only shells and rotten wood, when he
backed away down the tree and shuffled off into the woods, leaving a
sad mess for a mother woodpecker to face behind him.
Another habit in which he has improved upon Mooween is his fishing. He
knows how to flip fish out of water with his paw, as all bears do; but
he has also learned how to attract them when they are not to be found
on the shallows. Many times in the twilight I have found Mooweesuk
sitting very still on a rock or gray log beside the pond or river, his
soft colors and his stillness making him seem like part of the shore.
Other naturalists and hunters have mentioned the same thing, and their
testimony generally agrees in this: that Mooweesuk's eyes are half
shut at such times, and his sensitive feelers, or whiskers, are
playing on the surface of the water. The fish below, seeing this
slight motion but not seeing the animal above, attracted either by
curiosity or, more likely, by the thought of insects playing, rise to
the surface and are snapped out by a sweep of Mooweesuk's paw.
In a lecture, many years ago, Dr. Samuel Lockwood, a famous
naturalist, first called attention to this curious way of angling.
Since then I have many times seen Mooweesuk at his fishing; but I have
never been fortunate enough to see him catch anything, though I have
seen a wildcat do the trick perfectly in the same cunning way.
Remembering his fondness for fish, and the many places where I have
seen that he has eaten them and where the water was too deep to flip
them out in the ordinary bear way, I have no doubt whatever that Dr.
Lockwood has discovered the true secret of his patient waiting above
the pools where the fish are feeding.
There is another curious habit of the coon which distinguishes him
from the bear and from all other animals. That is, his habit of
washing, or rather of sousing, everything he catches in water. No
matter what he finds to eat,--mice, chickens, roots, grubs,
fruit--everything, in fact, but fish,--he will take it to water, if he
be anywhere near a pond or brook, and souse it thoroughly before
eating. Why he does this is largely a matter of guesswork. It is not
to clean it, for much of it is already clean; not to soften it, for
clams are soft enough as they are, and his jaws are powerful enough to
crush the hardest shells, yet he souses them just the same before
eating. Possibly it is to give things the watery taste of fish, of
which he is very fond; more probably it is a relic, like the dog's
turning around before he lies down, or like the unnecessary migration
of most birds, the inheritance from some forgotten ancestor that had a
reason for the habit, and that lived on the earth long, long years
before there was any man to watch him or to wonder why he did it.
Deep in the wilderness Mooweesuk is shy and alert for danger, like
most of the wild things there; but if approached very quietly, or if
he find you unexpectedly near him, he is filled with the Wood Folk's
curiosity to know who you are. Once, on the long tote-road from St.
Leonards to the headwaters of the Restigouche, I saw Mooweesuk sitting
on a rock by a trout brook diligently sousing something that he had
just caught. I crept near on all fours to the edge of an old bridge,
when the logs creaked under my weight and he looked up from his
washing and saw me. He left his catch on the instant and came up the
brook, part wading, part swimming, put his forepaws on the low bridge,
poked his head up over the edge, and looked at me steadily, his face
within ten feet of mine. He disappeared after a few moments and I
crawled to the edge of the bridge to see what it was that he was
washing. A faint scratching made me turn round, and there he was, his
paws up on the other edge of the bridge, looking back at the queer
man-thing that he had never seen before. He had passed under the
bridge to look at me from the other side, as a fox invariably does if
you keep still enough. The game that he was washing was a big frog,
and after a few moments he circled the bridge, grabbed his catch, and
disappeared into the woods.
Near towns where he is much hunted Mooweesuk has grown wilder, like
the fox, and learned a hundred tricks that formerly he knew nothing
about. Yet even here, if found young, he shows a strange fearlessness
and even a rare confidence in man. Once, in the early summer, I found
a young coon at the foot of a ledge, looking up at a shelf a few feet
above his head and whimpering because he could not get up. It was a
surprise to him, evidently, that his claws could not make the same
impression on the hard rock that they did on the home tree in which he
was born. He made no objection--indeed, he seemed to take it as the
most natural thing in the world--when I picked him up and put him on
the shelf that he was whimpering about; but in a moment, like a baby,
he wanted to get down again, and again I ministered to his
necessities. When I went away he followed after me whimpering,
forgetting his own den and his fellows in the ledge hard by, and was
not satisfied till I took him up, when he curled down in the hollow of
my arm and went to sleep perfectly contented.
Presently he waked up, cocking his ears and twisting his head dog
fashion at some sound that was too faint for my ears, and poked his
inquisitive nose all over me, even putting it down inside my collar,
where it felt like a bit of ice creeping about my neck. Not till he
had clawed his way inside my coat and put his nose in my vest pocket
did he find the cause of the mysterious sounds which he heard. It was
my watch ticking, and in a moment he had taken it out and was playing
with the bright thing, as pleased as a child with a new plaything. He
made a famous pet, full of tricks and drollery, catching chickens by
pretending to be asleep when they came stretching their necks for the
crumbs in his dish, playing possum when he was caught in mischief,
drinking out of a bottle, full of joy when he could follow the boys to
the woods, where he ran wild with delight but followed them home at
twilight, and at last going off by himself to his home tree to sleep
away the winter--but I must tell about all that elsewhere.
Like the bear, Mooweesuk is a peaceable fellow and tends strictly to
his own affairs as he wanders wide through the woods.
This is not from fear, for no animal, except perhaps the
wolverine--who is a terrible beast--is more careless of danger or
faces it with such coolness and courage when it appears. Of a dog or
two he takes little heed. If he hear them on his trail, he generally
climbs a tree to get out of the way; for your dog, unlike his wild
brother, the wolf, is a meddlesome fellow and must needs be worrying
everything; and Mooweesuk, like most other wild creatures, loves
peace, hunts only when hungry, and would always prefer to avoid a row
if possible. When caught on the ground, or cornered, or roused to
action by a sudden attack, he backs up against the nearest tree or
stone to keep his enemies from getting at him from behind, and then
fights till he is dead or till none of his enemies are left to bother
him, when he goes quietly on his way again. No matter how great the
odds or how terribly he is punished, I have never seen a coon lose his
nerve or turn his back to run away. If the dogs be many and he is near
a pond or river, he will lead them into deep water, where he is at
home, and then swimming rapidly in circles will close with them one by
one and put them out of the fight most effectively. His method here
seldom varies. He will whirl in suddenly on the dog that he has
singled out, grip him about the neck with one arm, saw away at his
head with his powerful teeth, at the same time slashing him across the
eyes with his free claws, and then pile his weight on the dog's head
to sink him under and drown all the rest of the fight out of him. That
is generally enough for one dog; and Mooweesuk, without a scratch and
with his temper cool as ice, will whirl like a flash upon his next
victim.
Fortunately such troublous times are rare in Mooweesuk's life, and the
wilderness coon knows little about them. His life from beginning to
end is generally a peaceable one, full of good things to eat, and of
sleep and play and a growing knowledge of the woods. He is born in the
spring, a wee, blind, hairless little fellow, like a mole or a bear
cub. As he grows he climbs to the entrance to his den, and will sit
there as at a window for hours at a time, just his nose and eye
visible, looking out on the new, bright, rustling world of woods, and
blinking sleepily in the flickering sunshine. Then come the long
excursions with his mother, at first by day when savage beasts are
quiet, then at twilight, and then at last the long night rambles, in
which, following his leader, he learns a hundred things that a coon
must know: to follow the same paths till he comprehends the woods; to
poke his inquisitive nose into every crack and cranny, for the best
morsels on his bill of fare hide themselves in such places; to sleep
for a little nap when he is tired, resting on his forehead so as to
hide his brightly marked face and make himself inconspicuous, like a
rock or a lichen-covered stump; to leap down from the tallest tree
without hurting himself; and when he uses a den in the earth or rocks,
to have an exit some distance away from the entrance, and never under
any circumstances to enter his den save by his front door. There is
great wisdom in this last teaching. When a dog finds a hole with a
trail that always leads out of it he goes away, knowing it is of no
use to bark there; but when he finds an opening into which a trail is
leading, he thinks of course that his game is inside, and proceeds to
howl and to dig without ever a thought in his foolish head that there
may be another way out. Meanwhile, as he digs and raises an
unpardonable row in the quiet woods, Mooweesuk will either wait just
inside the entrance till she gets a chance to nip the dog's nose or
crush his paw, or else will slip quietly out of the back door with her
little ones and take them off to a hollow tree where they can sleep in
peace and have no fear till the dog goes away.
By the time the first snows blow the little coons are well grown and
strong enough to take good care of themselves; and then, like the bear
again, they escape the cold and the hunger of winter by going to sleep
for four or five months in a warm den that they have selected
carefully during their summer wanderings. They are fat as butter when
they curl themselves up for their long sleep; their ringed tails cover
their sensitive noses, and if they waken for a time they suck their
paws drowsily till they sleep again, so that, like the bear, they are
often tender-footed when they come out in the spring.
Often the young coons of the same family sleep all together in the
same den. The old males prefer to den by themselves, and are easily
found; but the mother coon, like the mother bear, takes infinite pains
to hide herself away where she can bring forth her young in peace, and
where no one will ever find them.
There is one curious habit suggested by these winter dens that I have
never seen explained, and for which I cannot account satisfactorily.
On certain soft days in winter Mooweesuk wakes from his long sleep and
wanders off into the world. At times you may follow his track for
miles through the woods without finding that he goes anywhere or does
anything in particular, for I have never found that he has eaten
anything on these wanderings. Sometimes, miles away from his den, his
track turns aside and goes straight to a hollow tree where other
coons are spending the winter. It may possibly be that they are his
own family, who generally have a den of their own, and whom he visits
to see if all is well. Sometimes from this den another coon goes out
with him, and their tracks wander for miles together; more often he
comes out alone, and you follow to where he has visited other coons,
or gone to sleep in another tree of his own, or swung round in a vast
circle to the tree from which he started, where he goes to sleep again
till called out for another season by the spring sun and the
chickadee's love notes.
It may be that all this is a bit of pure sociability on Mooweesuk's
part, for it is certainly not his season of love-making or of finding
a mate. Often, as I have said, three or four cubs will sleep the
winter out in the same den; but again you may find two or three old
coons in the same tree. Unlike many other animals with regard to their
dens, the law of hospitality is strong with the coon, and a solitary
old fellow that prefers to den by himself will never refuse to share
his winter house with other coons that are driven out of their snug
shelter; and this holds true notwithstanding the fact that there are
plenty other hollow trees that seem to belong to the tribe in general,
for they are visited freely by every passing coon.
There is another way in which this love of his race is manifest, and
it brings a thrill of admiration for Mooweesuk whenever it is seen: he
always comes in the face of danger or death to the cry of distress
from one of his own kind. I have seen this several times, and once
when it gave a thrill to the wild sport of night hunting that had
unexpected consequences. It was near midnight in late November, at the
end of the hunting season. The dogs had treed a coon, and by the aid
of a bright fire of crackling brush we were trying to "shine his eye,"
that is, to locate the game in the tree-tops by the fierce glow of his
eyes flashing back the firelight. We saw it at last, and one of the
hunters climbed the tree and tried to poke the coon from his perch
with a stout pole. Instead of doing as was expected of him, Mooweesuk,
who is always cool in the face of any danger, came swiftly along
the limb showing his teeth, and with a snarl in his nose that was
unmistakable. The hunter dropped his pole, pulled a revolver from his
pocket and shot the coon, which in a sudden rage turned and leaped for
the howling dogs forty feet below. In a flash there was a terrible
fight on. Mooweesuk, backed up against a tree, began the cool swift
snaps and blows that took all the courage out of half his enemies. Now
a dog was disabled by a single wolf grip on his sensitive nose; now a
favorite drew back howling, half-blinded by a lightning sweep of
Mooweesuk's paw across both eyes. But the dogs were too many for any
one fighter however brave. They leaped in upon Mooweesuk from the
sides; two powerful dogs stretched him out; then, knowing that his
fight was almost lost, he twisted his head and gave a sudden fierce
cry, the help call, entirely different from his screech and snarl of
battle. Like a flash another coon, a young one, appeared on the scene,
leaping out of the tree-top and hurling himself into the fight,
clawing and snapping like a fury, and sending out his battle yell.
[Illustration: "Leaping out of the tree-top and hurling himself into
the fight"]
Up to that moment none of us had suspected that there was a second
coon anywhere near. He had remained hidden and safe in the tree-top
through all the uproar, until what seemed plainly a call for help
came, when he threw all thought of self aside and came down like a
hero.
We had not half realized all this when the little fellow threw himself
upon the dog that held the first coon's neck and crushed a paw with a
single grip of his powerful jaws. Then the bigger coon was on his feet
again fighting feebly.--But a curious change had come over the hunt. I
had jumped forward to interfere at the unexpected heroism, but had
drawn back at the thought that I was only a guest, and there by
courtesy. Near me stood a big hunter, an owner of some of the dogs,
whose face was twitching strangely in the firelight. He started for
the fight swinging a club, then drew back ashamed to show any weak
sentiment in a coon hunt. "Save him," I whispered in his ear, "the
little fellow deserves his life"; and again he jumped forward. "Drag
off the dogs!" he roared in a terrible voice, at the same time
pulling away his own. Every hunter understood. There was a sudden wild
yell with a thrill in it that made one's spine tingle gloriously. The
dogs were dragged away by tails and legs, struggling and howling
against the indignity; the big coon lay down quietly to die; but the
little fellow put his back up against a rock, his eyes glowing like
coals that the wind blows upon, wrinkled his nose like a wolf, and
snarled his defiance at the whole howling mob. And there he stayed
till I took a pole and amid laughs and cheers drove him, still
protesting savagely, into another tree where the dogs could not get at
him.
That was far away from the place where my first Little Brother to the
Bear lived, and many years had passed since I had visited the ledge by
the old beaver dam. One day I came back, and turned swiftly into the
old wood road that had a happy memory for me by every turn and rock
and moldering stump. Here was where the grouse used to drum; and
there, at the end of the log, were signs to tell me that it still
sometimes rolled off the muffled thunder of the wings above. Here was
the break in the wall that the fox used as a runway; and there was a
crinkly yellow hair caught on a rough rock telling its story mutely.
Here was where the pines stood thickest; but they were all cut away
now, and the hardwood seeds that had waited so many years under the
pines for their chance at the sunlight were shooting up into vigorous
life at last. And here was the place where the road twisted about to
look back on the pretty spot where the shy children lived, with whom I
had once made friends.
They were all gone, and the little house under the ledge was deserted.
In one of the tumble-down rooms I found a rag doll beside the cold
hearth, and some poor toys on a shelf under a broken window. In the
whole lonely forgotten house these were the only things that brought
the light to one's face and the moisture to his eyes as he beheld
them. All else spoke of ruin and decay; but these poor playthings
that little hands had touched went straight to the heart with an
eternal suggesting of life and innocence and a childhood that never
grows old in the world. I dusted them tenderly with my handkerchief
and put them back in their places, and went away softly down the path
that led to the other house where the Little Brother to the Bear used
to live.
Everything was changed here, too. The dam that the beavers had built,
and that the years had covered over, still stood as strong as ever;
but the woods had been cut away, and the pond had dwindled till the
wild duck no longer found a refuge there. The ledges were no longer
green, for the sun that came in when the big trees fell had killed
most of the mosses and ferns that decked them; and the brook's song,
though cheery still, was scarcely heard as it trickled and seeped
where once it had rushed and tumbled down the woodsy valley, which
remained woodsy still, because happily the soil there was too poor to
raise anything but brush and cowslips, and so the woodsmen had spared
it from desolation.
The old tree that had once been the coon's house was blown down. When
it missed the support and the wind-break of its fellows, it could not
stand alone, and toppled over in the first storm. The old claw marks
of Mooweesuk were hidden deep under lichens. From this ruined home I
went to the den among the rocks by the path that the coons used to
follow. The hunters had been here long ago; the den was pried open,
the sheltering rocks were thrust aside, and the interior was full of
last year's leaves. As I brushed them away sadly to see what the house
was like, my hand struck something hard in a dark corner, and I
brought it out into the light again. It was a little knot with a crook
in it, all worn smooth by much handling--the plaything that I had
first seen, and that was now the last memory of a home where the
Little Brothers to the Bear had once lived and played together
happily.