deer we had seen was not Leonard’s mother—that it was merely a friend
from the woods who had come down by moonlight to pay a nocturnal call.
In our hearts, though, we knew better. Leonard all the day was restless;
he pricked his ears continually as if waiting for a voice from the
forest. We could scarcely coax him out of his distrait mood, even with a
double ration of the chewing gum he loved so well.
[Illustration]
The next night sleep was impossible. Though we heard nothing, we knew,
somehow, that outside Leonard’s pen was a slim brown body pressed close
against the wire netting. We rose, at last, and crept out over the roof
and down to the ground. The doe was there, as we had foreseen. At our
approach she bounded away with only the faintest rustle of leaves and
snapping of twigs to mark her progress. But knowing that she would not
go far—that she would come back to her baby—Brother and I went quickly
forward and opened the door of the pen.
Leonard came to us and thrust his nose against my hand. We knelt on the
ground, putting our arms around him, pressing our faces against his
soft, brown neck, telling him with tears behind our whispered words that
he must go with his mother, that the danger season was passed, and that
he was free to go back to his kindred.
[Illustration]
We stole away, but Leonard followed us, as if asking where we went and
why he was not to go with us. For the first time we pushed him away from
us, though you can not know what it meant to us to do it. He stood still
then, as if wondering, perhaps a little hurt, and we, not daring to look
back, ran for the fence, clambered upon it, and gained the roof.
Once there, we could not resist watching a bit, and it was not long
before the two luminous eyes gleamed from the underbrush. Then we saw a
shapely, dark body come slowly into the open, and Leonard, with light,
springing bounds, had rushed to meet his mother. For an instant we saw
again the glowing orbs of two pairs of eyes. Then the lights vanished;
two dark bodies moved side by side into the blackness of the woods; we
heard the light crackle of underbrush; and then silence.
Silently we crept into our beds, and long afterward I heard Brother’s
choking whisper coming through the darkness—my own face was buried in
the pillow:
“I know—Leonard’s going to miss—his—gum—”
We cried ourselves to sleep that night, thinking of an empty pen and of
a little brown friend gone from us forever.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_He questioningly sniffed the breeze._
]
_Part Four_
THE FAERY NIGHT
There came a night in June when the moon rose a great, yellow ball of
light over the fir trees that crowned the hill. It was a night for
adventure, for magic and mystery. And I, wide awake on the camp cot in
the front yard of the cabin, listened to the faint lapping of the water
upon the beach not a single stone’s-throw away, and to the wordless song
of the pine trees as the night wind swept drowsy fingers across their
branches—harps that woke to melody only when the daylight had gone and
the stars stole out to listen to their song. The puffy maple tree which
guarded the little log cabin was murmuring softly to itself, its leaves
nodding to each other as if confiding some wonderful secret, and the
giant fir tree on the other side of the porch stood erect and motionless
as if it were a sentinel and thus disdained to gossip.
From far out in the bay came faint splashes which told of salmon
leaping, and now and then the distant cry of a night bird, so faint as
to be only the shadow of a sound. In the air was the smell of grass
freshly wet with dew, of pine trees drenched and glistening, of wild
syringa on the hillside, and, more pronounced, the scent of the tiny
Mother of God roses that clambered over the cabin in a white and
fragrant wreath.
The stars were bright as the tears of angels, from which the Chinook
Indians say they were made, and the moon in their midst flooded hill and
bay with a silvery light made more intense by the blackness of the
forest.
[Illustration]
Somehow there was a hint of expectancy in the air, as if the summer had
looked forward to this one night and was a-thrill with the joy of its
coming. I could not sleep, for I was attuned to the things of the
out-of-doors, and I, too, was a-thrill with the expectation of
something—I knew not what.
I watched Altair rise over the “Happy Family” pines with his two
attendant stars that are like the outspread wings of an eagle, and I
kissed my hand to him in greeting.
A star fell, leaving a trailing line of light in its wake, and suddenly
I felt a little sad, for a Siwash Indian chief had told us that when a
star fell, it was a flower tossed by the hand of a good spirit from
Paradise to ease the pain of a soul passing out into the Great Darkness.
[Illustration]
Then Amarillo, the big yellow cat, padded across the grass with little
throaty mewings of greeting, and I felt the light thud of his body as he
leaped on the bed and settled himself at my feet. He, too, was restless,
for he would raise and lower his tawny head and would sometimes turn his
golden eyes upon me as if seeking an explanation for the thrill that was
in the night.
[Illustration]
So I was not surprised when I heard a faint, familiar scraping which
told me that Brother had climbed from his bedroom window and was sliding
down the roof to the fence.
Since we had only one camp cot, Brother and I must needs take turns
sleeping out of doors. And although this night was mine, I knew that he,
too, had felt its magic and could not abide the stuffy darkness of the
cabin when the world outside was bathed in moonlight. He came tiptoeing
around the corner of the house very quietly so as not to waken the
grown-ups, and Amarillo purred loudly as he saw him come, and dug his
claws into the bedclothes with contented, prickling sounds.
Brother was fully dressed, and he put his lips close to my ear as he
whispered: “Do you know what kind of a night this is?”
“No,” I answered breathlessly.
“A fairy night!” he breathed with awe. “The old fisherman told me that
on moonlight nights the fairies dance in the moss ring on the Hill
Trail. Come quick, let’s go!”
I needed no second bidding. Even as he spoke, I was drawing over my head
the knee-length dress I had worn during the day, and was feeling for my
moccasins tucked away from the dew under the rubber covering of the bed.
[Illustration]
Hand in hand we slipped out of the yard and up the trail, moving as
silently as wraiths. Amarillo followed to the edge of the woods and then
slipped away on business of his own.
Up the hill we hurried, up the narrow trail patched with moonlight and
shadows. The wet branches of the pines brushed across our faces; our
bare legs were swished by fern fronds as we passed. Sometimes a twig
crackled underfoot, and now and then we heard a slight rustling in the
underbrush where a little animal was moving.
We passed by the spring which gurgled dreamily into the pool shadowed by
ferns and alders. A mother deer and her baby were drinking there, and
although they turned their great eyes upon us, luminous in the moonlight
that sifted through the branches, they did not start or run as we stole
by.
[Illustration]
The top of the hill was gained at last, and the Hill Trail which we
called ours. Well we knew the fairy ring, a circle of moss in a
clearing, ringed around with pink twin-flowers and wild strawberry
vines, a fitting place for elfin feet to dance on a moonlight night. And
as we neared the clearing flooded by the bright moonlight, we trembled
with ecstasy and anticipation. That the fairies did dance there we never
doubted, but would they reveal themselves to the eyes of mortals, even
such friendly mortals as ourselves?
Crouched behind a cedar log and screened by salal bushes, we watched and
waited, our eyes glued to the moss ring in the patch of moon silver—but
no fairies came.
[Illustration]
Just the same it _was_ a fairy night, as you shall see. For presently a
little brown bear came out into the clearing, making considerably more
noise than his size warranted, sat up on his haunches, and sniffed the
breeze questioningly. He nibbled daintily at the leaves of a red
huckleberry bush, and having finished his nocturnal repast, walked
pigeon-toed over to a cedar tree, scratched his back against it, making
rumbling noises of content, and finally raised himself to his full
height—which was not so high after all—and marked how tall he was on the
shaggy bark of the tree by scratching it deeply with his claws. Then he
waddled away in his bow-legged fashion, and we heard the faint crashing
of the underbrush as he passed through.
[Illustration]
There came a wakeful brown rabbit, who hopped into the very center of
the fairy ring, wiggled his ears and nose, and then began to make an
elaborate toilet—in honor, we thought, of the elfin ball. He washed his
paws with care and gave each tapering ear a thorough massage. Last, he
twisted like a contortionist to assure himself that his white knob of a
tail was in perfect order, and finally being satisfied with his
inspection, he loped leisurely away without so much as the crackle of a
twig.
[Illustration]
The next two visitors to the moonlit clearing were two baby skunks
striped with brown and white and with graceful tufts of white for tails.
Strangely enough, Brother and I were not afraid of what might happen
should they suddenly be aware of our presence and become frightened, for
it seemed to us that we too belonged to the fairy night and that nothing
could happen to mar the perfect beauty of it. The little animals played
like kittens, dashing out at each other from the shadows and rolling
about in mock ferocity, but presently they, too, stole away, silently,
as wood creatures move, and we were left alone with the moonlit night
and the empty fairy ring.
Then from the direction of the trail came a cry of pain—like a human
cry. The spell of the night was shattered, and we gripped each other’s
hands and thought of flight. But again came the sound, a whimpering cry
like a child in distress, and the fear which had clutched at our hearts
vanished as suddenly, for we knew it must be an animal—some woods friend
sorely hurt. So without further pause we left the shelter of the log and
hurried across the clearing to the trail. The sound came from beyond the
“Happy Family” pines, and we hastened toward it.
[Illustration]
In the lumber clearing just off the trail we found what we had half
expected—a young fox caught in a steel trap by his front paws, and he
was whimpering with the pain of it. The dark eyes which he turned toward
us showed a frenzied, greenish light, and as we came nearer, he yelped
sharply, tugging frantically at the sharp teeth which never relaxed
their grip.
The pity in our hearts made us forgetful of his fear, but as we started
toward him, he wrenched backward, dragging the heavy trap to the full
length of the chain, his small, gray-brown body a-quiver with terror and
pain. So then we waited, approaching very quietly and slowly. Finally
his struggles ceased from sheer fatigue, and the eyes which he turned
upon us were dull and lifeless. Brother tried to hold me back, but I
would not have it so, and coming very close to the little fox, I put my
hand on his soft, furry head. He did not bite or even cringe. Perhaps
his pain was so great that he could suffer no more and so could not be
afraid, or perhaps it was because he sensed that my touch was a friendly
one and that help was near at hand.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Together Brother and I pried the steel jaws apart, and the little fox,
set free, limped away for a few feet and then fell exhausted. So I
picked him up, and walking quietly so as not to hurt or alarm him, we
sought again the forest pool, mottled now with deep shadows and pale
lights. The mother deer and her baby had gone, and in the cool, gurgling
water of the little stream we bathed the wounded feet of our friend and
named him “Reginald.” We made sure that the paws were not broken, only
lacerated by the sharp teeth of the trap, and when he began to stir and
move his head in quick jerks from side to side, we set him down on the
cool moss. After a little while he commenced to lick the hurt paws, very
gently at first and then with increasing confidence, and he did not go
away at once. He feared us no more than he would have feared a brother
and sister fox. So for an hour, until the moonlight gleams became
fainter and the shadows deeper, the three of us lingered by the forest
pool. Brother and I pretended that Reginald talked to us and that he
could understand what we said to him. And when finally he finished
licking his paws and slipped away into the darkness, we regained once
more the moonlit Hill Trail and started for home.
But there was one thing we must do, and we turned back to “Reginald’s
clearing,” as we called it. In the waning light we found the trap which
had so cruelly hurt our little friend, and we unwound the chain from the
tree. Into the blackness of the underbrush we flung it and laughed
defiantly as we heard it crash in the thicket. Then, as if some avenging
power were hard on our heels, we fled down the trail out of the wood and
stole into the yard without even the creaking of a gate to betray us.
[Illustration]
Thrilled to the very core of my being, I huddled into bed. And Amarillo,
who had long since returned, arched his back and yawned widely as if to
imply that such a nocturnal excursion was not respectable.
Brother started to tiptoe around to the fence and thus gain the roof and
his bedroom, but I stopped him with a sharp hiss, and he tiptoed back to
me.
“What shall we say if some hunter asks us about the trap?” I breathed
into his ear, and he doubled up and laughed noiselessly.
[Illustration]
“We will tell him that anything can happen on a fairy night,” he
whispered back and stole away to the fence, while I watched the moon
settle behind the distant blue hills, and with the ensuing darkness came
the breath of the morning breeze. The fairy night was over.
_Part Five_| THE FRIENDSHIP THAT FAILED
[Illustration]
_Part Five_
THE FRIENDSHIP THAT FAILED
On the shores of Puget Sound, where the woods come down to the shore to
fraternize with the little white-capped waves of the bay, lived Henry,
the heron. How old he was before Brother and I came to know him, we
could not tell. But an old-man bird he must have been surely, for his
was a knowledge of fishing that comes from long experience.
Every day we would watch him from our little log cabin—watch him sail
majestically toward the float, pause directly above, and flap down upon
it, using his lanky legs as balancing weights. He would stand there for
many moments, turning his head slightly from side to side as if
revolving in his mind whether he had done the wise thing in coming, and
what his next move ought to be.
[Illustration:
_Cannon came charging in a whirlwind of feathers._
]
Such a deliberate bird Henry seemed, but this apparent deliberation was
only one of the tricks of his trade. I am sure that had I been a fish, I
would have believed there was nothing to fear from the immobile bunch of
gray feathers balanced on two skinny stilt legs, and I would have swum
merrily under the very tip of his beak. But Henry’s sharp, black eyes
missed nothing, as the hapless fish found to their cost when they
ventured too near the surface. With one lightning swoop the great bill
cleaved the water, and the next instant a shiny fish was wriggling in
his beak.
[Illustration]
Sometimes he did his fishing while standing in the water up to his
knees—or where his knees would be if herons had such things. With his
head drawn in between his feathered shoulders and his long beak sticking
out at right angles like a lance at rest, he seemed to be taking a
siesta, and only the occasional plunge of his long bill into the water,
and the accompanying twinkle of a small silver fish as it flapped in
amazement before it slid down into his gullet, proved that he was
awake—and hungry.
We gave Henry his name when he was but an acquaintance of ours. We never
really hoped to have him for a friend, but we liked him, and we felt
that he liked us, too. So when he did his fishing on our float or
knee-deep in the water of the little cove before the cabin, we threw
scraps of bread to him, which he accepted gravely and always dipped in
the salt water before swallowing.
We used to hear his strange, mournful cry late at night as he flew
northward past the cove on his way to the pine tree where he lived, and
we always pretended he was giving us a greeting before he turned in for
the night.
[Illustration]
We found out, too, where he made his home. We had often seen him land on
a bony, fallen tree half a mile up the beach, which jutted straight out
into the water and which we called “the Pointing Finger.” Once, in our
explorations along the beach trail, we saw Henry standing on the gray
shaft of the dead tree, and as we watched, he stooped slightly, then
flapped upward and flew into a tall pine tree almost in front of us.
When we stood under it, we could distinguish the outlines of a nest high
up in the branches. Perhaps at that time there was a Mrs. Henry and
maybe some young Henrys—I do not know. But certain it was that when he
became a friend of ours by reason of a happening which might have ended
in tragedy for him, he seemed to be without family cares or
responsibilities.
[Illustration]
During the season when the salmon were running, the Old Fisherman, who
was at once our mentor and playfellow, spread his nets from the
shore-line straight out into the bay for a hundred yards, leaving them
there the night through to catch the large silver salmon on their way to
the creeks to spawn. One of these nights he had laid his net near the
Pointing Finger, and Brother and I, going with him in his creaky,
flat-bottomed boat to see the result of the haul, heard ahead of us a
great splashing, and saw dimly outlined in the midst of the cork floats
a dark body that flapped and struggled.
We whispered excitedly that perhaps a seal had become entangled in the
net, but the Old Fisherman thought it only a salmon, or perhaps a
dogfish whose pointed snout had been caught in the meshes of the cords.
[Illustration]
But it was neither seal nor salmon, for on rowing close to the net we
saw by the light of the Old Fisherman’s lantern a huge, gray bird with
flapping wings and slashing beak. It was Henry, the heron, who had
alighted on one of the cork floaters, perhaps thinking it safe footing,
and had thus become hopelessly snared in the net.
[Illustration]
What was even worse, he had hurt himself cruelly in his struggles, for
one long leg was dangling helplessly, and one of his wide gray wings
hung limp at his side. When the Old Fisherman, with gruff words but
tender hands, released him from the cords which bound him, he could not
fly, but flapped helplessly upon the water. And so it was that we lifted
him into the boat and tied a gunnysack around him so that he should not
injure himself further, for he did not understand that our intentions
were kindly and snapped at us fiercely with his huge beak.
The Old Fisherman, who had lived with the Indians and who had acquired
their curative gifts, took Henry, the heron, in charge when we reached
the little cabin in the cove, first muzzling him by tying a stout cord
about his beak. Then he set the broken wing and put the leg in splints.
The grown-ups suggested putting Henry in the hen-house for the night,
but Brother and I would not have it so, and with their help we
constructed a pen behind the kitchen stove where he could be warm and
comfortable. We left him moving his head jerkily from side to side,
blinking his beady eyes now and then and snapping his bill as if in
troubled retrospect.
But during the next week Henry, the heron, came to know that we were his
friends and that he had nothing to fear from us. He allowed us to stroke
him and would accept morsels of food from our fingers, even taking care
not to nip us with his powerful beak.
[Illustration]
When he had finally ceased to fear us, we gave him the liberty of the
back-yard, and he would stalk about stiffly like a peg-legged veteran of
the wars. But most of the time he would stand with his head drawn in
between his shoulders, the picture of dejection, and Brother and I knew
he was longing for the freedom of the air and the water which had been
his. He was longing for the cool lapping of little waves against his
legs, for the silver gleam of fish in the blue depths; and he wanted to
fly once more—to circle over the bay, to flap down upon the Pointing
Finger. Perhaps he was even lonesome for the nest in the pine tree. At
any rate we were sorry for his sadness and set about to remedy it as
best we could. We fished indefatigably from the float, and the Old
Fisherman brought us smelts and silver perch from his nets.
[Illustration]
Then, to make our guest feel more at home, we would put our catch in a
washtub filled with water, and Henry would fish for them choosing his
prey with calculating eye and gobbling it up with one great peck. It was
the best we could do for him, and we felt that he appreciated that, too,
for he obligingly hunted down every fish in the tub, and then would turn
his grave head toward us, giving us the broadside effect of one shiny
eye, whether in thanks or in petition for more we could not determine.
[Illustration]
But it was really due to Cannon, our bantam rooster, that Henry’s
convalescence was not entirely unendurable. Cannon was the eldest son of
Liberty, a small bantam hen who had brought forth her brood on the
fourth of July—hence her name and his. He was the undisputed king of the
poultry yard, for a strain of game cock in his blood had made him
fearless of everything and an unspeakable bully. There was no hen or
cock of twice his size who dared come near his end of the feed trough,
and even Prince, the mammoth White Rock rooster, stood in awe of him.
Perhaps he was merely amused at the airs Cannon gave himself, and so let
the tiny cock have his way, but at any rate his record of combat was
unsullied by a single defeat.
[Illustration]
I have seen many a strange friendship between animals and between birds,
too, but never one so curious as that of Henry, the heron, and Cannon,
the bantam rooster. For friends they were, and real friends, too. They
became acquainted when Cannon, flying into the back-yard one day, spied
the stiff-legged Henry and immediately decided to do battle with him. He
ruffled up his neck feathers, whirled round and round with one wing
dusting the ground, and advancing on Henry, dared him to come on and
fight. At first Brother and I thought to rescue Cannon from what we
believed would be his sure death. But we were wrong; for Henry regarded
the little brown cock contemplatively, snapped his bill in warning, then
blinked and turned away as if overcome with boredom. But Cannon was not
used to being ignored. If his enemies would not fight, they must at
least give way before him. So his neck ruff distended more and more, his
tiny comb glowed an angry red, and in his best game-cock fashion he
hopped up and down stiffly, trying to strike at the heron’s broad,
feathered breast above him.
[Illustration]
Henry eyed him curiously, almost saturninely, and at last with a sort of
wearied annoyance gave one sweep of his broad bill, and Cannon was sent
tumbling in a scurry of brown feathers and outraged squawks. But he was
a warrior; back he came in a series of frenzied leaps, and once more
Henry’s massive bill swept him lightly but conclusively aside.
[Illustration]
Time after time, to the number of twelve, Cannon came charging in a
whirlwind of feathers, trying to slash the feathered breast of his
passive enemy, always to be met by the calm but decisive buffet of
Henry’s beak. At last it was a wearied little bantam cock who stopped
pantingly and turned his back upon the gray heron, owning himself
defeated.