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[Illustration: THE FOX SPARROWS' BATH (page 56)]

The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series

WINTER

DALLAS LORE SHARP

Author of “The Fall of the Year,” “The Lay of the Land,”

“The Face of the Fields,” etc.

Illustrated by Robert Bruce Horsfall

Boston New York Chicago

Houghton Mifflin Company

The Riverside Press Cambridge

THE FOUR SMALL BOYS

ON MULLEIN HILL

WHO HUNT THE SNOW WITH ME

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ix

I. HUNTING THE SNOW 1

II. THE TURKEY DRIVE 15

III. WHITE-FOOT 29

IV. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS WINTER 39

V. CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS 46

VI. CHICKADEE 61

VII. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS WINTER 74

VIII. THE MISSING TOOTH 80

IX. THE PECULIAR ’POSSUM 94

X. A FEBRUARY FRESHET 105

XI. A BREACH IN THE BANK 112

XII. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS WINTER 123

XIII. THE LAST DAY OF WINTER 129

NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 137

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FOX SPARROWS’ BATH _Frontispiece_

SKUNK TRACKS 3

CAT TRACKS 4

TRACKS OF HARE JOINED BY DOGS 6

“IN A BURST OF SPEED ACROSS THE OPEN FIELD” 7

DOG TRACKS IN FOUR INCHES OF SNOW 7

TRACKS OF THE WHITE-FOOTED MOUSE 9

“A GRAY SQUIRREL WITH A RED SQUIRREL AT HIS HEELS” 11

FOX TRACKS 12

MUSKRAT TRAIL 14

“INTO THE AIR THEY WENT” 26

WHITE-FOOT--“IN THE WINTER GALES” 33

“FIVE WEE MICE” 35

WHITE-FOOT AND THE HICKORY-NUTS 38

A VIREO’S NEST IN WINTER 40

“WIND-SWEEPINGS” 41

’POSSUM IN THE PERSIMMON TREE 50

WEASEL--“WATCHING ME FROM BETWEEN THE STICKS” 58

“A CHICKADEE!” 62

“DOING THE EXCAVATING THEMSELVES” 69

FOOD FOR THE NUTHATCHES 76

THE MOURNING-CLOAK BUTTERFLY, AN EARLY FLITTER 77

A RUFFED GROUSE TRAIL 78

“THE SNOW HAD MELTED FROM THE RIVER MEADOWS” 80

“CARRYING A BIG BOB-TAILED VOLE OUT OF MY ‘MOWING’” 85

“SCURRYING THROUGH THE TOPS OF SOME PITCH PINES” 90

“ALL THE AFTERNOON THE CROWS HAVE BEEN GOING OVER” 93

THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS, OR DUCK-BILL 97

THE ECHIDNA, OR PORCUPINE ANT-EATER 98

“STANDING BEFORE A LARGE ’POSSUM” 99

“OUT SHE SPILLED AND NINE LITTLE ’POSSUMS WITH HER” 100

“A GREAT BLUE HERON WOULD BEAT PONDEROUSLY ACROSS” 106

MEADOW MOUSE--“IN A DRIFTING CATBIRD’S NEST” 109

“A LITTLE FIGURE IN YELLOW OIL-SKINS” 114

“DREW A LIMP LITTLE FORM OUT OF THE WATER” 121

QUAIL--“ONE OF THE COVEY CALLING THE FLOCK TOGETHER” 127

“A FLOCK OF ROBINS DASHING INTO THE CEDARS” 131

PUSSY-WILLOWS AND WATERCRESS 132

“THE HAZELNUT BUSHES ARE IN BLOOM” 133

BLUEBIRD--“LIKE A BIT OF SUMMER SKY” 135

INTRODUCTION

As in _The Fall of the Year_, so here in _Winter_, the second volume

of this series, I have tried by story and sketch and suggestion to

catch the spirit of the season. In this volume it is the large, free,

strong, fierce, wild soul of Winter which I would catch, the bitter

boreal might that, out of doors, drives all before it; that challenges

all that is wild and fierce and strong and free and large within us,

till the bounding red blood belts us like an equator, and the glow of

all the tropics blooms upon our faces and down into the inmost of our

beings.

Winter within us means vitality and purpose and throbbing life; and

without us in our fields and woods it means widened prospect, the

storm of battle, the holiness of peace, the poetry of silence and

darkness and emptiness and death. And I have tried throughout this

volume to show that Winter is only a symbol, that death is only an

appearance, that life is everywhere, and that everywhere life

dominates even while it lies buried under the winding-sheet of the

snow.

“A simple child,

That lightly draws its breath,

What should it know of death?”

Why, this at least, that the winter world is not dead; that the cold

is powerless to destroy; that life flees and hides and sleeps, only

to waken again, forever stronger than death--fresher, fairer, sweeter

for its long winter rest.

But first of all, and always, I have tried here to be a naturalist and

nature-lover, pointing out the sounds and sights, the things to do,

the places to visit, the how and why, that the children may know the

wild life of winter, and through that knowledge come to love winter

for its own sake.

And they will love it. Winter seems to have been made especially for

children. They do not have rheumatism. Let the old people hurry off

down South, but turn the children loose in the snow. The sight of a

snowstorm affects a child as the smell of catnip affects a cat. He

wants to roll over and over and over in it. And he should roll in it;

the snow is his element as it is a polar bear cub’s.

I love the winter, and so do all children--its bare fields, empty

woods, flattened meadows, its ranging landscapes, its stirless

silences, its tumult of storms, its crystal nights with stars new cut

in the glittering sky, its challenge, defiance, and mighty wrath. I

love its wild life--its birds and animals; the shifts they make to

conquer death. And then, out of this winter watching, I love the

gentleness that comes, the sympathy, the understanding! One gets very

close to the heart of Nature through such understanding.

DALLAS LORE SHARP.

MULLEIN HILL, March, 1912.

WINTER

CHAPTER I

HUNTING THE SNOW

You want no gun, no club, no game-bag, no steel trap, no snare when

you go hunting the snow. Rubber boots or overshoes, a good, stout

stick to help you up the ridges, a pair of field-glasses and a keen

eye, are all you need for this hunt,--besides, of course, the snow and

the open country.

You have shoveled the first snow of the winter; you have been

snowballing in it; you have coasted on it; and gone sleigh-riding over

it; but unless you have gone hunting over it you have missed the

rarest, best sport that the first snowfall can bring you.

Of all the days to be out in the woods, the day that follows the first

snowfall is--the best? No, not the best. For there is the day in April

when you go after arbutus; and there is the day in June when the

turtles come out to lay in the sand; the muggy, cloudy day in August

when the perch are hungry for you in the creek; the hazy Indian

Summer day when the chestnuts are dropping for you in the pastures;

the keen, crisp February day when the ice spreads glassy-clear and

smooth for you over the mill-pond; the muddy, raw, half-thawed,

half-lighted, half-drowned March day when the pussy-willows are

breaking, and the first spring frogs are piping to you from the

meadow. Then there is--every day, every one of the three hundred and

sixty-five days, each of them best days to be out in the live world of

the fields and woods.

But _one_ of the very best days to be out in the woods is the day that

follows the first winter snowfall, for that is the day when you must

shoulder a good stout stick and go gunning. Gunning with a stick? Yes,

with a stick, and rubber boots, and bird-glasses. Along with this

outfit you might take a small jointed foot-rule with which to measure

your quarry, and a notebook to carry the game home in.

It ought to be the day after the first real snow, but not if that snow

happens to be a blizzard and lies deep in dry powdery drifts, for then

you could hardly follow a trail if you should find one. Do not try the

hunt, either, if the snow comes heavy and wet; for then the animals

will stay in their dens until the snow melts, knowing, as they do,

that the soft slushy stuff will soon disappear. The snow you need will

lie even and smooth, an inch or two deep, and will be just damp enough

to pack into tight snowballs.

If, however, the early snows are not ideal, then wait until over an

old crusted snow there falls a fresh layer about an inch deep. This

may prove even better hunting, for by this time in the winter the

animals and birds are quite used to snow-walking, and besides, their

stores of food are now running short, compelling them to venture forth

whether or not they wish to go.

It was early in December that our first hunting-snow came last year.

We were ready for it, waiting for it, and when the winter sun broke

over the ridge, we started the hunt at the hen-yard gate, where we saw

tracks in the thin, new snow that led us up the ridge, and along its

narrow back, to a hollow stump. Here the hunt began in earnest; for

not until that trail of close, double, nail-pointed prints went under

the stump were the four small boys convinced that we were tracking a

skunk and not a cat.

The creature had moved leisurely--that you could tell by the closeness

of the prints. Wide-apart tracks in the snow mean hurry. Now a cat,

going as slowly as this creature went, would have put down her dainty

feet almost in a single line, and would have left round,

cushion-marked holes in the snow, not triangular, nail-pointed prints

like these. Cats do not venture into holes under stumps, either.

We had bagged our first quarry! No, no! We had not pulled that wood

pussy out of his hole and put him into our game-bag. We did not want

to do that. We really carried no bag; and if we had, we should not

have put the wood pussy into it, for we were hunting tracks, not

animals, and “bagging our quarry” meant trailing a creature to its

den, or following its track till we had discovered something it had

done, or what its business was, and why it was out. We were on the

snow for animal _facts_, not pelts.

We were elated with our luck, for this stump was not five minutes by

the ridge path from the hen-yard. And here, standing on the stump, we

were only sixty minutes away from Boston Common by the automobile,

driving no faster than the law allows. So we were hunting, not in a

wilderness, but just outside our dooryard and almost within the

borders of a great city.

And that is the first interesting fact of our morning hunt. No one but

a lover of the woods and a careful walker on the snow would believe

that here in the midst of hayfields, in sight of the smoke of city

factories, so many of the original wild wood-folk still live and

travel their night paths undisturbed.

Still, this is a rather rough bit of country, broken, ledgy,

boulder-strewn, with swamps and woody hills that alternate with small

towns and cultivated fields for many miles around.

Here the animals are still at home, as this hole of the skunk’s under

the stump proved. But there was more proof. As we topped the ridge on

the trail of the skunk, we crossed another trail, made up of bunches

of four prints,--two long and broad, two small and roundish,--spaced

about a yard apart.

A hundred times, the winter before, we had tried that trail in the

hope of finding the form or the burrow of its maker; but it crossed

and turned and doubled, and always led us into a tangle, out of which

we never got a clue. It was the track of the great northern hare, as

we knew, and we were relieved to see the strong prints of our cunning

neighbor again; for, what with the foxes and the hunters, we were

afraid it might have fared ill with him. But here he was, with four

good legs under him; and, after bagging our skunk, we returned to pick

up the hare’s trail, to try our luck once more.

We followed his long, leisurely leaps down the ridge, out into our

mowing-field, and over to the birches below the house. Here he had

capered about in the snow, had stood up on his haunches and gnawed the

bark from off a green oak sucker two and a half feet from the ground.

This, doubtless, was pretty near his length, stretched out--an

interesting item; not exact to the inch, perhaps, but close enough for

us; for who would care to kill him in order to measure him with

scientific accuracy?

Nor was this all; for up the footpath through the birches came the

marks of two dogs. They joined the marks of the hare. And then, back

along the edge of the woods to the bushy ridge, we saw a pretty race.

It was all in our imaginations, all done for us by those long-flinging

footprints in the snow. But we saw it all--the white hare, the

yelling hounds, nip and tuck, in a burst of speed across the open

field which must have left a gap in the wind behind.

It had all come as a surprise. The hounds had climbed the hill on the

scent of a fox, and had started the hare unexpectedly. Off he had gone

with a jump. But just such a jump of fear is what a hare’s magnificent

legs were intended for.

Those legs carried him a clear twelve feet in some of the longest

leaps for the ridge; and they carried him to safety, so far as we

could read the snow. In the medley of hare-and-hound tracks on the

ridge there was no sign of a tragedy. He had escaped again--but how

and where we have still to learn.

We had bagged our hare,--yet we have him still to bag,--and taking up

the trail of one of the dogs, we continued our hunt. One of the joys

of this snow-hunting is having a definite road or trail blazed for you

by knowing, purposeful wild-animal feet.

You do not have to blunder ahead, breaking your way into this

wilderness world, trusting luck to bring you somewhere. The wild

animal or the dog goes this way, and not that, for a reason. You are

watching that reason all along; you are pack-fellow to the hound; you

hunt with him.

Here the hound had thrust his muzzle into a snow-capped pile of

slashings, had gone clear round the pile, then continued on his way.

But we stopped; for out of the pile, in a single, direct line, ran a

number of mouse prints, going and coming. A dozen white-footed mice

might have traveled that road since the day before, when the snow had

ceased falling.

We entered the tiny road, for in this kind of hunting a mouse is as

good as a mink, and found ourselves descending the woods toward the

garden patch below. Halfway down we came to a great red oak, into a

hole at the base of which, as into the portal of some mighty castle,

ran the road of the mice. That was the end of it. There was not a

single straying footprint beyond the tree.

I reached in as far as my arm would go, and drew out a fistful of

pop-corn cobs. So here was part of my scanty crop! I pushed in again,

and gathered up a bunch of chestnut shells, hickory-nuts and several

neatly rifled hazelnuts. This was story enough. There must be a family

of mice living under the slashing-pile, who for some good reason kept

their stores here in the recesses of this ancient red oak. Or was this

some squirrel’s barn being pilfered by the mice, as my barn is the

year round? It was not all plain. But this question, this constant

riddle of the woods, is part of our constant joy in the woods. Life

is always new, and always strange, and always fascinating.

It has all been studied and classified according to species. Any one

knowing the woods at all, would know that these were mouse tracks,

would even know that they were the tracks of the white-footed mouse,

and not the tracks of the jumping mouse, the house mouse, or the

meadow mouse. But what is the whole small story of these prints? What

purpose, what intention, what feeling, do they spell? What and why?--a

hundred times!

So it is not the bare tracks that we are hunting; it is the meaning of

the tracks--where they are going, and what they are going for. Burns

saw a little mouse run across the furrows as he was plowing and wrote

a poem about it. So could we write a poem if we like Burns would stop

to think what the running of these little mice across the snow might

mean. The woods and fields, summer and winter, are full of poems that

might be written if we only knew just all that the tiny snow-prints

of a wood mouse mean, or understood just what, “root and all, and all

in all,” the humblest flower is.

The pop-corn cobs, however, we did understand; they told a plain

story; and, falling in with a gray squirrel’s track not far from the

red oak, we went on, our burdenless game-bag heavier, our hearts

lighter that we, by the sweat of our brows, had contributed a few ears

of corn to the comfort of this snowy winter world.

The squirrel’s track wound up and down the hillside, wove in and out

and round and round, hitting every possible tree, as if the only road

for a squirrel was one that looped and doubled, and tied up every

stump, and zigzagged into every tree trunk in the woods.

But all this maze was no ordinary journey. He had not run this coil of

a road for breakfast, because a squirrel, when he travels, say for

distant nuts, goes as directly as you go to your school or office;

only he goes not by streets, but by trees, never crossing more of the

open in a single rush than the space between him and the nearest tree

that will take him on his way.

What interested us here in the woods was the fact that a second series

of tracks, just like the first, except that they were only about half

as large, dogged the larger tracks persistently, leaping tree for

tree, and landing track for track with astonishing accuracy--tracks

which, had they not been evidently those of a smaller squirrel, would

have read to us most menacingly.

As this was the mating season for squirrels, I suggested that it might

have been a kind of Atalanta’s race here in the woods. But why did so

little a squirrel want to mate with one so large? They would not look

well together, was the answer of the small boys. They thought it much

more likely that Father Squirrel had been playing wood-tag with one of

his children.

Then, suddenly, as sometimes happens in the woods, the true meaning of

the signs was fairly hurled at us, for down the hill, squealing and

panting, rushed a full-sized gray squirrel, with a red squirrel like a

shadow, like a weasel, at his heels.

For just an instant I thought it was a weasel, so swift and silent and

gliding were its movements, so set and cruel seemed its expression, so

sure, so inevitable, its victory.

Whether it ever caught the gray squirrel or not, and what it would

have done had it caught the big fellow, I do not know. But I have seen

the chase often--the gray squirrel nearly exhausted with fright and

fatigue, the red squirrel hard after him. They tore round and round

us, then up over the hill, and disappeared.

One of the rarest prints for most snow-hunters nowadays, but one of

the commonest hereabouts, is the quick, sharp track of the fox. In the

spring particularly, when my fancy young chickens are turned out to

pasture, I have spells of fearing that the fox will never be

exterminated here in this untillable but beautiful chicken country. In

the winter, however, when I see Reynard’s trail across my lawn, when I

hear the music of the baying hounds and catch a glimpse of the

white-tipped brush swinging serenely in advance of the coming pack, I

cannot but admire the capable, cunning rascal, cannot but be glad for

him, and marvel at him, so resourceful, so superior to his almost

impossible conditions, his almost numberless foes.

We started across the meadow on his trail, but found it leading so

straightaway for the ledges, and so continuously blotted out by the

passing of the pack, that, striking the wallowy path of a muskrat in

the middle of the meadow, we took up the new scent to see what the

shuffling, cowering water-rat wanted from across the snow.

A man is known by the company he keeps, by the way he wears his hat,

by the manner of his laugh; and among the wild animals nothing tells

more of character than their manner of moving. You can read animal

character as easily in the snow as you can read act and direction.

The timidity, the indecision, the lack of purpose, the restless,

meaningless curiosity of this muskrat were evident from the first in

the starting, stopping, returning, going-on track he had plowed out in

the thin snow.

He did not know where he was going or what he was going for; he knew

only that he insisted upon going back, but all the while kept going

on; that he wanted to go to the right or to the left, yet kept moving

straight ahead.

We came to a big wallow in the snow, where, in sudden fear, he had had

a fit at the thought of something that might not have happened to him

had he stayed at home. Every foot of the trail read, “He would if he

could; if he couldn’t, how could he?”

We followed him on, across a dozen other trails, for it is not every

winter night that the muskrat’s feet get the better of his head, and,

willy-nilly, take him abroad. Strange and fatal weakness! He goes and

cannot stop.

Along the stone wall of the meadow we tracked him, across the

highroad, over our garden, into the orchard, up the woody hill to the

yard, back down the hill to the orchard, out into the garden, and back

toward the orchard again; and here, on a knoll just at the edge of the

scanty, skeleton shadow where the sunlight fell through the trees, we

lost him.

Two mighty wings, we saw, had touched the snow lightly here, and the

lumbering trail had vanished as into the air.

Close and mysterious the shadowy silent wings hang poised indoors and

out. Laughter and tears are companions. Life begins, but death

sometimes ends the trail. Yet the sum of life, outdoors and in, is

peace, gladness, and fulfillment.