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OTHER NATURE BOOKS

By This Author

MASTER FRISHY
(90c. net) by Mail, 58c.

‘“‘“This is a really delightful story of an un-
usually clever dog.’’— New York Tribune.

‘“Frisky’s dog world, companions, and con-
versations make up a fascinating biography.”’
— Congregationalist.

“‘ One of the best stories of dog life that has
yet appeared.” — Boston Herald.

THE LITTLE FORESTERS

(14 Illustrations, 60c. net)
By Mail, 70c.

“ A very delightful book descriptive of ani-
mal and woodland life. Beyond being a
source of interest and instruction to the wide-
awake boy and girl, it will serve another high
end. It will teach kindness towards every
living creature.” — Herald and Presbyter.

‘Hach bit of description and incident is
told accurately and realistically.’’ — Minne-
apolis Tribune.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
NEW YORK

GOOD-G EEN WOOD

= BYCLARENCE HAWKES

£ AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE FORESTERS”

= “S TLLUSTRATED BY CHARLES COPELAND

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143 2 eS

Seas D ohn 8 RE TRARY

LIBRARY of CONGRESS
Two Conies Recetved

JUL 18 1904 3f
Sooyright Entry |
[S- /Qo%
CLASS. & xxXe. No.
9/4 8 4
COPY B C).) 7a
1739
oT

Copyright, 1904,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.

Published September, 1904.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER
I. A TEACHER OF WoODCRAFT.

II. OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO

Ill. Booxs In Runnine Brooks.

IV. Tae Miscurer-Maxer
V. A TENDER MOTHER
VI. An Autumn RAMBLE.
VII. THe Piovers’ FIELD Day .
VIII. THE Great Orrcus Cat
IX.- SIGNS IN THE SNOW .
X. S1ans oF THE SEASONS

STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

CHAPTER I
A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT

No day that I have spent roaming the
woods with old Ben Wilson will ever be
quite forgotten. Although, as he flourished
nearly twenty years ago, some of those
memories are rather dim. He was never
known as Mr. Benjamin Wilson, for his
full name did not fit him, so he was simply
Old Ben to all the boys whom he fancied,
for ten miles around.

He was not an important personage,
either, so you may wonder just what his
hold upon your affections was. If I re-
member rightly, he was not in favor with
the elders in the Ba little New England

9 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

town where we lived, for many of them
called him ‘‘a lazy good-for-nothing,” but
never anything worse than that.

His great sin seemed to be that he loved
nature and the wonders of the fields and
woods, more than most of his prosaic neigh-
bors, and so took more time to admire them.

It was a very common sight to see Old
Ben walking home with one arm full of hick-
ory saplings and the other filled with springy
hemlock boughs. The hickories he would
carefully peel, some rainy day, and then he
would hang them up in the barn, with a
weight on the end of each. There in the
course of time they became the choicest kind
of trout poles. It was considered as much
of an honor, by us boys, to be the possessor
of one of Old Ben’s hickory rods, as it was in
after years to own one of Spalding’s best fly
rods. The hemlock boughs were made into
bows, strips of woodchuck hide being used
for the strings. One of these bows made a
boy of ten as near the counterpart of an
Apache Indian as he was likely to ever get.

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 3

Then there was always an assortment of
popguns made from the hollow elder, for boys
who were too small to use the bows;so was
it any wonder that we all loved Old Ben ?

He did not like to take small boys with him
into the woods. “ They air allus hollerin’
and skeerin’ things,” he would say. ‘‘A
boy has gut ter be old enough ter hold his
tongue before he can go with me.” Iwas
about ten years old when, one May afternoon,
I made my first pilgrimage with Old Ben to
the shrine of nature, and I saw more in that
brief afternoon than:I had ever seen before
in my life.

‘*Hyes ain’t good for nothin’ in the woods,
without you know how to use um,” my guide
would say. ‘‘Most folks go thunderin’
through the woods, like it was Washington
street, an’ don’t see nothin’, while the rabbit
sits under a bush a laughin’ behind his paw,
am’ winkin’ at the squirrel above him in the
tree. ‘There ain’t one person in ten that can
see anything in the woods, while really one
can see more there than anywhere else.”

4 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

On this particular afternoon we took the
cow-path leading down through the lane to
the pasture, after which we struck off into
the deep woods.

We had scarcely turned from the path into
the alder bushes that skirted the woods when
a small brown bird fluttered out of the grass
at our feet, and flew into a bush near by,
where she fluttered about, twittering in an
excited manner.

‘Now, Harry,” said Old Ben seriously,
‘‘ what do you think of that ?”’

‘What ?” I asked, for I had seen nothing
unusual. |

“Why is that ’ere brown bird floppin’ up
— out of the grass in that way and then perch-
in’ on that bush an’ not flyin’ off? Put your
wits to work, boy, an’ tell me what you think
on it.”

“‘T don’t think anything of it,” I said
after a moment’s thought. ‘‘’Tain’t any-
thing but just a brown bird, and they are
always flying around in the bushes.”

‘‘ Eyes, yet they see not, ears, yet they

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 5

hear not,” repeated Old Ben mournfully,
“But I don’t blame you, boy ; it’s our first
trip together, an’ I'll teach you to see things,
in time.

‘Wal, that there brown bird came out
from under that bit of a bush by the path an’
ten ter one there is where her nest is.”

‘Why, what makes you think so?” I
asked in astonishment.

‘‘Wal,” replied Old Ben, thoughtfully,
‘“she warn’t there for nuthin’, birds and
squirrels don’t do things for nuthin’. She
wouldn’t be feedin’ there this time o’ day,
for ’tain’t neither breakfast time nor supper
time, besides, don’t you see she don’t want
to goaway? She’s waitin’ to see what you
an’ I are goin’ to do about her nest. Uv
course I may be mistaken, for a feller ain’t
never quite sure in the woods, but let’s
see.”

We knelt down by the bush and poked
away the grass, and there, sure enough, was
the nest with five speckled eggs in it. It
was avery cosy house, lined with hair and

6 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

sheltered from the wind and rain by the
bush.

‘** Ain’t it a pretty home for Mr. and Mrs.
Browny ?” asked Old Ben, poking the grass
back as it had been before.

“Let me take one of the eggs home to
keep,” I said, reaching for it. But to my
astonishment my companion caught me by
the wrist. ‘‘ No, you don’t,” he said decid-
edly. ‘‘ This ain’t no nest robbin’ expedition,
not ef I know it. If you hev come with me
ter rob birds’ nests, I am goin’ home. Ef
you take that egg home it means one less .
bird to sing to us and hop about an’ look
pretty. Think uv that.”

I had never thought of it before in just
that light, and the more I considered, the
more I became sure that I had no right to
take this little unhatched bird’s life in that
way.

‘Come on,” said my companion, ‘*‘ we hev
disturbed Mrs. Browny long enough ; she is
gettin’ nervous, let’s be movin’.” So we
parted the alder bushes and walked on, leav-

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 7

ing the little house undisturbed and the
heart of the brown bird glad that we had
not taken any of her eggs.

Old Ben glided along as easily in the cover
as 1 could go in the open, and he rarely
made any noise. ‘‘Light-foot,” we boys
called him, but with me the case was quite
different. Hvery dry twig that I stepped on,
snapped like a parlor match, and I was
always stepping on one end of a long stick
and having the other end fly up with a big
noise.

‘* Harry,” said my companion severely,
after one of these missteps, ‘‘ you make as
much racket in the woods as a rhinoceros
would in a tin shop. Ennybody’d think
your feet were pile drivers ; why don’t you
let them down easy, like the earth was eggs,
an’ you wuz afraid uv breakin’ on um.”

Presently a brown streak shot across the
path and was lost to sight in the weeds and
underbrush.

‘ What’s that ?” I asked excitedly.

Rabbit,” rephed my guide in an under-

8 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

tone. ‘‘ Allus when you see a brown streak
an’ can’t quite make it out, it’s a rabbit, that
is, ef it is on the ground; but in winter it
would be a white streak.”

‘* What, the same rabbit ?”’ I asked.

‘*Yes,” said old Ben seriously. ‘‘ He has
got two coats. A brown one that he wears
in the summer and a white one in winter.”

‘“'Where did he go to?” I asked.

‘‘ Are you a bat, that you can’t see in the
daytime ?”” Ben asked, looking scornfully
down at me. ‘‘ He is in just as plain sight
at this very minute asI be. Use your eyes,
boy.” 3

IT looked along the path where I had las
seen the cottontail, while Ben grinned
broadly.

“T can’t see him,” I said at last ina
whisper. ‘‘I don’t believe he is in sight.”

‘* See that oldlog about twenty feet ahead ?
Wal, just let your eye run along it to where
it runs into the bush.” I did as I was
told, and there, squatting under the bush, in
plain sight, but as still as though he had

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 9

been made of brown marble instead of
quivering nerves and muscles, was the cot-
tontail. His color blended perfectly with
that of some last year’s dead leaves, and the
gray brown of the rotten log. He kept so
still that I almost thought he had turned to
stone, but if you looked carefully, you could
see his nose and ears twitch slightly.

‘* What makes him keep so still?” I asked.
‘That is the way he hides,” said Ben. ‘‘ He
knows better than we do that he is just the
color of the ground, and if he does not catch
your eye by some movement that ten to one
you will not seehim at all. There he goes.”

I looked, but was too late, for he had al-
ready disappeared.

‘¢Did you ever hear how ’twas the rabbit
lost his tail?” said my companion as we pro-
ceeded on our walk.

‘‘No,” I replied. ‘* How was it?”

*‘Wal,” said Ben in his queer drawl, ‘‘ it
was this ’ere way.

“Once, many years ago, a rabbit and a
turtle lived inthe same swamp. The rabbit

10 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

was terrible proud an’ put on airs. He had
a fine long tail in them days, an’ he carried
it over his back like a squirrel. It used to
make the turtle awful jealous to see him an’
so he thought he’d fix him. One mornin’
when he met the rabbit he says, ‘ Hallo! I
wonder if you want to run a race with me
to-day?’ At this the rabbit snickered and
leaped over a bush, just to show what he
could do.

“*T runa race with you 2’ he said, scorn-
fully, ‘why, if I didn’t have but one iy: I
could beat you, you old snail.’

‘‘*T dare you to try it,’ said the turtle
hotly.

‘¢ “Name the distance, the starting place,
and the forfeit,’ returned the rabbit,
proudly, ‘and we will see about your fine
boasting.’

‘“< Well,’ said the turtle, ‘we will run
through the pasture to the mowing, through
the farmer’s turnip patch, twice and back
again.’

*** Agreed,’ said the rabbit.

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 11

“¢ And this will be the forfeit,’ said the
turtle. ‘If you win, you may bite my tail
off, andif I win I shall bite your tail off.’

‘The rabbit laughed loudly at this. ‘ Why,
friend Turtle,’ he cried, ‘you can’t steer
yourself in the water without a tail. How
queer you will look,’ and without more ado,
he was off, running like the wind.

“The turtle waddled after him, smiling
broadly, for he well knew if he lost the race
that he could draw his tail into his shell and
the rabbit could not bite it off, although he
tried a week. But this was not the whole of
his plan. It took him a long time to go
through the pasture to the mowing and
when he got there he saw the rabbit busily
eating turnips in the farmer’s lot. This was
what he had expected, so he went quietly on
his way, taking care not to disturb the cot-
ton-tail.

‘* Well, Mr. Turtle just made his short legs
wiggle, and before the rabbit knew it he had
lost the race. He came flying back through
the pasture as though the dogs were after

12 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

him, but it warn’t no use, for there was the
turtle waitin’ for him at the brook.

‘* The rabbit teased terrible not to have his
tail nipped off, but he had plagued the
Turtle so much in the past that it warn’t no
use, so the Turtle nipped off his tail at one
bite. And rabbits hain’t ever had tails since.”

“Ts that a real true story?” I asked
when Old Ben had finished, for | had never
heard anything of the kind, and was suspi-
cious that Ben had made it up for the occa-
sion.

‘‘Mebbe it is, an’ mebbe it ain’t,” an-
swered the old man. ‘‘ There’s lots uv lies
that air true in this world, an’ vicy verse.
Mebbe it war an allergory, or mebbe more
properly speaking, it wuz a tail.”

While Ben had been telling me the story
of how the rabbit lost his tail, we had been
sitting on an old moss-covered log, just such
as abound in the forest, he whittling and I
chewing gum, that he had previously dug for
me with the large pocketknife that he al-
ways carried.

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 13

‘‘'Wal,” he said, when the story was fin-
ished, ‘‘ I’ve got this cane done an’ I guess
we had better be moving, for I have gut
several things to show you.”

The cane which Ben had made for me was
cut from a maple sapling. He had cut rings
about it on the lower end and peeled off the
bark between the cuts so it gave it a striped
effect, while at the top he had madea whistle.

‘‘That cane ain’t good for much ter walk
with, but it looks sort uv pretty, an’ you can
blow the whistle when we git out of the
woods.

‘* Now, if I can, I am a goin’ to show you
one of the sights uv these here woods, an’
that isacock partridge, drummin’. Butitis
mighty hard to get near um, an’ you are
such a heavy stepper maybe we can’t do it.
I heared one a drummin’ a long ways off
when we wuz a sittin’ on the log. I guess I
know where his log is. Now you follow me.
We can go along fast enough until we get
within ten or fifteen rods uv the log, an’ then
we will have to be careful.”

14 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

We trudged along for several moments
before we heard anything that sounded to
me like a cock partridge drumming, but fi-
nally I heard it: slow at first but soon grow-
ing faster and faster, until it was one long
roll like thunder.

‘“T spose even you could hear that,” whis-
pered Old Ben when it had ceased. ‘‘ Now
we'll stop and stand perfectly still until he
begins again, and then we will go as far as
we can while he is drummin’. You see he is
making so much noise then that he can’t
hear us ; but he will listen between times, so
be careful.”

We waited some time for the old cock to
drum and I was afraid he had stopped, when
he began again. The moment he started to
drum we began to creep up on him, and had
made twenty or thirty feet by the time he
had ceased.

This we did several times, each time draw-
ing nearer and nearer to the log, until the
drumming sounded almost like thunder.
Each time when the partridge stopped we

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A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 15

would crouch behind a tree trunk, and wait
patiently for him to begin again.

As we got nearer to him, Old Ben kept
motioning me to be quiet and not to step
on dry twigs or rolling stones.

‘“<'You see he is almost the same as on the
ground, an’ gets the sound easy,” he whis-
pered.

By this time I was all excitement, and my
heart was beating like a trip-hammer.

When he began again, we hurried a few
steps forward to the top of a little rise, and
lay flat upon the ground, and hardly dared
to draw breath until he began again.

At the first beat of the partridge’s wings
Ben clutched me by the shoulder, and we
both stood up and peered between two trees
into a little ravine that the rising ground
had hidden from us before.

There upon an old log ina little opening
was Mr. Partridge, looking as proud as
though he owned the whole woods. Hestood
erect, like a soldier on dress parade and his
ruffs were distended. Slowly his wings rose,

16 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

until they were as high as his back, and then
they descended like lightning, but faster and
faster they fell until the eye could no longer
see them and he looked likea great round
bunch of feathers about the size of a half-
bushel basket.

As the martial roll of the cock neared the
close we dropped to the ground and lay still,
not daring to move or breathe. It wasa long
time before he drummed again, and I began
to fear that he had got tired of it and gone
off. But presently there came the first loud
thump of his wings.

We stood up again and had a splendid
sight of this wary bird, sounding his drum
call,—a sight which few people ever see. |

As he neared the finish we again dropped
to the ground.

‘* My,” I exclaimed, drawing a deep breath
and speaking aloud in the excitement of the
moment, ‘‘ain’t he a bouncer when he is
drumming.” The words had scarcely died
upon my lips, when there was a roar of wings
beyond the old log, and we caught a glimpse

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 17

of the cock, speeding away like an express
train.

‘‘There, you hev done it,” said Ben in dis-
gust. ‘* You will hev ter learn not to goa
shoutin’ around when you are in the woods
with me or I’ll leave you to home,” and the
old man looked grimly down at me.

“TY didn’t mean ter,’ I said, this time
speaking in a whisper.

Ben laughed. ‘‘ It won’t do no good ter be
a whispering now, an’ you might as well talk
out loud. He’s more’n amile away by this
time.”

‘“'Won’t he come back ?” I asked, greatly
disappointed with the news.

‘“Come back? I guess not,” said Ben scorn-
fully. “He is the shyest bird there is, an’
when he knows there are two great lubbers
like us a snookin’ round his log he won’t
come back until he knows the coast is clear.
He won’t drum any more here to-day, an’
mebbe not to-morrow, for they are terrible
suspicious.”

“ What makes him? ” I asked.
2

18 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

“Wal,” said Ben, “‘ lots of things, includin’
you an’ me. Besides men, there are hawks,
owls, weasels, cats, foxes, wildcats; them air
a few of the things that make him wary.

“Now I hev gut just one thing more to
show you an’ then we will go home. Mebbe
I can’t find what I want. I discovered um
the other day, an’ mebbe their ma has moved
them.”

‘* Moved what ?” I asked.

‘Wait an’ you will see,”

said Ben, and
he led the way through the woods, going at
his long lope that I could scarcely follow.

‘* We hain’t gut to be careful now, for we
will hev ter skeer the ma away effore we can
seeum. See that old black stump ahead ?”
asked Ben when we had gonesome distance.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Wal,” said my guide, ‘‘ you keep your
eyes on that an’ let me know if you see any-
thing.”

I stumbled along, not looking where I was
stepping, for my eyes were riveted on the
stump.

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT 19

Presently a rabbit hopped out from under
the stuinp and along the path a few steps, and
then stood still, just as the other had done.
But as wecame nearer the rabbit sprang
into the bushes and was gone.

‘‘“That’s their ma,” said Ben; ‘‘ef she
hain’t moved them they are under this
stump.”

Ben put his arm in a hole near the ground,
and after feeling about for a moment,
brought out the cutest little white pink-nosed
chap you ever saw. The only thing that
would tell you it was a rabbit was its long
ears. Its eyes were not open yet, and its little
pink nose twitched as I held it, while it made
a tiny noise, half way between a grunt and a
squeak.

‘“My, ain’t he pretty,” I said, devouring
the baby rabbit with my eyes ; ‘‘ let’s take him
home.”

‘‘Not much,” said Ben, giving me one of
his severe looks. ‘‘ How do you think you
would like it when we get home to find that
a big animal from one of the planets had been

90 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

at the house and carried off the baby? It’s
bad enough for us to be poking about scare-
in’ um without stealing the babies into the
bargain. The mother will probably move
um, now they have been disturbed the second
time. I found um the other day and thought
you would like to see um. But it won’t do
you any good to come hereagain, for the ma
will move um to-night.”

We fished out two more baby rabbits, and
after admiring them to our hearts’ content,
put them back and started for home.

‘“T guess that is sights enough for one day,”
said Ben. ‘* We hev been pretty fortunate.
We might hev tried a whole season before
we saw that partridge drum. I was more
than forty years old before I ever saw one
drumming. And that is only the second or
third litter of rabbits that I have ever dis-
covered, so you see you are lucky to-day.”

I thanked Old Ben the best I knew how to,
but he only said, ‘‘Tut, tut, I don’t want no
thanks, but I wanted you to know that these
things aren’t hangin’ on every bush in the

A TEACHER OF WOODCRAFT O41

woods. You hev to be patient and careful
and love all the little animals and at last you
may find outsomething of um and how they
live. Some day we will go again an’ mebbe
see more strange things, who knows.”

By this time we had got out into the pas-
ture again, and we soon turned intoa cow-
path that led to the bars.

‘‘ Always makes me feel rested and good-
natured to be out in the woods,
Ben. ‘‘I think it is because we get nearer to
God in the woods than anywhere-else. God
is strength and rest for us all.”

> continued

CHAPTER. tf
OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO

WHEN Old Ben first brought Ringtail to me,
he was a fuzzy bit of a coon kitten about
the size of a chipmunk, or perhaps a little
larger. He wasof adirty gray color, rotund
in shape, and as near as we could estimate,
about three weeks old. He probably had his
eyes open to the bright light and the strange
world some three or four days when I got
him.

Ben said that coon kittens were slower in
getting their eyes open than any other kind
of kittens, as some of them were blind for
nearly three weeks, while domestic kittens
and puppies got their sight in about ten days.
My new pet was not shapely, but resembled
a ball of fuzz more than a would-be coon.

He did not make any sound when he was

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 93

smali except to grunt contentedly when he
was full, and to cry when hungry, very much
as kittens or puppies would.

We had a hard time teaching him to drink
milk, and in fact he nearly starved before he
learned.

Several times we despaired of getting him
to drink, and he might have gone the way
of many a wild thing that man undertakes
to domesticate, had we not hit upon the
plan of giving him his milk from a small
oil can, squirting it into his mouth.

Ben took me to the woods one day, and
showed me where he had found the burrow
of the coons. It was under the roots of a
big birch that overhung a brook. The bank
had shelved off into the water, leaving asmall
cave under the roots of the tree, and here the
coons had made themselves a fine burrow,
lining it with dry grass and leaves. It was
sheltered, warm and dry, and near to the
water, of which a coon is fond. He is a
clumsy sort of a fisherman also, and this is
one reason why he likes to be near a brook.

94 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

He is no match for the otter in this sport,
and he does not live in the water as the otter
does, but he likes to paddle in it and occa-
sionally knock a sleepy sucker out of the
water with his paw. This was to be seen
from the fishbones that were scattered around
the burrow. The burrow must have been
an old one, for there were last year’s corn-
cobs and other evidences of long occupancy.
But this snug home was now quite vacant,
and had been for some time. ‘‘It was be-
cause I took one of the babies,” explained
Ben. ‘* These wild critters will rarely stay
in a burrow after it has been robbed, and
birds do not like to build ina tree where they
have had bad luck the year before. If they
do they will change the position of the nest.”

When Ringtail got large enough to enjoy
the outside world, I made a wire-netting fence
around the big maple in the yard, about
twenty feet from the trunk, and let him play
in the tree or run in his little yard, as best
pleased him.

He soon made a burrow of his own under

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO D5

the root of the tree, and was very much at
home.

Even while small he would climb to great
heights in the tree, and I fully expected to
see him come tumbling down and dash his
brains out on a root, for the coon is a clumsy
fellow compared witha squirrel, and, while a
good climber, he is not built for that exclu-
sively, asthe squirrelis. But I do not know
that my new pet would have been hurt had
he fallen, for he was very fat, and his fur
would have acted as a cushion.

We did not call him Ringtail at first, as
the rings about his tail and eyes were not
plain enough then to suggest the name, but
they came out early in the summer, and by
the fall were very marked.

This history may, like ancient Gaul, be
divided into three parts, that of Little Ring-
tail, the baby coon, Young Ringtail the mis-
chief-maker, and old Ringtail, the renegade
and thief.

It was on sweet corn that Ringtail first
made his start towards being the monster

96 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

coon that he finally became. He would eat
several ears in a day, gnawing the kernels
off, and sucking out all the sweetness in the
cob. He did not like the corn as well boiled
as raw, so we threw his into the yard, when
it came from the garden, usually with the
husk on, for it was fun to see him husk it.
He would hold the ear down with his paw,
and starting the husk at the top would strip
it off with a sudden jerk of his head.

Ringtail was also fond of fish. In fact fish
was one of his passions, and we got a head
for him as regularly as we bought fish.

I do not know whether he could distinguish
between mackerel and shad heads, and trout,
or whether he preferred trout as coming from
his native brook, but I took it very hard of
him, when one day he fished a fine string of
brook trout out of a pail where I had left them
in some water and carried them under the
house. They were still on the string, and
he held the end of the willow switch in his
mouth, and of course the fish came along.
No amount of coaxing would prevail upon

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 97

him to bring out the trout, but he did return
the stringer after he had eaten them.
Perhaps it was an invitation to go to the
brook and get more for him. But this was
when he got to be Ringtail the mischief-
maker, and had the full run of the premises.

He was on good terms with most of the
domestic animals. A dog, a cat, some kit- -
tens, some chickens, and a coon frequently
took their breakfast from the same dish,
without quarreling more than one would
expect.

Ringtail always took pains to eat on the
opposite side of the plate from the dog, and
they occasionally exchanged snarls, and
showed teeth, and once I rescued the coon,
when he was still young, from a premature
grave; but these things always happen, and
on the whole he took very good care of him-
self. He was very jealous, though, of an old
woodchuck that we had partly tamed, who
used to come to the door for a crust of bread.
If the coon was about when Chucky appeared
he usually sent him back into his hole at the

98 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

top of his speed. The woodchuck always
gave a whistle of defiance as he dove into his
burrow, and once underground he wheeled
about and invited Mr. Coon to come and see
what a good set of teeth he had, but the coon
always refused the invitation.

Karly in August I cut a large hole in the
wire netting that framed the coon’s yard,and
let him run where he pleased, at the same
time leaving his yard and burrow to flee to
in time of peril.

From the very first day that I gave him
the run of the premises began the history of
Ringtail the mischief-maker. When we
went into the garden that forenoon to pick
corn, we found that some one had been there
before us, and helped himself in a peculiar
manner. There were several stalks partly
down, as though they had been recently bent
to the ground. The ears on these stalks
were either partly or wholly eaten. Besides
this, a few stalks had been lopped over just
forfun. At first we did not think who the
marauder was, but the second day we

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 29

caught him in the act. He would rear on
his hind legs, and, catching a stalk under
his forearm, press it to the ground, and hold
it down while he ate the ear, much as a
boy would hold down a bush while picking
the fruit.

After that nothing was quite safe from
that prying, pointed nose and those inquisi-
tive paws, and although he made all kinds of
trouble, he was so ingenious, and so full of
pranks and capers, that it afforded us con-
siderable amusement, as well as annoyance.

Besides picking corn when he pleased, he
poked about the roots of the beets to see how
they grew, occasionally gnawing into one
to discover if it was ripe. Some of the
squashes he nipped from their stems just for
fun, and later on in the season he gnawed
holes in the sides of many pumpkins, and
scooped out the seeds with his paw and ate
them, leaving the entire pumpkin to rot or
dry up. Occasionally he robbed a hen’s nest,
breaking a hole in the end of each egg, and
sucking it as neatly as a boy could have

30 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

done. Once he investigated a beehive, and
went away much wiser: he was not badly
stung, for his thick fur made that impos-
sible, but two or three bees got in their work
on his nose, and for a day or two it was a
sorry sight. But he seemed to know what
to do for it as well as I would, for he went at
once to the side of the road and stuck his
nose into the mud, repeating the operation
until it was daubed with a fine mud poultice.
When the poultice got dry and crumbled off
he renewed it, and soon had the fever re-
duced.

Ringtail was a genuine sport, his two kinds
of game being fish and small birds, which
he would sometimes eat up, nest and all.

It was about Thanksgiving time that he
had his first taste of chicken. It was purely
an accident, for we had feared letting him
taste even chicken bones. But after the
chickens were killed for the Thanksgiving
pie, he found their heads near the chop-
ping block, and ate them, and poked about in
the chips for more heads.

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 31

A few days after Ringtail brought a hen
and laid her on the front doorstep. Her
head was nipped off as clean as one would
have doneit with an axe. By his manner he
seemed to say, ‘‘ here is another for the pot ;
I have fixed her just as you did the others.”

We did not want any more of Ring’s help,
and so put a collar on him and tied him
up. It was a hard trial for him being
halter-broken, and he nearly strangled dur-
ing several fits of pulling, but finally learned
that it was useless.

About this time there came on a very cold
snap andahard snowstorm. The snow came
in the night, and when we went to feed Ring
the next morning he was gone, leaving an
empty collar.

We saw nothing of him for two months,
and thought he had returned to his native
woods, and found shelter in a hollow tree,
when one warm day on going into the cellar,
who should we see sitting on the potato bin
but Ring, looking sleepy and stupid. We
let him alone, and the next day he was gone,

32. STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

but investigation revealed him rolled up ina
ball in a ditch leading from the cellar to the
outside world. The cellar being on aside hill
was drained by thisditch. Ring had slipped
his collar and crawled into the outer end of
the ditch the night of the cold spell and the
snowstorm. In the morning he had prob-
ably found the entrance blocked by snow,
and had concluded it was time to hibernate,
and had gone to sleep. The warm winter
thaw had awakened him and he had come
into the cellar to investigate. When Ring-
tail appeared in the spring, about the middle
of March, he was not the sleek, well-groomed
coon that had curled up for his long nap in
the autumn. Hewas lean and lank, and his
coat was dull and rusty.

_ He was a little shy at first, and it took him
a day or two to get fully waked up, but
after a little he remembered that we were
his friends and showed us the same confi-
dence he had the year before.

There was no sweet corn or garden stuff

for Ringtail in the early spring, but he did

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 33

very well on some sweet winter apples. He
was also partial to turnips, and he remem-
bered the fish-cart, and got his usual fish
head. He also ate ground fish which we
used for fertilizer, and its odor clung to him
for days afterwards.

But the summer season, with new sweet
corn and sweet apples, was his time for
growth, and during the second summer he
nearly doubled in size. He had also gotten to
be quite a scrapper, and it was a good dog
that cared to take a bout with him.

It was early in September of the second
year that Ringtail made his first depredation
on the henhouse, and it was his love for
chicken together with his extravagant waste-
fulness in killing, that finally led to his down-
fall.

I am confident that he knew the chickens
were not intended for him, and he had no
right with them, for the night that he killed
a rooster and two hens he took to the woods,
and was never seen about the premises by

day again. I occasionally saw him in the
3

34 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

fields, but he took good care not to let me get
in reach, and paid little heed to my calling.
He seemed always to be watching me out of
one eye, and his countenance plainly said, ‘‘ L
know it would not be well for me to have
you catch me, so we will live apart here-
after.”

Two nights after his first thieving, he
visited the henhouse again, this time kill-
ing four fowls, only one of which he carried
away.

I had raised a fancy strain of Wyan-
dottes, intending to show them at the fair,
which was to be in a week or two. But this
last stroke of Ringtail’s spoiled my coop, as
it left me only two or three ragged pullets
and a rooster that was off color. If he had
been content with killing ordinary hens, it
would not have been so bad, but when he
picked out thoroughbreds, it was too much
to bear. ,

That noon Ben happened along, and I told
him my grief.

‘“ The ole rascal,” hesaid, sympathetically,

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 39

**T thought it would come to this all along;
you can’t keep lambs and lions in the same
cage, not without you keep puttin’ in fresh
lambs. J’ll bring over a trap to-night and
we'll catch him.”

Accordingly we set the trap, with all of Old
Ben’s trapper’s ingenuity, but no coon could
we catch. Nearly every morning we found
evidences that the coon had been about ;
sometimes he killed a chicken, more fre-
quently he was satisfied with less flagrant
mischief, but he never got into our trap.

He was so used to the premises that any-
thing out of the ordinary attracted his at-
tention, and put him on his guard. It may
be only my imagination, but it seemed to
me that he purposely tormented us, and
defied us to catch him.

We put up with being robbed and torment-
ed in this way for about a month, then Ben
went to a neighboring village for a celebrated
coon dog, and we planned a hunt that should
either end the career of this marauder, or
else scare him out of the country.

36 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

The dog was a beautiful black and tan
fox-hound, who was equally good as a coon
dog, which is not usually the case. J remem-
ber well fondling his ears and petting him
before we started out.

It was about the first of October. Corn
was cut and in the shook. The apples were
picked, and nearly all the fall work well
along.

We went at once to the cornfield, as the
most likely place in which to get track of the
coon.

_“Tf you want to know whether a coon has
been in a cornfield or not,” said Ben, ‘‘ just go
round it with the dog, keep him on a string
while you do it, and then you will be sure of
ig

At the further side of the field the hound
got excited, and we let him go.

He at once took the trail and went off into
the pasture, barking ateveryjump. Benand
I followed as fast as we could.

In less than three minutes the dog was
barking up a tree in the pasture near by.

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 37

We went to the spot and found him at the
foot of the big maple.

‘Might as well have treed him up a
meetin’ house steeple,” said Ben when he
saw the tree. ‘‘ We might climb the steeple
or chop the church down, but this tree is out
of the question. He has beat us to-night,
and we might as well go home.”

The big maple, as it was called, was a
landmark for half a mile around. It was
five or six feet at the butt, and ran up sixty
feet without a limb.

After considering for a moment, I saw the
wisdom of Ben’s conclusions, and reluctantly
turned my steps homeward. I had wanted
to try a pair of climbers that Ben had gotten
the year before from a lumberman, but this
tree was too much for a beginner.

The next night we struck the trail as be-
fore, but after the dog had been running
five minutes the wary coon holed in a ledge
where it was impossible to get him.

‘* Done us again,” said Ben, after making a
thorough examination of the ledge; ‘‘ might

38 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

as well try to dig John Bull out of Giber-
alter.”

The third night Ringtail was treed again in
the big maple.

Ben said that we might possibly shoot him
in the daytime if I would watch the tree for
the rest of the night. So, lantern in hand, I
took my position at the foot of the tree, and
Ben went home, the dog soon following.

I was very sleepy, but was determined to
stick it out, and not fallasleep. For a while
the hooting and screeching of a large owl
kept me awake, but presently I began to
doze. Then I thought I heard something
scratching, as though descending the tree.

I looked up and was horrified to see a
monstrous black shape that I took to be a
bear slowly descending. My first thought
was of flight, but when I tried to rise my
knees knocked together so that I could not
stand. So there I sat while the bear de-
scended on the further side of the tree. Then
I awoke just in time to see the black-ringed
brush of a coon disappearing on the outer

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OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 39

edge of the light that my lantern shed into
the gloom.

There was no use watching an empty tree,
sol went home. Ben made all kind of fun
of me the next day when he came to shoot

the coon.
““T guess that old Ringtail has about sized
us up,” he said. “I never see nothin’ like

him for acoon. Might as well try to catcha
firefly ; but we will get him yet. You know
the old sayin’, the deer that goes too often to
the lick finally meets the hunter.”

By the time that we had treed and holed
the coon half a dozen times, and always in
some inaccessible place, Ringtail got tired
of our little game, and took matters into his
own hands, in a way that startled even so
experienced a woodsman as Ben.

We had found the track in the cornfield as
usual, and the dog had been running about
five minutes, when we heard a terrific snarl-
ing down in the meadow.

We made all haste to the spot, feeling sure
that the coon had at last been brought to bay.

40 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

The hound had evidently been at the ditch
on the edge of the swamp, so we went along
beside it, poking away the swale with a stick.
“ Mighty curus where that dog has gone so
sudden,” said Ben. ‘‘I should think we’d
hear something of him.” There was about
a foot of water in the ditch, and some of the
way it was completely covered with grass.

We had explored four or five rods, when
we suddenly came upon the hound lying in
the bottom of the ditch, kicking and gasping
in the last agonies of drowning.

‘Gosh all hemlock,” ejaculated Ben, at
the sight of the kicking dog, ‘‘ ef that don’t
beat me! I'll bet that coon has done for the
dog.”” We pulled the sleek hound out of the
water, and a moment later he died before
our very eyes.

There was a savage bite in the back of his
neck, but it was not enough to cause death.

Of course we were not certain how it hap-
pened, but Ben said that the coon was proba-
bly hard pressed and jumped into the ditch
and the hound after him.

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 4]

The coon had then apparently caught the
dog by the nape of the neck and thrust him
under water. Or he might have fallen into
the ditch with the coon on top of him. The
only fact that we were sure of was the dead
dog before us.

We made asorry spectacle as we carried
the hound home between us on a pole, which
we stuck through his collar.

This ended our coon hunting for about a
week, but Ben finally got Danny, a big coon
dog owned by a neighbor, and we began
again.

‘* Mebbe old Ringtail will eat up Danny,”
said Ben the first night that we started
out with the new dog, ‘‘but he will hev a
big mouthful if he does.”

I do not know whether the coon thought
he had gone too far and that we would make
it hot for him, but for several nights he lay
low, and we could not start him aé¢ all.

Night after night we tried, but could not
get track of him. Danny soon got disgusted
with the whole performance, and finally

49 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

concluded that we were merely taking some
evening walks, and did not scour the country
as thoroughly as he should have done.

To break the monotony of coon hunting
without getting any coons, we built a camp-
fire each night and roasted some sweet corn
that had been sown for fodder and was just
getting ripe. This and some fall apples made
a very pleasant camp-fire supper.

One night when we had been hunting with
Danny for about a week, we struck into the
sugar orchard, where there was a fine growth
of old maples and no underbrush.

We had gone but a few rods when we were
startled by a furious onset from Danny, and
answering snarls that were so fast and
furious that my hair fairly stood on end with
fright.

Ben hurried forward, and, fearing to be left
in the dark, I followed.

Not five rods away we came upon the scene
of the battle, and it made a spectral picture
in the tall aisles of the maple forest.

There at the foot of a great tree, with his

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 43

back against the trunk, standing well for-
ward on his toes, the fur raised, his teeth
bared and gleaming white by the lantern
light, was Ringtail, the renegade, taken un-
awares and at last brought to bay.

Over against him, but three or four feet
away, was Danny, with hacklesup and fangs
bared. Kvery now and then he advanced on
the coon and although he was twice the size
of his wild antagonist, he dared not walk
into that grinning muzzle.

I thought that Ringtail cast a reproachful
look at me as he sat there on his guard,
fighting his last fight, but it was probably
only my conscience. But I could see the dog
collar around his neck that I had placed there,
and I could not help thinking how pretty he
had been as a kitten, and a dozen of his
comical. pranks flashed through my mind
in those brief seconds.

‘Shake him up, Danny,” cried Ben, swing-
ing the club in his hand to attract the coon’s
attention, and Danny advanced a step nearer
and the big coon slunk back closer to the tree.

44. STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

Then suddenly the coon’s head shot out and
his teeth clicked like a steel trap. Danny
drew back and licked his chops, from which
the blood was trickling.

“Go it, Ringtail!” I shouted, forgetting
for the moment which sideI was on. ‘‘ You
can lick him, give him another.”

But his star paled and went out almost as
I spoke, for Danny suddenly sprang forward,
and with a cleverness and intelligence that I
have never seen equaled, caught the coon’s
long tail, that lay upon the ground, in his
teeth. With a sudden spring backward he
brought the coon sprawling on his back and
off his guard, with his throat open to the
attack. Even then the old renegade died
game, for he left several long scratches on
the hound’s belly, and bit him in the cheek
as he closed upon his throat.

But it had been Danny’s stratagem rather
than his pluck that won the battle.

Danny was jubilant, and danced about us
as we walked home. Ben also was elated,
for he was a philosopher and knew that we

OLD RINGTAIL’S WATERLOO 45

could not keep our chickens if the coon was
allowed to live, but my own feelings were a
sorry mixture of triumph and regret.

I had hunted Ringtail relentlessly, but at
the last moment would have been glad to
have seen him escape up the tree.

If he had been some one’s else pet, it would
have been different. But I finally steeled
my heart with the thought of the dead hound
that Ringtail had killed, and of the coonskin
cap and mittens that I would wear the com-
ing winter.

CHAPTER ITI
BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS

OnE Saturday afternoon in midsummer,
when the air was sweet with the breath of
new-mown hay, and the roadways and lanes
were gay with buttercups and golden-rod,
Old Ben came strolling into the yard, carry-
ing two of his famous ironwood fishing poles
on his shoulder.

Each of these home-made rods was rigged
with the celebrated horse-hair line that Old
Ben alone knew how to make, and with hook
and sinkers.

‘Hello, Harry,” cried my friend cheerily,
as soon as I appeared, ‘‘let’s go fishing.”

I needed no second invitation, and rushed
to the shed for a fork with which to dig
worms.

‘Where are you goin’ to dig um ?” asked
Ben, when I returned with the fork.

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 47

“In the sink drain,” I replied ; ‘* there are
lots of fine ones there.”

‘“That’s not the place at all,” said the old
fisherman promptly, ‘‘ worms from the drain
will be soft and light colored. What we
want is the black tough fellows that won’t
break when you put them on.”

We soon found a place by the roadside
where the worms were black and tough, and
filled our boxes.

‘You hain’t got no breathing places in
‘the top of your bait-box, Harry,” said Ben;
your worms will all smother.”

I had not thought of this, but he soon rem-
edied the difficulty by punching holes in
the tin box with a nailandastone. Hethen
made me the proudest boy in town by pre-
senting me with the extra pole he had
brought along, and we at once started for
the sweet little meadow brook that hadalways
been my delight.

Old Ben went at a long lope and I trotted
by his side.

‘‘There is a wise old chap named Shake-

48 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

speare, ” hesaid. ‘SI dunno much about him,
but I heared one thing that he said once, that
Ihev allus remembered: ‘There’s books in
runnin’ brooks, sermons in stones, an’ good
in everything.’ Now, that’s mighty true.
Brooks are like people, they begin small and
grow a little every day of their journey.
Sometimes they run through the alder bushes
where it is dark, and then they murmur like
they were sorrowful. Then they run down
pebbly slopes, where it is sunny, an’ you can
fairly hear um laugh.”

My heart beat like a trip-hammer as we
neared the brook, but Ben, as he would say,
‘‘was as cool as a cucumber.” He showed
me how to loop the worm on, so it would
look natural, then told me to go ahead and
he would follow behind an’ ketch the little
ones that I left.

I threw into the first likely hole, and was
waiting for a bite when I heard old Ben talk-
ing. ‘*‘ Hello, you ole green-back, you had
better let that hook alone or you'll be pricked,
it ain’t intended for you, any way.”

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 49

‘Who are you talking to?” I asked.

“An old green bull-frog,” he answered.
‘* He looks so comical, settin’ under a lily-pad,
winking and blinking. Know what becomes
of frogs in the winter, Harry ?”

“No,” Isaid, ‘‘ what does ?”

‘“Why they jest freeze up, stiff as pokers.
I often find um under the mould when I
am settin’ mink traps. Snakes does the same
way. l1found one once when I was choppin’.
He was in a hollow birch, frozen stiff as a
hickory. I carried him home and set him up
in the corner, an’ in half an hour he was
crawling round on the floor lively as you
please. I didn’t want no snakes for ev’ry-
day company, so I put him out doors and let
him friz up again, an’ sleep until spring.
Pull him in Harry, pull him in.”

I had been interested in Ben’s story of the
snake and had not noticed that my line was
zigzagginge around the pool. I twitched
upon the pole with all my might and the
trout went several rods back into the

meadow.
4

50 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

Ben laughed. ‘‘ Any one would think you
wuz throwin’ apples on astick by the way
you twitch. Jest giveyour wrist a turn like
this,” and with an easy motion Ben hooked
a fine trout and lfted him out upon the
grass.

I went back into the meadow to look for
my trout, but could not find it. ‘‘ Right by
that leetle willow bush,” shouted Ben;
‘‘you allus want to mark a thing down by
some bush or brake an’ then you can find
hse

I looked where he indicated and found my
trout.

I wondered more and more as the after-
noon went by how Old Ben could see so many
things that were hidden from me. The wood-
cock borings and the mink tracks in the mud,
the frogs and the lizards, and the beautiful
bunches of lily-pads and water grass. Noth-
ing escaped his notice, and in everything
he found beauty.

‘It’s jest hevin’ on your woodsman’s
specks,” he said. ‘‘ You will hev a fine pair

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 51

in a few years if you keep on an’ sorter take
notice of things.”

In the big pool by the old log I discovered
a fine large trout, headed up stream, lazily
fanning the water with his fins. Cautiously
I approached him, but no allurement would
cause him to bite.

Old Ben got several kinds of bait for me,
including a grasshopper, a cricket, and a
grub, but the old trout was wary. Finally
Ben chuckled and said, ‘‘I guess we'll fix
him now; I’ll goup stream and rile the water,
an’ you stay here. When the muddy water
floats down by you a spell, throw in your
worm an’ let it go down with it.”

I did as instructed, and to my great aston-
ishment the cunning fish took my bait with
a suddenness that nearly twitched the pole
away from me, and asecond later I landed
him fairly.

‘* Now, Harry,” said my friend, whenI had
done dancing about, ‘‘ why did he bite when
I riled the water?” This question was too
much for me and I had to give it up.

52. STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

‘‘Wal,” said Ben, ‘‘ it is this way. That
ole trout probably knew what a hook and
line was as well as you or I, but when he saw
the rile coming down stream he thought to
. himself, the bank has caved in, and here
comes a fine worm that has fallen in with it.
Pll take it.”

‘“Don’t you see how natural that was?
You can’t fool these little beauties very often,
an’ the only way to do it is in one of nater’s
own ways.”

Just where the little brook gurgled
through the wall between the mowing and ~
the pasture and then hid in the spruce woods
we were treated to one of those pleasant
surprises that makes the study of woodcraft
so fascinating.

I was in the lead and was blundering
along in my accustomed fashion, when, just
as | mounted a stone wall, a mother par-
tridge, closely followed by ten or a dozen
chicks came scurrying out from under the
spruces. The small partridges looked for all
the world like brown Leghorn chickens just

co

CHARLES CIPELAND.

nemorieR PARTRIDGE CLOSELY FOLLOWED BY HER CHICKS.

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 53

hatched, and the old partridge ruffled her
wings, very much as a hen would do. But
instead of clucking she cried ‘‘quit, quit,
quit,” and seemed in great distress.

With the instincts of a young savage |
gave chase, and then the mother partridge
acted very strangely.

She fluttered down upon the ground in
front of me almost within hand’s reach, and
then I saw that one of her legs was injured,
for she limped and fluttered along in a pain-
ful manner. Again and again I reached for
her, but in some unaccountable manner she
would slip under a bush or into a brake and
just elude my grasp.

As I dove under a low spruce after her I
heard old Ben shout, ‘‘Go it, Harry, I will
bet on the partridge.”

He proved to be a good prophet, for the
next time I reached for the wary mother she
shot out from the underbrush with a roar of
wings and the speed of a rifle bullet. Then
there was a flash of fleeting wings and feath-
ers, the friendly arms of the Forest closed

54 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

behind her and she was gone. I peered into
the tree tops and under the low hanging
branches, but no partridge was to be seen.
Then I heard smothered laughter from Old
Ben, and looking around saw him sitting
upon a knoll, holding his sides and chuckling.

“You orter hed salt, Harry, you orter hed
salt,” said the old man, when he had laughed
sufficiently at my expense.

‘‘What for ?” I asked, considerably nettled
that he should be laughing at me.

‘‘ Why, to put on her tail, then you could
have caught her, Harry.”

‘¢ Well,” I replied, ‘‘ l almost got her with-
out any salt. Didn’t you see me nearly get
my hand on her? Didn’t you notice how
lame she was? One of her legs was almost
broken.”

At this Ben laughed again, but I could see
nothing to laugh at. ‘‘ You are dead easy,
Harry,” he said, when his mirth had sub-
sided. ‘‘It reminds me of the old proverb,
‘Big head, little wit, but I chased a lame
mother partridge myself once when I was a

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 55

boy, and I suppose I ought not to laugh at
you.”

‘“Why, wasn’t she lame?” I asked, at
last beginning to get a little light upon the
mystery.

‘* Acted sorter done up when she lit out
for unknown parts, didn’t she?” asked my
tormentor provokingly. ‘“* Went about sixty
miles an hour, as near as I could cackerlate.
All she wanted was to get you away from
her chicks so they could hide, and that was
why she fluttered along and made such a
fuss.” My eyes opened wide with astonish-
ment. ‘‘ You see,” continued my tormentor,
‘‘there was more brains in her little butter-
nut head than there was in your great curly
pate, an’ she fooled you completely, and that’s
the way ’tis half the time in the woods.
When man, who thinks that God gave
him all the brains there was on hand at the
time, undertakes to outwit a fox, or a par-
tridge, or even a crow, he finds out his mis-
take, an’ gits some of the conceit taken out
of him.”

56 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

‘“Where do you suppose all the young
partridges have gone ?”’ I asked as we made
our way back to the spot where we had first
seen them.

‘They hev hid,” said Ben. ‘*‘ When the
mother went away she said, ‘ Now you hide
and stay hid until I come back,’ and they
would if she was gone half a day.”

We poked about in the grass and weeds,
but could see nothing of them. Just as we
had given up the search old Ben pointed toa
yellow brake near my feet. I looked down
and saw one of the chicks with his head
tucked under the brake, but with his body
in plain sight. I reached down quickly and
closed my hand over him, but only pressed
my own empty palm, for at the same instant
there was a rustle in the grass and the young
partridge had gone as though the ground
had opened and swallowed him.

Ben answered my look of astonishment
with achuckle. ‘‘ Might as well try to catch
ahumming-bird,” hesaid. ‘* They are quick
as greased lightning, and the cunningest bird

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 57

in the forest. They are one of the things you
cannot tame. Wild they are born and wild
they die.”

We went back to the meadow and hid be-
hind the wall where there was a convenient
peep-hole that permitted us to see without
being seen.

After about fifteen minutes the old part-
ridge came sailing back over the tree-tops
and alighted on the ground near where we
had last seen her brood.

She had departed with a roar of wings, but
she came back as noiseless as a swallow.

After reconnoitering for a moment, seeing
that the coast was clear, she began calling in
a low cr-re-kk, cr-re-ekk. Then one by one
the chicks came up out of the grass and
brakes, but from just where I could not tell.
I saw the exact hiding-place of only one, and
he came from a bunch of grass. When she
had satisfied herself that all were there, she
led them away into the deep woods, bristling
and calling to them as she went.

When the purple shadows began to steal

58 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

from bush and brake, and the swallows flew
low o’er the meadow lands, we wound up our
fishing tackle and started for home, which by
this time was nearly a mile away.

I had nine small brook trout on a willow
switch, while the count revealed nineteen
upon old Ben’s forked stick.

‘*T don’t see what made them bite your
hook so much better than they did mine,” I
said ruefully, feasting my eyes upon Ben’s
fine string of speckled beauties.

‘* Wal, Harry,’ he said soothingly, “I
reckon it is thisway. Youseethe big fellers
are wary and don’t bite in a hurry. When
you come along they sorter think it over,
and by the time I get along, they are ready
to bite.

‘* Here is something I found in the brook,”
and Ben took a small object about the size
of asilver dollar from his pocket and placed
it in my hand.

It was a cute little baby turtle, with a
beautifully marked shell and an inquisitive
head which he poked out at me.

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 59

*‘ Where did you find him?” I asked. ‘I
didn’t see anything that looked like a turtle.”

“No, probably not,” said Ben. ‘* You
would have thought he was a small stone, or
a brown leaf, anything but a turtle. But
just where [ found him there was the print
of one of your bare feet, an’ I reckon you
nearly stepped on him. Did you ever hear
how the turtle got his shell, Harry ?”

*“No,” I said, all excitement, for I thought
I scented one of Old Ben’s home-made wood-
craft stories ; ‘‘ tell me.”

“*Tt ain’t much of a story,” said my com-
panion, ‘‘ but it was this way. Once, years
and years ago, long before Christopher
Columbus discovered America, or George
chopped down the cherry tree, there lived a
turtle, way off in the island of Madagascar,
or some such place, I don’t remember just
where, it was so long ago.

‘‘The turtle didn’t have any shell then,
only a sorter tough hide, and he wasa terrible
awkward lookin’ feller, all legs an’ tail an’
loose jinted.

60 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

‘* He used to like to bask in the sunshine on

the bank, just as hedoes now, butsometimes
the flies would bite him, or his back would
get blistered by the heat.
“He got to thinkin’ it over one day, an’
thought what a fine thing it would be to have
a little house that one could carry around all
the time to keep the sun and the flies off, and
to go into when an enemy came along. The
more he thought about it the better he liked
it. But he couldn’t seem ter find anything
that would do for a house.

‘¢ Wal, one day Mr. Turtle was under a
cocoanut tree taking a nap, when down fell
a large cocoanut that struck on a rock an’
broke in two.

‘The turtle woke up and looked around,
and there was his house all ready for him.

‘“Why, he nearly laughed out loud when
he saw it. He set to work and gnawed
out the meat and made holes in the sides of .
the cocoanut shell for his legs, head and tail,
and the house was ready. But how in the
world was he to keep it on, especially the

BOOKS IN RUNNING BROOKS 61

lower half? The roof would stay on all
right, if he was careful, but the under side
was another matter.

‘Wal, the turtle thought very hard, and
then he remembered the gum-stickum tree.
So he went and nipped off some bark and
got some gum stickum and smeared both
parts of the shell over inside and the house
was ready for him.

‘* First he laid on his back in the top part
of the house and it stuck nicely, then he laid
on his belly in the bottom part, and the shell
fitted together fine, and after a few weeks it
grew together and you could not see where
it had been cracked.

“Then he polished it up by rubbing on rocks
in the river, and the water helped to make
it smooth and get off the fuzz, ’til you would
not know that it had been made out of a co-
coanut shell at all.

‘Finally he got his friend, the lobster, who
was a kind of artist, to paint the shell over
green and mottled, and the house was done.

‘* Here we are at the gate, Harry. Keep

62 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

the little turtle a few days in a tub of water
and watch him, but take him back to the
brook in a week or so, for that is his home,
and we all love our home.”’

CHAPTER IV
THE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

THE Mischief-Maker sat on the limb of an
old apple-tree barking and scolding away as
though the whole world had been turned up-
side down, and there was no one in the world
to right it but himself. It was little he could
do to put things right, for he was a mischief-
maker, and more than likely to turn things
wrong side out himself.

If I were to enumerate all the wicked
pranks that he had done since the daffodils
awoke from their winter sleep, the mere
mention of each would fill the entire length
of this story, and tire you to death. A few
of the most flagrant of his pranks will serve
to show you the turn of his mind and his in-
genuity in small deviltry.

The first bluebird ae barely got here,

64 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

‘shifting his light load of song from post
to post,” as Lowell says, when the Mischief-
Maker discovered a pair of gray squirrels
living in anisolated first-growth maple, that
was old and hollow, and afforded them a fine
shelter. Their winter’s store was nearly
gone, but there were still some choice hickory
nuts left, anda good supply of chestnuts ; not
to mention three ears of corn which were
tucked away at the bottom of the store in
the autumn, and had not yet been eaten.
Usually the Mischief-Maker would have
set up a terrible barking and scolding on dis-
covering a pair of gray squirrels, but think-
ing that this would alarm them and set them
on their guard he stole quietly away, and
with more forethought than he usually
showed, thought out a plan for their undoing.
Every day thereafter he took up a position
in the top of a butternut tree near the house,
where he could watch the maple. One day
when he saw the two gray-coated cousins go
away for a day’s visit in the deep woods, he
called two of his red imps, and the three red

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER 65

squirrels proceeded to the big maple. Then
the Mischief-Maker scurried up to the hole
in the maple, which was the home of the
grayers, and dropped down the remainder
of their winter store, while his two compan-
ions proceeded to hide it in every conceiv-
able crack and cranny. There was nosystem
in their mischief either, and a great deal of
the hard-earned store they were never able
to find again, so that it did no one any
good.

When the grayers returned, late in the
afternoon, they were heartbroken to find
their store entirely gone, but there was great
glee in the apple orchard, where three red
squirrels made merry over their joke.

The arbutus had pushed up through the
dead leaves and grass and was gladdening
the pasture land with its sweet, shy beauty
when the Mischief-Maker discovered the re-
mains of Chippy’s winter store at the root of
an old beech. Then this heartless freebooter
robbed him just as cruelly as he had done the
grayers.

66 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

For a while after this he could rob no more,
as the winter store was all gone, and bird-
nesting time had not yet come. But assoon
as the birds began their building his sharp
eyes were upon them. You must not im-
agine though that he had been unemployed
during these two or three weeks.

He had been carrying corn from the garret
and scattering it about in the near-by fields,
that he might dine on it when hungry.

He did not really need the corn, as there
were plenty of last year’s butternuts under
the tree near the house, and up in the orchard
were rotien apples, from which he delighted
in gnawing the seeds. But the corn was
carefully hung up in the garret, being kept
for seed, and thus gave an added relish to
steal it. The people who lived in the large
farmhouse were always good to the red Mis-
chief-Maker, but that made no difference, as
he had no conscience to which one could
appeal.

Although he kept rather quiet during nest-
building time, yet his bright eyes were tak-

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER 67

ing in allthat was going on in the trees, and
many a nest he marked for his own.

He never disturbed a nest while the male
bird was about, for he was afraid of having
his eyes pecked out. Secretly he was a great
coward, which fact he well concealed by
making a loud noise on all occasions. When
the female bird had been left alone he would
steal quietly up, and frighten her from the
nest, then he would eat the eggs and beat a
hasty retreat, so when the male bird came
flying swiftly back, alarmed by the cries of
his mate, he could find no one to charge with
robbing his nest. Or if he did see the Mis-
chief-Maker the next day sitting on the wall,
scolding as usual, that small scalawag had
such an innocent look, and was so abused
when Robin accused him of the theft, that
he concluded it was some other thief, and
begged the Mischief-Maker’s pardon, while
that rogue snickered behind his paw.

Best of all, the red squirrel loved quietly
to slip up when both birds were away from
the nest and do his wicked work. If he was

68 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

not hungry, he would merely bite into the
eggs, or drop them down to the ground to
break them.

Once he had stolen up very quietly to in-
vestigate a large, strange-looking nest that
his prying eyes had discovered in the top of
ahemlock. It was not until he was almost
at the brim of the nest that he discovered
two big winking, blinking eyes looking at
him. These eyes reminded him of those of
the cat into whose paws he had rushed one
day while fleeing from a boy with a sling
shot. He had escaped from the cat by dodging
and twisting, but he never forgot the look of
those eyes.

This time he was too frightened to run.
So he merely loosed his hold on the limb, and
fell to the ground. Thisalone saved his life,
for the owl came flopping after him, almost
as soon as he struck the ground. But the
fall aroused him, and he escaped under the
roots of the tree, where he stayed for half a
day.

The Mischief-Maker had been thinking

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER 69

while he had been sitting in the old sweet-
apple tree.

It had been a long time since his teeth had
cracked a nut, and they fairly ached for some-
thing hard to crunch. The old nuts had been
softened by the wet, until they no longer
had that hard, crisp feel that he loved. He
must have something to crack.

Then a very wicked thought, probably the
worst one that he had ever entertained, came
into his head, and he made the orchard fair-
ly ring with scolding and barking. It would
be such sport. His tail twitched, his head
bobbed, and his bright eyes snapped. But
the old birds might peck him, for they would
be terribly angry. ‘“ Chatter—chee—chirr-
rr-r—.” ‘‘Let them,” and with a whisk of
his tail and a flash of red along the trunk
of the apple tree, he was gone on his wicked
errand.

A moment later he might have been seen
running along the stone wall, by the high-
way. Directly opposite a big maple, a few
rods down the road, he stopped and peered

"0 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

up into its branches, cocking his head on one
side and then on the other. He could see
the nest plainly from where he sat. The
male bird was not at home, for he would
have been singing at this time of day, had
he been there. He did not think the female
was at home either, for he could usually see
her head above the top of the nest from his
perch on the wall.

A moment the Mischief-Maker hesitated,
and then flashed across the road in a series
of quick jumps and scurried up the tree.
‘‘'Was it this limb or the one above?” <A
tree never looks the same up in the branches
as it does from the ground. ‘‘O yes, there
itis!” Andin another second he was stand-
ing over the nest, looking straight down
into the open mouths of four small robins,
who heard the noise, and thought that
their parents had returned with worms or
grubs.

The Mischief-Maker singled out the largest
of the young robins, and dragged him over
the edge of the nest. The poor little fellow

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER 71

wriggled and squirmed but made no sound.
Then this hard-hearted marauder cracked his
skull with his sharp teeth, just as he would
crack a nut, and ate his brain. He dropped
the little, brainless, dead robin to the ground,
and reached for another.

Where were theold birds? Would nothing
stay this wanton murderer ?

Away up in the sky, almost in the sun it
seemed, was a motionless silver speck. It
was so high up that it looked like a speck of
dust, and one would have to gaze long to
see it.

The second fledgling was dragged to the
side of the nest and brained like the first, and
then dropped quivering to the ground.

The silver speck in the sky was growing
larger, though it seemed to be motionless.
But it was not motionless. The fact that it
grew steadily larger should tell you that.
It was coming straight down for the tree,
and no runaway train ever coasted down the
side of a mountain on gleaming rails as
swiftly as these silver-gray wings bore this

72, STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

wild coaster down through space to its.
quarry.

Like the fall of a meteor, making a beau-

tiful oblique line against the warm summer
sky it came.

It was no avenging power, or spurred
knight, that was coming to the rescue. It
was merely an accident that the hawk saw
the squirrel cross the road, and later located
him on the limb by the nest.

Just as the third fledgling was dragged to
the edge of the nest to be butchered, there
was a rush of air like a sudden gust of wind.
Then two broad wings struck the maple
leaves like the fall of hailstones. The twigs
parted obedient to the terrible rush, and
steely talons were wrapped about the mur-
derer caught in the act.

There was a frightened chirp and a squeak
or two, and the Mischief-Maker hung limp
in the strong claws of the hawk. His red
coat dripped blood as he was borne away
to a maple stub in the pasture, where the
same fate was meted out to him that a

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER TS

moment before he was inflicting upon the
fledglings.

Thus goes the life in the busy fields and
woods.

If a snake or a squirrel rob the bird’s nest,
yet the eyes of the hawk or the owl are upon
them. There is nothing so small or insig-
nificant that something else does not prey
upon it, and nothing so strong or fleet of foot,
that it does not have its enemies, and live
eternally upon guard.

CHAPTER V
A TENDER MOTHER

OLD BEN discovered it. He always dis-
covered everything that was going on in
the field and woods, and never seemed to be
looking for anything out of the ordinary
either. But somehow his eyes could single
out fur and feathers among the brakes and
bushes, when mine saw nothing but the bare
leaves. ~

Sometimes [ would think I had stolen a
march on him, and would whisper excitedly,
‘** Ben, see that chipmunk.”

Then he would look ruefully down at me,
and, pursing up his mouth, would say in his
quizzical manner :

‘* Harry, I can’t make out whether you are
first cousin to the bat or the owl, but it is
certin’ one of um. aes that chippy and I

THERE WAS A FRIGHTENED CHIRP AND A SQUEAK OR TWO

A TENDER MOTHER "5

hey been winking back and forth to each
other for half an hour. Mor’n five minutes
ago he asked me, with a little jerk of his
head, is he stone blind, an’ I replied with a
shake, only partly.”

It was just so when we were on the mill
pond. Bencould see fish down in the pickerel
grass and lily-pads, when I saw only green
stuff and dancing ripples.

‘*Don’t see any bull-frogs do you, over in
that bunch of lily-pads?” he would some-
times say, just to try me.

Then [ would strain my eyes, and perhaps
after five minutes would discover a couple
of old green fathers of the pond, tucked in
under the pads, but Ben had seen them at
the first glance.

The particular thing that Ben discovered
this time interested me more than anything
we had ever seen together before, for it was
nothing more or less than a litter of foxes.

He had seen one of the old foxes go into
the burrow on the side of a hill, latein March,
and had guessed the truth.

76 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

He said nothing to me about it, though,
until about the first of May, when he had
seen the mother fox with three little ones
playing about the hole on a sunny afternoon.
When he had made sure that his first sur-
mise was correct, he took me to watch this
most interesting family.

We had to be very careful, for the fox is
wary, and his powers of perception are of
the keenest ; there are few wild things that
can scent man further than a fox. Many
a pleasant afternoon we had to give upa
visit to the burrow because the wind was in
the wrong direction. If the old fox should
scent us too often she would either move her
family, or else not bring them out except by
moonlight.

The burrow was on asidehill, and we used
to observe it from across a little valley.
We would come out on the top of the op-
posite hill, keeping in the spruces as long as
we could, then crawl on our hands and knees
to a pyramid-shaped spruce that stood alone
out in the pasture, a few rods nearer the

A TENDER MOTHER 7a

burrow. We always kept this spruce be-
tween us and the burrow, and so got a very
good position, where we could see and not be
seen. Then if the wind was all right, there
was little danger of our being discovered.

Another thing that helped us was a good
sized brook that ran through the valley be-
tween us and the foxes, and its murmuring
covered up any noise we might accidentally
make.

We had an old army field-glass, that I usu-
ally used, but Ben said he could see well
enough with his naked eye. The little
foxes could just waddle about when we first
saw them, and Ben said their mother brought
them out more to get a sun-bath and a whiff
of fresh air than to exercise, for they were too
small todo much but roll and tumble about.
But it was surprising how their activity grew
from day to day. Ina month after our first
visit to them, they would play like kittens.
They were lighter colored than the mother,
being a sort of reddish yellow, and having no
black, not even on the tip of the tail.

%8 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

When they were hungry their wild mother
would lie down upon the grass and the three
lively youngsters would stretch out in a row,
and get their dinner or supper.

One day the mother went down to the
river and caught a frog which she carried
back to the mouth of the burrow. Soon the
three imps appeared, and she gave them the
frog to play with.

Then they rolled and tumbled over each
other, all scrambling for the poor frog.
When he got away from them, the mother
went after him and brought him back, and
they tossed and tumbled and mauled him
about until life left him, but after that he
had no attraction for them.

Later on she brought them more frogs,
mice, small snakes, and occasionally a bird,
all of whom fared hard in the clutches of the
young foxes. After a week or two at this
fierce play they became veritable little sav-
ages, and would tear anything that came in
their way to bits in short order.

About this time began a sort of lesson or

SHE GAVE THEM THE FROG TO PLAY WITH.

A TENDER MOTHER 79

drill in getting into the hole in a hurry at
any suspicious noise, or at least that was
what we supposed it meant. The old fox
would leave the youngsters playing about
the burrow and go off into the bushes.
They would be tumbling about, frisking and
frolicking like kittens, when suddenly the
old fox would appear. Then these young
reynards would put for the hole as though
all the hounds in the county were after
them. Again and again they repeated this
operation, until the slightest rustle in the
grass caused them to disappear as though by
magic. |

After this the mother would leave them
for an hour at a time and go away to hunt.
We rarely saw the male fox. Only once or
twice he came around towards dark and
entered the burrow.

He was a large fellow, of a deeper and
richer red than usual, with dark markings.
Ben said he was probably a cross-fox. One
afternoon about the first of June, when the
small foxes had got to be quite scrappers, we

80 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

heard the mother coughing and sneezing, at
which Ben said ‘*‘ Distemper. It is rather
late in the spring to have it, but that is what
is the matter.” We had been having a long
rainy spell, and the month was cold, which
probably accounted for it.
_ The next time we saw them the old fox
looked quite sick. Her brush was down and
she had a dejected air, and came several
times to the river to drink, which Ben said
meant that she had fever, but the small foxes
were nowhere to be seen.

‘‘They are probably sick too,” said Ben,
which proved to be the case.

We were quite anxious to know how it
fared with the fox family, so we went the
next afternoon. For half an hour we could
see nothing of either the small foxes or their
mother, but finally she came out, bringing
one of the little ones in her mouth.

She placed him on the pile of dirt at the
mouth of the burrow. He did not seem in-
clined to run about, but curled up in a small
bunch and lay quiet. Then she began lick-

A TENDER MOTHER 81

ing him, and walking uneasily about him,
and finally laid down in front of him, and
tried to get him to nurse, but he did not care
for any dinner, at which the mother seemed
worried. Then she took him in her mouth,
and paced up and down, much as a mother
would walk about with a child, trying to
hush it to sleep. Every now and again she
would lay the little fox down and lick it, and
mother it.

When she had mothered it for half an
hour in this way she took it back into the
hole, and we saw no more of her that day.

The next day we went to the fox family
again, in whose fortunes we now felt a deep
concern.

Again the mother fox brought out a sick
little one, but we could not tell whether it
was the one we had seen the day before or
not. This time it hung limp from her jaws,
and when she laid it on the ground it re-
mained quiet, a pathetic little bunch of
fur.

ne distress of this wild mother over the

82. STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

sickness of its little one was pitiful to see,
and, thoughtless boy that I was, it made a
deep impression on me.

She would trot around it, and lick it, and
poke it gently with her nose. Then she
would go off a short distance and stand and
watch it, as though she thought it was feign-
ing sickness, and would be all right if she
was not so anxious. But she could not
remain long away, and each time she would
return and fall to caressing it. Finally asa
last resort she shook it gently in her mouth,
and then fearing that she had been too rough,
licked and mothered it, as though asking
forgiveness.

But seeing that all these remedies did no
good she brought it to the brook and laying
it down on the grass, dipped her paw in the
water and gently sprinkled its head. Not
getting water fast enough this way, she filled
her mouth, and let it drip upon the little
fox.

Finally, seeing that all effort was useless,
she lifted it gently and dropped it into the

A TENDER MOTHER 33

brook. This we took to mean that she at
last understood it was dead.

The next afternoon she brought out an-
other little kit-fox and went through the
same operations with him that she had done
with the first, for he too was dead. This
time it did not take so long for her to sat-
isfy herself about it. This baby she did not
put in the brook, but hid it ina hole between
two stones, where she probably thought it
would be safer than out in plain sight.

We stayed later than usual that afternoon,
and so, by a mere accident, saw the departure
of the fox family from their ill-fated bur-
row.

It was just getting dusk, and a star or two
had pricked through the sky to see what we
were doing so late under the spreading
spruce. )

Thad put up the field-glass when Ben called
my attention to the burrow. The male fox
was coming out, carrying the remaining little
fox in his mouth.

It was alive, for it kicked and squirmed,

84 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

protesting violently against being carried in
that way.

The old fox evidently had a good plan in
his head, for he looked cautiously about,
then he trotted off into the bushes, still
carrying the youngster, and we never saw
either again.

A few minutes after the mother fox came
out, and trotted dejectedly after her lord.

“Wal, I guess that is the end of this story,”
said Ben as she disappeared in the bushes.
‘‘They wouldn’t have taken the little fox
without they were going somewhere to stay.
They probably know of another burrow that
they are going tofor a change. Perhaps
they think this one is hoodooed.”

As we tramped home in the pleasant twi-
light, Ben regaled me with many incidents
of fox-hunting, which he had been very fond
of when a young man. Some of these experi-
ences I have remembered and will record for
you, but many of them I have forgotten.

‘‘Foxes is mighty interesting,” said the
old man, talking in his usual quiet vein.

A TENDER MOTHER SB

‘‘They are more interesting, and harder to
find out about than almost any other animal
in New England.

‘*There ain’t no other animal in these parts
that does as much hard thinking and plan-
ning as a fox. Why, the didos that a fox
will go through to throw a dog off his track
would do credit to a Sioux Injun. Some-
times he will make several small circles and
snarl the track up, and then give a big jump
on to a rock, or an old log. While the dog
is trying to unravel the snarl in the track,
the scent on the rock gets cold and the dog
can’t follow it at all.

‘*Then he will keep crossing a brook, or if
it is winter he will run in a sled road, and
step in the horses’ tracks. When he sees a
convenient stone wall by the roadside he
will run upon it for a few rods and then
jump off at some unexpected angle.

*‘Sometimes he will back-track until he
gets within twenty or thirty rods of the dog.
Then he will give a big jump, to one side,
and the dog will follow the double track until

86 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

it suddenly ends. After searching a while
he finally concludes that the fox has taken
wings and flown away over the tree-tops.

‘Cutest thing I ever saw in my life,
though, an’ one I wouldn’t have believed if I
hadn’t seen it, happened before my own dog,
Bugle. (Called him that because he had
such a fine ringing voice.)

‘One day he started a fox and ran him
into a cow pasture. I see the fox a comin’
with the dog a good long piece behind.

‘*In about the middle of the pasture there
was a sheep feedin’, a sort of cosset that ran
with the cows. Wal, when that fox saw the
sheep, he just put for her. I thought he
was mad. They goes mad sometimes, but
he had no intention of harmin’ the cosset.
When he got alongside he just Jumped on
her back, and rode across the pasture. Then
he hopped off and went on his way, rejoicing
that he had made a break in his track of
fifty rods.

‘* The perplexed howls that old Bugle gave
when he came out into the pasture and found

A TENDER MOTHER 87

the fox track suddenly turned into a sheep
track was enough to make a horse laugh.

‘*T could have taken him over to the other
side of the lot and put him on the track, but
I says to myself, ‘That fox deserves to live.
He is smart as folks. And even if we did
start him agin, he would play some new
dido on us. We had better let him alone.’

‘‘Speakin’ of foxes reminds me, Harry.
Did you ever hear how ’twas, the fox got his
brush ?”

‘“No,” I replied. “How was it?”

““Wal,” said Ben, ‘‘ it was this ’ere way :

‘“Years and years ago——”’

‘How many years ago?” I interrupted, in
my eagerness to be sure of the time.

‘‘Wal,” replied my companion, ‘‘] wasn’t
never much of a hand for dates, but I should
say about halfway between Noah and George
Washington, maybe a leetle nearer George’s
time, but right along there somewhere, there
lived an Englishman, or maybe he was a
Frenchman, or perhaps a German living in
Patagonia, I don’t just recollect which, but

88 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

this man had a dog—a mighty intelligent, ~
reddish-yaller purp, he was, with a pointed
nose and a long slim tail.

‘“‘The man was a chimbley-sweep, and the
dog finally got so he used to help his master
sweep chimbleys. He would take a short
brush in his mouth, and climb up the chim-
bley—there was a sorter steps in the chimbley
in them days—and he would sweep it as slick
asapin. Besides that, he used to do lots of
other things, like watering the flowers in the
garden, and dust the furniture in the house
holdin’ the brush in his mouth.”

‘‘ How did he water the flowers?” I asked.

‘“Why,” replied Ben, ‘‘his master would
fill the waterin’ pot and he would take the
handle in his mouth and go about with the
pot just like folks.

‘* Finally the dog got to thinking one day
that it would be a great saving if he had a
brush hitched to himself, he had to use one
so much. He couldn’t very well have it
hitched to his paw, so finally he thought of
his tail.

A TENDER MOTHER 89

<‘So he went to the upholsterer, and had
him soak his tail in the glue-pot, and then
stick it full of hairs until he had the finest
kind of a brush.

‘Wal, when it got dry he went to sweep-
ing a chimbley and was surprised to see how
fine it worked. He would just start and go
up the chimbley and wag his tail all the way,
and when he got to the top the chimbley was
swept. It worked just as well in the garden,
for all he had to do was to dip his brush in
the watering-pot and go between two rows
wagging his tail, and they were both watered.
In the house it was just as convenient, for
he would back up to a chair and wag his
tail a spell and it was dusted better than
his mistress would have done it; but there
was one drawback,—the poor dog’s tail got
awful tired, wagging all the time, and when
night came it was nearly ready to drop off.

‘Wal, things went from bad to worse,
until finally they told him to go and stand
by the cradle and keep the flies off the baby
with his fine brush. He did as he was told,

990 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

but he was gettin’ mighty mad. That night
he tried to pull out the hairs in his tail, but
it wasn’t no use, that upholsterer had done
a good job. So when all the family was
asleep the dog ran away and became a fox
and lived in the woods all the rest of his
days.

‘* Here is your doorstep, Harry, an’ supper
is waiting. Good-night.”

‘‘TIs that a true story, Ben?” I shouted
after him, as he disappeared down the walk.
He was too far away to hear my ques-
tion, but the stars were all winking at me,
and the moon fairly grinned as she looked
over the eastern hills ; so I concluded that it
was just one of old Ben’s quaint stories of
the Wood Folks.

\

CHAPTER VI
AN AUTUMN RAMBLE

On the bright day in November when old
Ben and I took our autumn ramble, the gay
garments of the trees were trailing in the
dust, brought low by frost and rain. There
was occasionally a rock maple that was more
hardy or better sheltered than its fellows
that still wore the crimson robes, but most
of the garb of the woods rustled under our
feet with a pleasant sound. It was great
fun to scuff one’s feet as wesauntered along,
and hear the pleasant rustle, like turning
the tissue paper pages of nature’s great
book.

Down in this gray-brown carpet there were
still leaves of the most flaming crimson, or
of the brightest yellow, and their brilliancy
was even more noticeable for the somberness

of their fellows.
Oe

92 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

But you must not imagine that the day
was gloomy, for nature had poured out a
draught of summer sun that had been over-
looked in the fulness of summertime, and
the yellow golden sunbeams were full of life
and warmth.

The blue-jay in his dazzling livery was fly-
ing from the cornfield to the deep woods and
back again, all the time keeping up his noisy
call. Squirrels were chattering as though
this had been the one day in all the year, as
indeed it was for them. They had chipped
gleefully when the warm spring winds melted
the snow so they could get at last year’s
beechnuts, and they had chattered like mag-
pies when the summer brought sweet apples
and a score of other dainties, but now the
golden autumn had brought nuts, and they
fairly shouted their joy from the tree-tops.
When they were not busy with the nuts,
either getting their breakfast or laying in a
store for winter, they chased each other to
and fro in the trees like boys playing tag.

‘* Let’s see if we can discover a grayer,”

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE 93

said Ben as we struck into a tall first-growth
sugar orchard ; ‘‘ this is just the country for
them. They are about as fond of maple
seeds as they are of nuts.”

We seated ourselves at the foot of a large
maple, and made what Old Ben called a still
hunt for a grayer.

‘‘ Now, listen,” said the old woodsman,
‘‘an’ let me know if you hear anything sus-
picious.”

I listened with all my ears and heard many
things, but did not know what they all
meant. There was always the soft falling of
the leaves, and the gentle stirring of the
nearly naked branches, as they responded to
the light touch of the wind. Then there was
the distant calling of crows. There were
no red squirrels here in the tall maples, and
Ben told me that if we saw a red squirrel we
might as well stop looking for the grayer.
He does not like to inhabit the same grove
that the noisy, mischievous redder does, for
that mischief-maker is always playing pranks
upon him.

94 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

After a few moments of quiet, listening to
the many tongues of the woods, Ben said,
‘* Harry, there isa grayer in that big spread-
ing maple with the birch near by it.”

‘* Have you seen him?” I asked excitedly.

‘“No,” replied Ben, ‘* but I know he is
there.”

‘*T don’t see how you know it if you haven’t
seen him,” I replied.

‘“ Wal, he just sent down a letter sayin’ he
wuz up there in the top of the maple. I
guess you don’t know how to read squirrel
letters.

‘* Now you just watch where the sunlight
falls through that big crotch and tell me
what you see.”

I did as told, and, in a few seconds, saw a
maple seed float down at the identical spot
Ben had indicated.

‘* See it, Harry,” said my friend excitedly.
‘*That maple seed didn’t hev enny seed in it,
it was nothin’ only the husk or pod, or what-
ever you call it. Let’s see if we can geta
glimpse of him.”

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE 95

So we crept forward like Indians, all the
time watching the falling maple seeds, and
after considerable shifting of our position we
discovered him away in the tip top of the
tree, nicely balanced upon the end of a
branch, with his gray brush waving to and
fro in the breeze. |

‘“How would you like to be getting an
early supper in the top of a maple ninety
feet from the ground ?” asked Ben, poking
me in the ribs. ‘*‘ Wouldn’t you want feet
like a fly so you could hold on?” |

After we had seen the grayers get their
afternoon meal in the tops of the first-growth
maple, we struck off through the woods, and
soon came out on a sunny south slope where
there were chestnut and beech with occa-
sional scrub spruces in the underbrush, while
out in the open pasture there were two big
walnut trees which were known to the boys
and the squirrels for miles around.

‘‘T never see nuts uv enny kind,” said Ben
as we began poking under the dead leaves for
beechnuts, ‘‘ but it reminds me uv one time

96 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

when I went beechnuttin’ when I wuz a boy.
Me an’ Zeek went, and the nuts wuz awful
plenty that fall, I never see no such time
for nuttin’. They were as thick as spatter
on the ground, and besides the wind had
blown down a large limb that was chuck full
on um, an’ we gut our bags and baskets full,
an’ there wuz plenty more to pick. We
hated to go home as long as it was light an’
there was still nuts to pick, but we didn’t hev
nuthin’ to put them in. Finally, Zeek, who
was older than I, said, ‘Ben, I'll tell you
what we'll do. You just take off your shirt,
an’ we’ll tie up the end of the sleeves an’ the
neck, and it will make a fine bag ?’

‘<* Tet’s take yours, Zeek,’ I said, ‘ it will
hold more than mine.’

‘¢* No,’ said Zeek, ‘ mine is new ; besides we
don’t want one that will hold more than a
peck or two, an’ yours is just right.’

‘‘T thought I would be cold, but Zeek
poohed at me and said I would never do for
an Injun scout, or a pirate, so I finally con-
sented. That about the Injun scout an’ the

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE 97

pirate had great weight with me for that was
what I had my mind on, them days. Wal, I
stripped off my shirt, an’ we tied up the sleeves
and the neck with string, and it made a fine
bag. It wasterrible cold, an’ my teeth chat-
tered as though I had the ague, but Zeek
said I never could bear torture if the Injuns
ever got me, if I was so silly about bein’
cold, so I tried not to mind, an’ hurried
around pickin’ up nuts to keep warm.

‘‘Wal, we picked my shirt full, an’ just as
it was gettin’ dark, we stole into the garret
with our nuts, not wishin’ the folks to see
the nuts in my shirt, but I was half froze by
that time.

“We found a bag an’ emptied the shirt as
soon as possible, an’ I put it on, but sucha
shirt as it was I never want to put on agin.
You see them beechnut burrs had stuck in
the woolen until it was completely lined with
prickers as sharp as needles, that scratched
me like nettles, particularly when I moved.

‘¢*My shirt is all full of prickers, Zeek,’ I

said ; ‘it will kill meif I don’t take it off.’
7

98 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

“* Keep it on, Bennie,’ he said, ‘ an’ don’t
say nothin’ for the world ; if youdo we both
get a good lickin’.’

‘““Several times during the evening lL
was tempted to make a confession and
take a licking rather than wear the shirt
another minute, but every few minutes
I caught Zeek’s eye, and it always said,
‘Don’t you do it, Ben, don’t you do it!’

‘You better believe 1 was glad when it
came bed-time, an’ I got off that shirt. It
irritated my skin so that mother thought I
had the chicken-pox, but Zeek and I knew
better.”

Old Ben and I filled the salt bags that we
had brought along for the purpose, with
beechnuts, and some sacks with chestnuts,
in the burr. |

The woods were full of squirrels that after-
noon, redders, grayers, and chipmunks, and
the redders and chippies chattered away in a
merry manner, but the grayers went soberly
about their work, keeping as much out of the
way as possible.

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE 99

‘Squirrels is like folks,” said Old Ben as
we plodded home. ‘‘ There is the redder.
He is a noisy scatterbrain, never laying up
anything ina systematic way. Sometimes
you will find an apple in the crotch of a tree,
or a few nuts under a stone, but he does not
lay up any regular store, and the consequence
is that he often nearly starves in the winter.
On the other hand the grayer and the chip-
munk lay up aregular store, just as a thrifty
man does, and then in the winter, when the
wind howls and the snow falls, the grayer
can sit in his hole in the tree and eat his nuts
and read the paper.”

** Squirrels don’t have papers, Ben,” I said,
in surprise.

‘‘That’s so, they don’t, Harry, excuse me,”
said the old man, ‘‘I forgot; but they hev
all gone to school though. They all learn
in the school uv life, where they learn
to take care of themselves, and not be eaten
up by larger creatures, or killed by man.

“Tt is sorter queer, but there ain’t no other
critter so universally feared by all animals

L.of C.

100 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

asman. Heis worse than hawks, an’ weasels
and foxes all put together.

‘When I wuz a boy, I was jest like all
boys, a sort uv wild Injun: wanted to kill
evrything that I saw, but as I git older I
don’t care so much about killin’, but I like
ter let things live an’ watch um, an’ see what
they are thinkin’ about. If you kill an animal
that is the end on it, an’ you can’t find out
anything more about it.

‘*There are only four things that I makea
pint of killin’ when I get a chance, an’ those
are weasels, hawks, rats, and snakes.

‘“T spose the Almighty has got some use for
them too, although I hain’t found it out yet.

‘* A hawk ain’t so bad either, if you get on
the right side on him. I had one when I
was a boy, kept him for a pet. I got him
out of the top of a beech when he was little,
an’ brought him up by hand. He thought
as much of me as he would have of his
own mother if he had known her. You hev
heern tell of falconers. Why that hawk was
a dandy falcon. He would sit upon my

AN AUTUMN RAMBLE 101

shoulder when I went after the cows, an’
when he spied something, you ought to see
him put after it. He went after snakes an’
mice mostly. Why, that hawk would skin a
snake quicker than you could say Jack
Robinson. He’d hold his head down an’
start the skin at his neck, an’ then keep
rippin’ with his claw until the snake was
skinned neat as a pin, an’ wouldn’t hev
knowed hisself if he had looked in a lookin’-
glass.

‘But finally my hawk went bad. Hegot
to catching chickens, an’ my brother Zeek
shot him.

‘I was sorry to lose him, but we had to keep.
the chickens.”

CHAPTER. VII
THE PLOVERS’ FIELD-DAY

ONE afternoon late in November, when the
fall winds blew fresh over the fields, and the
wind-clouds played tag across the blue-gray
sky, old Ben took me to see what he styled
the ‘‘ plovers’ field-day.”

The gaiety that we had noted in the attire
of nature, when we took our autumn ramble,
had been replaced by a sober gray garb. The
leaves danced a hornpipe along each pathway.
All nature seemed to mourn the gay dead
summer.

Ben and I drove three or four miles with
my father’s team, and then walked about a
mile “’cross lots,” to a great barren stretch
of June grass mowing, known as the plains.
This sterile land, which only grew June grass

and brakes, was cut up like a checker-board,
102

THE PLOVERS’ FIELD-DAY 103

with stone walls, dividing it into lots of five
or ten acres. These lots were dotted with
stone heaps, but even then there were plenty
of stones left scattered about.

We had hardly arrived at the plains ie
a plover rose from the nearest stone-heap,
and flew away to a distant leafless maple.
‘* He is just a sentry,” said Ben, ‘‘ but the
plover don’t pay much attention to men
during their field-day, for all they areso shy
the rest of the time. He'll tell them that we
are coming, but they will not mind us if we
are careful. Wiggle-wings, I call um, see
how his wings wiggle, especially when he
rises.”

We could now see plover flying over the
fields, in small companies of three, five or
seven, while some groups were even larger.
They would fly steadily across the field, and
when they reached the limit of the plains
would turn in a broad sweep and fly back
again. They flew as regularly and steadily
as a flock of geese, until they reached the
turning point. They usually flew abreast or

104 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

nearly so, and never straggled along, Indian
file, as crows are fond of doing. When they
reached the turning point, one end of the line
would slow up, slightly, while the outside
plover struck a bit faster, and the line would
turn, as cleverly as the maneuvers of a
squadron.

Sometimes they would fly fast, as though
trying their wings, but usually the pace was
slow and measured, and their turns were in
broad sweeps, for there was plenty of room in
the upper air.

‘‘ Near as [can make out,” said Ben, ‘‘ an’
I hev watched um here for several years, this
performance is a sorter annual muster, or
parade, partly to renew old acquaintance,
but more especially to learn the young birds
to fly properly, and to gee and haw, asort of
getting ready for the long flightsouth. See
those three plover coming this way. Seehow
much stronger the bird in the middle flies.
The other two don’t half know how to use
their wings. That is an old bird in the
middle, and he is teaching the others to fly.

THE PLOVERS’ FIELD-DAY 105

Sorter putting them through their paces.
We walked nearly across the plains, and as
far as the eye could reach in every direction
there were plover going through the same
maneuvers. It was for all the world like
a large body of soldiers, broken up into small
squads, with a captain or experienced private
breaking in the raw recruits.

Later on in the afternoon, the small squads
seemed to be combining, for fifteen or twenty
would fly across the fields in a company,
but with the same regularity and in the same
measured manner. ‘‘ That’s probably a whole
regiment,” said Ben, as a large flock came in
sight. ‘* Looks kinder as though they were
gettin’ ready to break camp.” We soon
saw other large companies, wheeling and
circling in the same manner, and it was
certain that the formation of regiments had
begun.

When the sun was about half an hour
high, with a continuous whistling of wings,
a regiment rose in unison, to about the same
height. We did not hear any one say “ Fall

106 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

in,” but there were the ranks, a little ragged,
but symmetrical.

Then probably some old plover who had led
the van before, gave the command, ‘‘ For-
ward, fly,” for with asteady, even stroke they
swept away into the blue-gray distance. The
space where they had formed had barely
cleared, when a second company rose in the
same manner, formed, wheeled and swept
after the first. So it went on for fifteen
minutes. There seemed to be millions of
them, and our eyes ached with watching.

At last the solid ranks passed, and then
came a few stragglers, bringing up the rear,
and the parade was over.

‘‘Due southeast,” said Ben, as we saw
the last company fade away. ‘* They are
headed straight for New York city, but it
probably means Jersey or Delaware.

‘“Mighty cur’us, though, how well they
know the heavens. I wonder whether it is
because they are up so high, that they can see
everything for half a State and can keep
their course by the lakes and rivers. That

PLOVER FLYING OVER THE FIELDS IN SMALL COMPANIES.

THE PLOVERS’ FIELD-DAY 107

would look reasonable, only lots of birds fly
by night, and hit it just as well. Seems tobe
a sort of instinct, or maybe every one of
them has got a compass in his head, or his
gizzard.

‘‘Geese fly in a harrow shape, with one
strong-winged old gander to fly at the point
and break the wind. When he gets tired,
he says ‘next gent,’ and some other gander
takes his place. It is a great sight, though,
to see a large flock of geese swing through
the sky. They do it so strong and steady.

‘*Speakin’ of flocks reminds me of a time
when I was a boy an’ we hed a great flight
of pigeons. One morning we got up and
found something was the matter with the
sun. Just shining sorter dimmed, a good
deal of the time it was dark enough for
candles. Looked as though the sun was a
goin’ out. But there wan’t nothin’ the
matter with the sun. It was just a flight of
pigeons, that completely covered the heavens
as far as we could see. It was justso off an’
on for hours, and when they had all gone, we

108 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

felt as relieved as though it had been a two-
day’s rain, and the sun had just appeared.
That was a flight worth seein’, but it hain’t
never happened since, and that was sixty
years ago.”

CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT

THE fitful gleam of two score lanterns,
following at regular intervals, a few rods
apart, was trailing along a country road.
The moon and stars were hidden by a soft
spring haze, that enveloped the travelers,
wrapping all things in its gray mantle.

By the light of each lantern one could see
revolving wheels, and the massive outlines
of circus vans. Here and there a light,
stronger than the rest, revealed the outline
of the driver sitting wrapped in his great
oilskin coat, guiding the team through the
dense darkness.

Even had it not been for the lanterns, one
would have guessed that a large caravan
was passing, from the snapping and creaking

of the axles, and ascore of other small sounds
109

110 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

that always attend the moving of heavy
freight.

Most of the drivers were alert, watching
the bushes by the roadside that they might
guide their teams as near between the two
dark outlines as possible.

Others in the middle of the procession
dozed, feeling quite sure that the horses, so
long accustomed to the life, would trail after
the lantern in front of them, and-keep the
road.

Two or three of the drivers neither watched
the team which they were supposed to drive,
or the road, but were wholly engrossed with
black bottles on the seat beside them.

Such was the condition of Big Ireland, as
he was called by the hands, the driver of the ©
ereat van, containing the panther and jaguar.

Presently the teams in the distance began
rumbling over a short iron bridge. One
could have guessed this, for the sounds of
the heavy wheels on the plank came nearer
and nearer, giving the impression that the
bridge was traveling towards one, for there

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 111

was nothing in this dense darkness by which
to gauge the movements of the team.
When the van carrying the big cats struck
the bridge, which was narrow, the team had
hauled over to the left, and the shutters of
the cage barely cleared the strong iron pillar
that stood guard at the corner of the bridge.
Although his faculties were numbed by
drink, Big Ireland felt that something was
wrong, and instinctively pulled upon the
right rein, or what would have been the right
rein had they not been crossed. Atthesame
time he spoke sharply to the horses. Then
there was a grating, grinding sound, and the
drunken driver reached for his whip. Twice
it fell upon the frightened horses, and the
grating and grinding gave place to cracking
and breaking. Then there was a hideous
din, in which the squealing and kicking of
horses, the breaking of strong wood and rip-
ping of bars, and the snarling of frightened,
infuriated cats could be distinctly heard.
When the drivers from the teams ahead
and behind hurried to the scene, they found

112 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

one horse down, his legs through the lattice-
work in the side of the bridge. The two left
wheels of the wagon had gone through an
opening between the railing and the floor of
the bridge, and were wedged in clear to the
hub, while the forward side of the van had
been literally gutted.

Their first thought was of Chieftain, the
great circus cat, but the flash of their lanterns
into the cage showed that he was gone.

When the van driven by Big Ireland struck
the bridge, Chieftain the panther was lying
curled up in one corner of the cage asleep.
His first instinct on being so rudely awak-
ened was to slink away into the furthest cor-
ner from the commotion. But when he
heard the tearing of the bars that had so
long stifled him, he raised his head and sniffed
the air eagerly. He could not see that the
side of the cage had been ripped open, but
something told him that it was so. Fora
breath of freedom blew through the open
bars that only a wild creature, for years
held captive, could have discerned.

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 113

He stretched his great paw forward and
felt the opening. Then cautiously slipped
through to the railing of the bridge, where
one great spring carried him into the dark-
ness, and night folded her arms about him,
as though to protect this wild creature from
pursuit, while the fields and the meadows
cried ‘*‘ Come, you are ours, we will feed and
water you.”

At first the panther, so long cramped in
his cage, crept cautiously through the dark-
ness. Hiseyesso long used to artificial light,
winked and blinked strangely. But by de-
grees the pupils dilated to their utmost and
drank in whatever light the gloom contained,
and with cat-like stealth he crept along the
pasture.

Now and then the great cat would stop to
roll like a kitten upon the grass, or stretch
its limbs. Once it gave two or three great
bounds, just to feel those sturdy limbs spurn
the green earth. |

After about two hours, a gray streak ap-

peared in the east, and birds began to twitter
8

114 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

in the tree-tops. Then the panther entered a
wood. Asithad been captured when akitten,
it had never seen anything like this before,
but it was fresh and cool, and besides it was
dark and there were plenty of places to hide,
so the great cat was well pleased with his new
discovery, and thereafter kept to the woods.

It was about a week after the accident on
the bridge, and the escape of Chieftain from
the van, that Stubby Daggit was going for the
cows, just as he had done for the last six or
seven years.

There would seem to be little relation be-
tween Stubby and the cows, and the great
circus cat, for that dread animal had es-
caped some twenty-five miles from the vil-
lage where Stubby lived. Though the woods
had been scoured for days, nothing could be
found of him. So every one had concluded
that the panther by some inborn instinct was
working his way northward toward the
wilderness that its kind had frequented ever
since the days of the red man.

Stubby was not handsome. You will

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 115

guess this when [| tell you that his other
nickname was “‘ Freckles”; but he had an
honest countenance, and any boy in the vil-
lage would tell you that he was clear grit,
from the top of his tow-head, to the bottom
of his bare brown feet.

The cows gave him considerable trouble
this night, for he had to go to the further
end of the pasture, into a maple grove for
them. They acted rather strangely, too, he
thought ; for they started uneasily every
time he struck at the weeds by the side of
the path with his birch rod.

Just at the edge of the woods was a spread-
ing maple that overhung the path, and here
they jammed up in a bunch, refusing to go
under the tree.

‘“Whey, there, what are you doing?”
cried Stubby, switching the hind cows with
his birch. These pressed forward, and the
cows ahead broke into a trot, going under
the maple at a good pace.

Then a long, lithe figure dropped from the
tree, like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky,

116 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

and with a snarl that froze the blood in
Stubby’s veins, dug its claws in the sides of
the foremost cow, while its teeth were buried
in her neck. Stubby’s first thought was of
the escaped panther.

With a frenzied bellow of pain and fright,
the old cow broke into a keen gallop, and
almost before Stubby knew what had hap-
pened the herd was ten rods away, going for
the barn like stampeded steers.

Then Stubby thought of his own safety,
and he started for the barn as though the
panther had been upon his trail instead of
the old cow’s back. He was taking a short
cut home, parallel to the path the cows were
following, so he could still hear their wild
bellows and rapid hoof-beats, all of which
lent energy to his sturdy legs. Over knolls
and stones he bounded, as though running
the race for life.

Half-way to the barn he mounted a stone
wall, and gave one frightened glance back-
wards, to see if the panther had left the
cows, for his own trail.

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT A by

Then he saw a very strange thing, that
both amazed and delighted him. The cows,
in their headlong rush for the barn, had
reached the same stone wall that he stood
upon, and were about to pass through a pair
of bars, which had been left down, with the
exception of the top bar, that the cows
passed under easily.

As they swept through the barway like a
whirlwind, the top bar caught the great cat
under the chin, and brushed him off the old
cow’s back as though he had been a fly,
while the herd galloped on with new energy.

Stubby waited to see no more, but jump-
ing from the wall, made the sprint of his life
to the house.

A moment later he burst into the dining-
room, where the family were at supper, and,
wild-eyed and speechless sank exhausted on
the floor.

As soon as he could speak, he gasped out
his story to an amazed family circle.

Stubby’s father at once went to the barn,
where the lacerated sides of old Crinklehorn

118 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

told plainly that his story was only too
true.

There was great excitement in the village
that evening when Stubby’s adventure was
related at the country store, and a hunt was
planned for the next day that should rid the
neighborhood of this furious beast.

Old shot guns that had not been fired for
years were pressed into service, heavily
loaded with buckshot or slugs.

To his father’s astonishment, Stubby de-
clared his intention to go with the hunting
party.

‘‘ Gracious, boy !” exclaimed his father.
‘* Didn’t you get panther enough last night
to last you twenty-four hours?” But secret-
ly he was pleased with his son’s pluck.

“Don’t go, Herbert,” pleaded his mother ;
‘“ you will be eaten alive.”

‘“T guess there won’t nothin’ happen to
him if he sticks close to me,” put in the
boy’s father. ‘‘TPve got the old shot-gun
loaded with four slugs in each barrel, and I
guess there won’t no panther eat us up.”

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 119

Better let him go, mother.” So Herbert’s
mother gave her unwilling consent.

‘“‘Guess I'll take along my pocket rifle,”
said Stubby, ‘‘ Vl feel safer with it.”

‘*Might as well try to shoot a rhinoceros
witha popgun, as a panther with that thing,”
said his father. But the boy slipped the
little .22-caliber rifle under his coat and went
with the hunting party.

They had planned to beat the woods where
the panther had appeared the night before,
just as they do in India for tigers. So the
party was strung out in a long line, each
man two or three rods from his neighbor,
and in this way they swept the woods from
end to end. It was a new experience for
most of them, and each man went with his
gun cocked, and hisheart in hismouth. The
timid hunters insisted in making a great
shouting, and the courageous said it was to
frighten the panther away, for fear that they
would see him.

As for Stubby, his nerves tingled so that
he doubted if he could even hit the tree con-

120 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

taining the panther, let alone hitting the
beast if he should see him.

The forenoon was very hot, and it was
hard work beating through the underbrush,
so by noon they were a tired and disgusted
lot.

A council was then held, and it was de-
cided to divide the party into two parts and
one beat the neighboring woods while the
remainder worked the maple grove still
more.

A hasty lunch was eaten, and they set to
work again.

By the middle of the afternoon the maple
grove had been beaten from end to end, and
the panther certainly was not there. So
while others of the party went into a little
swampy run near by, Stubby sat under a
big hemlock resting.

They had barely gotten out of sight when
the boy noticed a movement in the branches
of another large hemlock near the one under
which he sat. Then one of the green tufted
boughs sprung down as though a heavy

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 121

weight were upon it, opening a gap between
it and the branch above, and what Stubby saw
in the opening made his tongue cleave to the
roof of his mouth, and his heart pound away
at his ribs as though it would break through
them. For there, upon a large limb of the
hemlock, with his hind legs well under him
and resting against the trunk of the tree,
was the great circus cat.

His tail was switching horribly, his fangs
were bared as though fora snarl, and his
eyes seemed to be measuring the distance
between him and the boy.

The moment his eyes met those of the pan-
ther, Stubby’s gaze was held as though by
some will stronger than his own. He could
not move, he could not cry out, all he could
do was to sit there and wait until the panther
should spring.

Cold sweat stood upon his brow, and he
felt sick and faint. He thought of his—
mother’s prophecy, that he would be eaten
alive. It looked as though it would be ful-
filled.

122 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

He felt that his only safety lay in looking
directly at the panther; perhaps some one
would discover them before it was too late.

Seconds seemed like minutes, and the
quarter of a minute that elapsed an hour.

Then Stubby thought of his little pocket
rifle that lay upon the grass beside him, and
felt for it with one hand, still keeping his
eye on the panther.

But as his arm went down for the rifle, the
panther bent lower on the Limb. He was
going to spring.

Then with a quick motion Stubby raised
the rifle to the level of his eye, and pressed
the trigger. Then in a frenzy of fright he
pitched the little rifle into the bush, and
sprang to his feet. His nimble legs had
saved him the night before, and might now.

Then the body of the great cat shot like
a black streak through the air, and fell heav-
ily at his feet.

Stubby’s legs sank under his weight, and
it grew very dark.

The next thing he remembered, his father

CHARTES COPELANY

THE PANTHER BENT LOWER ON THE LIMB.

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 123

was bending over him, fanning him with
his palm-leaf hat, while some one else was
sprinkling brook-water in his face, from a
wet handkerchief. He was not mortally
wounded, as he at first thought, or even
scratched, only his head was light, and
things looked strange.

After a few moments he was able to sit up
and tell his story.

‘* You say you fired at him with the pop-
gun, did you ?” asked Stubby’s father.

“Yes,” replied the boy, ‘‘I aimed right
between his eyes, just as I have read about in
books.”

‘*Made a mighty big sight of noise for a
twenty-two,’ remarked some one in the
crowd.

‘* Wal, the panther’s dead,” said Stubby’s
father, ‘‘ and I don’t see but the boy’s bullet
did it.”

‘** Look at this here wound,” said another.
‘*Bullet went in just behind the shoulder,
square through the heart, and came out the
other side. Don’t look like a twenty-two

124 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

either. That warn’t no popgun that did
that.”

‘Where is old Ben Wilson, from over to
Kdgewood?” asked some one in the party.
‘‘He knows all about such things, he can
tell what kind of a bullet made the hole.”

A shout went around for Ben, but he was
nowhere to be found.

Then one of the Basset boys said, “I
vum !” and slapped his side.

‘‘T have it,” he cried. ‘‘I just saw Ben
myself, sorter skulking off through the woods
towards home, and if I ain’t mightily mis-
taken Ole Kentucky was still a smokin’.
Anyhow I saw Ben lift the hammer, and
throw away the cap, an’ he wouldn’t have
done that if it had been a good one.”

Here then was the secret of the mystery.
Ben had happened along just in time to see
Stubby’s plight, and had rescued him by a
lucky shot with his famous hunting rifle that
he called ‘‘ Ole Kentuck.”

To make sure that this was the case, a
committee was at once sent to interview Ben.

THE GREAT CIRCUS CAT 125

But, to their great astonishment, that quiet
old man would say nothing about it, either
one way or the other.

‘“We want to give you a vote of thanks
and the skin,” said the chairman. ‘‘ Now
tells us, did you kill the panther?”

““Can’t say as I did,” replied Ben. ‘‘I
hain’t seen no dead panther. *i'would be
mighty hard to say. There ain’t nothin’
sure in this world, ceptin’ death and taxes.
But you folks just go back an’ ask Stubby
about it. He got the panther’s eye and I
didn’t.

‘“Mebbe he winked at him. You just
ask Stubby.”

CHAPTER IX
SIGNS IN THE SNOW

OLD BEN and I were tramping along in the
deep snow, ‘‘ going Injun file,” as he ex-
pressed it, on our way to the woods.

He was ahead, and as he was a sort of
pathfinder, and prophet of the woods, in my
eyes, | was stepping in his tracks, although
they were rather too far apart for comfort.
I wished to be considered a pathfinder and a
woodsman myself, so I would not have ad-
mitted that the steps were too long for me,
if I had fallen by the way. Even though
the stride was long, it was easier going in
this way because Ben’s big boot made a good
track in which I could follow lightly.

‘‘When there is snow on the ground,”
said Ben, as we crunched along, ‘‘ there ain’t
a four-footed creature in the woods or out of

SIGNS IN THE SNOW 427

it, for that matter, but tells you all his busi-
ness whenever he goes anywhere.

‘‘Tt is as interestin’ to poke around the
woods in the winter and see what our four-
footed friends are doin’, as it is to stay at
home and read stories about them, and rather
more so. For out here in the woods you can
see for yourself, and besides, a great many
things that you read in books are not more
than half true. Buta track never lies, and
the best way is to see for yourself.

Pomow, Harry,”
customed way of drawing me out, ‘‘ what
would you say could be learned from
tracks?”

“Why, that something had been along,” I
replied.

Ben whistled. ‘‘Isthatall? Scratch your
head, boy, and try again.”

‘* If you knew the different kinds of tracks,
you could tell whether it was a fox or a
rabbit, but [ should think that was all,” I
said.

‘‘T am afeered you will hev to rub up

continued Ben in his ac-

128 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

them woodsman’s specks a bit,” said Ben, ‘‘if
you are going to get on in finding out about
the wild things. There are four or five things
that every track tells you as soon as you
clap eyes on it. If you know how to read
tracks, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a rab-
bit’s tracks or a fox’s, it is all the same.

‘*'You can tell which way the animal was
going, how long ago he passed, if he was in
a hurry, if he was a large or small creature
of the kind, and many times you will detect
peculiarities in the particular animal that
others of his kind don’t have.”

I opened my eyes wide with astonishment.
I had not believed it was possible to learn so
many things merely from a track, but I knew
at must be true, for Ben had said so, and it
made me all eagerness to find out about it so
that | might confound the rest of the boys
with my knowledge.

‘‘'Wal, we don’t want to be in a hurry,”
continued my companion. ‘‘ There ain’t ever
anything gained by being in a hurry in the
woods. Ten to one you won’t see what you

SIGNS IN THE SNOW 129

are after if you are ina hurry. I suppose
the science of tracks was carried further by
the Indians than any other people. They
depended upon it to find out all about their
enemies, as well as the animals they hunted.
The tracks of folks are harder to read than
those of animals, because they are shod alike,
while the wild creatures leave their naked
footprints. Besides, men all travel something
alike, while the wild things have a different
way of traveling. The rabbit hops, the fox
trots when he is not in a hurry, and the cat
tribe jump.

‘*T think we had better begin by learning
the different tracks, and then we will observe
each particularly.

‘*See that T shaped track under this laurel
bush, with four paw-printsina bunch. That
is a rabbit track, and there ain’t no other
animal in the woods that makes that kind
of atrack. The gray rabbits and the white
ones make the same kind of a track, only the
gray rabbit’s track is smaller. He usually

lives in the spruces at the edge of the woods,
9

130 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

while the white rabbit likes the laurel swamp
and lives near it. You see when the rabbit
hops, and one fore paw comes just behind
the other, just as a horse’s forward hoofs go
when he gallops, that gives us the two paw-
prints that make the shank of the T. Then
his hind paws he spreads out, making the top
of the T. So you see the shank of the T
always points in the direction the rabbit is
going. Ifthe jumps are far apart the rabbit
isin a hurry, or if the hind paw-prints are
well up to the forward ones that means the
same thing, but the track usually is a per-
fect T.

“The track of a fox is even and measured
without he is in a hurry, and even then it is
about the same, for he is an easy-going fel-
low, and particular about his gait. His track
is often taken for that of asmalldog ora large
cat, but there are certain signs about it that
a woodsman always knows. The footprint
is depressed more at the front than that of
a dog or cat, showing that the fox stands
well up, on his toes, and touches the ground

SIGNS IN THE SNOW 131

lightly. The pads of the paw are not as
noticeable as in the track of a dog, the foot
being furred; and last of all, the track
usually makes off straight across the country,
as though the fox was goin’ somewhere,
which is the case. A young fox will play like
a kitten, but an old fox goes methodically
about his business with a good plan in his
crafty head.

“Occasionally you will see a scraggly
track, near some bush or stone. Each foot-
print has four strokes leading out from a
center. It looks so much like the tracks the
hens make about the yard after the first snow
that you will readily guess what madeit. It
is a partridge. Maybe there is a blur in the
snow where his wings struck when he started
to fly.

‘‘There are also the prints of small mis-
chievous feet on the tops of the walls and
fences, where some red squirrel has warmed
himself, by taking a morning run.

‘‘The grayer is scarcely ever seen in the
winter, but Chippy occasionally comes out

132 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

of his hole to see how the winter is gettin’
along, and if there are any signs of spring.

“‘ Sometimes you will see a wee bit of a track
running out from under a stone, going a few
feet, and returnin’ to the hole it came from.
Some inquisitive mouse has been forth, to
see what was doin’ in the world outside.

‘“ But most of the wild things keep as close
as possible in the winter, staying in sheltered
places, among spruces or pines, while some
come to the house and share the outbuildings
with man. If you encourage them to come
you can have a fine little menagerie all
winter long.”

‘*T should think lots of them would freeze,
and starve inthe winter,” I said. ‘‘ Do they
all get through safely ?”

‘*More than you would think, Harry,” re-
plied my friend ; ‘‘ but it ain’t all pie an’ cake
in the woods either, for if the rabbit is hun-
gry, so is the fox and the owl, and they both
have their eye on the cottontail. Mebbe it
happens when he and a score of his friends
are playing tag in the moonlight. I hev

SIGNS IN THE SNOW 133

often seen um, racin’ an’ chasin’, hevin’ the
finest kind of games. Then a swift lithe
figure would flash through the underbrush,
and before they knew, it was right among
them. Then there was a race for blood.
Out an’ in they would rush, pell-mell, till
them wicked jaws closed upon the soft fur,
then a cry for all the world like that ofa
baby would startle the woods with heart-
breaking pathos, an’ then all would be quiet,
without you heard the crunchin’ of bones in
the thicket near by.

‘Tt is mighty strange how much the cry of
a rabbit sounds like that of a baby. Fust
time I heard it [spent more’n half an hour
lookin’ for the baby that I thought some one
had been mean enough to leave in the
woods.”’

‘What was it that got the rabbit that
time ?”’ I asked.

‘Why, Reynard. He hunts all winter
long, and many a bloody trail he leaves in
the woods. Sometimes it is strewn with par-
tridge feathers, or mebbe it is the white fur

te,
134 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD 4

of the cottontail. Mebbe he is sittin’ by
his own doorway, under a bunch of laurel,
watchin’ the moonlight on the snow and
thinking what he would do if it was gone.

“The wind sings a weird song in the leaf-
less forest and the snow and the silver moon-
light give things a sickly, ghastly look, but
the rabbit does not mind that, for the laurel ©
swamp is his home. Then a feathered form,
swift and silent.as death, swoops down out of
the top of a spruce, where it had been com-
pletely hidden by the dark plumes. Before
the rabbit has time to even look up and see
what makes the shadow on the snow, the
talons of an owl are buried in his neck.
Then the night woods are again startled by
that piteous cry. The struggle is short and
desperate, but the owl has too good a hold,
and he is too hungry to let his prey off easily,
so in afew seconds he flies away with his
supper.

‘* Perhaps the next night, when the stars
prick through the steely sky, to see what
man is about, there is a tawny gray bunch

A WILDCAT LOOKING FOR HIS SUPPER.

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SIGNS IN THE SNOW 135

on the upper side ofafallentreetrunk. The
tree does not lie upon the ground but is held
up some six or eight feet, by the limbs on
the under side of the trunk. What is it, do
you suppose? It matches so well with the
gray of the tree trunk, and the general sober
tint of the leafless brown woods, that it at-
tracts little attention ; it is probably a burl,
or almost anything without life.

‘* But don’t be too sure that this motion-
less bunch has not got life. If you look care-
fully you will see two square-topped ears
lying close to the head, and two burning
eyes, that devour the rabbit path which runs
under the fallen tree trunk. It is a wildcat
and he too is looking for supper.

‘* Now he crouches lower to the log if possi-
ble, and his eyes burn even more fiercely.
You did not hear anything, but he did ; it is
coming this way. Underneath that gray
bunch of soft fur are quivering muscles, and
cushioned in those velvet paws are the worst
setof claws in the woods. As slight as the
forearm is, one blow of that paw would kill

136 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

the strongest fox-hound that ever followed
scent.

‘* There is a patter in the snow, and Mr. Cot-
tontail comes hopping along, his ears erect.
He is on his way to visit a neighbor. Then
the muscles in the gray bunch tighten, and
the cat springs.

‘* There is no outcry this time, for the rab-
bit’s back is broken at the first bite.”

We had stopped to rest at a pile of cord-
wood, which made a convenient seat, while
Ben told me of what was doing in the woods
of a winter’s night. Presently hecaught my
expression, which must have been solemn,
and began laughing.

‘‘Sorter hard life, ain’t it, Harry?” he
said cheerfully, ‘‘ but that ain’t all. For
some fine morning men will come with
hounds, and then the woods will be filled
with the baying of dogs and the roar of shot-
guns.

‘‘But don’t you think for a moment, boy,
that the rabbit don’t hev a good time in his
way, but it ain’t the way of folks. I hain’t

SIGNS IN THE SNOW 137

a doubt but what he takes as much sport
playing tag in the woods as you do in the
schoolyard, while as for being gobbled up
by a cat or an owl only afew of them go that
way, when we think of all there are in the
woods. Besides, it is their life. They are
born to it. It is as much their game to
match their cunning agin that of the fox or
the hawk, as it is man’s to battle for bread,
or boy’s to play football. Life is a battle
whatever way you considerit. Itain’t allus
strength that wins either, but wit goes a
mighty long ways. Why, there is the par-
tridge, he ain’t no match for hawks or owls
in a fight, but he has got wits, and they keep
him out of the way of his enemies, and I
rather imagine that he enjoys slipping out of
one side of a cover when the owl comes flop-
ping in at the other.

“Then there is the fox, swift and sly as he
is, yet many a time he goes without his sup-
per, because his prey has either wings or
wits.

‘So after all, Harry, you see the Maker of

1388 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

the sparrow and the hawk has given each
powers that the other does not possess, and
in the struggle for existence, that always has
raged in the woods, and always will, they
are pretty evenly matched, for the race is not
always to the swift or the battle to the
strong.”

CHAPTER X
SIGNS OF THE SEASONS

A HAPPY, barefooted boy was spanking
along a country road, doing what Old Ben
called, observing the signs of the times.

‘* Allus be a lookin’ out for what’s coming,”
that wise oldman had toldhim. ‘‘If spring
is here, summer is coming. If autumn is
with us, look out for winter. An’ I don’t
mean by that not toenjoy the season that we
have to the full, for this particular season
will never come again. There will never be
another summer or winter just like this one,
so enjoy it while it lasts. But what I mean
is, be on the lookout forthe changes. Learn
to forestall the wind and the weather, and
let no season steal amarchon you. If some
morning winter comes howling down upon
you, be able to tell ae a ‘You didn’t fool me,

140 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

old chap, I have seen you coming for days,
and you made yesterday so fine just to try
and fool me.’”

So this barefooted boy, as he scampered
along the country road, was observing the
oncoming spring.

Spring always made him feel glad. Just
as the flowers under the sod felt its touch, so
did the boy’s heart. Something of the bird-
song that thrilled the woods was in his voice.

The particular thing that he was enjoying
now was the delicious fragrance of swamp
pink, that came stealing mysteriously out of
the woods. He never could understand how
it was that a plant could give away so much
of itself in odor, and still seem to have just
as much left, but Ben had told him that it
was just so with folks. That the more
kindness any one gave the more he had to
give.

This boy would not have believed it if you
had told him a year before that there was so
much to enjoy in simply walking to school,
but his walks and talks with Ben had taught

SIGNS OF THE SEASONS 141

him many things, some of them more valu-
able than the lessons he learned in the school-
house.

Now, if he saw a robin flying across the
road with a worm in his mouth, he at once
pictured the nest and the little ones with
mouths outstretched, ready for breakfast,
and somehow the nest-robbing instinct had
gone out of him. He had always remembered
what Ben had toldhim. ‘‘ For every egg that
you take from the nest there will be one less
bird to sing to you the coming summer.”

This morning he had seen some queer little
tracks by the brookside, and had followed
them down into the swale, to be rewarded by
finding a muskrat’s house. On the way back
to the road he had snapped a pebble into a
ripple, and a beauty of a trout had jumped
for it as he had hoped.

By the roadside he had stopped for checker-
berries and partridge berries, while a spruce
had yielded up gum enough for both him and
his fellows.

A squirrel had winked at him as he passed

142 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

under the tree on which it sat, and this
had made him feel like one of the Wood
Folks.

A flicker had been sounding his lively rat-
a-tat-tat on a dead limb and it was always
pleasant to hear this merry woodchopper.

So you see this morning walk was full of
wonders, and the boy had been able to enjoy
them because of Old Ben’s training.

Presently he left the woods behind and
came out into open mowings, where there
was an apple orchard on one side of the road,
and corn stubble on the other. They were
ploughing the stubble to-day, and the earth
looked mellow and inviting. A score of birds
had taken the ploughman at his word, and
were helping themselves in a_ bounteous
manner. Prominent among them were robins
and purple grackles.

Then high and clear above all the other
sounds of oncoming spring that filled the
morning the boy heard a sound new to his
ears.

Strong, steady, and full.

py

‘HONK, HONK, HONK

SIGNS OF THE SEASONS 143

‘* Honk, honk, honk !”

He looked in the tree-tops and across the
fields, first in this direction and then in that,
but nothing could he see that should make
such a strange sound. |

But still the sound went on, steady and
measured as before, ‘‘ Honk, honk, honk! ”

It seemed to be coming nearer. Then he
got upon the wall, and his eager eyes swept
the sky in every direction. Away to the
south, he saw along procession of something
that looked about the size ofa flock of spar-
rows. They were up very high, and coming
directly towards him.

But while he watched, the birds grew
steadily larger, and he saw that the procession
was wedge-shaped, the two sides of the wedge
trailing out far behind.

On, on the flock came, flying strong and
steady. Their flight was as straight as an
arrow, and reminded one of the furrow that
an ocean liner might leave on the deep. They
were probably steering by some lake or river
miles away, and did not care to make even

144 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

slightturns. When they cared to change their
course they would haul a point to the east or
west, and the casual observer on the green
earth below would not notice the differ-
ence.

On, on they came, like the wind, sweeping
the heavens in matchless flight, all the time
pealing the slogan of lake orriver. ‘‘ Honk,
honk, honk!” Their heads were thrust for-
ward like race horses, and their legs were
held well back under them to escape the rush
of wind. ‘‘ Ninety miles an hour!” thought
the boy. Why, the first hoarse cry that
signaled the start upon this flight might
have been given last evening, upon the banks
of the Chattahoochee, or along the marshy
sedges of some lagoon in the Everglades of
Florida. The fastest express train would
have barely reached Washington, while this
tireless squadron was swinging over the
hills and valleys of Massachusetts at a rate
that would cross the entire State from south
to north, in less than an hour. The express
train would puff, roar, and hiss, and every

SIGNS OF THE SEASONS 145

few score miles, would stop to rest its heated
bearings and oil its joints. But this mag-
nificent machine neither puffed nor paused.
There was no hissing or snorting, only that
steady stroke of tireless wings, and the wild
cry of ‘‘ Honk, honk, honk!”

The slogan of the waterfowls grew fainter
and fainter as they swept on, until it was
lost in the distance. But the boy still watched
the threadlike line that hung for a few
seconds on the northern horizon, and then
vanished altogether. When it had entirely
disappeared, he heaved a deep sigh and
rubbed his eyes, which were tired with strain-
ing after the flying harrow. Then heslowly
got down from the wall, and trudged on to
school, but there was a serious look on his
face, and he felt something almost akin to
reverence for the beauties and mysteries of
nature ; something of that awe which the
mariner feels as he guides his bark under
the starless sky, across black waters, merely
by the chart and compass.

Fragments of the beautiful poem that he
10

146 STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

had learned to recite the last day of the term
before came unbidden to his lips:

Whither ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way ?

Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

* * * * * *

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
* + ¥ * * %*

He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone

Will lead my steps aright.

THE END.

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