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diff --git a/42223.txt b/42223.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 18ada98..0000000 --- a/42223.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4234 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fall of the Year, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Fall of the Year - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: February 27, 2013 [EBook #42223] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALL OF THE YEAR *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - [Illustration: "ONE OF THE EAGLES STRUCK ME A STINGING BLOW ON - THE HEAD" _Chapter V_.] - - - The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series - - - - - THE FALL OF THE YEAR - - BY - - DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - AUTHOR OF "THE LAY OF THE LAND," "THE FACE OF THE FIELDS," ETC. - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - - ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL - - - BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO - - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - - The Riverside Press Cambridge - - - COPYRIGHT, 1896, 1903, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - TO - - DOCTOR AND MRS. TRASK - OF THE - SOUTH JERSEY INSTITUTE - BEST OF TEACHERS, DEAREST OF FRIENDS - - - - - CONTENTS - - - INTRODUCTION xi - I. THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE 1 - II. ALONG THE HIGHWAY OF THE FOX 9 - III. IN THE TOADFISH'S SHOE 21 - IV. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS FALL 29 - V. WHIPPED BY EAGLES 36 - VI. THANKSGIVING AT GRANDFATHER'S FARM 46 - VII. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS FALL 52 - VIII. THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING 61 - IX. THE NORTH WIND DOTH BLOW 67 - X. AN OUTDOOR LESSON 76 - XI. LEAFING 80 - XII. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS FALL 88 - XIII. HONK, HONK, HONK! 96 - NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 105 - - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - "ONE OF THE EAGLES STRUCK ME A STINGING BLOW - ON THE HEAD" _Frontispiece_ - THE FALL OF THE YEAR 1 - INITIAL, CHAPTER I 1 - INITIAL, CHAPTER II 9 - "OVER THE HILL IN A WHIRLWIND OF DUST AND HOWLS" 18 - INITIAL, CHAPTER III 21 - "HERE I FOUND HIM KEEPING HOUSE" 24 - INITIAL, CHAPTER IV 29 - A SILKY SKEIN OF COBWEB 30 - "A WILD CREATURE, THAT WON'T GET OUT OF YOUR WAY" 32 - THE PYXIE 32 - THE FIELD OF CORN IN THE SHOCK 33 - THE WINGED, AND PLUMED, AND BALLOONED SEEDS 34, 35 - INITIAL, CHAPTER V 36 - INITIAL, CHAPTER VI 46 - "THE LANTERN FLICKERS, THE MILK FOAMS, THE STORIES FLOW" 48 - INITIAL, CHAPTER VII 52 - A COON 54 - QUAILS 55 - SHAGBARKS 56 - WILD SEA FOWL 57 - BLACK HAWTHORN BERRIES 58 - INITIAL, CHAPTER VIII 61 - "TO-NIGHT THERE IS NO LOAFING ABOUT THE LODGE" 62 - TAILPIECE 66 - INITIAL, CHAPTER IX 67 - A WHITEFOOT 68 - A CHIPMUNK 70 - A WOODCHUCK 72 - FIVE DAYS OF LIFE AND PLENTY FOR THE BIRDS 74 - INITIAL, CHAPTER X 76 - INITIAL, CHAPTER XI 80 - "BUT COME, BOYS, GET AFTER THOSE BAGS!" 84 - INITIAL, CHAPTER XII 88 - A LOON 89 - WHEN NIGHT COMES 90 - A BLUE JAY 91 - A RED SQUIRREL 92 - A KINGLET 93 - INITIAL, CHAPTER XIII 96 - WILD GEESE 102 - TAILPIECE 103 - - - - -NOTE - - -It is interesting to observe that the subject of the initial for -chapter IV is witch-hazel; that for chapter VII, the cocoons of the -cecropia, the promethea, and the basket worm; and that for chapter -VIII, a sprig of alder, with the old fruit and a budded catkin. The -subjects of the other initials require no identification. - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -There are three serious charges brought against nature books of the -present time, namely, that they are either so dull as to be -unreadable, or so fanciful as to be misleading, or so insincere as to -be positively harmful. There is a real bottom to each of these -charges. - -Dull nature-writing is the circumstantial, the detailed, the -cataloguing, the semi-scientific sort, dried up like old Rameses and -cured for all time with the fine-ground spice of measurements, dates, -conditions--observations, so called. For literary purposes, one -observation of this kind is better than two. Rarely does the watcher -in the woods see anything so new that for itself it is worth -recording. It is not what one sees, so much as the manner of the -seeing, not the observation but its suggestions that count for -interest to the reader. Science wants the exact observation; -nature-writing wants the observation exact and the heart of the -observer along with it. We want plenty of facts in our nature books, -but they have all been set down in order before; what has not been set -down before are the author's thoughts and emotions. These should be -new, personal, and are pretty sure therefore to be interesting. - -More serious than dullness (and that is serious enough) is the charge -that nature books are untrustworthy, that they falsify the facts, and -give a wrong impression of nature. Some nature books do, as some -novels do with the facts of human life. A nature book all full of -extraordinary, better-class animals who do extraordinary stunts -because of their superior powers has little of real nature in it. -There are no such extraordinary animals, they do no such extraordinary -things. Nature is full of marvels--Niagara Falls, a flying swallow, a -star, a ragweed, a pebble; but nature is not full of dragons and -centaurs and foxes that reason like men and take their tea with lemon, -if you please. - -I have never seen one of these extraordinary animals, never saw -anything extraordinary out of doors, because the ordinary is so -surprisingly marvelous. And I have lived in the woods practically all -of my life. And you will never see one of them--a very good argument -against anybody's having seen them. - -The world out of doors is not a circus of performing prodigies, nor -are nature-writers strange half-human creatures who know wood-magic, -who talk with trees, and call the birds and beasts about them as did -one of the saints of old. No, they are plain people, who have seen -nothing more wonderful in the woods than you have, if they would tell -the truth. - -When I protested with a popular nature-writer some time ago at one of -his exciting but utterly impossible fox stories, he wrote back,-- - -"The publishers demanded that chapter to make the book sell." - -Now the publishers of this book make no such demands. Indeed they have -had an expert naturalist and woodsman hunting up and down every line -of this book for errors of fact, false suggestions, wrong sentiments, -and extraordinaries of every sort. If this book is not exciting it is -the publishers' fault. It may not be exciting, but I believe, and -hope, that it is _true_ to all of my out of doors, and not untrue to -any of yours. - -The charge of insincerity, the last in the list, concerns the author's -style and sentiments. It does not belong in the same category with the -other two, for it really includes them. Insincerity is the mother of -all the literary sins. If the writer cannot be true to himself, he -cannot be true to anything. Children are the particular victims of the -evil. How often are children spoken to in baby-talk, gush, hollow -questions, and a condescension as irritating as coming teeth! They are -written to, also, in the same spirit. - -The temptation to sentimentalize in writing of the "beauties of -nature" is very strong. Raptures run through nature books as regularly -as barbs the length of wire fences. The world according to such books -is like the Garden of Eden according to Ridinger, all peace, in spite -of the monstrous open-jawed alligator in the foreground of the -picture, who must be smiling, I take it, in an alligatorish way at a -fat swan near by. - -Just as strong to the story-writer is the temptation to blacken the -shadows of the picture--to make all life a tragedy. Here on my table -lies a child's nature-book every chapter of which ends in -death--nothing but struggle to escape for a brief time the bloody jaws -of the bigger beast--or of the superior beast, man. - -Neither extreme is true of nature. Struggle and death go on, but, -except where man interferes, a very even balance is maintained, peace -prevails over fear, joy lasts longer than pain, and life continues to -multiply and replenish the earth. "The level of wild life," to quote -my words from "The Face of the Fields," "of the soul of all nature is -a great serenity. It is seldom lowered, but often raised to a higher -level, intenser, faster, more exultant." - -This is a divinely beautiful world, a marvelously interesting world, -the best conceivable sort of a world to live in, notwithstanding its -gypsy moths, tornadoes, and germs, its laws of gravity, and of cause -and effect; and my purpose in this series of nature books is to help -my readers to come by this belief. A clear understanding of the laws -of the Universe will be necessary for such a belief in the end, and -with the understanding a profound faith in their perfect working -together. But for the present, in these books of the Seasons, if I can -describe the out of doors, its living creatures and their doings, its -winds and skies with their suggestions--all of the out of doors, as it -surrounds and supports me here in my home on Mullein Hill, Hingham, so -that you can see how your out of doors surrounds and supports you, -with all its manifold life and beauty, then I have done enough. If -only I can accomplish a fraction of this I have done enough. - - DALLAS LORE SHARP. - MULLEIN HILL, September, 1911. - - - - -THE FALL OF THE YEAR - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE CLOCK STRIKES ONE - - - "The clock strikes one, - And all is still around the house! - But in the gloom - A little mouse - Goes creepy-creep from room to room." - -The clock of the year strikes one!--not in the dark silent night of -winter, but in the hot light of midsummer. - -It is a burning July day,--one o'clock in the afternoon of the -year,--and all is still around the fields and woods. All is still. All -is hushed. But yet, as I listen, I hear things in the dried grass, and -in the leaves overhead, going "creepy-creep," as you have heard the -little mouse in the silent night. - -I am lying on a bed of grass in the shade of a great oak tree, as the -clock of the year strikes one. I am all alone in the quiet of the hot, -hushed day. Alone? Are you alone in the big upstairs at midnight, when -you hear the little mouse going "creepy-creep" from room to room? No; -and I am not alone. - -High overhead the clouds are drifting past; and between them, far -away, is the blue of the sky--and how blue, how cool, how far, far -away! But how near and warm seems the earth! - -I lie outstretched upon it, feeling the burnt crisp grass beneath me, -a beetle creeping under my shoulder, the heat of a big stone against -my side. I throw out my hands, push my fingers into the hot soil, and -try to take hold of the big earth as if I were a child clinging to my -mother. - -And so I am. But I am not frightened, as I used to be, when the little -mouse went "creepy-creep," and my real mother brought a candle to -scare the mouse away. It is because I am growing old? But I cannot -grow old to my mother. And the earth is my mother, my second mother. -The beetle moving under my shoulder is one of my brothers; the hot -stone by my side is another of my brothers; the big oak tree over me -is another of my brothers; and so are the clouds, the white clouds -drifting, drifting, drifting, so far away yonder, through the blue, -blue sky. - -The clock of the year strikes one. The summer sun is overhead. The -flood-tide of summer life has come. It is the noon hour of the year. - -The drowsy silence of the full, hot noon lies deep across the field. -Stream and cattle and pasture-slope are quiet in repose. The eyes of -the earth are heavy. The air is asleep. Yet the round shadow of my oak -begins to shift. The cattle do not move; the pasture still sleeps -under the wide, white glare. - -But already the noon is passing--to-day I see the signs of coming -autumn everywhere. - -Of the four seasons of the year summer is the shortest, and the one we -are least acquainted with. Summer is hardly a pause between spring and -autumn, simply the hour of the year's noon. - -We can be glad with the spring, sad with the autumn, eager with the -winter; but it is hard for us to go softly, to pause and to be still -with the summer; to rest on our wings a little like the broad-winged -hawk yonder, far up in the wide sky. - -But now the hawk is not still. The shadow of my oak begins to -lengthen. The hour is gone; and, wavering softly down the languid air, -falls a yellow leaf from a slender birch near by. I remember, too, -that on my way through the woodlot I frightened a small flock of -robins from a pine; and more than a week ago the swallows were -gathering upon the telegraph wires. So quickly summer passes. It was -springtime but yesterday, it seems; to-day the autumn is here. - -It is a July day. At dawn the birds were singing, fresh and -full-throated almost as in spring. Then the sun burned through the -mist, and the chorus ceased. Now I do not hear even the chewink and -the talkative vireo. Only the fiery notes of the scarlet tanager come -to me through the dry white heat of the noon, and the resonant song of -the indigo bunting--a hot, metallic, quivering song, as out of a "hot -and copper sky." - -There are nestlings still in the woods. This indigo bunting has eggs -or young in the bushes of the hillside; the scarlet tanager by some -accident has but lately finished his nest in the tall oaks. I looked -in upon some half-fledged cuckoos along the fence. But all of these -are late. Most of the year's young are upon the wing. - -A few of the spring's flowers are still opening. I noticed the bees -upon some tardy raspberry blossoms; here and there is a stray -dandelion. But these are late. The season's fruit has already set, is -already ripening. Spring is gone; the sun is overhead; the red -wood-lily is open. To-day is the noon of the year. - -High noon! and the red wood-lily is aflame in the old fields, and in -the low tangles of sweet-fern and blackberry that border the upland -woods. - -The wood-lily is the flower of fire. How impossible it would be to -kindle a wood-lily on the cold, damp soil of April! It can be lighted -only on this kiln-dried soil of July. This old hilly pasture is baking -in the sun; the low mouldy moss that creeps over its thin breast -crackles and crumbles under my feet; the patches of sweet-fern that -blotch it here and there crisp in the heat and fill the smothered air -with their spicy breath; while the wood-lily opens wide and full, -lifting its spotted lips to the sun for his scorching kiss. See it -glow! Should the withered thicket burst suddenly into a blaze, it -would be no wonder, so hot and fiery seem the petals of this flower of -the sun. - -How unlike the tender, delicate fragrant flowers of spring are these -strong flowers of the coming fall! They make a high bank along the -stream--milkweed, boneset, peppermint, turtle-head, joe-pye-weed, -jewel-weed, smartweed, and budding goldenrod! Life has grown lusty and -lazy and rank. - -But life has to grow lusty and rank, for the winter is coming; and as -the woodchucks are eating and eating, enough to last them until spring -comes again, so the plants are storing fat in their tap-roots, and -ripening millions of seeds, to carry them safely through the long dead -months of winter. - -The autumn is the great planting time out of doors. Every autumn wind -is a sower going forth to sow. And he must have seeds and to -spare--seeds for the waysides for the winter birds to eat, seeds for -the stony places where there is no depth of soil for them, seeds for -the ploughed fields where they are not allowed to grow, seeds for -every nook and corner, in order that somewhere each plant may find a -place to live, and so continue its kind from year to year. - -Look at the seeds of the boneset, joe-pye-weed, milkweed, and -goldenrod! Seeds with wings and plumes and parachutes that go -floating and flying and ballooning. - - "Over the fields where the daisies grow, - Over the flushing clover, - A host of the tiniest fairies go-- - Dancing, balancing to and fro, - Rolling and tumbling over. - - "Quivering, balancing, drifting by, - Floating in sun and shadow-- - Maybe the souls of the flowers that die - Wander, like this, to the summer sky - Over a happy meadow." - -So they do. They wander away to the sky, but they come down again to -the meadow to make it happy next summer with new flowers; for these -are the seed-souls of thistles and daisies and fall dandelions seeking -new bodies for themselves in the warm soil of Mother Earth. - -Mother Earth! How tender and warm and abundant she is! As I lie here -under the oak, a child in her arms, I see the thistle-down go floating -by, and on the same laggard breeze comes up from the maple swamp the -odor of the sweet pepper-bush. A little flock of chickadees stop in -the white birches and quiz me. "Who are you?" "Who are you-you-you?" -they ask, dropping down closer and closer to get a peek into my face. - -Perhaps they don't know who I am. Perhaps I don't know who they are. -They are not fish hawks, of course; but neither am I an alligator or a -pumpkin, as the chickadees surely know. This much I am quite sure of, -however: that this little flock is a family--a family of young -chickadees and their two parents, it may be, who are out seeing the -world together, and who will stay together far into the cold coming -winter. - -They are one of the first signs of the autumn to me, and one of my -surest, sweetest comforts as the bleak cold winds come down from the -north. For the winds will not drive my chickadees away, no matter how -cold and how hard they blow, no matter how dark and how dead the -winter woods when, in the night of the year, the clock strikes twelve. - -The clock to-day strikes one, and all is still with drowsy sleep out -of doors. The big yellow butterflies, like falling leaves, are -flitting through the woods; the thistledown is floating, floating -past; and in the sleepy air I see the shimmering of the spiders' silky -balloons, as the tiny aeronauts sail over on their strange voyages -through the sky. - -How easy to climb into one of their baskets, and in the fairy craft -drift far, far away! How pleasant, too, if only the noon of the year -would last and last; if only the warm sun would shine and shine; if -only the soft sleepy winds would sleep and sleep; if only we had -nothing to do but drift and drift and drift! - -But we have a great deal to do, and we can't get any of it done by -drifting. Nor can we get it done by lying, as I am lying, outstretched -upon the warm earth this July day. Already the sun has passed -overhead; already the cattle are up and grazing; already the round -shadow of the oak tree begins to lie long across the slope. The noon -hour is spent. I hear the quivering click-clack of a mowing-machine in -a distant hay field. The work of the day goes on. My hour of rest is -almost over, my summer vacation is nearly done. Work begins again -to-morrow. - -But I am ready for it. I have rested outstretched upon the warm earth. -I have breathed the sweet air of the woods. I have felt the warm -life-giving sun upon my face. I have been a child of the earth. I have -been a brother to the stone and the bird and the beetle. And now I am -strong to do my work, no matter what it is. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ALONG THE HIGHWAY OF THE FOX - - -With only half a chance our smaller wild animals--the fox, the mink, -the 'coon, the 'possum, the rabbit--would thrive, and be happy forever -on the very edges of the towns and cities. Instead of a hindrance, -houses and farms, roads and railways are a help to the wild animals, -affording them food and shelter as their natural conditions never -could. So, at least, it seems; for here on Mullein Hill, hardly twenty -miles from the heart of Boston, there are more wild animals than I -know what to do with--just as if the city of Boston were a big skunk -farm or fox farm, from which the countryside all around (particularly -my countryside) were being continually restocked. - -But then, if I seem to have more foxes than a man of chickens needs to -have, it is no wonder, living as I do on a main traveled road in -Foxland, a road that begins off in the granite ledges this side of -Boston, no one knows where, and, branching, doubling, turning, no one -knows how many times, comes down at last along the trout brook to the -street in front of my house, where, leaping the brook and crossing the -street, it runs beside my foot-path, up the hill, to the mowing-field -behind the barn. - -When I say that last fall the hunters, standing near the brook where -this wild-animal road and the wagon road cross, shot seven foxes, you -will be quite ready to believe that this is a much-traveled road, this -road of the foxes that cuts across my mowing-field; and also that I am -quite likely to see the travelers, now and then, as they pass by. - -So I am, especially in the autumn, when game grows scarce; when the -keen frosty air sharpens the foxes' appetites, and the dogs, turned -loose in the woods, send the creatures far and wide for--chickens! - -For chickens? If you have chickens, I hope your chicken-coop does not -stand along the side of a fox road, as mine does. For straight across -the mowing-field runs this road of the foxes, then in a complete -circle right round the chicken yard, and up the bushy ridge into the -wood. - -How very convenient! Very, indeed! And how thoughtful of me! Very -thoughtful! The foxes appreciate my kindness; and they make a point of -stopping at the hen-yard every time they pass this way. - -It is interesting to know, too, that they pass this way almost every -night, and almost every afternoon, and at almost every other odd time, -so that the hens, with hundreds of grubby acres to scratch in, have to -be fenced within a bare narrow yard, where they can only be _seen_ by -the passing foxes. - -Even while being driven by the dogs, when naturally they are in -something of a hurry, the foxes will manage to get far enough ahead of -the hounds to come by this way and saunter leisurely around the coop. - -I have a double-barreled gun and four small boys; but terrible as that -combination sounds, it fails somehow with the foxes. It is a -two-barreled-four-boyed kind of a joke to them. They think that I am -fooling when I blaze away with both barrels at them. But I am not. -Every cartridge is loaded with BB shot. But that only means -_Blank-Blank_ to them, in spite of all I can do. The way they jump -when the gun goes off, then stop and look at me, is very irritating. - -This last spring I fired twice at a fox, who jumped as if I had hit -him (I must have hit him), then turned himself around and looked all -over the end of the barn to see where the shots were coming from. They -were coming from the back barn window, as he saw when I yelled at him. - -It was an April morning, cold and foggy, so cold and foggy and so very -early that my chattering teeth, I think, disturbed my aim. - -It must have been about four o'clock when one of the small boys -tiptoed into my room and whispered, "Father, quick! there's a fox -digging under Pigeon Henny's coop behind the barn." - -I was up in a second, and into the boys' room. Sure enough, there in -the fog of the dim morning I could make out the moving form of a fox. -He was digging under the wire runway of the coop. - -The old hen was clucking in terror to her chicks. It was she who had -awakened the boys. - -There was no time to lose. Downstairs I went, down into the basement, -where I seized the gun, and, slipping in a couple of shells, slid out -of the cellar door and crept stealthily into the barn. - -The back window was open. The thick wet fog poured in like dense -smoke. I moved swiftly in my bare feet and peered down upon the field. -There stood the blur of the coop,--a dark shadow only in the fog,--but -where was the fox? - -Pushing the muzzle of my double-barreled gun across the window-sill, I -waited. And there in the mist stood the fox, reaching in with his paw -under the wire that inclosed the coop. - -Carefully, deliberately, I swung the gun on the window-sill until the -bead drew dead upon the thief; then, fixing myself as firmly as I -could with bare feet, I made sure of my mark and fired. - -I do not wonder that the fox jumped. I jumped, myself, as both barrels -went off together. A gun is a sudden thing at any time of day, but so -early in the morning, and when everything was wrapped in silence and -ocean fog, the double explosion was extremely startling. - -The fox jumped, as naturally he would. When, however, he turned -deliberately around and looked all over the end of the barn to see -where I was firing from, and stood there, until I shouted at him--I -say it was irritating. - -But I was glad, on going out later, to find that neither charge of -shot had hit the coop. The coop was rather large, larger than the -ordinary coop; and taking that into account, and the thick, uncertain -condition of the atmosphere, I had not made a bad shot after all. It -was something not to have killed the hen. - -But the fox had killed eleven of the chicks. One out of the brood of -twelve was left. The rascal had dug a hole under the wire; and then, -by waiting as they came out, or by frightening them out, had eaten -them one by one. - -There are guns and guns, and some, I know, that shoot straight. But -guns and dogs and a dense population have not yet availed here against -the fox. - -One might think, however, when the dogs are baying hard on the heels -of a fox, that one's chickens would be safe enough for the moment from -that particular fox. But there is no pack of hounds hunting in these -woods swift enough or keen enough to match the fox. In literature the -cunning of the fox is very greatly exaggerated. Yet it is, in fact, -more than equal to that of the hound. - -A fox, I really believe, enjoys an all-day run before the dogs. And as -for house dogs, I have seen a fox, that was evidently out for mischief -and utterly tired of himself, come walking along the edge of the knoll -here by the house, and, squatting on his haunches, yap down lonesomely -at the two farm dogs below. - -This very week I heard the hounds far away in the ledges. I listened. -They were coming toward me, and apparently on my side of the brook. I -had just paused at the corner of the barn when the fox, slipping along -the edge of the woods, came loping down to the hen-yard within easy -gun-shot of me. He halted for a hungry look at the hens through the -wire fence, then trotted slowly off, with the dogs yelping fully five -minutes away in the swamp. - -How many minutes would it have taken that fox to snatch a hen, had -there been a hen on _his_ side of the fence? He could have made -chicken-sandwiches of a hen in five minutes, could have eaten them, -too, and put the feathers into a bolster--almost! How many of my hens -he has made into pie in less than five minutes! - -As desserts go, out of doors, he has a right to a pie for fooling the -dogs out of those five crowded minutes. For he does it against such -uneven odds, and does it so neatly--sometimes so very thrillingly! On -three occasions I have seen him do the trick, each time by a little -different dodge. - -One day, as I was climbing the wooded ridge behind the farm, I heard a -single foxhound yelping at intervals in the hollow beyond. Coming -cautiously to the top, I saw the hound below me beating slowly along -through the bare sprout-land, half a mile away, and having a hard time -holding to the trail. Every few minutes he would solemnly throw his -big black head into the air, stop stock-still, and yelp a long doleful -yelp, as if begging the fox to stop its fooling and try to leave a -reasonable trail. - -The hound was walking, not running; and round and round he would go, -off this way, off that, then back when, catching the scent again, he -would up with his muzzle and howl for all the woods to hear. But I -think it was for the fox to hear. - -I was watching the curious and solemn performance, and wondering if -the fox really did hear and understand, when, not far from me, on the -crown of the ridge, something stirred. - -Without moving so much as my eyes, I saw the fox, a big beauty, going -slowly and cautiously round and round in a small circle among the -bushes, then straight off for a few steps, then back in the same -tracks; off again in another direction and back again; then in and -out, round and round, until, springing lightly away from the top of a -big stump near by, the wily creature went gliding swiftly down the -slope. - -The hound with absolute patience worked his sure way up the hill to -the circle and began to go round and round, sniffling and whimpering -to himself, as I now could hear; sniffling and whimpering with -impatience, but true to every foot-print of the trail. Round and -round, in and out, back and forth, he went, but each time in a wider -circle, until the real trail was picked up, and he was away with an -eager cry. - -I once again saw the trick played, so close to me, and so -deliberately, with such cool calculating, that it came with something -of a revelation to me of how the fox may feel, of what may be the -state of mind in the wild animal world. - -It was a late October evening, crisp and clear, with a moon almost -full. I had come up from the meadow to the edge of the field behind -the barn, and stood leaning back upon a short-handled hayfork, -looking. It was at everything that I was looking--the moonlight, the -gleaming grass, the very stillness, so real and visible it seemed at -the falling of this first frost. I was listening too, when, as far -away as the stars, it seemed, came the cry of the hounds. - -You have heard at night the passing of a train beyond the mountains? -the sound of thole-pins round a distant curve in the river? the -closing of a barn door somewhere down the valley? Strange it may seem -to one who has never listened, but the far-off cry of the hounds is -another such friendly and human voice, calling across the vast of the -night. - -They were coming. How clear their tones, and bell-like! How mellow in -the distance, ringing on the rim of the moonlit sky, as round the -sides of a swinging silver bell. Their clanging tongues beat all in -unison, the sound rising and falling through the rolling woodland, and -spreading like a curling wave as the pack broke into the open over the -level meadows. - -I waited. Rounder, clearer, came the cry. I began to pick out the -individual voices as now this one, now that, led the chorus across -some mighty measure of The Chase. - -Was it a twig that broke? Some brittle oak leaf that cracked in the -path behind me? A soft sound of feet! Something breathed, stopped, -came on--and in the moonlight before me stood the fox! - -The dogs were coming, but I was standing still. And who was I, anyway? -A stump? A post? No, he saw instantly that I was more than an ordinary -post. How much more? - -The dogs were coming! - -"Well," said he, as plainly as anything was ever said, "I don't know -what you are. But I will find out." And up he came and sniffed at my -shoes. "This is odd," he went on, backing carefully off and sitting -down on his tail in the edge of a pine-tree shadow. "Odd indeed. Not a -stump; not a man, in spite of appearances, for a man could never stand -still so long as that." - -The dogs were crashing through the underbrush below, their fierce -cries quivering through the very trees about me. - -The fox got up, trotted back and forth in front of me for the best -possible view, muttering, "Too bad! Too bad! What an infernal nuisance -a pack of poodles can make of themselves at times! Here is something -new in the woods, and smells of the hen-yard, as I live! Those silly -dogs!" and trotting back, down the path over which he had just come, -he ran directly toward the coming hounds, leaped off into a pile of -brush and stones, and vanished as the hounds rushed up in a yelping, -panting whirl about me. - -Cool? Indeed it was! He probably did not stop, as soon as he was out -of sight, and make faces at the whole pack. But that is because they -have politer ways in Foxland. - -It is no such walking-match as this every time. It is nip and tuck, -neck and neck, a dead heat sometimes, when only his superior knowledge -of the ground saves the fox a whole skin. - -Perhaps there are peculiar conditions, at times, that are harder for -the fox than for the dogs, as when the undergrowth is all adrip with -rain or dew, and every jump forward is like a plunge overboard. His -red coat is longer than the short, close hair of the hound, and his -big brush of a tail, heavy with water, must be a dragging weight over -the long hard course of the hunt. If wet fur to him means the same as -wet clothes to us, then the narrow escape I witnessed a short time ago -is easily explained. It happened in this way:-- - -I was out in the road by the brook when I caught the cry of the pack; -and, hurrying up the hill to the "cut," I climbed the gravel bank for -a view down the road each way, not knowing along which side of the -brook the chase was coming, nor where the fox would cross. - -[Illustration: "OVER THE HILL IN A WHIRLWIND OF DUST AND HOWLS"] - -Not since the Flood had there been a wetter morning. The air could not -stir without spilling; the leaves hung weighted with the wet; the very -cries of the hounds sounded thick and choking, as the pack floundered -through the alder swamp that lay at the foot of the hill where I was -waiting. - -There must be four or five dogs in the pack, I thought; and surely now -they are driving down the old runway that crosses the brook at my -meadow. - -I kept my eye upon the bend in the brook and just beyond the big swamp -maple, when there in the open road stood the fox. - -He did not stand; he only seemed to, so suddenly and unannounced had -he arrived. Not an instant had he to spare. The dogs were smashing -through the briars behind him. Leaping into the middle of the road, -he flew past me straight up the street, over the ridge, and out of -sight. - -I turned to see the burst of the pack into the road, when flash! a -yellow streak, a rush of feet, a popping of dew-laid dust in the road, -and back was the fox, almost into the jaws of the hounds, as he shot -into the tangle of wild grapevines around which the panting pack was -even then turning! - -With a rush that carried them headlong past the grapevines, the dogs -struck the warm trail in the road and went up over the hill in a -whirlwind of dust and howls. - -They were gone. The hunt was over for that day. Somewhere beyond the -end of the doubled trail the pack broke up and scattered through the -woods, hitting a stale lead here and there, but not one of them, so -long as I waited, coming back upon the right track to the grapevines, -through whose thick door the hard-pressed fox had so narrowly won his -way. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -IN THE TOADFISH'S SHOE - - -I was winding up my summer vacation with a little fishing party all by -myself, on a wharf whose piles stood deep in the swirling waters from -Buzzards Bay. My heavy-leaded line hummed taut in the swift current; -my legs hung limp above the water; my back rested comfortably against -a great timber that was warm in the September sun. Exciting? Of course -not. Fishing is fishing--any kind of fishing is fishing to me. But the -kind I am most used to, and the kind I like best, is from the edge of -a wharf, where my feet dangle over, where my "throw-out" line hums -taut over my finger, in a tide that runs swift and deep and dark below -me. - -For what may you not catch in such dark waters? And when there are no -"bites," you can sit and wait; and I think that sitting and waiting -with my back against a big warm timber is just as much fun now as it -used to be when I was a boy. - -But after all it is fish that you want when you go fishing; and it is -exciting, moreover, just to sit as I was sitting on the wharf, with -all the nerves of your body concentrated in the tip of your right -forefinger, under the pressure of your line. For how do you know but -that the next instant you may get a bite? And how do you know what the -fish may be? - -When you whip a trout stream for trout--why, you expect trout; when -you troll a pond for pickerel, you expect pickerel; but when you sit -on a wharf with your line far out in big, deep waters--why, you can -expect almost anything--except shoes! - -Shoes? Yes, old shoes! - -As I sat there on the wharf of Buzzards Bay, there was suddenly a -sharp tug at my line. A short quick snap, and I hooked him, and began -quickly hauling him in. - -How heavily he came! How dead and stupid! Even a flounder or a cod -would show more fight than this; and very naturally, for on the end of -my line hung an old shoe! - -"Well," I thought, "I have fished for soles, and down on the Savannah -I have fished for 'gators, but I never fished for shoes before"; and -taking hold of my big fish (for it must have been a No. 12 shoe), I -was about to feel for the hook when I heard a strange grunting noise -inside, and nearly tumbled overboard at sight of two big eyes and a -monstrous head filling the whole inside of the shoe! - -"In the name of Davy Jones!" I yelled, flinging line and shoe and -_thing_ (whatever it might be) far behind me, "I've caught the Old Man -of the Sea with his shoe on!" And, scrambling to my feet, I hurried -across the wharf to see if it really were a fish that now lay flapping -close beside the shoe. - -It was really a fish; but it was also a hobgoblin, nightmare, and -ooze-croaker!--if you know what that is! - -I had never seen a live toadfish before, and it is small wonder that I -sighed with relief to see that he had unhooked himself; for he looked -not only uncanny, but also dangerous! He was slimy all over, with a -tremendous head and a more tremendous mouth (if that could be), with -jaws studded on the inside with rows of sharp teeth, and fringed on -the outside with folds of loose skin and tentacles. Great glaring eyes -stared at me, with ragged bits of skin hanging in a ring about them. - -Ugly? Oh, worse than ugly? Two thirds of the monster was head; the -rest, a weak, shapeless, slimy something with fins and tail, giving -the creature the appearance of one whose brain had grown at the -expense of the rest of his body, making him only a kind of living -head. - -I looked at him. He looked at me, and croaked. - -"I don't understand you," said I, and he croaked again. "But you are -alive," said I; "and God made you, and therefore you ought not to look -so ugly to me," and he flapped in the burning sun and croaked again. - -Stooping quickly, I seized him, crowded him back into the old shoe, -and dipped him under water. He gasped with new life and croaked again. - -"Now," said I, "I begin to understand you. That croak means that you -are glad to taste salt water again"; and he croaked again, and I -dipped him in again. - -Then I looked him over thoughtfully. He was about fifteen inches long, -brown in color, and coarsely marbled with a darker hue, which ran -along the fins in irregular wavy lines. - -"You are odd, certainly, and peculiar, and altogether homely," said I; -"but really you are not very ugly. Ugly? No, you are _not_ ugly. How -could anybody be ugly with a countenance so wise and learned?--so -thoughtful and meditative?" And the toadfish croaked and croaked -again. And I dipped him in again, and understood him better, and liked -him better all the time. - -Then I took him in his shoe to the edge of the wharf. - -"I am glad to have made your acquaintance, sir," said I. "If I come -this way next summer, I shall look you up; for I want to know more -about you. Good-by." And I heard him croak "Good-by," as he and his -shoe went sailing out and dropped with a splash into the deep dark -water of the Bay. - -[Illustration: "HERE I FOUND HIM KEEPING HOUSE"] - -I meant what I said, and the next summer, along the shores of the Bay -I hunted him up. He was not in an old shoe this time, but under -certain rather large stones that lay just below ebb-tide mark, so that -they were usually, though not always, covered with water. Here I found -him keeping house; and as I was about to keep house myself, my heart -really warmed to him. - -I was understanding him more and more, and so I was liking him better -and better. Ugly? Wait until I tell you what the dear fellow was -doing. - -He was keeping house, and he was keeping it all alone! Now listen, for -this is what I learned that summer about the strange habits of Mrs. -Toadfish, and the handsome behavior of her husband. - -It is along in June that the toadfish of our New England bays begin to -look round for their summer homes. As far as we now know, it is the -female who makes the choice and leaves her future mate to find her and -her home. A rock is usually chosen, always in shallow water, and -sometimes so far up on the shore that at low tide it is left high and -almost dry. The rock may vary in size from one as small as your hat up -to the very largest. - -Having selected the place for her nest, she digs a pathway down under -the rock, and from beneath scoops out a hollow quite large enough to -swim round in. This completes the nest, or more properly burrow, in -which her little toadfish babies are to be reared. - -She now begins to lay the eggs, but not in the sand, as one would -suppose; she deliberately pastes them on the under surface of the -rock. Just how she does this no one knows. - -The eggs are covered with a clear, sticky paste which hardens in -contact with water, and is the means by which the mother sticks them -fast to the rock. This she must do while swimming on her back, -fastening one egg at a time, each close beside its neighbor in regular -order, till all the cleared surface of the rock is covered with -hundreds of beautiful amber eggs, like drops of pure, clear honey. - -The eggs are about the size of buckshot; and, curiously enough, when -they hatch, the young come out with their heads all turned in the same -direction. Does the mother know which is the head end of the egg? Or -has some strange power drawn them around? Or do they turn themselves -for some reason? - -It will be noticed, in lifting up the rocks, that the heads of the -fish are always turned toward the entrance to their nest, through -which the light and fresh water come; and it is quite easy to see that -these two important things have much to do with the direction in which -the little fish are turned. - -After Mrs. Fish has finished laying her eggs, her maternal cares are -over. She leaves both eggs and cares to the keeping of Mr. Fish, swims -off, and crawls into a tin can--or old shoe!--to meditate in sober -satisfaction for the rest of the summer. - -So it was _she_ that I caught, and not the gallant Mr. Toadfish at -all! I am glad of it. I have a deal of sympathy and down-right -admiration for Mr. Fish. He behaves most handsomely. - -However, Mrs. Fish is very wise, and could not leave her treasures in -better keeping. If ever there was a faithful parent, it is a Father -Toadfish. For three weeks he guards the eggs before they hatch out, -and then they are only half hatched; for it has taken the little fish -all this time to get out on the top side of the eggs, to which they -are still attached by their middles, so that they can move only their -heads and tails. - -They continue to wiggle in this fashion for some weeks, until the yolk -of the egg is absorbed, and they have grown to be nearly half an inch -long. They are then free from the rock and swim off, looking as much -like their parents as children can, and every bit as ugly. - -Ugly? Did I say ugly? Is a baby ever ugly to its mother? Or a baby -toadfish to its father? No. You cannot love a baby and at the same -time see it ugly. You cannot love the out of doors with all your -_mind_ as well as with all your heart, and ever see it ugly. - -All this time the father has been guarding the little toadfish; and -if, during the whole period, he goes out to get a meal, I have not -been able to find when it is, for I always find him at home, minding -the babies. - -The toadfish lives entirely unmolested by enemies, so far as I can -learn; and his appearance easily explains the reason of it. I know of -nothing that would willingly enter a croaking, snapping, slimy -toadfish's nest to eat him; and it takes some courage to put one's -hand into his dark hole and pull him out. - -His principal diet seems to be shrimp, worms and all kinds of small -fish. Yet he may be said to have no principal diet; for, no matter -what you are fishing for, or what kind of bait you are using, if there -is a toadfish in the vicinity you are sure to catch him. If fishing -along a wharf in September, you may catch the fish, and an old shoe -along with him--with _her_, perhaps I should say. - -And if you do, please notice how wise and thoughtful the face, how -beautifully marbled the skin, how courageous the big strong jaw! - -Ugly? Not if you will put yourself in the toadfish's shoe. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS FALL - - -I - -You ought to see the sky--every day. You ought to see, as often as -possible, the breaking of dawn, the sunset, the moonrise, and the -stars. Go up to your roof, if you live in the city, or out into the -middle of the Park, or take a street-car ride into the edge of the -country--just to see the moon come up over the woods or over a rounded -hill against the sky. - - -II - -You ought to see the light of the October moon, as it falls through a -roof of leafless limbs in some silent piece of woods. You have seen -the woods by daylight; you have seen the moon from many places; but to -be in the middle of the moonlit woods after the silence of the October -frost has fallen is to have one of the most beautiful experiences -possible out of doors. - - -III - -You ought to see a wooded hillside in the glorious colors of the -fall--the glowing hickories, the deep flaming oaks, the cool, dark -pines, the blazing gums and sumacs! Take some single, particular -woodland scene and look at it until you can see it in memory forever. - - -IV - -You ought to see the spiders in their airships, sailing over the -autumn meadows. Take an Indian Summer day, lazy, hazy, sunny, and lie -down on your back in some small meadow where woods or old rail fences -hedge it around. Lie so that you do not face the sun. The sleepy air -is heavy with balm and barely moves. Soon shimmering, billowing, -through the light, a silky skein of cobweb will come floating over. -Look sharply, and you will see the little aeronaut swinging in his -basket at the bottom of the balloon, sailing, sailing-- - - Away in the air air-- - Far are the shores of Anywhere, - Over the woods and the heather. - - -V - -You ought to see (only _see_, mind you,) on one of these autumn -nights, when you have _not_ on your party clothes--you ought to see a -"wood pussy." A wood pussy is not a house pussy; a wood pussy is a -wood pussy; that is to say, a wood pussy is a--_skunk_! Yes, you ought -to see a skunk walking calmly along a moonlit path and not caring a -fig for you. You will perhaps never meet a wild buffalo or a grizzly -bear or a jaguar in the woods nearest your house; but you may meet a -wild skunk there, and have the biggest adventure of your life. Yes, -you ought to see a skunk some night, just for the thrill of meeting a -wild creature that won't get out of your way. - - -VI - -You ought to see the witch-hazel bush in blossom late in November. It -is the only bush or tree in the woods that is in full bloom after the -first snow may have fallen. Many persons who live within a few -minutes' walk of the woods where it grows have never seen it. But -then, many persons who live with the sky right over their heads, with -the dawn breaking right into their bedroom windows, have never seen -the sky or the dawn to think about them, and wonder at them! There are -many persons who have never seen anything at all that is worth -seeing. The witch-hazel bush, all yellow with its strange blossoms in -November, is worth seeing, worth taking a great deal of trouble to -see. - -There is a little flower in southern New Jersey called pyxie, or -flowering moss, a very rare and hidden little thing; and I know an old -botanist who traveled five hundred miles just to have the joy of -seeing that little flower growing in the sandy swamp along Silver Run. -If you have never seen the witch-hazel in bloom, it will pay you to -travel five hundred and five miles to see it. But you won't need to go -so far,--unless you live beyond the prairies,--for the witch-hazel -grows from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Minnesota and Alabama. - -There is one flower that, according to Mr. John Muir (and he surely -knows!), it will pay one to travel away up into the highest Sierra to -see. It is the fragrant Washington lily, "the finest of all the Sierra -lilies," he says. "Its bulbs are buried in shaggy chaparral tangles, I -suppose for safety from pawing bears; and its magnificent panicles -sway and rock over the top of the rough snow-pressed bushes, while -big, bold, blunt-nosed bees drone and mumble in its polleny bells. A -lovely flower worth going hungry and footsore endless miles to see. -The whole world seems richer now that I have found this plant in so -noble a landscape." - -[Illustration: "A WILD CREATURE THAT WON'T GET OUT OF YOUR WAY"] - -And so it seemed to the old botanist who came five hundred miles to -find the tiny pyxie in the sandy swamps of southern New Jersey. So it -will seem to you--the whole world will not only _seem_ richer, but -will _be_ richer for you--when you have found the witch-hazel bush all -covered with summer's gold in the bleak woods of November. - - -VII - -You ought to see a big pile of golden pumpkins in some farmhouse shed -or beside the great barn door. You ought to see a field of corn in the -shock; hay in a barn mow; the jars of fruit, the potatoes, apples, and -great chunks of wood in the farmhouse cellar. You ought to see how a -farmer gets ready for the winter--the comfort, the plenty, the -sufficiency of it all! - - -VIII - -You ought to see how the muskrats, too, get ready for the winter, and -the bees and the flowers and the trees and the frogs--everything. -Winter is coming. The cold will kill--if it has a chance. But see how -it has no chance. How is it that the bees will buzz, the flowers open, -the birds sing, the frogs croak again next spring as if there had been -no freezing, killing weather? Go out and see why for yourselves. - - -IX - -You ought to see the tiny seed "birds" from the gray birches, -scattering on the autumn winds; the thistledown, too; and a dozen -other of the winged, and plumed, and ballooned, seeds that sail on the -wings of the winds. You should see the burdock burs in the cows' tails -when they come home from the pasture, and the stick-tights and -beggar-needles in your own coat-tails when you come home from the -pastures. And seeing that, you should _think_--for that is what real -seeing means. Think what? Why, that you are just as good as a cow's -tail to scatter Nature's seeds for her, and not a bit better, as she -sees you. - - -X - -You ought to see the migrating birds as they begin to flock on the -telegraph wires, in the chimneys, and among the reeds of the river. -You ought to see the swallows, blackbirds, robins, and bluebirds, as -they flock together for the long southern flight. There are days in -late September and in early October when the very air seems to be half -of birds, especially toward nightfall, if the sun sets full and clear: -birds going over; birds diving and darting about you; birds along the -rails and ridge-poles; birds in the grass under your feet--birds -everywhere. You should be out among them where you can see them. And -especially you should see--without fail, this autumn and every -autumn--the wedge of wild geese cleaving the dull gray sky in their -thrilling journey down from the far-off frozen North. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -WHIPPED BY EAGLES - - -As you head into Maurice River Cove from Delaware Bay by boat, the -great eagle's nest of Garren's Neck Swamp soon looms into view. It is -a famous nest, and an ancient nest; for it has a place in the chart of -every boat that sails up the river, and has had for I don't know how -many years. From the river side of the long swamp the nest is in sight -the year round, but from the land side, and from the house where we -lived, the nest could be seen only after the leaves of the swamp had -fallen. Then all winter long we could see it towering over the swamp; -and often, in the distance, we could see the eagles coming and going -or soaring in mighty circles high up in the air above it. - -That nest had a strange attraction for me. It was the home of eagles, -the monarchs of this wide land of swamp and marsh and river. - -Between me and the great nest lay a gloomy gum swamp, wet and wild, -untouched by the axe and untraveled, except in winter by the -coon-hunters. The swamp began just across the road that ran in front -of the house; and often at night I would hear the scream of a wild cat -in the dark hollows; and once I heard the _pat, pat_ of its feet as it -went leaping along the road. - -Then beyond the swamp and the nest stretched a vast wild marsh-land, -where the reeds grew, and the tides came in, and the mud-hens lived. -And beyond that flowed the river, and beyond the river lay another -marsh, and beyond the marsh another swamp. And over all this vast wild -world towered the nest of the eagles, like some ancient castle; and -over it all--swamp and marsh and river--ruled the eagles, as bold and -free as the mighty barons of old. - -Is it any wonder that I often found myself gazing away at that nest on -the horizon and longing for wings?--for wings with which to soar above -the swamp and the bay and the marsh and the river, to circle about and -about that lofty eyrie, as wild as the eagles and as free? Is it any -wonder that I determined some day to stand up in that nest, wings or -no wings, while the eagles should scream about me, and away below me -should stretch river and marsh and swamp? - -To stand up in that nest, to yell and wave my arms with the eagles -wheeling and screaming over me, became the very peak of my boy -ambitions. - -And I did it. I actually had the eggs of those eagles in my hands. I -got into the nest; but I am glad even now that I got out of the nest -and reached the ground. - -It must have been in the spring of my fourteenth year when, at last, I -found myself beneath the eagle tree. It was a stark old white oak, -almost limbless, and standing out alone on the marsh some distance -from the swamp. The eagle's nest capped its very top. - -The nest, I knew, must be big; but not until I had climbed up close -under it did I realize that it was the size of a small haystack. There -was certainly half a cord of wood in it. I think that it must -originally have been built by fish hawks. - -Holding to the forking top upon which the nest was placed, I reached -out, but could not touch the edge from any side. - -I had come determined to get up into it, however, at any hazard; and -so I set to work. I never thought of how I was to get down; nor had I -dreamed, either, of fearing the eagles. A bald eagle is a bully. I -would as soon have thought of fearing our hissing old gander at home. - -As I could not get out to the edge of the nest and scale the walls, -the only possible way up, apparently, was through the nest. The sticks -here in the bottom were old and quite rotten. Digging was easy, and I -soon had a good beginning. - -The structure was somewhat cone-shaped, the smaller end down. It had -grown in circumference as it grew in years and in height, probably -because at the bottom the building materials had decayed and gradually -fallen away, until now there was a decided outward slant from bottom -to top. It had grown lopsided, too, there being a big bulge on one -side of the nest near the middle. - -The smallness of the bottom at first helped me; there was less of the -stuff to be pulled out. I easily broke away the dead timbers and -pushed aside the tougher sticks. I intended to cut a channel clear to -the top and go up through the nest. Already my head and shoulders were -well into it. - -Now the work became more difficult. The sticks were newer, some of -them being of seasoned oak and hickory, which the birds had taken from -cord-wood piles. - -I had cut my channel up the side of the nest nearly halfway when I -came to a forked branch that I could neither break off nor push aside. -I soon found that it was not loose, but that it belonged to the oak -tree itself. It ran out through the nest horizontally, extending a -little more than a foot beyond the rough walls. - -Backing down, I saw that this fork was the support of the bulge that -had given the nest its lopsided appearance. A few large timbers had -been rested across it, small loose pieces had gradually lodged upon -these, and thus in time brought about the big bulge. - -I pushed off this loose stuff and the few heavy timbers and found that -the fork would bear my weight. It now projected a little way from the -walls of the nest. I got a firm hold on the forks out at their ends, -swung clear, and drew myself up between them. After a lively scramble, -I got carefully to my feet, and, clutching the sticks protruding from -the side, stood up, with my eyes almost on a level with the rim of the -great nest. This was better than cutting a channel, certainly--at -least for the ascent, and I was not then thinking of the descent. - -I looked over the protruding sticks of the rim. I caught a glimpse of -large dull white eggs! - -Eggs of shining gold could not have so fascinated me. There were -thousands of persons who could have gold eggs if they cared. But -eagles' eggs! Money could not buy such a sight as this. - -I was more than ever eager now to get into the nest. Working my -fingers among the sticks of the rim for a firm grip, I stuck my toes -into the rough wall and began to climb. At some considerable hazard -and at the cost of many rents in my clothing, I wriggled up over the -edge and into the hollow of the nest where the coveted eggs lay. - -The eagles were wheeling and screaming overhead. The weird _cac, cac, -cac_ of the male came down from far above me; while the female, -circling closer, would swoop and shrill her menacing, maniacal -half-laugh almost in my ears. - -Their wild cries thrilled me, and their mighty wings, wheeling so -close around me, seemed to catch me in their majestic sweep and almost -to carry me in swift, swinging circles through the empty air. An -ecstasy of excitement overcame me. I felt no body, no weight of -anything. I lost my head completely, and, seizing the eggs, rose to my -feet and stood upright in the nest. - -The eagles swept nearer. I could feel the wind from their wings. I -could see the rolling of their gleaming eyes, and the glint of the sun -on their snow-white necks. And as they dipped and turned and careened -over me, I came perilously near trying to fly myself. - -What a scene lay under me and rolled wide and free to the very edge of -the world! The level marsh, the blue, hazy bay, the far-off, unblurred -horizon beyond the bending hill of the sea! The wild, free wind from -the bay blew in upon my face, the old tree trembled and rocked beneath -me, the screaming eagles wove a mazy spell of double circles about me, -till I screamed back at them in wild delight. - -The sound of my voice seemed to infuriate the birds. The male turned -suddenly in his round and swooped directly at me. The movement was -instantly understood by his mate, who, thus emboldened, cut under him -and hurled herself downward, passing with a vicious grab at my face. I -dodged, or she would have hit me. - -For the moment I had forgotten where I stood; and, in dodging the -eagle, I almost stepped over the edge of the nest. I caught my balance -and dropped quickly to my knees, completely unnerved. - -Fear like a panic took instant hold on me. Only one desire possessed -me--to get down. I crept to the edge and looked over. The sight made -me dizzy. Sixty feet of almost empty air! Far down, a few small limbs -intervened between me and the ground. But there was nothing by which -to descend. - -I was dismayed; and my expression, my posture--something, betrayed my -confusion to the eagles. They immediately lost all dread of me. While -I was looking over, one of them struck me a stinging blow on the head, -knocking my cap off into the air. - -That started me. I must climb down or be knocked over. If only I had -continued with my channel to the top! If only that forked branch by -which I ascended were within reach! But how could I back over the -flaring rim to my whole length and swing my body under against the -inward-slanting nest until my feet could touch the fork? But if I ever -got down, that was what I must do; for the eagles gave me no chance to -cut a channel now. - -Laying the eggs back for the time in the hollow, I began tearing away -the rim of the nest in order to clear a place over which to back down. - -I was momentarily in danger of being hurled off by the birds; for I -could not watch them and work, too. And they were growing bolder with -every dash. One of them, driving fearfully from behind, flattened me -out on the nest. Had the blow been delivered from the front, I should -have been knocked headlong to the ground. - -I was afraid to delay longer. A good-sized breach was opened in the -rim of the nest by this time. And now, if the sticks would not pull -out, I might let myself over and reach the fork. Once my feet touched -that, I could manage the rest, I knew. - -Digging my hands deep into the nest for a firm hold, I began -cautiously to back over the rough, stubby rim, reaching with my feet -toward the fork. - -The eagles seemed to appreciate the opportunity my awkward position -offered them. I could not have arranged myself more conveniently to -their minds, I am sure. And they made the most of it. I can laugh now; -but the memory of it can still make me shiver, too. - -I had wriggled over just so that I could bend my body at the waist and -bring my legs against the nest when a sharp stub caught in my clothes -and held me. I could get neither up nor down. My handhold was of the -most precarious kind, and I dared not let go for a moment to get off -the snag. - -I tried to back out and push off from it, but it seemed to come out -with me. It must be broken; and pulling myself up, I dropped with all -the force I could put into my body. That loosened, but did not break -it. Suddenly, while I was resting between the efforts, the thing gave -way. - -I was wholly unprepared. All my weight was instantly thrown upon my -hands. The jagged sticks cut into my wrists, my grip was pried off, -and I fell. - -Once, twice, the stubs in the wall of the nest caught and partly -stopped me, then broke. I clutched frantically at them, but could not -hold. Then, almost before I realized that I was falling, I hung -suspended between two limbs--the forks of the white oak branch in the -side of the nest. - -I had been directly above it when the stub broke, and had fallen -through it; and the two branches had caught me right under both of my -arms. - -For a second I was too dazed to think. Then a swish of wings, a hard -blow on the neck, and a shooting pain made my position clear. I was -not down yet nor out of danger. The angry birds still had me in reach. - -Hanging with one arm, I twisted round until the other arm was free, -then seized the branches and swung under, but not before the eagles -had given me another raking dab. - -Here beneath the branches, close up to the bottom of the nest, I was -quite out of the reach of the birds; and through the channel I had cut -in my ascent, I climbed quickly down into the tree. - -It was now a mere matter of sliding to the ground. But I was so -battered and faint that I nearly tumbled. I was a sorry-looking -boy--my clothing torn, my hands bleeding, my head and neck clawed in a -dozen places. - -But what did I do with the eagles' eggs? Why, I allowed the old eagles -to hatch them. What else could I do? or what better? - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THANKSGIVING AT GRANDFATHER'S FARM - - -Thanksgiving at Grandfather's farm was more than a holiday. It was a -great date on the calendar, for it divided the year in halves as no -other single day of the three hundred and sixty-five did. It marked -the end of the outdoors, and the beginning of the indoors--the day -when everybody came home; when along with them into the house came all -the outdoors, too, as if the whole farm were brought in to toast its -toes before the great hearth fire! - -For the hearth fire was big enough and cheery enough. And so was the -farmhouse--that is, if you added the big barn and the crib-house and -the wagon-house and the dog-house and the hen-house and the -"spring-house!" - -Oh, there was plenty of room inside for everybody and for everything! -And there needed to be; for did not everybody come home to -Grandfather's for Thanksgiving? And did not everything that anybody -could need for the winter, grow on Grandfather's farm? - -And it all had to be brought in by Thanksgiving Day--everything -brought in, everything housed and stored and battened down tight. The -preparations began along in late October, continuing with more speed -as the days shortened and darkened and hurried us into November. And -they continued with still more speed as the gray lowering clouds -thickened in the sky, and the wind began to whistle through the oak -grove. Then, with the first real cold snap, the first swift flurry of -snow, how the husking and the stacking and the chopping went on! - -Thanksgiving must find us ready for winter indoors and out. - -The hay-mows were full to the beams where the swallows built; the -north and west sides of the barnyard were flanked with a deep -wind-break of corn-fodder that ran on down the old worm-fence each -side of the lane in yellow zigzag walls; the big wooden pump under the -turn-o'-lane tree by the barn was bundled up and buttoned to the tip -of its dripping nose; the bees by the currant bushes were -doubled-hived, the strawberries covered with hay, the wood all split -and piled, the cellar windows packed, and the storm-doors put on. - -The very cows had put on an extra coat, and turned their collars up -about their ears; the turkeys had changed their roost from the -ridge-pole of the corn-crib to the pearmain tree on the sunny side of -the wagon-house; the squirrels had finished their bulky nests in the -oaks; the muskrats of the lower pasture had completed their lodges; -the whole farm--house, barn, fields, and wood-lot--had shuffled into -its greatcoat and muffler and settled comfortably down for the winter. - -The old farmhouse was an invitation to winter. It looked its joy at -the prospect of the coming cold. Low, weather-worn, mossy-shingled, -secluded in its wayward garden of box and bleeding-hearts, sheltered -by its tall pines, grape-vined, hop-vined, clung to by creeper and -honeysuckle, it stood where the roads divided, halfway between -everywhere, unpainted, unpretentious, as much a part of the landscape -as the muskrat-lodge, and, like the lodge, roomy, warm, and -hospitable. - -Round at the back, under the wide, open shed, a door led into the -kitchen; another led into the living-room; another, into the -store-room; and two big, slanting double-doors, scoured and slippery -with four generations of sliders, covered the cavernous way into -the cellar. But they let the smell of apples up, as the garret door -let the smell of sage and thyme come down; while from the door of the -store-room, mingling with the odor of apples and herbs, filling the -whole house and all my early memories, came the smell of broom-corn, -came the sound of Grandfather's loom. - -[Illustration: "THE LANTERN FLICKERS, THE MILK FOAMS, THE STORIES -FLOW"] - -For Grandfather in the winter made brooms--the best brooms, I think, -that ever were made. The tall broom-corn was grown on the farm in the -summer, ripened and cut and seeded, and then, as soon as winter set -in, was loomed and wired and sewed into brooms. - -But the cured and seeded broom-corn was not the main thing, after all, -that was brought in for the winter. Behind the stove in the kitchen, -stood the sweet-potato box (a sweet potato, you know, must be kept dry -and warm). An ample, ten-barrel box it was, fresh-papered like the -walls, full of Jersey sweets that _were_ sweet--long, golden, syrupy -potatoes, such as grow only in the warm sandy soil of southern New -Jersey. - -Against that big box in Grandmother's kitchen stood the sea-chest, -fresh with the same kitchen paper and piled with wood. There was -another such chest in the living-room near the old fireplace, and -still another in Grandfather's work-room behind the "template" stove. - -But wood and warmth and sweet smells were not all. There was music -also, the music of life, of young life and of old life--grandparents, -grandchildren (about twenty-eight of the latter). There were seven of -us alone--a girl at each end of the seven and one in the middle. -Thanksgiving always found us all at Grandfather's and brimming full of -thanks. - -That, of course, was long, long ago. Things are different nowadays. -There are as many grandfathers, I suppose, as ever; but they don't -make brooms in the winter and live on farms. - -They live in flats. The old farm with its open acres has become a city -street; the generous old farmhouse has become a speaking-tube, -kitchenette, and bath--all the "modern conveniences"; the cows have -evaporated into convenient cans of condensed "milk"; the ten-barrel -box of potatoes has changed into a convenient ten-pound bag, the -wood-pile into a convenient five-cent bundle of blocks tied up with a -tarred string, the fireplace into a convenient gas log, the seven -children into one or none, or into a little bull-terrier pup. - -But is it so? No, it is not so--not so of a million homes. For there -is many an old-fashioned farmhouse still in the country, and many a -new-fashioned city house where there are more human children than -little bull-terrier pups. - -And it is not so in my home, which is neither a real farm nor yet a -city home. For here are some small boys who live very much as I did -when I was a boy. No, they are not farmer's boys; for I am not a -farmer, but only a "commuter"--if you know what that is. I go into a -great city for my work; and when the day's work is done, I turn -homeward here to Mullein Hill--far out in the country. And when the -dark November nights come, I hang the lantern high in the stable, as -my father used to do, while four shining faces gather round, as four -small boys seat themselves on upturned buckets behind the cow. The -lantern flickers, the milk foams, the stories flow--"Bucksy" stories -of the noble red-man; and stories of the heroes of old; and marvelous -stories of that greatest hero of all--their father, far away yonder -when he was a boy, when there were so many interesting things to do on -Grandfather's farm just before Thanksgiving Day. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS FALL - - -I - -You ought to go out into the fields and woods as many as six times -this fall, even though you have to take a long street-car ride to get -out of the city. Let me give you just six bits of sound advice about -going afield:-- - -First, go often to the same place, so that you can travel over and -over the same ground and become very familiar with it. The first trip -you will not see much but woods and fields. But after that, each -succeeding walk will show you _particular_ things--this dead tree with -the flicker's hole, that old rail-pile with its rabbit-hole--until, by -and by, you will know every turn and dip, every pile of stones, every -hole and nest; and you will find a thousand things that on the first -trip you didn't dream were there. - -Secondly, when you go into the woods, go _expecting_ to see something -in particular--always looking for some particular nest, bird, beast, -or plant. You may not find that particular thing, but your eyes will -be sharpened by your expectation and purpose, and you will be pretty -sure therefore to see something. At worst you will come back with a -disappointment, and that is better than coming back without a thing! - -Thirdly, go off when you can alone. Don't be selfish, unsociable, -offish--by no means that. But you must learn to use your own eyes and -ears, think your own thoughts, make your own discoveries, and follow -the hints and hopes that you alone can have. Go with the school class -for a picnic, but for woodcraft go alone. - -Fourthly, learn first of all in the woods to be as silent as an Indian -and as patient as a granite rock. Practice standing still when the -mosquitoes sing, and fixing your mind on the hole under the stump -instead of the hole the mosquito is boring between your eyes. - -Fifthly, go out in every variety of weather, and at night, as well as -during the day. There are three scenes to every day--morning, noon, -and early evening--when the very actors themselves are changed. To one -who has never been in the fields at daybreak, the world is so new, so -fresh and strange, as to seem like a different planet. And then the -evening--the hour of dusk and the deeper, darker night! Go once this -autumn into the woods at night. - -And lastly, don't go into the woods as if they were a kind of Noah's -Ark; for you cannot enter the door and find all the animals standing -in a row. You will go a great many times before seeing them all. Don't -be disappointed if they are not so plentiful there as they are in your -books. Nature books are like menageries--the animals are caught and -caged for you. The woods are better than books and just as full of -things, as soon as you learn to take a hint, to read the signs, to put -two and two together and get--four--four paws--black paws, with a long -black snout, a big ringed and bushy tail--a coon! - - -II - -Whether you live in the heart of a great city or in the open country, -you ought to begin this fall to learn the names and habits of the -birds and beasts (snakes, lizards, turtles, toads!) that live wild in -your region. Even when all the summer birds have gone south for the -winter, there will remain in your woods and fields crows, jays, -juncos, tree sparrows, chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, screech owls, -barred owls,--perhaps even snowy owls,--quails, partridges, -goldfinches, with now and then a flock of crossbills, snow buntings, -and other northern visitors, and even a flicker, robin, and bluebird -left over from the fall migrations. These are plenty to begin on; and -yet, as they are so few, compared with the numbers of the summer, the -beginner's work is thus all the easier in the autumn. - - -III - -You should go out one of these frosty mornings for chestnuts, if they -grow in your woods; or for "shagbarks," if you live in New England; -for black walnuts, if you live in the Middle States; for pecan nuts, -if you live in the Gulf States; for butternuts, if you live in the -states of the Middle West; for--what kind of nuts can you not go for, -if you live in California where they make everything grow! It matters -little whether you go for paper-shelled English walnuts or for -plate-armored pignuts so long as you _go_. It is the going that is -worth while. - - -IV - -You ought to go "cocooning" this fall--to sharpen your eyes. But do -not go often; for once you begin to look for cocoons, you are in -danger of seeing nothing else--except brown leaves. And how many brown -leaves, that look like cocoons, there are! They tease you to vexation. -But a day now and then "cocooning" will do you no harm; indeed, it -will cultivate your habit of concentration and close seeing as will no -other kind of hunting I know. - -Bring home with you the big brown silky cocoons of cecropia--the -largest cocoon you will find, lashed all along its length to its twig, -and usually near the ground. Look on the black cherry, the barberry, -sassafras, and roadside and garden trees for the harder, whiter cocoon -of the promethea moth. This hangs by its tip, because the caterpillar -has begun his house by using the leaf, spinning it into the cocoon as -part of its walls, much as does the wretched "brown-tail." The gray -cocoons, or rather nests, of this "brown-tail" moth you must bring -home to burn, for they are one of our greatest pests. You will find -them full of tiny caterpillars as you tear them open. - -Bring home your collection and, with the help of such a book as "Moths -and Butterflies" by Mary C. Dickerson, identify them and hang them up -for their "coming out" in the spring. - - -V - -If you live in the city, you ought to go up frequently to your roof -and watch for the birds that fly over. If in one of our many cities -near the water, you will have a chance that those in the country -seldom have, of seeing the seabirds--the white herring gulls (the -young gulls are brown, and look like a different species), as they -pass over whistling plaintively, and others of the wild seafowl, that -merely to hear and see in the smoky air of the city, is almost as -refreshing as an ocean voyage. Then there are the parks and public -gardens--never without their birds and, at the fall migrating time, -often sheltering the very rarest of visitors. - - -VI - -In order to give point and purpose to one of these autumn outings, you -should take your basket, or botanizing can, and scour the woods and -fields for autumn berries. No bunch of flowers in June could be -lovelier than the bunch of autumn berries that you can gather from -thicket and wayside to carry home. And then, in order to enjoy the -trip all over again, read James Buckham's exquisite story, "A Quest -for Fall Berries," in his book, "Where Town and Country Meet." - - -VII - -Take your botany can on a trip toward the end of November and see how -many blossoming flowers you can bring home from the woods. Wild -flowers _after_ Thanksgiving in any northern state? Make the search, -on all the southern slopes and in all the sheltered corners and see -for yourselves. When you get back, you will want to read Mr. Bradford -Torrey's account of the flowers that he found blossoming out of doors -in New England in the month of November. But who is Mr. Bradford -Torrey? and where can you find this account of his November walk? You -do not know? Well, then there is something more for you to do this -fall. - - -VIII - -While you are finding out who Mr. Torrey is and what he has written, -you should also get acquainted with John Burroughs, Olive Thorne -Miller, Thoreau, Frank Bolles, William Hamilton Gibson, C. C. Abbott, -Edward Breck, Gilbert White, and--but these will do for _this_ fall. -Don't fail to read dear old Gilbert White's "Natural History of -Selborne"; though perhaps we grown-ups like it better than you may -this fall. If you don't understand Gilbert White, then read this year -"The Life of a Scotch Naturalist" by Samuel Smiles, and Arabella -Buckley's two books, "Life and Her Children," and "Winners in Life's -Race." - - -IX - -You ought to tie up a piece of suet for the birds; keep your cat in -the house, except during the middle of the day, and--but I shall tell -you no more. There is no end to the interesting things to do in your -study of the out of doors and in your tramps afield this autumn. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE MUSKRATS ARE BUILDING - - -We have had a week of almost unbroken rain, and the water is standing -over the swampy meadow. It is a dreary stretch,--this wet, sedgy land -in the cold twilight,--drearier than any part of the woods or the -upland pastures. They are empty; but the meadow is flat and wet, it is -naked and all unsheltered. And a November night is falling. - -The darkness deepens. A raw wind is rising. At nine o'clock the moon -swings round and full to the crest of the ridge, and pours softly -over. I button my heavy ulster close, and in my rubber boots go down -to the stream and follow it out to the middle of the meadow, where it -meets the main ditch. There is a sharp turn here toward the swamp; -and here at the bend, behind a clump of black alders, I sit quietly -down and wait. - -I have come out to the bend to watch the muskrats building; for that -small mound up the ditch is not an old haycock, but a half-finished -muskrat house. - -As I wait, the moon climbs higher over the woods. The water on the -meadow shivers in the light. The wind bites through my heavy coat and -drives me back, but not before I have seen one, two, three little -creatures scaling the walls of the house with loads of mud-and-reed -mortar. I am driven back by the cold, but not before I know that here -in the desolate meadow is being rounded off a lodge, thick-walled and -warm, and proof against the longest, bitterest of winters. - -This is near the end of November. My fire-wood is in the cellar; I am -about ready to put on the double-windows and the storm-doors. The -muskrats are even now putting on theirs, for their house is all but -finished. Winter is at hand: but we are prepared, the muskrats and I. - -Throughout the summer the muskrats had no house, only their tunnels -into the sides of the ditch, their roadways out into the grass, and -their beds under the tussocks or among the roots of the old stumps. -All those months the water was low in the ditch, and the beds among -the tussocks were safe and dry enough. - -[Illustration: "TO-NIGHT THERE IS NO LOAFING ABOUT THE LODGE"] - -Now the November rains have filled river and ditch, flooded the -tunnels, and crept up into the beds under the tussocks. Even a muskrat -will creep out of his bed when cold, wet water creeps in. What shall -he do for shelter? He knows. And long before the rains begin, he picks -out the place for a house. He does not want to leave his meadow, -therefore the only thing to do is to build,--move from under the -tussock out upon the top of the tussock; and here, in its deep, wiry -grass, make a new bed high and dry above the rising water; and close -this new bed in with walls that circle and dome, and defy the very -winter. - -Such a house will require a great deal of work to build. Why should -not two or three muskrats combine--make the house big enough to hold -them all, save labor and warmth, too, and, withal, live sociably -together? So they left, each one his single bed, and, joining efforts, -started, about the middle of October, to build this winter house. - -Slowly, night after night, the domed walls have been rising, although -for several nights at a time I could see no apparent progress with the -work. The builders were in no hurry. The cold was far off. But it is -coming, and to-night it feels near and keen. And to-night there is no -loafing about the lodge. - -When this house is done, when the last hod of mud plaster has been -laid on,--then the rains may descend and the floods come, but it will -not fall. It is built upon a tussock; and a tussock--did you ever try -to pull up a tussock? - -Winter may descend, and boys and foxes may come--and they will come, -but not before the walls are frozen. Then, let them come. The house -will stand. It is boy-proof, almost; it is entirely rain-, cold-, and -fox-proof. I have often seen where the fox has gone round and round -the house in the snow, and where, at places, he has attempted to dig -into the frozen mortar. But it was a foot thick, as hard as flint, and -utterly impossible for his pick and shovel. - -I said the floods, as well as the fox, may come. So they may, -ordinarily; but along in March, when one comes as a freshet and rises -to the dome of the house, then it fills the bed-chamber to the ceiling -and drowns the dwellers out. I remember a freshet once in the end of -February that flooded Lupton's Pond and drove the muskrats of the -whole pond village to their ridgepoles, to the bushes, and to whatever -wreckage the waters brought along. - - "The best-laid schemes o' mice and men - Gang aft agley" - ---and of muskrats, too. - -But not very often do the muskrats' plans go thus agley. For muskrats -and wood mice and birds and bees, and even the very trees of the -forest, have a kind of natural foresight. They all look ahead, at the -approach of autumn, and begin to provide against the coming cold. -Yet, weather-wise as a muskrat may be, still he cannot know all that -may happen; he cannot be ready for everything. And so, if now and -then, he should prove foresight to be vain, he only shows that his -plans and our plans, his life and our lives, are very much alike. - -Usually, however, the muskrat's plans work out as he would have them. -His foresight proves to be equal to all that the winter can bring. On -the coldest winter days I shall look out over the bleak white waste to -where his house shows, a tiny mound in the snow, and think of him safe -and warm inside, as safe and warm as I am, in my house, here on the -hilltop. - -Indeed, I think the muskrat will be the warmer; for my big house here -on Mullein Hill is sometimes cold. And the wind! If only I could drive -the winter wind away from the corners of the house! But the house down -in the meadow has no corners. It has walls, mud walls, so thick and -round that the shrieking wind sweeps past unheard by the dwellers -within; and all unheeded the cold creeps over and over the low thatch, -to crawl back and stiffen upon the meadow. - -The doors of this meadow house swing wide open throughout the winter; -for they are in the bottom of the house, beneath the water, where only -the muskrat can enter. Just outside the doors, down under the water -and the roof of ice that covers all the flooded meadow, are fresh -calamus roots, and iris and arum--food in abundance, no matter how -long the winter lasts. - -No, the winter has not yet come; but it is coming, for the muskrats -are building. Let it come. Let the cold crawl stiff and gray across -the meadow. Let the whirling snow curl like smoke about the pointed -top of the little tepee down by the meadow ditch. Let the north wind -do its worst. For what care the dwellers in that thick-walled lodge -beneath the snow? Down under the water their doors are open; their -roadways up the ditches as free as in the summer; and the stems of the -sedges just as juicy and pink and tender. - -The muskrats are building. The buds are leaving. Winter is coming. I -must get out my own storm-windows and double-doors; for even now a -fire is blazing cheerily on my wide, warm hearth. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE NORTH WIND DOTH BLOW - - - "The north wind doth blow, - And we shall have snow, - And what will poor Robin do then, - Poor thing?" - -And what will Muskrat do? and Chipmunk? and Whitefoot, the wood mouse? -and Chickadee? and the whole world of poor things out of doors? - -Never fear. Robin knows as well as you that the north wind doth blow, -and is now far away on his journey to the South; Muskrat knows, too, -and is building his warm winter lodge; Chipmunk has already made his -bed deep down under the stone wall, where zero weather is unheard of; -Whitefoot, the wood mouse, has stored his hollow poplar stub full of -acorns, and, taking possession of Robin's deserted nest near by, has -roofed it and lined it and turned it into a cosey, cold-proof house, -while Chickadee, dear thing--has done nothing at all. Not so much as -a bug or a single beetle's egg has he stored up for the winter. But he -knows where there is a big piece of suet for him on a certain lilac -bush. And he knows where there is a snug little hole in a certain elm -tree limb. The north wind may blow, blow, blow! It cannot get through -Chickadee's feathers, nor daunt for one moment his brave little heart. - -The north wind sweeping the bare stubble fields and winding its -shivering horn through the leafless trees does sometimes pierce my -warm coat and strike a chill into my heart. Then how empty and cold -seems the outdoor world! How deadly the touch of the winter! How -fearful the prospect of the coming cold! - -Does Muskrat think so? Does Whitefoot? Does Chickadee? Not at all, for -they are ready. - -The preparations for hard weather may be seen going on all through the -autumn, beginning as far back as the flocking of the swallows late in -July. Up to that time no one had thought of a coming winter, it would -seem; but, one day, there upon the telegraph-wires were the -swallows--the first sign that the getting ready for winter has begun. - -The great migratory movements of the birds are very mysterious; but -they were in the beginning, I think, and are still, for the most part, -mere shifts to escape the cold. Yet not so much to escape the cold -itself do the birds migrate, as to find a land of food. When the -northland freezes, when river and lake are sealed beneath the ice and -the soil is made hard as flint, then the food supplies for most of the -birds are utterly cut off, causing them to move southward ahead of the -cold, or starve. - -There are, however, a few of the seed-eating birds, like the quail, -and some of the insect-eaters, like the chickadee, who are so well -provided for that they can stay and survive the winter. But the great -majority of the birds, because they have no storehouse nor barn, must -take wing and fly away from the lean and hungry cold. - -And I am glad to see them go. The thrilling honk of the flying wild -geese out of the November sky tells me that the hollow forests and -closing bays of the vast desolate North are empty now, except for the -few creatures that find food and shelter in the snow. - -Here in my own small woods and marshes there is much getting ready, -much comforting assurance that Nature is quite equal to herself, that -winter is not approaching unawares. There will be great lack, no -doubt, before there is plenty again; there will be suffering and -death. But what with the building, the strange deep sleeping, and the -harvesting, there will be also much comfortable, much joyous and -sociable, living. - -Long before the muskrats began to build, even before the swallows -commenced to flock, my chipmunks started their winter stores. I don't -know which began his work first, which kept harder at it, Chipmunk or -the provident ant. The ant has a great reputation for thrift, and -verses have been written about her. But Chipmunk is just as thrifty. -So is the busy bee. - -It is the thought of approaching winter that keeps the bee busy far -beyond her summer needs. Much of her labor is entirely for the winter. -By the first of August she has filled the brood chamber of the hive -with honey--forty pounds of it, enough for the hatching bees and for -the whole colony until the willows tassel again. But who knows what -the winter may be? how cold and long drawn out into the coming May? So -the harvesting is pushed with vigor on, until the frosts kill the last -of the autumn asters--on, until fifty, a hundred, or even three -hundred pounds of honey are sealed in the combs, and the colony is -safe should the sun not shine again for a year and a day. - -The last of the asters have long since gone; so have the witch-hazels. -All is quiet about the hives. The bees have formed into their warm -winter clusters upon the combs; and except "when come the calm, mild -days," they will fly no more until March or April. I will half close -their entrances--and so help them to put on their storm-doors. - -The whole out of doors around me is like a great beehive, stored and -sealed for the winter, its swarming life close-clustered, and safe and -warm against the coming cold. - -I stand along the edge of the hillside here and look down the length -of its frozen slope. There is no sign of life. The brown leaves have -drifted into the mouths of the woodchuck holes, as if every burrow -were forsaken; sand and sticks have washed in, too, littering and -choking the doorways. A stranger would find it hard to believe that -all of my forty-six woodchucks are gently snoring at the bottoms of -these old uninteresting holes. Yet here they are, and quite out of -danger, sleeping the sleep of the furry, the fat, and the forgetful. - -The woodchuck's manner of providing for winter is very curious. Winter -spreads far and fast, and Woodchuck, in order to keep ahead, out of -danger, would need wings. But wings weren't given him. Must he perish -then? Winter spreads far, but it does not go deep--down only about -four feet; and Woodchuck, if he cannot escape overland, can, perhaps, -escape _under_land. So down he goes _through_ the winter, down into a -mild and even temperature, _five feet away_--only five feet, but as -far away from the snow and the cold as Bobolink among the reeds of the -distant Orinoco. - -Indeed, Woodchuck's is a farther journey and even more wonderful than -Bobolink's; for these five feet carry him to the very gates of death. -That he will return with Bobolink, that he will come up alive with the -spring out of this dark way, is passing strange. - -Muskrat built him a house, and under the spreading ice turned all the -meadow into a well-stocked cellar. Beaver built him a dam, cut and -anchored under water a plenty of green sticks near his lodge, so that -he too would be under cover when the ice formed, with an abundance of -tender bark at hand. Chipmunk spent half of his summer laying up food -near his underground nest. But Woodchuck simply digged him a hole,--a -grave,--then ate until no particle more of fat could be got within his -baggy hide, then crawled into his bed to sleep until the dawn of -spring! - -This is his shift! This is the length to which he goes, because he has -no wings, and because he cannot cut, cure, and store away, in the -depths of the stony hillside, clover hay enough to last him through -the winter. The beaver cans his fresh food in cold water; the chipmunk -selects long-keeping things and buries them; but the woodchuck simply -fattens himself, then buries himself, and sleeps--and lives! - - "The north wind doth blow, - And we shall have snow," - -but what good reason is there for our being daunted at the prospect? -Robin and all the others are well prepared. Even the wingless frog, -who is also without fur or feathers or fat, even he has no fear at the -sound of the cold winds. Nature provides for him, too, in her own -motherly way. All he has to do is to dig into the mud at the bottom of -the ditch and sleep--and sometimes freeze! - -No matter. If the cold works down and freezes him into the mud, he -never knows. He will thaw out as good as new; he will sing again for -joy and love as soon as his heart warms up enough to beat. I have seen -frogs frozen into the middle of solid lumps of ice. Drop the lump on -the floor, and the frog would break out like a fragment of the ice -itself. And this has happened more than once to the same frog without -causing him the least ache or pain. He would gradually limber up, and -croak, and look as wise as ever. - -The north wind _may_ blow, for it is by no means a cheerless prospect, -this wood-and-meadow world of mine in the gray November light. The -grass-blades are wilting, the old leaves are falling; but no square -foot of greensward will the winter kill, nor a single tree perhaps in -all my wood-lot. There will be little less of life next April because -of this winter. The winter birds will suffer most, and a few may die. - -Last February, I came upon two partridges in the snow, dead of hunger -and cold. It was after an extremely long "severe spell"; but this was -not the only cause. These two birds since fall had been feeding -regularly in the dried fodder corn that stood shocked over the field. -One day all the corn was carted away. The birds found their supply of -food suddenly cut off, and, unused to foraging the fence-rows and -tangles for wild seeds, they seem to have given up the struggle at -once, although within easy reach of plenty. - -Hardly a minute's flight away was a great thicket of dwarf sumac -covered with berries. There were bayberries, rosehips, greenbrier, -bittersweet, black alder, and checkerberries that they might have -found. These berries would have been hard fare, doubtless, after an -unstinted supply of sweet corn; but still they were plentiful and -would have been sufficient had the birds made use of them. - -The smaller birds that stay through the winter, like the tree sparrow -and the junco, feed upon the weeds and grasses that ripen unmolested -along the roadsides and in the waste places. A mixed flock of these -small birds lived several days last winter upon the seeds of the -ragweed in my mowing-field. - -The weeds came up in the early fall after the field was sowed to -clover and timothy. They threatened to choke out the grass. I looked -at them and thought with dismay of how they would cover the field by -another fall. After a time the snow came, a foot and a half of it, -till only the tops of the seedy ragweeds showed above the level white. -Then the juncos, goldfinches, and tree sparrows came; and there was a -five-day shucking of ragweed seed on the crusty snow--five days of -life and plenty for the birds. - -Then I looked again, and thought that weeds and winters, which were -made when the world was made--that even ragweeds and winters have a -part in the beautiful divine scheme of things. - - "The north wind doth blow - And we shall have snow"-- - -but the wild geese are going over; the wild mice have harvested their -acorns; the bees have clustered; the woodchucks have gone to sleep; -the muskrats have nearly finished their lodge; the sap in the big -hickory tree by the side of the house has crept down out of reach of -the fingers of the frost. And what has become of Robin, poor thing? - - - - -CHAPTER X - -AN OUTDOOR LESSON - - -I have had many a person ask me, "What is the best way to learn about -the out of doors?" and I always answer, "Don't try to learn _about_ -it, but first go out of the house and get into the out of doors. Then -open both eyes, use both of your ears, and stand in one place stock -still as long as you can; and you will soon know the out of doors -itself, which is better than knowing about it." - -"But," says my learner, "if I go out of the house, I don't get into -the out of doors at all, but into a city street!" - -Look there--in the middle of the street! What is it? An English -sparrow? Yes, an English sparrow--six English sparrows. Are they not a -part of the out of doors? And look up there, over your head--a strip -of sky? Yes--is not a strip of blue sky a part of the out of doors? - -Now let me tell you how I learned an outdoor lesson one night along a -crowded city street. - -It was a cold, wet night; and the thick, foggy twilight, settling down -into the narrow streets, was full of smoke and smell and chill. A raw -wind blew in from the sea and sent a shiver past every corner. The -street lights blinked, the street mud glistened, the street noises -clashed and rattled, and the street crowds poured up and down and bore -me along with them. - -I was homesick--homesick for the country. I longed to hear the sound -of the wind in the pine trees; I longed to hear the single far-away -bark of the dog on the neighboring farm, or the bang of a barndoor, or -the clack of a guinea going to roost. It was half-past five, and -thousands of clerks were pouring from the closing stores; but I was -lonely, homesick for the quiet, the wideness, the trees and sky of the -country. - -Feeling thus, and seeing only the strange faces all about me, and the -steep narrow walls of the street high above me, I drifted along, until -suddenly I caught the sound of bird voices shrill and sharp through -the din. - -I stopped, but was instantly jostled out of the street, up against a -grim iron fence, to find myself peering through the pickets into an -ancient cemetery in the very heart of Boston. - -As I looked, there loomed up in the fog and rain overhead the outlines -of three or four gaunt trees, whose limbs were as thick with sparrows -as they had ever been with leaves. A sparrow roost! Birds, ten -thousand birds, gone to roost in the business section of a great city, -with ten thousand human beings passing under them as they slept! - -I got in behind a big waste-barrel by the iron fence and let the crowd -surge past. It was such a sight as I had never seen. I had seen -thousands of chimney swallows go to roost in the deserted chimneys of -a great country house; I had many a time gone down at night to the -great crow-roost in the pines at Cubby Hollow; but I had never -stumbled upon a bird-roost on a crowded city street before! - -The hurrying throng behind me thinned and straggled while I waited, -watching by the iron fence. The wind freshened, the mist thickened -into fine rain that came slanting down through the half-lighted trees; -the sleeping sparrows twittered and shifted uneasily on the limbs. - -The streets were being deserted. It was going to be a wild night on -the water, and a wild night in the swaying, creaking tops of these old -elm trees. I shivered at the thought of the sparrows sleeping out in -such a night as this, and turned away toward my own snug roost hardly -two blocks away. - -The night grew wilder. The wind rattled down our street past a hundred -loose shutters; the rain slapped against the windows, and then stopped -as a heavy gust curled over the line of roofs opposite. I thought of -the sparrows. Had they been driven from the tossing limbs? Could they -cling fast in such a wind, and could they sleep? - -Going to the window I looked down into the street. Only the electric -light at the corner showed through the blur of the storm. The street -was empty. - -I slipped into my coat and went out; not even a policeman was in -sight. Only the whirling sheets of rain, only the wild sounds of the -wind were with me. The lights flared, but only to fill the streets -with fantastic shadows and to open up a yawning cavern in every deep, -dark doorway. - -Keeping in the lee of the shuttered buildings, I made my way to the -sparrow roost. I shall never forget the sight! Not a sparrow had left -his perch, but every bird had now turned, facing the wind--breasting -the wind, I should say; for every head was under a wing, as near as I -could make out, and every breast was toward the storm. Here, on the -limbs, as close as beads on a string, they clung and rocked in the -arms of the wind, every one with his feathers tight to his body, his -tail lying out flat on the storm. - -Now there is the outdoor lesson I learned, and that is how I learned -it. And what was the lesson? Why, this: that you are not shut away -from Nature even in the heart of a great city; that the out of doors -lies very close about you, as you hurry down a crowded city street. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -LEAFING - - -No, you never went "leafing"--not unless you are simon-pure -country-bred. You do not know what the word means. You cannot find it -in the unabridged dictionary--not in the sense in which I am using it. -But there are many good words we country people use that are not, -perhaps, in the dictionary. - -And what do I mean by "leafing"? Get down that bundle of meal sacks, -hitch into the one-horse hay-rig, throw in the rakes, and come. We are -going into the woods for pig-bedding, for leaves to keep the pigs dry -and warm this winter! - -You never went after leaves for the pigs? Perhaps you never even had a -pig. But a pig is worth having, if only to see the comfort he takes in -the big bed of dry leaves you give him in the sunny corner of his pen. -And if leafing had no other reward, the thought of the snoozing, -snoring pig buried to his winking snout in the bed, would give joy and -zest enough to the labor. - -But leafing, like every other humble labor, has its own rewards, not -the least of them being the leaves themselves and the getting of them! - -We jolt across the bumpy field, strike into the back wood-road, and -turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cord wood was carted -years ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill, the -winds have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost -knee-deep. - -We are off the main road, far into the heart of the woods. We straddle -stumps; bend down saplings; stop while the horse takes a bite of sweet -birch; tack and tip and tumble and back through the tight squeezes -between the trees; and finally, after a prodigious amount of whoa-ing -and oh-ing and squealing and screeching, we land right side up and so -headed that we can start the load out toward the open road. - -You can yell all you want to when you go leafing; yell at every stump -you hit; yell every time a limb knocks off your hat or catches you -under the chin; yell when the horse stops suddenly to browse on the -twigs and stands you meekly on your head in the bottom of the rig. You -can screech and howl and yell like the wild Indian that you are, you -can dive and wrestle in the piles of leaves and cut all the crazy -capers you know; for this is a Saturday, these are the wild woods and -the noisy leaves, and who is there looking on besides the mocking jays -and the crows? - -The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among the tall, naked trees; -the dull cloud hangs low above the ridge; and through the cold gray of -the maple swamp below you, peers the face of Winter. - -You start up the ridge with your rake and draw down another pile, -thinking, as you work, of the pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm -glow all over your body strikes into your heart. You rake away as if -it were your own bed you were gathering--as really it is. He that -rakes for his pig, rakes also for himself. A merciful man is merciful -to his beast; and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket -of down over his own winter bed. - -Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull on my boots at ten -o'clock and go my round at the barn? Yet it warms my feet through and -through to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her cud, and -the horse cleaning up his supper hay, standing to his fetlocks in his -golden bed of new rye-straw; and then, going to the pig's pen, to hear -him snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in the depths of his -leaf-bed, far out of sight. It warms my heart, too! - -So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to have a pig to work -for! What zest and purpose it lends to one's raking and piling and -storing! If I could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should -surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in the woods, I should -be obliged, occasionally, to carry a rake and a bag with me--much -better things to take into the woods than empty hands, and sure to -scratch into light a number of objects that would never come within -the range of opera-glass or gun or walking stick. To see things -through a twenty-four-toothed rake is to see them very close, as -through a microscope magnifying twenty-four diameters. - -And so, as the leaves pile up, we keep a sharp lookout for what the -rake uncovers--here, under a rotten stump, a hatful of acorns, -probably gathered by the white-footed wood mouse. For the stump gives -at the touch of the rake, and a light kick topples it down the hill, -spilling out a big nest of feathers and three dainty little creatures -that scurry into the leaf-piles like streaks of daylight. They are the -white-footed wood mice, long-tailed, big-eared, and as clean and -high-bred looking as greyhounds. - -Combing down the steep hillside with our rakes, we dislodge a large -stone, exposing a black patch of fibrous roots and leaf mould, in -which something moves and disappears. Scooping up a double handful of -the mould, we capture a little red-backed salamander. - -This is not the "red" salamander that Mr. Burroughs tells us is "the -author of that fine plaintive piping to be heard more or less -frequently, according to the weather, in our summer and autumn woods." -His "red" salamander is really a "dull orange, variegated with minute -specks or spots," a species I have never found here in my New England -woods. - -Nor have I ever suspected my red-backed salamander of piping; though -he may do it, as may the angleworms, for aught I am able to hear, so -filled with whir of iron wheels are my dull ears. But listen! -Something piping! Above the rustle of the leaves we also hear a "fine -plaintive" sound--no, a shrill and ringing little racket, rather, -about the bigness of a penny whistle. - -Dropping the rake, we cautiously follow up the call--it seems to speak -out of every tree trunk--and find the piper clinging to a twig, no -salamander at all, but a tiny tree-frog, Pickering's hyla, his little -bagpipe blown almost to bursting as he tries to rally the scattered -summer by his tiny, mighty "skirl." Take him nose and toes, he is -surely as much as an inch long, not very large to pipe against the -north wind turned loose in the leafless woods. - -We go back to our raking. Above us, among the stones of the slope, -hang bunches of Christmas fern; around the foot of the trees we -uncover trailing clusters of gray-green partridge vine, glowing with -crimson berries; we rake up the prince's pine, pipsissewa, creeping -jennie, and wintergreen red with ripe berries,--a whole bouquet of -evergreens,--exquisite, fairy-like forms, that later shall gladden our -Christmas table. - -[Illustration: "BUT COME, BOYS, GET AFTER THOSE BAGS!"] - -But how they gladden and cheer the October woods! Summer dead? Hope -all gone? Life vanished away? See here, under this big pine, a whole -garden of arbutus, green and budded, almost ready to bloom! The snows -shall come before their sweet eyes open; but open they will at the -very first touch of spring. We will gather a few, and let them wake up -in saucers of clean water in our sunny south windows. - -Leaves for the pig, and arbutus for us! We make a clean sweep down the -hillside, "jumping" a rabbit from its form, or bed, under a -brush-pile; discovering where a partridge roosts in a low-spreading -hemlock; coming upon a snail cemetery, in a hollow hickory stump; -turning up a yellow-jacket's nest, built two-thirds underground; -tracing the tunnel of a bobtailed mouse in its purposeless windings in -the leaf mould; digging into a woodchuck's-- - -"But come, boys, get after those bags! It is leaves in the hay-rig -that we want, not woodchucks at the bottom of woodchuck holes." Two -small boys catch up a bag and hold it open, while the third boy stuffs -in the crackling leaves. Then I come along with my big feet and pack -the leaves in tight, and onto the rig goes the bulging thing! - -Exciting? If you can't believe it exciting, hop up on the load and let -us jog you home. Swish! bang! thump! tip! turn! joggle! jolt!--Hold on -to your ribs! Look out for the stump! Isn't it fun to go leafing? -Isn't it fun to do anything that your heart does with you--even though -you do it for a pig? - -Just watch the pig as we shake out the bags of leaves. See him caper, -spin on his toes, shake himself, and curl his tail. That curl is his -laugh. We double up and weep when we laugh hard; but the pig can't -weep, and he can't double himself up, so he doubles up his tail. There -is where his laugh comes off, curling and kinking in little spasms of -pure pig joy! - -_Boosh! Boosh!_ he snorts, and darts around the pen like a whirlwind, -scattering the leaves in forty ways, to stop short--the shortest -stop!--and fall to rooting for acorns. - -He was once a long-tusked boar of the forest,--this snow-white, -sawed-off, pug-faced little porker of mine--ages and ages ago. But he -still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the -taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig in his soul. - -And we were once long-haired, strong-limbed savages who roamed the -forest hunting him--ages and ages ago. And we, too, like him, remember -the smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest -fruits--and of pig, _roast_ pig! And if the pig in his heart is still -a wild boar, no less are we, at times, wild savages in our hearts. - -Anyhow, for one day in the fall I want to go "leafing." I want to give -my pig a taste of acorns, and a big pile of leaves to dive so deep -into that he cannot see his pen. I can feel the joy of it myself. No, -I do not live in a pen; but then, I might, if once in a while I did -not go leafing, did not escape now and then from my little daily round -into the wide, wild woods--my ancestral home. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS FALL - - -I - -You ought to hear the scream of the hen-hawks circling high in the -air. In August and September and late into October, if you listen in -the open country, you will hear their piercing whistle,--shrill, -exultant _scream_ comes nearer to describing it,--as they sail and -sail a mile away in the sky. - - -II - -You ought to go out upon some mowing hill or field of stubble and hear -the crickets, then into the apple orchard and hear the katydids, then -into the high grass and bushes along the fence and hear the whole -stringed chorus of green grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets. You -have heard them all your life; but the trouble is that, because you -have heard them so constantly in the autumn, and because one player -after another has come gradually into the orchestra, you have taken -them as part of the natural course of things and have never really -heard them individually, to know what parts they play. Now anybody can -hear a lion roar, or a mule bray, or a loon laugh his wild crazy laugh -over a silent mountain lake, and know what sound it is; but who can -hear a cricket out of doors, or a grasshopper, and know which is -which? - - -III - -Did you ever hear a loon laugh? You ought to. I would go a hundred -miles to hear that weird, meaningless, melancholy, maniacal laughter -of the loon, or great northern diver, as the dusk comes down over some -lonely lake in the wilderness of the far North. From Maine westward to -northern Illinois you may listen for him in early autumn; then, when -the migration begins, anywhere south to the Gulf of Mexico. You may -never hear the call of the bull moose in the northern woods, nor the -howl of a coyote on the western prairies, nor the wild _cac_, _cac_, -_cac_ of the soaring eagles, nor the husky _yap_, _yap_, _yap_ of the -fox. But, if you do, "make a note of it," as Captain Cuttle would say; -for the tongues that utter this wild language are fast ceasing to -speak to us. - - -IV - -One strangely sweet, strangely wild voice that you still may hear in -our old apple orchards, is the whimpering, whinnying voice of the -little screech owl. "When night comes," says the bird book, "one may -hear the screech owl's tremulous, wailing whistle. It is a weird, -melancholy call, welcomed only by those who love Nature's voice, -whatever be the medium through which she speaks." Now listen this -autumn for the screech owl; listen until the weird, melancholy call -_is_ welcomed by you, until the shiver that creeps up your back turns -off through your hair, as you hear the low plaintive voice speaking to -you out of the hollow darkness, out of the softness and the silence of -night. - - -V - -You ought to hear the brown leaves rustling under your feet. - - "Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; - They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread." - -And they should rustle to your tread as well. Scuff along in them -where they lie in deep windrows by the side of the road; and hear them -also, as the wind gathers them into a whirling flurry and sends them -rattling over the fields. - - -VI - -You ought to hear the cry of the blue jay and the caw of the crow in -the autumn woods. - - "The robin and the wren are flown, but from the shrub the jay, - And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day." - -Everybody knows those lines of Bryant, because everybody has heard -that loud scream of the jay in the lonesome woods, and the _caw_, -_caw_, _caw_ of the sentinel crow from the top of some tall tree. The -robins may not be all gone, for I heard and saw a flock of them this -year in January; but they are silent now, and so many of the birds -have gone, and the woods have become so empty, that the cries of the -jay and the crow seem, on a gloomy day, to be the only sounds in all -the hollow woods. There could hardly be an autumn for me if I did not -hear these two voices speaking--the one with a kind of warning in its -shrill, half-plaintive cry; the other with a message slow and solemn, -like the color of its sable coat. - - -VII - -You ought to hear, you ought to _catch_, I should say, a good round -scolding from the red squirrel this fall. A red squirrel is always -ready to scold you (and doubtless you are always in need of his -scolding), but he is never so breathless and emphatic as in the fall. -"Whose nuts are these in the woods?" he asks, as you come up with your -stick and bag. "Who found this tree first? Come, get out of here! Get -right back to the city and eat peanuts! Come, do you hear? Get out of -this!" - -No, don't be afraid; he won't "eat you alive"--though I think he might -if he were big enough. He won't blow up, either, and burst! He is the -kind of fire-cracker that you call a "sizzler"--all sputter and no -explosion. But isn't he a tempest! Isn't he a whirlwind! Isn't he a -red-coated cyclone! Let him blow! The little scamp, he steals birds' -eggs in the summer, they say; but there are none now for him to steal, -and the woods are very empty. We need a dash of him on these autumn -days, as we need a dash of spice in our food. - -In the far western mountains he has a cousin called the Douglas -squirrel; and Mr. John Muir calls him "the brightest of all the -squirrels I have ever seen, a hot spark of life, making every tree -tingle with his prickly toes, a condensed nugget of fresh mountain -vigor and valor, as free from disease as a sunbeam. How he scolds, and -what faces he makes, all eyes, teeth, and whiskers!" - -You must hear him this fall and take your scolding, whether you -deserve it or not. - - -VIII - -You ought to hear in the cedars, pines, or spruces the small thin -_cheep_, _cheep_, _cheep_ of the chickadees or the kinglets. You must -take a quiet day on the very edge of winter and, in some sunny dip or -glade, hear them as they feed and flit about you. They speak in a -language different from that of the crow and the jay. This tiny talk -of the kinglet is all friendly and cheerful and personal and -confidential, as if you were one of the party and liked spiders' eggs -and sunshine and didn't care a snap for the coming winter! In all the -vast gray out of doors what bits of winged bravery, what crumbs of -feathered courage, they seem! One is hardly ready for the winter -until he has heard them in the cedars and has been assured that they -will stay, no matter how it snows and blows. - - -IX - -You ought to hear, some quiet day or moonlit night in October or -November, the baying of the hounds as they course the swamps and -meadows on the heels of the fox. Strange advice, you say? No, not -strange. It is a wild, fierce cry that your fathers heard, and their -fathers, and theirs--away on back to the cave days, when life was -hardly anything but the hunt, and the dogs were the only tame animal, -and the most useful possession, man had. Their deep bass voices have -echoed through all the wild forests of our past, and stir within us -nowadays wild memories that are good for us again to feel. Stand -still, as the baying pack comes bringing the quarry through the forest -toward you. The blood will leap in your veins, as the ringing cries -lift and fall in the chorus that echoes back from every hollow and -hill around; and you will on with the panting pack--will on in the -fierce, wild exultation of the chase; for instinctively we are -hunters, just as all our ancestors were. - -No, don't be afraid. You won't catch the fox. - - -X - -You ought to hear by day--or better, by night--the call of the -migrating birds as they pass over, through the sky, on their way to -the South. East or west, on the Atlantic or on the Pacific shore, or -in the vast valley of the Mississippi, you may hear at night, so high -in air that you cannot see the birds, these voices of the passing -migrants. _Chink_, _chink_, _chink!_ will drop the calls of the -bobolinks--fine, metallic, starry notes; _honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ the -clarion cry of the wild geese will ring along the aerial way, as they -shout to one another and to you, listening far below them on the -steadfast earth. - -Far away, yonder in the starry vault, far beyond the reach of human -eyes, a multitude of feathered folk, myriads of them, are streaming -over; armies of them winging down the long highway of the sky from the -frozen North, down to the rice fields of the Carolinas, down to the -deep tangled jungles of the Amazon, down beyond the cold, cruel reach -of winter. - -Listen as they hail you from the sky. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -HONK, HONK, HONK! - - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ Out of the silence of the November night, down -through the depths of the darkened sky, rang the thrilling call of the -passing geese. - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ I was out of bed in an instant; but before I -had touched the floor, there was a patter of feet in the boys' room, -the creak of windows going up, and--silence. - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ A mighty flock was coming. The stars shone -clear in the far blue; the trees stood dark on the rim of the North; -and somewhere between the trees and the stars, somewhere along a -pathway running north and south, close up against the distant sky, the -wild geese were winging. - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ They were overhead. Clear as bugles, round and -mellow as falling flute notes, ordered as the tramp of soldiers, fell -the _honk_, _honk_, _honk_, as the flock in single line, or double -like the letter V, swept over and was gone. - -We had not seen them. Out of a sound sleep they had summoned us, out -of beds with four wooden legs and no wings; and we had heard the wild -sky-call, had heard and followed through our open windows, through the -dark of the night, up into the blue vault under the light of the -stars. - -Round and dim swung the earth below us, hushed and asleep in the soft -arms of the night. Hill and valley lay close together, farm-land and -wood-land, all wrapped in the coverlet of the dark. City and town, -like watch fires along the edge of a sleeping camp, burned bright on -the rivers and brighter still on the ragged line of shore and sea, for -we were far away near the stars. The mountains rose up, but they could -not reach us; the white lakes beckoned, but they could not call us -down. For the stars were bright, the sky-coast was clear, the wind in -our wings was the keen, wild wind of the North, and the call that we -heard--ah! who knows the call? Yet, who does not know it--that distant -haunting call to fly, fly, fly? - -I found myself in my bed the next morning. I found the small boys in -their beds. I found the big round sun in the sky that morning and not -a star in sight! There was nothing unusual to be seen up there, -nothing mysterious at all. But there was something unusual, something -mysterious to be seen in the four small faces at the breakfast-table -that morning--eyes all full of stars and deep with the far, dark -depths of the midnight sky into which they had gazed--into which those -four small boys had flown! - -We had often heard the geese go over before, but never such a flock as -this, never such wild waking clangor, so clear, so far away, so -measured, swift, and--gone! - -I love the sound of the ocean surf, the roar of a winter gale in the -leafless woods, the sough of the moss-hung cypress in the dark -southern swamps. But no other voice of Nature is so strangely, deeply -thrilling to me as the _honk_, _honk_, _honk_ of the passing geese. - -For what other voice, heard nowadays, of beast or bird is so wild and -free and far-resounding? Heard in the solemn silence of the night, the -notes fall as from the stars, a faint and far-off salutation, like the -call of sentinels down the picket line--"All's well! All's well!" -Heard in the open day, when you can see the winged wedge splitting -through the dull gray sky, the notes seem to cleave the dun clouds, -driven down by the powerful wing-beats where the travelers are passing -high and far beyond the reach of our guns. - -The sight of the geese going over in the day, and the sound of their -trumpetings, turn the whole world of cloud and sky into a wilderness, -as wild and primeval a wilderness as that distant forest of the far -Northwest where the howl of wolves is still heard by the trappers. -Even that wilderness, however, is passing; and perhaps no one of us -will ever hear the howl of wolves in the hollow snow-filled forests, -as many of our parents have heard. But the _honk_ of the wild geese -going over we should all hear, and our children should hear; for this -flock of wild creatures we have in our hands to preserve. - -The wild geese breed in the low, wet marshes of the half-frozen North, -where, for a thousand years to come they will not interfere with the -needs of man. They pass over our northern and middle states and spend -the winter in the rivers, marshes, and lagoons of the South, where, -for another thousand years to come, they can do little, if any, harm -to man, but rather good. - -But North and South, and all along their journey back and forth, they -are shot for sport and food. For the wild geese cannot make this -thousand-mile flight without coming down to rest and eat; and wherever -that descent is made, there is pretty sure to be a man with a gun on -the watch. - -Here, close to my home, are four ponds; and around the sides of each -of them are "goose blinds"--screens made of cedar and pine boughs -fixed into the shore, behind which the gunners lie in wait. More than -that, out upon the surface of the pond are geese swimming, but tied so -that they cannot escape--geese that have been raised in captivity and -placed there to lure the flying wild flocks down. Others, known as -"flyers," are kept within the blind to be let loose when a big flock -is seen approaching--to fly out and mingle with them and decoy them -to the pond. These "flyers" are usually young birds and, when thrown -out upon their wings, naturally come back, bringing the wild flock -with them, to their fellows fastened in the pond. - -A weary flock comes winging over, hungry, and looking for a place to -rest. Instantly the captive geese out on the pond see them and set up -a loud honking. The flying flock hear them and begin to descend. Then -they see one (tossed from the blind) coming on to meet them, and they -circle lower to the pond, only to fall before a fury of shots that -pour from behind the blind. - -Those of the flock that are not killed rise frightened and bewildered -to fly to the opposite shore, where other guns riddle them, the whole -flock sometimes perishing within the ring of fire! - -Such shooting is a crime because it is unfair, giving the creature no -chance to exercise his native wit and caution. The fun of hunting, as -of any sport, is in playing the game--the danger, the exercise, the -pitting of limb against limb, wit against wit, patience against -patience; not in a heap of carcasses, the dead and bloody weight of -mere meat! - -If the hunter would only play fair with the wild goose, shoot him (the -wild Canada goose) only along the North Carolina coast, where he -passes the winter, then there would be no danger of the noble bird's -becoming extinct. And the hunter then would know what real sport is, -and what a long-headed, far-sighted goose the wild goose really -is--for there are few birds with his cunning and alertness. - -Along the Carolina shore the geese congregate in vast numbers; and -when the day is calm, they ride out into the ocean after feeding, so -far off shore that no hunter could approach them. At night they come -in for shelter across the bars, sailing into the safety of the inlets -and bays for a place to sleep. If the wind rises, and a storm blows -up, then they must remain in the pools and water-holes, where the -hunter has a chance to take them. Only here, where the odds, never -even, are not all against the birds, should the wild geese be hunted. - -With the coming of March there is a new note in the clamor of the -flocks, a new restlessness in their movements; and, before the month -is gone, many mated pairs of the birds have flocked together and are -off on their far northern journey to the icy lakes of Newfoundland and -the wild, bleak marshes of Labrador. - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ Shall I hear them going over,--going -northward,--as I have heard them going southward this fall? Winter -comes down in their wake. There is the clang of the cold in their -trumpeting, the closing of iron gates, the bolting of iron doors for -the long boreal night. They pass and leave the forests empty, the -meadows brown and sodden, the rivers silent, the bays and lakes close -sealed. Spring will come up with them on their return; and their -_honk_, _honk_, _honk_ will waken the frogs from their oozy slumbers -and stir every winter sleeper to the very circle of the Pole. - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ Oh, may I be awake to hear you, ye -strong-winged travelers on the sky, when ye go over northward, calling -the sleeping earth to waken, calling all the South to follow you -through the broken ice-gates of the North! - -_Honk_, _honk_, _honk!_ The wild geese are passing--southward! - - - - -NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS - - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE TEACHER - - Go yourself frequently into the fields and woods, or into the - city parks, or along the water front--anywhere so that you can - touch nature directly, and look and listen for yourselves. Don't - try to teach what you do not know, and there is nothing in this - book that you cannot know, for the _lesson_ to be taught in each - chapter is a spiritual lesson, not a number of bare facts. This - spiritual lesson you must first learn before you can teach - it--must _feel_, I should say; and a single thoughtful excursion - alone into the autumn fields will give you possession of it. And - what is the lesson in this chapter? Just this: that the strong - growths of summer, the ripening of seeds and fruits, the languid - lazy spirit, and the pensive signs of coming autumn are all the - manifold preparations of nature for a fresh outburst of life - with the coming of spring. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 1 - - _The clock of the year strikes one_: When, in the daytime, the - clock strikes one, the hour of noon is past; the afternoon - begins. On the 21st of June the clock of the year strikes - twelve--noon! By late July the clock strikes one--the noon hour - is past! Summer is gone; autumn--the afternoon of the - year--begins. - - _going "creepy-creep"_: In the quiet of some July day in fields - or woods, listen to the stirring of the insects and other small - wood creatures. All summer long they are going about their - business, but in the midst of stronger noises we are almost - deaf to their world of little sounds. - -PAGE 3 - - _begins to shift_: Why is the oak's shadow likely to be "round" - at noon? What causes the shadow to "shift"; or move? In which - direction would it move? - - _falls a yellow leaf from a slender birch near by ... small - flock of robins from a pine ... swallows were gathering upon - the telegraph wires_: Next summer, note the exact date on which - you first see signs of autumn--the first falling of the leaves, - the first gathering of birds for their southern trip. Most of - the migrating birds go in flocks for the sake of companionship - and protection. - - _chewink_ (named from his call, ch[=e]-wink'; accent on - second, not on first, syllable, as in some dictionaries) or - ground robin, or towhee or joree; one of the finch family. You - will know him by his saying "chewink" and by his vigorous - scratching among the dead leaves, and by his red-brown body and - black head and neck. - - _vireo_ (v[vi]r'-[=e]-[=o]]): the red-eyed vireo, the commonest - of the vireo family; often called "Preacher"; builds the little - hanging nest from a small fork on a bush or tree so low often - that you can look into it. - - _fiery notes of the scarlet tanager_ (t[)a]n'-a-j[~e]r): His - notes are loud and strong, and he is dressed in fiery red - clothes and sings on the fieriest of July days. - -PAGE 4 - - _resonant song of the indigo bunting_: or indigo-bird, one of - the finch family. He sings from the very tip of a tree as if to - get up close under the dome of the sky. Indeed, his notes seem - to strike against it and ring down to us; for there is a - peculiar ringing quality to them, as if he were singing to you - from inside a great copper kettle. - - _scarlet tanager by some accident_: The tanager arrives among - the last of the birds in the spring, and builds late; but, if - you find a nest in July or August, it is pretty certain to be a - second nest, the first having been destroyed somehow--a too - frequent occurrence with all birds. - - _half-fledged cuckoos_: The cuckoo also is a very late builder. - I have more than once found its eggs in July. - - _red wood-lily_: Do you know the wood-lily, or the "wild - orange-red lily" as some call it (_Lilium philadelphicum_)? It - is found from New England to North Carolina and west to - Missouri, but only on hot, dry, sandy ground, whereas the - turk's-cap and the wild yellow lily are found only where the - ground is rich and moist. - - _low mouldy moss_: Bring to school a flake, as large as your - hand, of the kind of lichen you think this may be. Some call it - "reindeer moss." - - _sweet-fern_: Put a handful of sweet-fern (_Myrica - asplenifolia_) in your pocket, a leaf or two in your book; and - whenever you pass it in the fields, pull it through your - fingers for the odor. Sweet gale and bayberry are its two sweet - relatives. - -PAGE 5 - - _milkweed, boneset, peppermint, turtle-head, joe-pye-weed, - jewel-weed, smartweed, and budding goldenrod_: Go down to the - nearest meadow stream and gather for school as many of these - flowers as you can find. Examine their seeds. - - _wind is a sower going forth to sow_: Besides the winds what - other seed-scatterers do you know? They are many and very - interesting. - -PAGE 6 - - "_Over the fields where the daisies grow...._" - - From "Thistledown" in a volume of poems called "Summer-Fallow," - by Charles Buxton Going. - - _seed-souls of thistles and daisies and fall dandelions seeking - new bodies for themselves in the warm soil of Mother Earth_: On - your country walks, watch to see where such seeds have been - caught, or have fallen. They will be washed down into the earth - by rain and snow. If you can mark the place, go again next - spring to see for yourself if they have risen in "new bodies" - from the earth. - - _sweet pepper-bush_: The sweet pepper-bush is also called white - alder and clethra. - - _chickadees_: Stand stock-still upon meeting a flock of - chickadees and see how curious they become to know you. You may - know the chickadee by its tiny size, its gray coat, black cap - and throat, its saying "chick-a-dee," and its plaintive call of - "ph[oe]be" in three distinct syllables. - -PAGE 7 - - _clock strikes twelve_: As we have thought of midsummer as the - hour from twelve to one in the day, so the dead of winter seems - by comparison the twelve o'clock of midnight. - - _shimmering of the spiders' silky balloons_: It is the curious - habit of many of the spiders to travel, especially in the fall, - by throwing skeins of silky web into the air, which the breezes - catch and carry up, while the spiders, like balloonists, hang - in their web ropes below and sail away. - - -CHAPTER II - -TO THE TEACHER - - I have chosen the fox in this chapter to illustrate this very - interesting and striking fact that wild animals, birds and - beasts, thrive in the neighborhood of man if given the least - protection; for if the fox holds his own (as surely he does) in - the very gates of one of the largest cities in the United - States, how easy it should be for us to preserve for generations - yet the birds and smaller animals! I might have written a very - earnest chapter on the need for every pupil's joining the - Audubon Society and the Animal Rescue League; but young pupils, - no less than their elders, hate to be preached to. So I have - recounted a series of short narratives, trusting to the - suggestions of the chapter, and to the quiet comment of the - teacher to do the good work. _Every pupil a protector of wild - life is the moral._ - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - There are two species of foxes in the eastern states--the gray - fox, common from New Jersey southward, and the larger red fox, - so frequent here in New England and northward, popularly known - at Reynard. Far up under the Arctic circle lives the little - white or Arctic fox, so valuable for its fur; and in California - still another species known as the coast fox. The so-called - silver or blue, or black, or cross fox, is only the red fox with - a blackish or bluish coat. - -PAGE 9 - - _Mullein Hill_: the name of the author's country home in - Hingham, Massachusetts. The house is built on the top of a - wooded ridge looking down upon the tops of the orchard trees and - away over miles of meadow and woodland to the Blue Hills, and at - night to the lights that flash in Boston Harbor. Years before - the house was built the ridge was known as Mullein Hill because - of the number and size of the mulleins (_Verbascum Thapsus_) - that grew upon its sides and top. - -PAGE 10 - - _mowing-field_: a New England term for a field kept permanently - in grass for hay. - -PAGE 11 - - _grubby acres_: referring to the grubs of various beetles found - in the soil and under the leaves of its woodland. - - _BB_: the name of shot about the size of sweet pea seed. - -PAGE 12 - - _Pigeon Henny's coop_: a pet name for one of the hens that - looked very much like a pigeon. - - _shells_: loaded cartridges used in a breech-loading gun. - - _bead drew dead_: when the little metal ball on the end of the - gun-barrel, used to aim by, showed that the gun was pointing - directly at the fox. - -PAGE 16 - - _the mind in the wild animal world_: how the animals may really - feel when being chased, namely, not frightened to death, as we - commonly think, but perhaps cool and collected, taking the chase - as a matter of course, even enjoying it. - -PAGE 17 - - _The Chase_: The sound of the hunting is likened to a chorus of - singing voices; the changing sounds, as when the pack emerges - from thick woods into open meadow, being likened to the various - measures of the musical score; the whole musical composition or - chorus being called _The Chase_. - -PAGE 18 - - _dead heat_: a race between two or more horses or boats where - two of the racers come out even, neither winning. - -PAGE 19 - - _Flood_: Why spelled with a capital? What flood is meant? - -PAGE 20 - - _hard-pressed fox had narrowly won his way_: In spite of the - author's attempt to shoot the fox that was stealing his chickens - do you think the author would be glad if there were no foxes in - his woods? How do they add interest to his out of doors? What - other things besides chickens do they eat? Might it not be that - their destruction of woodchucks (for they eat woodchucks) and - mice and muskrats quite balances their killing of poultry? (The - author thinks so.) - - -CHAPTER III - -TO THE TEACHER - - The thought in this chapter is evident, namely, that love for - the out of doors is dependent upon knowledge of the out of - doors. The more we _know_ and the better we _understand_, the - more perfect and marvelous nature seems and the more lovely. The - toadfish _looks_ loathly, but upon closer study he becomes very - interesting, even admirable--one of the very foundations of real - love. So, as a teacher and as a lover of nature, be careful - never to use the words "ugly" or "nasty" or "loathly"; never - shrink from a toad; never make a wry face at a worm; never show - that you are having a nervous fit at a snake; for it all argues - a lack of knowledge and understanding. All life, from Man to the - Am[oe]ba, is one long series of links in a golden chain, one - succession of wonderful life-histories, each vastly important, - all making up the divinely beautiful world of life which our - lives crown, but of which we are only a part, and, perhaps, no - more important a part than the toadfish. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - The toadfish of this story is _Batrachus tau_, sometimes called - oyster-fish or sapo. The fishing-frog or angler is by some - called toadfish, as is also the swell-fish or common puffer of - the Atlantic Coast. - -PAGE 21 - - _Buzzards Bay_: Where is Buzzards Bay? Do you know Whittier's - beautiful poem, _The Prayer of Agassiz_, which begins:-- - - "On the isle of Penikese - Ringed about by sapphire seas." - - Where is Penikese? What waters are those "sapphire seas," and - what was Agassiz doing there? - -PAGE 23 - - _Davy Jones_: Who is Davy Jones? Look him up under _Jones, - Davy_, in your dictionary of _Proper Names_. Get into the - "looking up" habit. Never let anything in your reading, that you - do not understand, go unlooked up. - - _Old Man of the Sea_: Look him up too. Are he and Davy Jones - any relation? - - _It was really a fish_: What names do you think of that might - fit this fish? - -PAGE 24 - - _coarsely marbled with a darker hue_: What is the meaning of - _marbled_? - -PAGE 25 - - _covered with water_: The author means that the _rock_ is not - always covered with water, not the _hole_ under the rock. Of - course the hole is always built so that it is full of water, - else the fish would perish at low tide. - -PAGE 27 - - _love the out of doors with all your mind_: Do you know what is - meant by loving the out of doors with your mind? Just this: that - while you feel (with your heart) the beauty of a star, at the - same time you know (with your mind) that that particular star, - let us say, is the Pole Star, the guide to the sailors on the - seas; that it is also only one of a vast multitude of stars each - one of which has its place in the heavens, its circuit or path - through the skies, its part in the whole orderly universe--a - _thought_ so vast and wonderful that we cannot comprehend it. - All this it means to love with our minds. Without minds a star - to us is only a point of light, as to Peter Bell - - "A primrose by the river's brim - A yellow primrose was to him - And it was nothing more." - - Does the toadfish become anything more than a mere toadfish in - a shoe before the end of the chapter? - -PAGE 28 - - _in the toadfish's shoe_: What does the author mean by asking - you to put yourself in the toadfish's shoe? Only this: to try, - even with the humblest of creatures, to share sympathetically - their lives with them. The best way to do this with man as well - as with toadfish is to learn about their lives. - - -CHAPTER IV - -TO THE TEACHER - - There are several practical uses to which you can put this - chapter, and the similar chapters, VII and XII: they can be made - the purpose for field excursions with the class. Such excursions - might be quite impossible for many a teacher in school hours; - and we know how the exacting duties overcrowd the after-school - hours; but one field excursion each season of the year, no - matter how precious your time, would do more for you and your - class than many books about nature read inside your four - plastered walls. Better the books than nothing; but take the - book and go with your pupils into the real out of doors. - - Again, you can make these chapters a kind of nature test, - asking each pupil to try to see each of the things suggested - here; or, if these do not chance to be the sights - characteristic of the autumn in your region, then such sights - as are characteristic. So the chapter can serve as a kind of - field guide to the pupil, and a kind of test of his knowledge - of nature. - - Again, you can make each item mentioned here the subject for a - short composition direct from the pupil's experience--the only - kind of subject for him to write upon. Or make each item (say, - No. IV, the Ballooning Spiders) the beginning for a short - course of study or collateral reading for the individual pupil - particularly interested in spiders! - - -CHAPTER V - -TO THE TEACHER - - The real point of this story (but first of all it is a story and - should not be spoiled with any moral) is the thought in the - lines:-- - - "There were thousands of persons who could have gold eggs if - they cared. But eagles' eggs! Money could not buy such a sight - as this." Which means, that the simple joys of the out of - doors, and the possession of youth and health, are better than - any joys that money can create, and more precious possessions - than all the money in the world can buy. One can get all the - thrilling sensations of height by standing up in a quaking - eagle's nest sixty feet from the ground, that one can possibly - get from the top of the Eiffel Tower or on the peak of Mount - Washington, or from a flying-machine among the clouds. And then - who among the rich of the world ever saw eagles' eggs in a - nest, or had eagles dig him with their talons? To be alive to - all the wonder of the life, to all the beauty of the world - about us, is the very secret of living. An eagle's nest to - climb into is as good as a flying-machine. - - Take occasion, too, at the end of the story to say how much - better, how much more interesting, an act it was to leave the - eggs to hatch than to rob the nest and thus destroy two young - eagles. Some years later, for instance, two young eagles were - taken from a neighboring nest and were sent to the Zooelogical - Gardens at Philadelphia, where they may still be living for - thousands of visitors each year to see. Who knows but that one - of the parents of these two captive birds may have been in the - eggs laid back by the boy in that nest? - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 36 - - _Maurice River Cove_: Where is Maurice River Cove? What is the - Cove famous for? - - _great eagle's nest_: Look up the habits of the bald eagle in - some natural history. Is he a very great enemy to man? If a - pair of the noble birds lived in your neighborhood would you - want their nest destroyed and the birds shot? Do you know the - story of "Old Abe"? Look that up also. - -PAGE 37 - - _scream of a wild cat_: The wild cat is still to be found - throughout the United States wherever the country is very wild - and wooded. Its cry or scream is an indescribable thrill that - shoots cold all over you, freezing fast in the roots of your - hair. - - _mud-hens_: The mud-hen or American coot, a dark bluish - slate-colored bird of the marshes about the size of a large - bantam, with an ivory-white bill and peculiar lobed toes, - instead of webbed like a duck's. - - _eyrie_: What does the word mean? Are there any other ways of - spelling it? - -PAGE 38 - - _size of a small haystack_: This is no exaggeration. From one - nest of a fish hawk (and this nest was probably built first by a - fish hawk) that blew down from the top of an old house chimney - in the Maurice River Marshes, the author knew six one-horse - cartloads of loose sticks to be taken. - -PAGE 40 - - _such a sight as this_: Have you ever seen a sunset more - gorgeous than any artist could paint and any rich man could buy? - Ever had a smell of trailing arbutus that no perfumer could - equal, that all the money in the world could not create? Old - Midas had a golden touch and turned his daughter into gold. Was - he not more than willing to be the poorest man in his kingdom if - only he might be rid of the fatal touch, be a natural man again - and have his loving little daughter a natural child again? To be - your natural selves, and to enjoy your beautiful natural world - is better than to be anything else, or to have anything else, in - the world. - - -CHAPTER VI - -TO THE TEACHER - - We hear so much of the drudgery of farm life, of its dreariness, - and meagre living that this chapter, aside from its picture of - cheer and plenty, should be made the text for a good deal of - comment upon the many other phases of farm life that make for - the fullest kind of existence; namely, the independence of the - farmer; the vast and interesting variety of his work; his - personal contact with domestic animals, his fruit-trees, garden, - and fields of grain; his intimate acquaintance with the weather; - his great resourcefulness in meeting insect plagues, blights, - and droughts; his out-of-door life that makes him strong and - long-lived, etc., etc. - - If you are a country teacher it is one of your great missions - to show the boys that they should stay upon the farm, or rather - that the farm is a good place to stay on for life; if you are a - city teacher it should be your mission to head many a boy - countryward for life with the understanding that it requires - more sound sense and resourcefulness to make a successful - farmer than it does to make a bank president. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 46 - - _end of the outdoors_: The fall plowing, even the digging of the - ditches--all the work in the soil is about over by Thanksgiving - when the ground begins to freeze. - -PAGE 47 - - _crib-house_: Where the writer lived as a boy the corn was - husked and left in the ear and stored in long, narrow houses - built of beveled slats spaced about half an inch apart to allow - the wind free play, but like the thin slats of a shutter so - arranged that the rain ran down and, except in a driving wind, - did not wet the grain. - - "_spring-house_": Spring-houses took the place of modern - ice-chests, being little cupboard-like houses well ventilated - and screened, built near the farmhouse and usually over a - spring of water that kept the milk and other contents cool. - - _battened_: Is this a "land" term or a "sea" term? What does it - mean? Look it up and report. - - _the swallows_: These were the barn swallows--the beautiful - swallows with the long, finely-forked tail. You will always - know them on the wing by the brown breast and _fine_ forked - tail. - - _worm-fence_: A worm-fence is built of rails laid one on top of - the other, running zigzag, each corner held together by two - upright stakes, set in the ground and crossed just above the - next-to-the-top rail. The top rail is laid in the crotch of the - two stakes. - - _turn-o'-lane_: name of a very excellent old-fashioned apple - that got its name from the fact that the original tree of the - kind grew at a turn of the lane--the writer does not know whose - lane. - -PAGE 48 - - _double-hived_: It is customary to cover beehives with - newspapers, then slip an outside box down over papers and all to - keep the swarm from the cutting cold winds of winter. Bees are - frequently brought into the cellar for the winter in northern - latitudes. - - _put on an extra coat, and turned their collars up about their - ears_: What does the writer mean? - - _changed their roost from the ridge-pole_: Turkeys roost high; - but the ridge-pole of the crib-house used to be too cold in the - dead of winter, so they would change to the more protected - apple-tree, still roosting high, however. - - _pearmain_: name of a "summer" apple in New Jersey; of a winter - apple in this section of Massachusetts. - - _garden of box_: the box bush. - - _bleeding-hearts_: an old-fashioned flower; a low shrub with - pendent blossoms shaped like a heart. - - _creeper_: the Virginia creeper, or woodbine. - -PAGE 49 - - _"template" stove_: from template or templet, a strip of sheet - iron used in boiler-making. A simple long stove made of a single - piece of sheet iron, bent like an inverted U, and riveted to a - cast iron bottom. It had a single door in the front; and burnt - pieces of wood about two feet long. Often called "tenplate" - stove. - -PAGE 50 - - _seven of us alone_: seven brothers and sisters in the writer's - family. - - _flats_: Describe the outside appearance of a city "flat," and - also the inside if you have ever been in a flat. Is it like a - farmhouse? - - _kitchenette_: What kind of a kitchen is a kitchen_ette_? - - _neither a farm nor a city home_: By which the writer means a - farm in the ordinary sense of land cultivated for a living. His - is a home only, with several acres around it, largely in woods - and grass. - -PAGE 51 - - "_Bucksy_": the invented name of a little Indian hero about whom - the writer tells stories to his little boys. - - -CHAPTER VII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Suggestions as to the practical uses to which this chapter can - be put may be gathered from the notes to chapter IV and chapter - XII, each of which is similar to this one. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -TO THE TEACHER - - This chapter and the next (chapter IX) should be taken together - as a single study of the provision of nature against the - severity of winter's cold, chapter VIII being a detailed account - of one creature's preparations, while chapter IX follows, - showing how the foresight and care obtain even among the plants - and trees. The two chapters together should give the pupils a - glad thought for winter, should utterly change their - conventional language and feeling for it as a time of _death_. - And instead of lamenting the season as a necessary evil, you - must show them that it is to be welcomed as a period of sleep - for nature from which she will waken in all the freshness of a - springtime such as is nowhere to be had outside of the temperate - zone. "It is not always May," wails the poet; but ask them: Who - wants it always May? We want the variety, the contrasts of our - four seasons, and as to winter, let the North Wind blow at will, - redden our cheeks, quicken our step, put purpose into our wills - and--it won't starve us; for we, too, like the muskrat, are - provided for. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - If there is a muskrat house or village of houses in your - neighborhood, report to the class, or better, take teacher and - class, as soon as freezing weather comes, to see it. Go out - yourselves and try to see the muskrats plastering their walls on - one of the bright October nights. - -PAGE 63 - - _muskrats combine_: The author has frequently found as many as - six rats in a single house; but whether all of these helped in - the building or not, he is unable to say. - - _winter house_: If the house is undisturbed (as when situated - out in a stumpy pond) it will stand for years, the rats - dwelling in it the year around. - -PAGE 64 - - _pick and shovel_: What is meant by a fox's "pick and shovel"? - - _Lupton's Pond_: the name of a little wood-walled pond that the - author haunted as a boy. - - "The best-laid schemes o' mice and men - Gang aft agley." - - Learn this poem ("To A Mouse") by heart. Burns is the author. - -PAGE 65 - - _very much alike_: Name some other respects in which animals and - men are alike in their lives. What famous line in the poem just - quoted is it that makes men and mice very closely related? - - _bottom of the house_: Down in the very foundation walls of the - muskrat's house are two runways or "doors" that open under - water and so far under that they rarely if ever freeze. See - picture of such a house with its door in the author's "Wild - Life Near Home," page 174. - -PAGE 66 - - _tepee_: What is a tepee? - - _juicy and pink and tender_: The muskrats eat grass stems and - roots, so that under the water near the lodge you will often - find in winter little stacks of these tender pink stems and - roots ready for eating--much as the beaver stores up sticks of - tender bark under the water near his lodge for food when the - ice forms overhead. - - _Winter is coming_: Are you glad or sorry? Are you ready? - - -CHAPTER IX - -TO THE TEACHER - - Let the pupils continue this list of examples of winter - preparations by watching and observing for themselves. Every - field, every tree, every roadside, will reveal the work done or - going on under their eyes. Without preaching you may draw many - an interesting and telling parallel with their own - preparation--in school for instance. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 67 - - "The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow, And what - will the Robin do then, Poor thing?" - - Where does the verse come from? Mother Goose? Yes, but who was - she? - - _Chipmunk_: Our little striped ground squirrel, interesting - because he has cheek-pouches and thus forms a link between the - arboreal squirrels (gray squirrels, etc.) and the ground - squirrels or spermophiles, of which the beautiful little - thirteen-lined squirrel of the prairies is an example. - - _Whitefoot, the wood mouse_: The white-footed or wood mouse or - deer mouse. - -PAGE 68 - - _Not so much as a bug or a single beetle's egg has he stored_: - Why not, seeing that these are his food? - - _a piece of suet for him on a certain lilac bush_: Whose bush - might it be? Is there a piece on yours? - - _upon the telegraph-wires were the swallows--the first sign - that the getting ready for winter has begun_: What kind or - kinds of swallows? Have you any earlier sign? - -PAGE 69 - - _the few creatures that find food and shelter in the snow_: Name - four of the _animals_ that so find their food and shelter. Are - there any others? Look them up. - -PAGE 70 - - _there will be suffering and death_: In your tramps afield this - winter look out for signs of suffering. There are many little - things that you can do to lessen it--a little seed scattered, a - piece of suet nailed up on a tree, a place cleared in the snow - where gravel stones can be picked up. - - _or even three hundred pounds of honey_: By not allowing the - bees to swarm, and thus divide their strength, bee-keepers - often get more than three hundred pounds of comb-honey (in the - little pound boxes or sections) from a single hive. The bees - themselves require only about twenty to twenty-five pounds to - carry them through the winter. - -PAGE 71 - - _the witch-hazels_: The witch-hazels do not yield honey so far - as the author has observed. Suppose you watch this autumn to see - if the honey-bees (do you know a honey-bee when you see _her_?) - visit it. Whence comes this quotation? From which poem of - Bryant's:-- - - "when come the calm, mild days." - - _put on their storm-doors_: In modern bee-hives there is a - movable board in front upon which the bees alight when entering - the hive; this can be so turned as to make a large doorway for - the summer, and a small entrance for the cold winter. - - _whole drove of forty-six woodchucks_: The author at one time - had forty-six inhabited woodchuck holes on his farm. - -PAGE 72 - - _as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco_: The - bobolink winters even farther south--beyond the banks of the - Amazon. - - _to sleep until dawn of spring_: What is the name for this - strange sleeping? What other American animals do it? Name - three. - -PAGE 73 - - _frogs frozen into the middle of solid lumps of ice_: Of course, - this was never done intentionally: each time the frogs were - forgotten and left in the laboratory, where they froze. - -PAGE 74 - - _they seem to have given up the struggle at once ..._: This may - not be the explanation. One of the author's friends suggests - that it may have been caused by exposure, due to their having - been frightened in the night from their usual bed and thus - forced to roost where they could until morning. - -PAGE 75 - - _timothy_: "Herd's-grass" or "English hay"--as it is sometimes - called in New England. - - _plenty for the birds_: What are the "weeds" made for? You - growl when you are set to pulling them in the garden. What are - they made for? Can you answer? - - -CHAPTER X - -TO THE TEACHER - - Perhaps you are in a crowded school-room in the heart of a great - city. What can you do for your pupils there? But what _can't_ - you do? You have a bit of sky, a window surely, an old tin can - for earth, a sprig of something to plant--and surely you have - English sparrows behind the rain pipe or shutter! You may have - the harbor too, and water-front with its gulls and fish, and the - fish stores with their windows full of the sea. You have the - gardens and parks, burial-grounds and housetops, bird stores, - museums--why, bless you, you have the hand-organ man and his - monkey; you have--but I have mentioned enough. It is a hungry - little flock that you have to feed, too, and no teacher can ask - more. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 76 - - _An English sparrow_: Make a long and careful study of the - sparrows that nest about you. If you live in the country try to - drive them away from the bluebird house and the martin-boxes. - The author does not advise boys and girls to do any killing, but - carefully pulling down a sparrow's nest with eggs in it--if you - are _sure_ it is a sparrow's nest--is kindness, he believes, to - the other, more useful birds. Yet only yesterday, August 17th, - he saw a male sparrow bring moth after moth to its young in a - hole in one of the timbers of a bridge from which the author was - fishing. It is not easy to say just what our duty is in this - matter. - -PAGE 77 - - _clack of a guinea going to roost_: The guinea-fowl as it goes - to roost frequently sets up a clacking that can be heard half a - mile away. - - _an ancient cemetery in the very heart of Boston_: The cemetery - was the historic King's Chapel on Tremont Street, Boston. Some - of the elm trees have since been cut down. - -PAGE 78 - - _Cubby Hollow_: a small pond near the author's boyhood home, - running, after a half-mile course through the woods, into - Lupton's Pond, which falls over a dam into the meadows of - Cohansey Creek. - - _on the water_: What water is it that surrounds so large a part - of the City of Boston? - -PAGE 79 - - _the shuttered buildings_: Along some of the streets, especially - in the wholesale district, the heavy iron shutters, closed - against the high walls of the buildings, give the deserted - streets a solemn, almost a forbidding aspect. - - _facing the wind_: like an anchored boat, offering the least - possible resistance to the storm. - - _out of doors lies very close about you, as you hurry down a - crowded city street_: Opportunities for watching the wild - things, for seeing and hearing the things of nature, cannot be - denied you even in the heart of the city, if you have an eye - for such things. Read Bradford Torrey's "Birds on Boston - Common," or the author's "Birds from a City Roof" in the - volume called "Roof and Meadow." - - -CHAPTER XI - -TO THE TEACHER - - This is a chapter on the large wholesomeness of contact with - nature; that even the simple, humble tasks out of doors are - attended with a freedom and a naturalness that restore one to - his real self by putting him into his original primitive - environment and by giving him an original primitive task to do. - - Then, too, how good a thing it is to have something alive and - responsive to work for--if only a goat or a pig! Take occasion - to read to the class Lamb's essay on Roast Pig--even fifth - grade pupils will get a lasting picture from it. - - Again--and this is the apparent purpose of the chapter--how - impossible it is to go into the woods with anything--a - hay-rake--and not find the woods interesting! - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 80 - - _the unabridged dictionary_: What does "unabridged" mean? - - _hay-rig_: a simple farm wagon with a "rigging" put on for - carting hay. - -PAGE 81 - - _cord wood_: wood cut into four-foot lengths to be cut up - smaller for burning in the stove. What are the dimensions of a - cord of wood? - -PAGE 82 - - _through the cold gray of the maple swamp below you, peers the - face of Winter_: What does one see in a maple swamp at this time - of year that looks like the "face of winter." Think. - - _he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket of down - over his own winter bed_: How is this meant to be taken? - - _round at the barn_: It is a common custom with farmers to make - this nightly round in order to see that the stock is safe for - the night. Were you ever in a barn at night where the horses - were still munching hay, and the cattle rattling their - stanchions and horns? Recall the picture in Whittier's - "Snow-Bound." - -PAGE 83 - - _diameters_: the unit of measure in the "field" or the lens of - the microscope, equivalent to "times." - - _white-footed wood mouse_: Text should read _or_ wood mouse. - There are other wood mice, but Whitefoot is known as the wood - mouse. - - _gives at the touch_: an idiom, meaning _moves_ back, gives - way. - - _red-backed salamander_: very common under stones; his - scientific name is _Plethodon erythronolus_. - - _His "red" salamander_: Read chapter V in "Pepacton," by - Burroughs. His salamander is the red triton, _Spelerpes ruber_. - -PAGE 84 - - _dull ears_: Our ears are dulled by the loud and ceaseless - noises of our city life, so that we cannot hear the small voices - of nature that doubtless many of the wild creatures are capable - of hearing. - - _tiny tree-frog, Pickering's hyla_: the one who peeps so shrill - from the meadows in spring. - - "_skirl_": a Scotch term; see "Tam O'Shanter," by Burns: "He - screwed the pipes and gart them skirl." - - _bunches of Christmas fern_: Gathered all through the winter - here in the ledges about Mullein Hill by the florists for - floral pieces. - -PAGE 85 - - _yellow-jacket's nest_: one of the Vespa Wasps, _Vespa - Germanica_. Read the first chapter of "Wasps Social and - Solitary," by G. W. and E. G. Peckham. - -PAGE 86 - - _long-tusked boar of the forest_: The wild boar, the ancestor of - our domestic pigs is still to be found in the great game - preserves in European forests; in this country only in - zooelogical gardens. - - _live in a pen_: How might one, though living in a big modern - house, well furnished and ordered, still make a "pen" of it - only. - - -CHAPTER XII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Notice again that in the three chapters on things to see and do - and hear a few of the _characteristic_ sights and sounds and - doings have been mentioned. Let the whole teaching of these - three chapters be to quicken the pupil to look for and listen - for the dominant, characteristic sights and sounds of the - season, as he must be trained to look for and listen for the - characteristic notes and actions of individual things--birds, - animals, flowers. If, for instance, his eye catches the - galloping, waving motion of the woodpecker's flight, if his ear - is trained to distinguish the rappings of the same bird on a - hollow limb or resonant rail, then the pupil _knows_ that bird - and has clues to what is strange in his plumage, his anatomy, - his habits, his family traits. - - The world outdoors is all a confusion until we know how to - separate and distinguish things; and there is no better - training for this than to get in the way of looking and - listening for what is characteristic. - - Each locality differs, however, to some extent in its wild - life; so that some of the _sounds_ in this chapter may need to - have others substituted to meet those differences. Remember - that _you_ are the teacher, not the book. The book is but a - suggestion. You begin where it leaves off; you fill out where - it is lacking. A good book is a very good thing; but a good - teacher is a very much better thing. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - Now do not stuff cotton in your ears as soon as you have heard - these ten sounds; or, what amounts to the same thing, do not - stop listening. If you do only what the book says and nothing - else, learn just the day's lesson and nothing more, your teacher - may think you a very "good scholar," but I will tell you that - you are a poor student of nature. The woods are full of - sounds--voices, songs, whisperings--that are to be heard when - none of these ten are speaking. - -PAGES 88 AND 90 - - _hear their piercing whistle: the husky yap, yap, yap of the - fox_: It is usually the young hawks in the fall that whistle, as - it is usually the young foxes in the summer and fall that bark. - -PAGE 91 - - "Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie - dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's - tread." - - "The robin and the wren are flown, but from the shrub the jay, - And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy - day." - - Study this whole poem ("The Death of the Flowers," by Bryant) - for its excellent natural history. Could the poet have written - it had he been ignorant of nature? Can you appreciate it all - unless you, too, have heard these sounds, so that the poem can - sound them again to you as you read? Nature is not only - interesting for herself; but also absolutely necessary for you - to know if you would know and love poetry. - - _the one with a kind of warning in its shrill, half-plaintive - cry; the other with a message slow and solemn_: What is the - warning, would you say, in the scream of the jay? the solemn - message in the caw of the crow? - -PAGE 94 - - _cave days_: Cave days mean those prehistoric times in the - history of man, when he lived in caves and subsisted almost - wholly upon the flesh of wild animals killed with his rude stone - weapons. - -PAGE 95 - - _to the deep tangled jungles of the Amazon_: Some of the birds - go even farther south--away into Patagonia at the end of the - southern hemisphere. There is no more interesting problem, no - more thrilling sight in all nature, than this of the migrating - birds--the little warblers flying from Brazil to Labrador for - the few weeks of summer, there to rear their young and start - back again on the long, perilous journey! - - -CHAPTER XIII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Let the chapter be read aloud by one pupil, with as much feeling - as possible to the paragraph beginning, "I love the sound of the - surf," etc.; for this part is story, action, movement. Do not - try to _teach_ anything in this half. Let some other thoughtful - pupil read the next section as far as, "_Honk, honk, honk_," - beginning the third paragraph from the end. This contains the - lesson, the moral, and if you stop anywhere to talk about - bird-protection, do it here. Let a third pupil read the rest of - the chapter. Better than a moral lesson directly taught (and - such lessons are much like doses of castor oil) will be the - touching of the child's imagination by the picture of the long - night-flight high up in the clouds. Read them "To a Water Fowl," - by Bryant; and also some good account of migration like that by - D. Lange ("The Great Tidal Waves of Bird-Life") in the - _Atlantic_ _Monthly_ for August, 1909. Read to them Audubon's - account of the wild goose, in his "Birds." - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 97 - - _followed through our open windows_: "followed" how? Must one - have wings or a flying-machine in order to "follow" the wild - geese? - - _Round and dim swung the earth below us...._: What is the - picture? It is seen from what point of view? - - _the call to fly, fly, fly_: Did you ever feel the call to fly? - Ever wish you had wings? Ever start and run as Mowgli did, or - long to get up and go somewhere as the pilgrims did in the - Canterbury Tales? - -PAGE 99 - - _in our hands to preserve_: Do you belong to the Audubon - Society, to the "Grange," or to any of the organizations that - are trying to protect and preserve the birds? And are you doing - all you can in your neighborhood to protect them? - -PAGE 100 - - _not in a heap of carcasses, the dead and bloody weight of mere - meat_: We may be hunters by instinct; we may love the chase, and - we may like to kill things. But do you think that means we ought - to, or that we any longer may, kill things? No; bird life has - become so scarce that even if we do want to, it is now our duty - to give over such sport in the larger interests of the whole - country, and try to find a higher, finer kind of pleasure,--as - we can in trying to photograph, or "shoot" with the camera, a - bird, getting an interesting picture in place of a dead body. - -PAGE 101 - - _the mated pairs of the birds have flocked together_: In - domestic geese the mated pairs often live together for life; and - among the wild geese this, doubtless, is often true. - -PAGE 102 - - _may I be awake to hear you_: In what sense "awake"? - - _The wild geese are passing--southward_: the end of the autumn, - the sign that winter is here. - - - The Riverside Press - CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - U . S . 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