t
 
 ONE OF THEM, IN HIS HURRY TO BE IN THE WORLD WITH US, RAN ABOUT AS 
 AS SOON AS HIS LEGS PROTRUDED, CARRYING THE BROKEN SHELL UPON HIS BACK."
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT T. MORRIS 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 
 
 Ube-fmicfeerbocfcer press 
 1896 
 
 HOPKINS'S POND 
 
 AND 
 
 / / 
 
 OTHER SKETCHES
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1896 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT T. MORRIS 
 
 fmicfeerbocfeer press, t\ew
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED FATHER 
 
 LUZON B. MORRIS 
 
 WHO ENJOYED EVERYTHING THAT HIS 
 CHILDREN ENJOYED
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 WHEN these sketches were first 
 published, the author had no 
 more thought of preserving them in book 
 form, than the brown thrush thinks of re- 
 cording the things that he says to his 
 mate from the bending tip-top of a white 
 birch in June. They were penned in 
 spare moments to please the little coterie 
 of friends who gather about my open fire- 
 place in the long winter evenings, where 
 the largest bass fails to escape from the 
 hook, and where the bear makes his most 
 furious onslaught. There was a pleasure 
 also in fixing certain thoughts in definite 
 form so that when fatigued with work and 
 with city surroundings I could turn to an 
 old paper and find that I really had 
 thought of nice things once. 
 
 Then again there was a feeling that the
 
 vj Preface. 
 
 pappus of the pen might float a tiny bit 
 of germ to some barren office desk, where 
 it would spring into fresh memories for 
 some lover of richer fields, who was 
 chained to the desk. 
 
 Many sketches which were published 
 anonymously and in various places have 
 been trimmed out of mind by the sickle of 
 the Reaper, and I do not know where to 
 look for them to-day, but the Editor of 
 Forest and Stream has found in his files 
 a number of contributions that were pub- 
 lished over my name, or over the nom de 
 plume of Mark West, which was adopted 
 from the familiar call of New England 
 sea-shooters. The story from the sandy 
 end of a Connecticut township was pub- 
 lished in The Rider and Driver.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 HOPKINS'S POND .... 
 BONASA UMBELLUS, REX . 
 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE EDDY . 
 WATCHING THE BRANT GROW BIG 
 THE LAIR OF SOMETHING STRIPED 
 
 SUCKER DAYS 
 
 THE EVENING OF AUGUST i, 1895 
 IN THE SANDY END OF A CONNECTICUT 
 TOWNSHIP ...... 
 
 A DAY WITH THE GROUSE .... 
 
 THE NEPIGON AND SAGUENAY RIVERS 
 THE NUMBER NINE AS A TALE VARNISHER, 
 EN KLAPJAGT PAA DANSKE FJELDE . 
 ONE DEER .... . 
 
 A BIT OF GROUSE-HUNTER'S LORE 
 TROUT IN A THUNDER-STORM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 40 
 53 
 7i 
 78 
 89 
 
 118 
 
 128 
 141 
 
 176 
 
 185 
 199
 
 viii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COOT SHOOTING IN NEW ENGLAND . . 204 
 RUFFED GROUSE AMONG THE GRAPE-VINES . 207 
 WING SHOOTING VERSUS GROUND SHOOTING 212 
 MY WHITE VIOLET POETRY . .218 
 
 AN EASTER CROCUS POETRY . .219 
 
 THE EMPTY KENNEL POETRY . .220 
 
 THE OLD-SQUAW POETRY . .224 
 
 WHAT I FOUND IN THE HUNTING-COAT 
 
 POCKET POETRY . . . 226
 
 HOPKINS'S POND 
 AND OTHER SKETCHES
 
 HOPKINS'S POND. 
 
 ECHO hiding up among the rocks 
 quietly reproved the boy who 
 yelled too loudly when he pulled the 
 croaking bullhead out of the warm pond 
 water, and with a low, forbearing voice 
 showed with nice modulation how the 
 sound of joy ought to be made next time. 
 It was a quiet pond, without a single 
 bad trait, excepting that it smelled rather 
 pondy in summer when the water was low, 
 but that is nothing to a boy. Its tran- 
 quillity was in keeping with the tranquil 
 farms that extended part way around it, 
 but it nevertheless had certain subdued 
 sounds of its own, for in the spring the 
 honest toad sat in a leaky bog and trilled 
 a serenade to his love who was largely 
 immersed in the cool water below. Little 
 frogs chuckled and big frogs rumbled in
 
 2 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 bass, while the old mill wheel, which la- 
 bored irregularly, mingled its thumpings 
 with the sound of water plunging over the 
 low wooden dam. Such sounds were very 
 different, though, from the rattle and 
 bang of a noisy engine and the screech of 
 a steam saw that one is in danger of hear- 
 ing nowadays if he is not judicious about 
 his selection of ponds. We never heard 
 anything of that sort about old-fashioned 
 Hopkins's Pond, which was very dear to 
 the heart of the boy, and very dreadful in 
 the mind of his mother, who imagined 
 that its eager depths were always yawning 
 for her dirty little darling, who had safely 
 outgrown the cistern and the well. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it was about as good 
 a pond as one could imagine, though it 
 really was rather deep, down by the flume 
 where the water silently moved under- 
 ground in a slow, portentous current, and 
 the sticks and rusty bait boxes that we 
 boys threw in there disappeared forever. 
 If such things went as completely out of 
 sight in the bonfire in the garden it was 
 a different matter. When the agrostis
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 3 
 
 ghosts and dead leaves had all been raked 
 out from under the currant bushes and 
 piled upon the heap of trimmings from 
 the grapevines and apple trees, a cloud 
 of crackling smoke rolled up into the 
 balmy spring air that was more fitted to 
 receive the bluebird's song, and into the 
 fire we threw various garden rakings : a 
 tail from a wornout buffalo-robe, and a 
 heavy dried paint-pot, a chicken's foot, a 
 recently unearthed spool that little sister 
 begged us to spare for her wagon, a piece 
 of bagging with plaster on it, the remnant 
 of a hoop-skirt, an old tow chignon that 
 the pup had dragged over from the minis- 
 ter's yard, a sole from grandfather's boot, 
 the wooden cover of a Webster's spelling 
 book, a cabbage stalk with roots deeply 
 entwined in a hunk of dirt, a mouldy corn- 
 cob, a rusty screw, and a good new clothes- 
 pin if nobody was looking. We watched 
 the disappearance of these things in the 
 fire with great glee, and there was none of 
 the sober feeling that came over us when 
 the sticks and bait boxes went out of sight 
 in the flume.
 
 4 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 A large part of the pond was spread 
 with lilypads which shaded the reticulated 
 pickerel, and round about the margins 
 amphibious arrow-weeds lifted themselves 
 up high enough to whisper to the com- 
 panionable willows which leaned over the 
 water as far as they dared, and which 
 canopied the nest of the wood-thrush when 
 she pressed her warm spotted breast over 
 the satin-lined blue eggs that held hours 
 and hours of coming song. 
 
 Twittering swallows slid in graceful 
 curves over the surface of the pond, 
 dipped their bills into the water as they 
 flew, circled out over the hayfield and 
 back to the pond again as lightly as mere 
 allusive emblems of flight. Gaudy oper- 
 cled sunfish built round nests in the yel- 
 low sand where the quawk waded with his 
 phosphorescent breast lantern at night, 
 and gauzy winged dragon-flies no heavier 
 than mid-day air balanced upon the tip- 
 piest tips of the sedges. Archippus and 
 argynnis butterflies drifted about over the 
 clustered asclepias on the bank and the 
 colias fleet luffed on the half-dried mud.
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 5 
 
 In the autumn the muskrats built cosy 
 houses of calamus and cattail at the 
 head of the pond, and one could find a 
 raccoon track under the button bushes if 
 he knew just where to pull the branches 
 aside to look for it. Wood-ducks floated 
 among fallen leaves in the shallow cove 
 where sere and brown grasses hung their 
 loads of rich nutritious seeds within easy 
 reach, and sometimes a black duck spent 
 two or three days among the frost-killed 
 weeds on the low islands where splashy 
 waves and autumn rains had made good 
 woodcock ground under the alders. Katy- 
 dids and tree crickets katydided in the 
 venerable and respected maple tree, while 
 the disbanded chorus of hylas piped with 
 solitary voices in the woods which had 
 been littered by a departing season. The 
 old rickety bridge lay slanting upon its 
 abutments. Its beams had been obliged 
 to yield a little in the spring freshet when 
 the ice had jammed against them. The 
 chestnut planking of the bridge was 
 warped, and where horses' feet had punc- 
 tured the rotting boards pine slabs were
 
 6 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 nailed as a provision against accident 
 and unwise expenditure. Hay seed that 
 had sifted down from August loads 
 sprouted in the dust on the girders, and it 
 rattled down into the water when we 
 turned up a plank in order to slyly poke 
 a copper wire noose in front of the un- 
 suspicious white-nosed suckers as they 
 patiently worked from rock to rock along 
 the bottom under the fancied protection 
 of the bridge. 
 
 When winter came over the pond the 
 hemlocks sighed very often, for they loved 
 rivalry with other trees in foliage, and the 
 blue jays went to them to offer sympathy. 
 Green and blue added a bright bit of color 
 to the white landscape and pursuaded the 
 distant winter sky to come nearer. Soft- 
 footed rabbits carelessly left whole rows 
 of rabbit tracks in the snow where black- 
 berry briers offered tempting nipping, and 
 the thick rushes were as full of quail 
 tracks as an egg is full of meat. In the 
 cold, still winter midnight, when the be- 
 lated traveller blew his frosted finger-tips 
 and trudged noiselessly along through the
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 7 
 
 fluffy snow in the lonely pond road, al- 
 lowing superstition to keep one eye on 
 the lookout, the muffled quunk, quunk, 
 quunk, of uncaused ice sounds suddenly 
 admonished him to take longer steps and 
 to get some kind of a door behind him. 
 
 There was nothing mysterious about the 
 pond in the daytime, and it was great fun 
 to kick a stone out of the frozen ground 
 and send it bounding across the ice ; to 
 hear the musical whunk, whenk, whink, 
 ink, inkle, inkle, inkle, inkle, until the 
 stone bounced into the bushes on the 
 further bank. How the ice did ring to 
 the clipping skate strokes when we young- 
 sters, red-mittened and with flying tippet 
 ends, played shinny in the moonlight until 
 the driftwood fire burned low and we real- 
 ized that we had been out three hours 
 later than the time when we had pro- 
 mised to be at home, where our good 
 parents were consoling themselves with 
 the thought that we always had come 
 home previously. No matter how frosty 
 the night, or how keenly the wind blew, 
 we knew nothing of that while the fun
 
 8 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 lasted, but it began to feel chilly when 
 Susie had chosen to go home with Dave, 
 and it became shivery when Ed had been 
 accepted as escort for Nellie. Pretty 
 brown-eyed Nellie with warm home- 
 knitted woollen stockings and glowing 
 cheeks, her mirthful eyes shining out 
 through a loosened lock of dark hair 
 under her fur-lined hood. We knew that 
 Ed would bashfully steal a cold-nosed, 
 hurried kiss at the gate, and that Nellie 
 would hit him with her skates, but not 
 very hard not as hard as we would have 
 done it. We knew what would happen 
 because Ed had looked sheepish for a 
 whole week after he had gone home with 
 Nellie the last time, but we told each 
 other that we did n't care if Nellie did 
 like Ed the best. We did n't care a 
 darn bit, 'cos he wa'n't nobody nohow. 
 Could n't set rabbit twitch-ups, nor snare 
 suckers, nor play mibs for fair, and he only 
 knew 'rithmetic and school things. A 
 feller like that wa'n't no good and nobody 
 'ceptin' the teacher and Nellie liked him. 
 How little did we realize in those early
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 9 
 
 days that there was something green-eyed 
 as well as something brown-eyed out for 
 an outing when the weather was right ; 
 but boys who are supposed to have no 
 troubles at all are all full of them, because 
 they have the emotions of older folks with- 
 out the training to discover the locality 
 of a thorn. Many are their troubles which 
 make a lasting impression through life. 
 
 One of us boys was so enthusiastic 
 about trapping muskrats that he got up at 
 four o'clock every morning all through the 
 winter and tramped miles along the streams 
 before breakfast, watching the habits of 
 the warmer-coated denizens of the brook, 
 hunting for their holes under the banks 
 and the paths where they came up into 
 the meadow for grass. A heap of unio 
 shells had for him a meaning. A burrow 
 under the snow to a certain apple tree 
 showed which frozen apples the muskrats 
 liked best. A soggy, decayed log in the 
 water always carried a definite evidence 
 of their fondness for that spot, and the 
 boy knew that his trap would be sprung 
 and the sweet apple pulled from its stick
 
 io Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 when he went to that log in the morning. 
 The boy's interest and labor were well re- 
 warded, and he caught more muskrats 
 than any of the other boys who went to 
 their traps when it was convenient and 
 who did not set them in very good places 
 anyway. It was a matter of so much 
 pride to the boy to be successful that 
 he told all of the other boys about his 
 luck, and expected that they would pat 
 him on the back and sing his praises as a 
 famous hunter ; but, ah ! how much more 
 had he learned about muskrats than about 
 human nature. The other boys simply 
 would not believe at first that he had such 
 luck as he described, but he made them 
 believe it by taking them out to the barn 
 and showing them the skins carefully 
 stretched upon shingles with flat tails all 
 in a row. Did that end the difficulty ? 
 No indeed ! The other boys straightway 
 got ugly about it and said that if he had 
 such luck as that he must have taken the 
 muskrats out of their traps, and they told 
 Nellie and Susie what they thought about 
 it. Nellie and Susie responded with that
 
 Hopkins's Pond. n 
 
 sympathy which is the sweetest of femi- 
 nine characteristics, and promptly sided 
 with the injured ones. Such was the boy's 
 first experience in competing for gains ; 
 but in later life he found that whenever 
 perseverance and work made him suc- 
 cessful over others who were less inter- 
 ested than he they at first refused to 
 believe, and when forced to believe de- 
 cided that he must have employed unfair 
 means. 
 
 The boy was very much grieved at the 
 attitude of his companions, whose esteem 
 and good-fellowship were more to him 
 than the muskrat skins or the powder and 
 shot that they would buy. The problem 
 at one time seemed to end at nothing 
 short of his giving up the profitable trap- 
 ping and letting the other boys do it all ; 
 but finally he hit upon the plan of telling 
 them of his best tricks, and showing them 
 the good trapping places that he had dis- 
 covered at times when they were com- 
 fortably snoozing in bed. That eased the 
 strained relations somewhat, but as the 
 best luck, unfortunately, continued to pur-
 
 12 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 sue the boy, his companions persisted in 
 showing their disapproval. Innocently 
 looking for praise, knowing that he had 
 earned it, there was not only no praise 
 forthcoming, but actual antagonism. 
 
 One day while lying upon the ground 
 by the dam, listening to the roar of the 
 water and thinking of the ways of differ- 
 ent animals, like a flash the thought came 
 to the boy that this antagonism on the 
 part of the other fellows was just simply 
 one of the habits of the boy animal. All 
 at once it was just as clear to him as were 
 the habits of the woodchucks and of the 
 partridges, and he remembered that the 
 perspicuousness of their leading traits had 
 been as unexpectedly revealed to him. So 
 firmly did this thought seize the boy that 
 he did not go home to dinner or to sup- 
 per, but lay there in the grass by the dam 
 and formulated an hypothesis which to this 
 day has made him happy and contented, 
 even though successful in life. That hy- 
 pothesis assumed that if one made the 
 habits of antagonists a matter of interest 
 from a natural history standpoint, there
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 13 
 
 would be no necessity for defence or re- 
 venge, and all /)f the energy that would 
 otherwise be diverted into such channels 
 could be utilized for accomplishing some- 
 thing of real importance. One would 
 expect of course to defend principles, but 
 separately from self. Under the hypothe- 
 sis there was no need to care for either 
 praise or blame, and one could laugh up 
 his sleeve and watch unmerited praise and 
 unwarranted blame striking a balance with 
 each other while he was engaged in doing 
 something useful. 
 
 The more disagreeable a person was, 
 the more interesting he became as a speci- 
 men, but the most beautiful feature of the 
 hypothesis was the ability which it gave 
 one to forgive his worst enemies for any- 
 thing at any time and to find that insults 
 could neither be given nor received. 
 
 If it had not been for the muskrat 
 crisis, which took place at Hopkins's 
 Pond, the boy might to this day be wast- 
 ing energy in complicated strife instead of 
 enjoying comfort and pleasure while work- 
 ing for himself and for others. The boy
 
 H Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 lives a long way from the pond now, and 
 his hair is grayer than it was in muskrat 
 days, but it is a pleasure when visiting the 
 old homestead to go over to the pond and 
 hunt for the heaps of unio shells and the 
 burrows under the bank, Ed and Nellie 
 are married and have sons and daughters 
 of their own, and he as a man of wide re- 
 nown has proven that fraudulent estimates 
 were furnished to us boys by the green- 
 eyed dealer in the game of life. Dave and 
 Susie drifted away from each other when 
 Dave went off to college, and while his 
 tastes were ascending, hers remained sta- 
 tionary, so that after a few years they were 
 not companions for each other at all. She 
 as a household drudge is very different 
 from the happy Susie whose skates rang 
 merrily with ours on the black ice under 
 the winter stars. Joe and Pete, who failed 
 to do much with the muskrats and who 
 were ugly about it, have failed to get up 
 early in any of their undertakings, and 
 they often go for aid to the boy who tried 
 to show them how to succeed in former 
 days, but it is of no use. They still grum-
 
 Hopkins's Pond. 15 
 
 ble and complain of their lot, and are ever 
 ready to impugn the motives and the 
 methods of any man who is prosperous. 
 Jerry, who was about the dullest boy in 
 school, went West, and has made a for- 
 tune in railroads, so that it seems as though 
 almost anybody could do that ; but Henry, 
 who was one of the very best scholars, is 
 an extremely respectable clerk in Jerry's 
 employ, and he has never as yet perceived 
 opportunity standing out in as bold relief 
 as a fly in the milk. Tom was drowned 
 at sea, and no one seems to know what 
 has become of George. Everything has 
 changed excepting Hopkins's Pond, but 
 to-day the water pours over the dam as 
 of old, and the cricket's sharp chirp finds 
 its way through the duller sound. The 
 muskrat makes a rippling wake in the 
 moonlight, but I do not know whose boy 
 eagerly marks its course now. Pickerel 
 still suspend themselves under the lily- 
 pads, and a bullhead will pull any one's 
 cork 'way down under water on almost any 
 warm, misty evening. The pond that once 
 entered so much into the boys' life is now
 
 16 Hopkins's Pond. 
 
 entering into the lives of a new genera- 
 tion of boys. 
 
 One day recently Echo, up among the 
 rocks, was heard protesting more loudly 
 than ever before, and soon a coaching 
 party of sightseers with four bang-tailed 
 horses and a brazen horn came rolling 
 along the road. One of the ladies touched 
 a gentleman on the arm and said, "There 
 is a pond." The gentleman answered, 
 "Yes." And the coach rolled on. 
 
 That was all that it meant to them, for 
 they were sightseers.
 
 BONASA UMBELLUS, REX. 
 
 KING by courtesy of all game birds 
 and subject to no authority what- 
 soever is the proud ruffed grouse of our 
 North American forest. 
 
 Named by Linnseus after the wild ox, 
 bonasus, for his roaring, and specified as 
 umbellus because of the arrangement of 
 neck ornaments, he has received down 
 through cyclefuls of generations a strength 
 and beauty undegenerate. From the pines 
 and hemlocks of the ravine he inhales the 
 spirit and the energy of his moods. The 
 wintergreens and birches furnishing pro- 
 vender, give spicy life to his nerves and 
 muscles. From the crags he adopts the 
 suggestion of ruggedness, and from the 
 winter gale cons music for his symphony 
 by wings. The crash of the falling dead 
 tree involves an idea of death, and by op- 
 
 17
 
 1 8 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 posites he rushes upward with startling 
 roar to liberty and life when found by the 
 hunter. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A GROUSE FAMILY. 
 
 Through a small south-facing valley in 
 western New York there runs a spring 
 trout brook. Several years ago the chop- 
 pers cleared off the arm of woodland that 
 extended from the main forest up along 
 the stream, and then the swale was quite 
 barren except for the crooked alders that 
 had not been worth cutting, and for the 
 fire-weeds that always come to the tempo- 
 rary assistance of newly cleared land. 
 
 Gradually the sheep and cattle began 
 to find pasturage there, and two or three 
 years later clumps of beech and poplar 
 saplings sprang up. Patches of briers then 
 crowded out the sparse grass, and here 
 and there a thrifty green hemlock arose 
 near the stump of its deposed ancestor, 
 so that the barren ground that had be- 
 
 o 
 
 come pasture land was transformed into a 
 brush lot.
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 19 
 
 One Sunday morning in May the sun 
 shone warmly in upon the budding sap- 
 lings of the swale. The naiads of the 
 brook murmured with hushed voices and 
 the trailing arbutus which overhung the 
 bank gave out a rarer fragrance than it 
 would have done on any rude week day. 
 Hardly a sound was heard save the 
 wandering tones of the church bell in the 
 
 o 
 
 far-off village, and the only appreciable 
 motion of the air was in the gentle breaths 
 that rise almost imperceptibly from the 
 warming soil of quiet glades. 
 
 With almost noiseless footsteps a de- 
 mure hen grouse walked from the edge of 
 
 O O 
 
 the thick moist woods and stopped for a 
 moment a little way out in the brush lot. 
 Again she went on and again paused, 
 looked about her and listened, with one 
 foot daintily lifted from the ground. 
 Thus by degrees she advanced out among 
 the saplings, her head gracefully moving 
 back and forth in unison with her foot- 
 steps and the pretty brown neck feathers 
 gliding so softly over each other that they 
 seemed like one warp and woof of silk.
 
 2O Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 Stepping upon the gnarled root of a rough 
 lichen-covered stump she glanced over 
 her own smooth outlines and the bright 
 hazel eye looked the satisfaction of the 
 comparison, but yet she could not resist 
 the feminine impulse to rearrange several 
 feathers that were already perfectly in 
 place. 
 
 All at once she gave a start, and with 
 upstretched neck and elevated crest as- 
 sumed an attitude of strictest attention, 
 for from a distant point in the forest there 
 had come to her ears a low sound like 
 muffled drum-beats, the strokes first slow, 
 then faster, and ending finally in a long 
 tattoo. 
 
 Poised upon the root with partly opened 
 wings, she seemed almost ready to fly in 
 the direction from which the sound came, 
 but suddenly remembering herself, the 
 wings were closed again and her head 
 dropped bashfully until the echoless drum- 
 beat once more sounded through the 
 woods. It was the love call of Old Iron- 
 sides, a noble cock grouse that we had so 
 named because of his seeming impenetra-
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 21 
 
 bility to the shot that had been fired at 
 him time and again in the lower ravine 
 where he chose to spend most of his 
 time. Day after day the hen grouse had 
 listened for that call, knowing that Old 
 Ironsides would come in the spring-time 
 to find her. And now should she fly 
 impetuously to him and let him know her 
 impatience at his delay ? Oh, no ! The 
 annals of feminine nature contain no his- 
 tory of such rash action, so taking an 
 easy running jump into the air she flew 
 very quietly among the trunks of the big 
 trees of the woods, and then on curving 
 wings sailed slowly near the ground to a 
 point somewhere in his vicinity, and 
 alighting, waited for further summons. 
 The roll call sounded again, and she the 
 only musterer walked half hesitatingly in 
 the direction from which it came, sliding 
 quietly as a mouse behind boulders and 
 thick kalmia bushes, and looking as un- 
 concerned as you please. 
 
 At last he was in sight. High upon 
 the prostrate trunk of a huge storm-riven 
 pine he was pacing slowly to and fro with
 
 22 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 martial bearing, his proud crest raised, his 
 broad tail partially spread, and all his 
 feathers glinting in the lights of the 
 woods. 
 
 The hen grouse was not many rods 
 away, gliding stealthily from one hiding 
 place to another, hoping that he would 
 discover her and yet not daring to lose 
 any of her reserve. How she did want 
 to pull his black ruffs though, and strike 
 him petulantly with her bill and pretend 
 to be real angry at him for rough play ! 
 
 For a moment Old Ironsides stopped 
 his incessant pacing, glanced into the 
 thicket on one side and on the other, and 
 then his sturdy wings were struck repeat- 
 edly against his sides, sending forth the 
 long vibrations of a tone so low that it 
 seemed to roll along the ground rather 
 than penetrate the upper air, but with 
 such initial velocity, nevertheless, that it 
 rolled half a mile out of the woods before 
 losing itself in the grassy fields. How 
 grand the old warrior looked to the hen 
 grouse. But what if he should become 
 impatient and fly elsewhere to seek her
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 23 
 
 and not return for a long week ? No one 
 will ever know whether she purposely 
 stepped upon the small dead stick that 
 snapped and revealed her presence just 
 then, but who is prepared to deny a motive 
 for the seemingly accidental movement 
 of a dumb animal on such an occasion. 
 
 She was discovered and he was by her 
 side. Coyly she stepped away from him, 
 and then to gain further admiration, 
 which was all unnecessary, he spread his 
 great barred tail widely over his back, un- 
 folded the iridescent black ruffs until they 
 concealed his shoulders, dropped his 
 curved wing-tips to the ground, elevated 
 his pointed crest, and with curved neck cir- 
 cled and pirouetted about her, nodding 
 his head, fixing his strong, bold eye upon 
 her modest one, and stepping in front of 
 her to head off retreat, in such an exas- 
 perating way that it seemed as though she 
 certainly would scream. 
 
 He would not have made any such pre- 
 tentious movements if other cock grouse 
 had been about to criticise him, and how 
 the other hen grouse would have been
 
 24 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 amused at her assumption of simplicity 
 and gentleness. She who was the boldest 
 of all when associating with others of her 
 own sex, and who could roar as loudly 
 with her wings as any cock grouse when 
 trying to unnerve an enemy. 
 
 But who could doubt that all of this 
 display on his part meant that he was 
 assuring her that he would be, oh, so true 
 and loyal forever and forever ? She be- 
 lieved in him most sincerely, and loving 
 and respecting tried hard to avoid being 
 annoyed at his overplus of attention. 
 
 It was not long afterward, however, 
 that he acted in a rather independent 
 manner and took little interest in family 
 affairs, so that when in June there was a 
 nest of ten eggs by the side of a clematis- 
 covered stump out at the edge of the 
 brush lot, Old Ironsides was either drum- 
 ming again in another woods altogether, 
 or he was associating with two or three 
 chummy reprobates of his own sex during 
 the livelong day. 
 
 The hen grouse took great comfort 
 with her eggs, though. Six of them were
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 25 
 
 plain buff-colored, and four of them were 
 marked with light-brown spots, and all 
 were smooth and snug-fitting in the nest. 
 Around about the nest she scratched some 
 dry, loose beech leaves which could be 
 whisked over the eggs in an instant with 
 one movement of her wings in event of 
 surprise by a marauder, and then, being 
 almost of the color of dead leaves herself, 
 she could hardly be seen when she snug- 
 gled cosily down over the eggs and drew 
 her head in closely. It seems too bad to 
 think that after all this pains the mother 
 bird might be discovered in her hiding 
 place, alone and unprotected as she was. 
 One evening a red fox trotted past, and 
 when near the nest he stopped and sniffed 
 the air, twisting the sharp tip of his nose 
 from one side to the other, and alternately 
 spreading and closing his whiskers, but he 
 could not quite locate the gentle prey, 
 and his attention was finally attracted 
 elsewhere by a little squeaking evening 
 mouse that had fallen from the soft cedar 
 bark nest in the wild grapevine near by. 
 The noiseless swoop of a great ogre-
 
 26 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 eyed horned-owl gave the mother grouse 
 a cruel heart-thumping one moonlight 
 night just as she had almost dared to take 
 a little nap ; but the owl had dived for a 
 gray rabbit, and did not suspect that a 
 grouse was within easy reach. Why it 
 was that the minks and skunks and 
 weasels and raccoons and box turtles and 
 black snakes did not find the nest is a 
 mystery ; but there is some strange pro- 
 tection afforded by nature for ground- 
 nesting birds. Perhaps there is a certain 
 sense of honor among predaceous animals. 
 Hounds are disinclined to chase a nursing 
 she-fox, and it may be that minks know 
 better than to destroy the eggs that make 
 the golden geese, although we do know 
 that they are sometimes absent-minded in 
 their morals. The only enemy that found 
 the nest after all was a farmer's boy, and 
 he did it quite accidently by stepping so 
 near the old bird on his way home from 
 the trout brook that she was forced to fly 
 out. The boy's first impulse was to leave 
 the eggs undisturbed except for the turn- 
 ing that was absolutely necessary for an
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 27 
 
 accurate count, but suddenly remember- 
 ing that there was a "settin* hen " under 
 the old wagon in the woodshed at home, 
 he smiled a salute of thanks to his mem- 
 ory, and with well-meaning but rather 
 thick-fingered caution that would have 
 made most of us a little nervous if they 
 had been our eggs, he rolled up two of 
 the precious oval treasures in a youthful 
 fisherman's Saturday afternoon handker- 
 chief, and tucking them carefully away in 
 a side pocket trudged rather unsteadily 
 over the stones as his mind became occu- 
 pied with the thought of having two live 
 grouse at home that would respond to his 
 kindly efforts to tame them. At intervals 
 he regretted that he had not taken two 
 more of the eggs ; but his conscience was 
 quieter at knowing that the mother bird 
 could bear two pangs more easily than 
 four when she returned to the nest again. 
 For eighteen long days the mother 
 grouse had been sitting, and she anxiously 
 awaited the welcome sound of a little one 
 tapping at the shell for release. While 
 she had been waiting the blood-roots and
 
 28 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 dog-tooth violets had dropped their petals, 
 the white cornel flowers had turned to a 
 feeble fading pink, the hepaticas and 
 anemones become dingy, and in their 
 places the azaleas and trilliums came out 
 in full sponsal array. The ferns, which 
 fought their way through the resisting 
 cold ground with clenched fists, had now 
 unfolded a generous wealth of fronds 
 under the influence of a spring-time sun 
 which brought harmony for all nature with 
 its presence. 
 
 The patient bird had seen the hosts of 
 warblers proceed bush by bush and tree 
 by tree from the southland toward the 
 northland, and it was time for her brood 
 to appear. When at last she heard a 
 faint tip-tapping and saw a movement 
 through a long crack in one egg, it was 
 not long before the gentle aid of her 
 bill had released a cunning little yellow 
 and brown head. Then a small strug- 
 gling wing appeared, and out tumbled a 
 dear, downy chick of a grouse. One after 
 another the eight young birds escaped, 
 and one of them in his hurry to be in the
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. $9 
 
 world with us ran around as soon as his 
 legs protruded ; and comical enough he 
 looked with the broken shell clinging to 
 his back. 
 
 At about this time the old Brahma 
 hen over at the farmhouse found under 
 her feathers two chickens that were 
 smaller than any that she had ever seen 
 before, and they were ahead of any cal- 
 culations that she may have made as 
 to time ; but she felt fully responsible for 
 them, nevertheless, and was disturbed be- 
 cause they ran away from her sheltering 
 wings and only returned to her most per- 
 sistent clucking. The boy, who had been 
 attracted by the solicitous calls of the hen, 
 caught one of the agile scampering balls 
 of down in his hand and held it up to ad- 
 mire the bright eyes and tiny bill that were 
 thrust through between his fingers ; but the 
 little feet clutched his fingers so tightly, 
 and the small heart throbbed so fast, that 
 in pity he put the grouse chicken quickly 
 down by the old Brahma hen again. 
 What transformation a little warmth had 
 wrought in the cold senseless yolk and
 
 3 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 white of the egg of a few days before, 
 changing it into a beautiful warm little 
 creature endowed with hopes, and fears, 
 and longings, and knowing its friends 
 from its enemies. 
 
 But what strange instinct was it that 
 kept leading these two babes of the wood 
 away from the motherly barnyard hen ? 
 What did they seek so persistently ? 
 Scarce an hour had elapsed since their 
 escape from the shell, and they had wan- 
 dered out of hearing of the good foster 
 mother to seek a wild mother who would 
 train their wild little natures in full sym- 
 pathy and understanding. Down into 
 the garden they ran, then out across the 
 lane and into the grass in the meadow. 
 Whither they were going they knew not, 
 but go they must. They were hungry, 
 but there was no mother to teach them to 
 eat, and thirsty without knowing what 
 water was. All day long they ran through 
 the grass and under the rail fences first 
 brother ahead, then sister the strange 
 impulse urging their tiny pattering feet 
 ahead as fast as they could go. It
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 31 
 
 was chilly in the evening and their soft 
 down was all wet and bedraggled with 
 dew, and when it became too dark for 
 them to see the way, they stopped by a 
 sheltering stone and snuggled up close to 
 each other with plaintive peeps ; but they 
 were too tired to sleep and every now and 
 then the drooping eyelids opened with a 
 start and the chicks pushed closer still to 
 each other and lisped their longings for a 
 mother's warm feathers. On the follow- 
 ing morning they could not run nearly so 
 fast, and very often they stumbled and 
 fell over the sticks and weed stalks that 
 seemed to them to offer more and more 
 opposition. The pretty down was rough- 
 ened so that it stuck together every which 
 way, and all forlorn they were indeed. If 
 one lagged far behind or chirped patheti- 
 cally when caught in a tangle of grass the 
 other would toddle back and wait, for 
 even such mites of birds felt the desire 
 for companionship in misery. Every few 
 minutes they had to stop and rest, and 
 again on they would struggle, but with 
 such weak, uncertain steps that it was
 
 32 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 evident that their trifling energies were 
 almost expended long before the cold dew 
 had again soaked and chilled them. They 
 were not so very far from the brush lot 
 where their real mother was, but that night 
 when the two tender little wanderers tried 
 to comfort each other there was not a bit 
 of warmth for them to exchange and they 
 shivered and trembled so that they could 
 not have kept very close together anyway. 
 The morning sun looked down upon two 
 wee wet grouse babies lying side by side 
 in the field. Their eyes were closed, 
 their yearnings had all ceased, and no one 
 would have distinguished them from the 
 quartz stones of the field. Such a short 
 experience with life ! 
 
 All of this while the mother grouse was 
 having care enough with her brood of 
 eight, even if two were missing. They 
 would eat nothing but insects, and it kept 
 the old bird pretty busy scratching over 
 the leaves to find enough for them. In 
 one corner of the brush lot there was a 
 large red-ants' nest, and there the chickens 
 had great fun when they had grown to
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 33 
 
 be nimble of foot. The mother would 
 scratch away a part of the loose heap of 
 soil, and then when the ants bustled out, 
 some devoted to angry passions and others 
 hurrying to carry off the long white eggs 
 that had been exposed, the little chickens 
 became so expert at snapping them up 
 that in the conceit born of successful ex- 
 perience they even chased a fly in the 
 absurd expectation of catching it, and 
 the fly was so much surprised at their 
 assurance that it allowed itself to be 
 caught, for such is often the relation of 
 ambition to seeming impossibilities. One 
 needs only to be stupid enough to obtain 
 everything. 
 
 The young birds grew rapidly and be- 
 came experts at avoiding their natural 
 enemies. If a sharp-shinned hawk flew 
 over, the mother gave a warning note, 
 and instantly each chick dropped so flat 
 against the ground that it was impossible 
 for the very best eyes to see one of them. 
 When the farmer's boy again had occasion 
 to cross the brush lot the hen bird had 
 advised the chickens to hide long before
 
 34 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 he came near them, for even if he had 
 not cared to disturb the little ones, such a 
 boy may accidentally tread directly upon 
 angels if he does not see them, and to 
 lead him away the mother fluttered and 
 limped along the ground, pretending to be 
 lame and unable to fly. The boy knew 
 well this trick of the bird, but she pre- 
 tended to be so really in distress this time 
 that he floundered after her through the 
 briers. When he was far enough away, 
 however, she took to her wings as usual, 
 and circled by a long route back to the 
 brood again. One cluck was sufficient to 
 cause the ground to spring into life about 
 her, and the chickens were all safe. 
 
 A hooded adder that was sunning him- 
 self in the dry sheep-path one day sudden- 
 ly awoke and found a chicken quite near 
 him, and although the little thing was too 
 much frightened to run very fast it never- 
 theless got out of the dangerous vicinity 
 in time, and the adder had to console him- 
 self with a fat cricket. What luck for the 
 chicken that it was a slow adder instead 
 of a black racer, for the latter would have
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 35 
 
 followed it at any necessary rate of speed, 
 and after mesmerizing it by the cruel 
 charming of cross glides and super-am- 
 bient head and fulgurating tongue, would 
 finally have ended the vicious play by 
 creeping an ugly gullet over the soft 
 prey. 
 
 There was one enemy, though, that 
 came so insidiously that the mother gave 
 no warning note, and it would have availed 
 nothing if she had done so. A great harm- 
 less blue heron had just sagged along over 
 the brook in awkward flight, when from 
 his wake came a winged tick, the dreadful 
 lipoptena, buzzing in eccentric lines until 
 he espied the grouse. With devilish 
 precision of aim the uncanny harpy of a 
 thing struck the soft feathers of her back 
 and disappeared among them with an 
 eerie sidewise glide. The very thought 
 of harboring such a parasite was enough 
 to make the grouse shudder, but she 
 feared more for the little ones than for 
 herself. Follow the tick as she would 
 with her bill when a wriggling feather dis- 
 closed its locality she could not find the
 
 36 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 
 
 horrible thing, until at evening, when the 
 chicks were gathered about her it huskily 
 buzzed from her breast. She caught it 
 quickly, but could not swallow it for the 
 tough elastic legs had encircled the edge 
 of her bill, nor could she crush it because 
 the leathery body expanded in any direc- 
 tion when she brought all her strength to 
 bear upon it. Finally the foul tick in the 
 most unconcerned manner deliberately 
 crawled from her bill and with its fiendish 
 directness struck the neck of one of the 
 handsomest of the brood and fastened it- 
 self there firmly in the intention of remain- 
 ing in spite of all remonstrance. On the 
 following day the tick, swelling with the 
 life blood of the chicken, discarded its wings 
 as an evidence of determination to remain, 
 and a few days later it gave birth to a single 
 offspring, full- winged and ready for attack. 
 The young imp fastened itself to the 
 chicken's neck close by its parent, and no 
 matter how hard the mother grouse pulled 
 at them she only succeeded in stretching 
 out their rubber-like bodies and in pulling 
 her little chick off from his feet. Day by
 
 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 37 
 
 day the poor chick grew thinner and 
 scrawnier, while his sturdy brothers and 
 sisters went steadily along in development, 
 and the brood would soon have numbered 
 only seven had not the mother bird fortu- 
 nately led them far into the dank, cool 
 swamp on one torrid day, where much to 
 their delight was found a patch of skunk 
 cabbage with its heavy fruit. How the 
 mother did enjoy tearing open the green 
 fleshy balls for the seeds, and the little 
 fellows feasted upon the pulp like veritable 
 gluttons, not knowing that at the same 
 time the life of the invalid in their family 
 was to be saved. The pungent aroma 
 had only just begun to circulate through 
 their veins when the young tick loosed his 
 death-like grip and buzzed from one 
 chicken to another, trying to find one that 
 was agreeable, but they were all alike and 
 so it sidled up to a passing rabbit and 
 there found lodgment. In a few days it 
 had discarded its wings and then there 
 was no danger of its troubling the young 
 grouse again. The old tick had tumbled 
 off overpowered at the same time that the
 
 38 Bonasa Umbelles, Rex. 
 
 young one flew, and that night she was 
 picked up on the sticky end of a toad's 
 long tongue and successfully swallowed. 
 Glory be to the toad ! 
 
 In July the chickens began to feast upon 
 huckleberries, and when the August black- 
 berries were ripe they ate so many and 
 grew so fast that it soon became time for 
 them to throw off their short suits of soft 
 brownish chicken feathers and to take on 
 the finer colors and stout quills of real 
 grouse. With their change in dress came 
 a change in tastes, so that they no longer 
 cared for insects, but sought instead the 
 ripened seeds and berries and tender 
 leaves, unconscious of the fact that the 
 shooting season was near at hand and that 
 such diet was making them perilously fat 
 and luscious. 
 
 As their wings became stronger and 
 their tails grew longer, pride began to ap- 
 pear in different members of the family 
 and quarrels were frequent among the 
 youngsters. They were disobedient, and 
 stayed away from home at night when- 
 ever it pleased them to do so. The mother
 
 Bonasa Umbelles, Rex. 39 
 
 grouse was not much disturbed at this de- 
 monstration of independence, for she knew 
 that she had raised a brood of the wildest 
 birds of the forest, and now in September 
 she was willing to leave them to their own 
 resources, satisfied that she had trained 
 them all properly in ways of self-protec- 
 tion.
 
 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE 
 EDDY. 
 
 GRAPEVINES and moonseeds and 
 Virginia creepers tangle their 
 branches together over the prostrate form 
 of the old lichen-covered mill. The 
 thump and rumble of the soggy wheel 
 have not been heard in the quiet little 
 valley for many a year, and the water 
 splashes over the drippy alga-decked shaft 
 and through the holes in the dam, throw- 
 ing clouds of cooling spray into the warm 
 sunshine. 
 
 Collecting its scattered forces the 
 stream bounds off among the rocks, 
 slides under the ferns, and tarries for an 
 eddy at the bend where the scraggy hem- 
 lock leans, giving the flecks of foam time 
 to circle about in the shade before they 
 are whirled away down stream again. 
 4 o
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 4 1 
 
 Deeply sunken beneath the hemlock's 
 gnarled root is a shelving drift boulder of 
 gneiss, and under the shelf a big trout has 
 lived for many seasons. His colors are 
 dark, his protruding under-jaw is hooked, 
 his eye is fierce, and his manner is aggres- 
 sive. No other living thing of his size OF 
 less would dare claim a share of the eddy. 
 The beautiful despot has caught every 
 baby trout that ventured so far up or 
 down stream this year, and rumor has it 
 that he swallowed one of his best children 
 at a single gulp. The timid little dace 
 hide behind the stones in shallow water 
 and make eyes at him, but one by one he 
 takes them to his bosom and shows them 
 the folly of their ways. When a miller 
 balances on the tip of a waving fern frond 
 near the brink, the old trout throws water 
 at it with his tail and then whirls it under, 
 leaving a single white wing to float off 
 down stream and make the other trouts 
 mouths water. That shows his disposi- 
 tion. 
 
 The hemlock has stood on the bank for 
 a couple of centuries and the trout has
 
 4 2 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 lived under it for a decade, but I have no 
 dates for the boulder and the stream. 
 
 When the winter storm fills the 
 branches with snow and cold winds moan 
 as they roam through the forest, the eddy 
 is covered with ice, but down at the edge 
 of the boulder the big trout tucks the dark 
 water snugly about him, slowly waves his 
 broad tail back and forth, passes an oc- 
 casional glassful of water through his gills, 
 and cares nothing for the storm and the 
 cold, but in quiet contemplation looks for- 
 ward with pleasure to the sins of a new 
 season. If the little white-footed mouse 
 hops trembling across the ice, the trout is 
 sorry he cannot take her down into his 
 comfortable home, but there is a coldness 
 between the trout and the mouse that he 
 loves, and little does the mouse suspect 
 that the bump which she felt on the ice 
 under her feet was made by the nose of 
 one that would fain approach nearer. 
 
 When the birds come back in the spring 
 and the blue-bird, nestling in the sunny 
 top of the hemlock, softly carols a love 
 song about Bermuda, the black and white
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 43 
 
 warbler breaks the brown monotony of 
 the rough bark as he glides up, down and 
 around it, and the aromatic fragrance of 
 the hemlock mingles with the gentler odor 
 of red maples and anemones and new 
 moss, the trout still spends his days near 
 the shelf of the boulder and watches for 
 the flies that the phcebe bird misses. 
 When he plunges out after them the timid 
 rabbit hops convulsively backward and 
 opens his great wondering eyes more 
 widely than ever, and the red squirrel 
 scurries up the hemlock trunk, scolding 
 and jerking his tail to give emphasis to 
 his remarks ; but nothing can the rabbit 
 and the squirrel see except a few circling 
 ripples chasing each other ashore. 
 
 When the summer days come, the 
 cicada sounds his shrill call from the dead 
 limb overhead, the noise of clinking 
 scythes is borne from the hay-field to the 
 woods, and the hot breath of the brakes 
 almost smothers the asters on the bank as 
 they look longingly at their cool reflec- 
 tions in the brook. The surroundings 
 have changed, but the trout lies deep
 
 44 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 down in his favorite place. If a cow 
 wades into the eddy for a drink he does 
 not care. If a clap of thunder makes the 
 ground tremble, he is only a little bit un- 
 easy ; but there is one sound that puts 
 him on the alert for danger. He does 
 not often hear a fisherman's step, it is 
 true, but he associates a few startling 
 events with that sound. The stony New 
 England soil cannot compete with the 
 fertile Western lands ; the farmers' boys 
 have gone off to the cities, and the few 
 elderly people who remain care a good 
 deal more for 'lection and meetin' than 
 they do for fishing. But sometimes per- 
 sons who were once boys go back to the 
 old homesteads during the hot summer 
 days, and these old boys have not forgot- 
 ten the brook nor the trout that they 
 used to string on a forked willow stick, 
 as slippery as it was yellow. The big 
 trout has not had experience with so very 
 many hooks, but perhaps once a year for 
 the last ten years he has had a misunder- 
 standing with a fisherman, and ten lasting 
 impressions have been made on his memory.
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 45 
 
 For eleven months and one week in 
 every year the hemlock, the boulder, the 
 eddy, and the trout are inseparable ; but 
 when in the late September days the squeal- 
 ing wood-duck paddles among the float- 
 ing dead leaves with his pretty red feet, 
 and the muskrat with thickening fur dives 
 under the boulder in search of a winter 
 home, the trout has departed. 
 
 Then it is that one can hear inquiring 
 voices among the brook sounds if he will 
 sit quietly and not disturb the nymphs. 
 Under the hemlock's roots the voices are 
 low and congratulatory. The nymphs 
 there know the old rascal too well to wish 
 him back again, but they seem afraid 
 to speak much above a whisper, and they 
 hardly dare inquire for news among their 
 neighbors in the rocks ; but every now 
 and then a sprightly voice from up stream 
 or from down stream will call impatiently 
 for an answer from the eddy. An up- 
 stream sprite asks if a mink has caught the 
 trout, and softly comes an answer, saying 
 that the trout has learned by experience 
 to lie so near the bottom that a mink can-
 
 46 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 not seize him from below, and he certainly 
 could not be caught fairly. " How about 
 the water snakes ? " asks another ; and 
 the reply, " He is too large for them to 
 fight," comes back in a moment. " Has a 
 snapping-turtle caught him ? " is asked ; 
 but a dozen replies at once say that no 
 snapping-turtle has passed along the 
 stream for a year and a half. "Has a 
 fisherman got him ? " asks one ; and such 
 a chuckling and laughing comes from all 
 sides that one is quickly convinced that 
 the fisherman is the least dangerous of 
 the four enemies of the trout. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that in the 
 fall the old trout's fancy lightly turns to 
 thoughts of love, and in this connection I 
 might as well say that of late years he has 
 been guilty of bigamy. Formerly he 
 would .quietly leave the eddy on a late 
 September day, and go down stream to a 
 shallow nook where a lively spring made 
 the sand boil up at the bottom in four or 
 five puffs at a time ; where the caddis 
 worms built their armor of sticks and 
 mica scales, and where alders growing
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 47 
 
 thickly, arched their branches overhead 
 and shaded the pool. In this bower he 
 found his lovely wife patiently waiting for 
 him, and although he would pay her 
 pretty close attention for a few days and 
 pretend to be interested, he would soon 
 wander about and flirt with the little girl 
 trout, who went wild over his beauty but 
 who had never seen the old villain at 
 home in his eddy. 
 
 Two or three years ago, however, a 
 heavy ice floe coming down in the spring 
 freshet knocked a new hole in the dam, 
 and whenever the water is high enough in 
 early October, the trout runs up through 
 the hole, and goes to see a wife that he 
 met under the lily-pads in still water in 
 the pond. She is larger even than he is, 
 and lazier, and not nearly so attractive 
 as the down-stream wife. Her eggs too 
 are dull yellow, while the down-stream 
 wife's eggs are bright straw color, and why 
 it is that he enjoys the pond trout's com- 
 pany no one can tell ; but there's no 
 accounting for tastes. 
 
 The old trout is not very deeply affected
 
 4& The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 by love, and he is always back at the 
 boulder by the middle of October. 
 
 Just a word about his children's nursery : 
 
 Down where the sunshine is stirred in the water 
 By zephyrs that bend the thin tops of the sedge, 
 
 The stream shallows out at the head of the meadow, 
 And dammed by a log, widens more at the edge. 
 
 The nettles are rank on the rich bank about it, 
 And out on the log straggle tussocks of grass ; 
 
 Beneath the warm driftwood the cricket is chirping, 
 And green-headed frogs tune their throats for 
 the class. 
 
 The little trout practise at vaulting and leaping, 
 And stir up the sand in their still, shallow pool ; 
 
 From daylight to darkness, and all through the 
 
 moonlight, 
 They try every trick that is taught in their school. 
 
 They strain at a gnat and then swallow a lady-bug ; 
 
 Deep into air they all dive for a fly ; 
 But larger they 're growing, not learning the lesson 
 
 That careless ones jumping at feathers may die. 
 
 And some of them reaching the age of discretion, 
 Will solemnly hunt for a deep shady hole ; 
 
 And like their old father as cruel as Nero 
 Will live as they please, without conscience or 
 soul.
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 49 
 
 I wonder if the old trout remembers my 
 attempt at getting him out upon the bank 
 last June. Cautiously I had crept to a 
 point where the bushes hid me from sight, 
 and slid the tip of the slender split-bamboo 
 rod through the same opening through 
 which the alder pole had been poked so 
 many times in years gone by. With a 
 slight cast, the brown-hackle and coach- 
 man and Reub Wood were tossed over 
 the lair of the trout, and drawn in enticing 
 zig-zags between the foam flecks on the 
 water. It was not the first time that arti- 
 ficial flies had failed to tempt him, and 
 when the cast was changed to a grizzly- 
 king, a silver-doctor, and a stone-fly, he 
 just kept perfectly still, and let me go 
 through all the motions of fishing, as 
 though that were all I had gone out 
 for. 
 
 Under a fungus-covered log I found a 
 handsome pink and squirming angleworm, 
 that did its very best on a bait hook deep 
 down where the trout's nose ought to 
 have been, but there was no demonstra- 
 tion of appreciation on the part of the
 
 50 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 autocrat of the eddy. Next I found in 
 the moss a cri'mson newt that looked 
 delicious enough for anybody to bite, and 
 when the hook was carefully passed 
 through a small fold of skin, so as not to 
 hurt much, he was tossed over into the 
 pool. Around and around in little circles 
 the newt swam, and deeper and deeper, 
 until there was only a faint red wriggle to 
 be seen way down by the shelf of the 
 rock. Suddenly a vigorous tug whisked 
 the tip of the rod under water, the reel 
 gave a scream, and then all was quiet 
 again ; but I could feel the old fellow's 
 teeth grating on the tense line as he sul- 
 lenly moved his head from side to side. 
 Every instant I expected a rush up stream, 
 and a tumbling wrestle in the swift water 
 above the eddy, but still there was omi- 
 nous quiet. There I stood all ready for 
 action, the tip of the rod curved over and 
 almost dipping into the water, the line 
 drawn as tightly as a banjo string and 
 leading straight down into the depths of 
 the slow current. Gradually reeling in 
 the line, the trout came heavily to the sur-
 
 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 5 1 
 
 face with all fins set, and surging doggedly 
 back and forth with short strokes of his 
 sturdy tail. 
 
 What could such tactics mean ? Why 
 was he reserving his strength at a moment 
 when, according to my notion, he ought 
 to be tearing about in frantic efforts to 
 escape ? The landing-net was reached 
 out toward him. It was almost under 
 him when, with a tremendous plunge, he 
 threw a shower of spray in my face, and 
 the broken line, swishing through the air, 
 snarled among the hemlock branches high 
 up out of reach. 
 
 The hook has worked out of his mouth 
 by this time, and at this very moment he 
 lies at the edge of the boulder beneath 
 the hemlock, waving his tail slowly to 
 keep his position in the uncertain current 
 of the eddy. When the stream roars with 
 autumn rains he will swing his tail to the 
 rhythm of the roar. When it thunders 
 in the spring freshet he will churn the 
 strong current with defiant tail strokes, 
 and stay by his boulder. When the 
 summer stream is gentle he will wave
 
 52 The Autocrat of the Eddy. 
 
 his tail softly near the bottom sands, and 
 poise by the shelf of gneiss ; and as 
 years go on there will still be found 
 too-ether the hemlock, the boulder, the 
 
 o 
 
 eddy, and the trout.
 
 WATCHING THE BRANT 
 GROW BIG. 
 
 THE raw east wind is shiver-laden. 
 Fine grains of sand scurrying along 
 the frozen beach rattle into the ghastly 
 open mouth and out through the ragged 
 bones of the breeze-dried gurnard. A 
 song-sparrow flips for a moment into a 
 thrummed marsh elder and then falls into 
 the salty desiccated grass again and hides 
 himself away from a wind that askews his 
 tail and parts his soft feathers almost to 
 the place where his cheery song is con- 
 cealed. It is not time for him. He 
 helps make springtime but cannot do it 
 all alone. Wait, little one, we give you 
 credit. A herring-gull essays to give life 
 to the March morning by hovering in low 
 circles over the ruffling black channel 
 water, and then finds it more in keeping 
 
 53
 
 54 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 to stop and merge his color into that of a 
 stranded ice floe in the distance. The 
 leaden heaven moves slowly over us, un- 
 broken save for the slanting missiles of 
 sleet that peck against the cabin window 
 and then bound full tilt to their grand- 
 mother the good old South Bay. Captain 
 Jack, finishing his early cup of hot coffee 
 down below, comes up out of the compan- 
 ion-way on deck in his woollen shirt, 
 hitches up one suspender, runs his hands 
 through his grizzly unwilling hair, hawks 
 and expectorates over the rail. " Golly ! 
 Tide runs like a hoss, don't it?" says 
 he, as a tangle of submerged eel-grass 
 scratches alongside in the swift ebb, and 
 the bowsprit of the sloop sidling in the 
 inlet current, bunts a periwinkle shell out 
 of the hard marsh bank that protected us 
 at anchor during the night. Captain Jack 
 does not produce much effect in the land- 
 scape about the marshes, because he looks 
 so much like any natural object except- 
 ing: when he comes to town. He has 
 
 o 
 
 stout muscles and a good heart. 'T is 
 only his head that fails when he comes in 
 contact with civilization.
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 55 
 
 The sea air smells. It is growing richer 
 with the exhalations from looming flats as 
 the tide shrinks, and with ozone from the 
 growling, muttering surf of the outer 
 beach. I, eagerly inhaling, find in dis- 
 tending lungfuls of it the peace of the in- 
 fusoria of the flats and the power of the 
 grand, swinging ocean. Every breath 
 soiled by me is carried onward and away 
 to the westward and replaced by a new 
 one. How long, clean east wind, before I 
 am translucent within ? For last night 
 we left the city where men call air the 
 emanations from percolating swill and 
 cast-off things, and where the tarnishing 
 atmosphere, laden with entities of death, 
 reeks in the nostrils and dulls the eyes of 
 that poor mammal whose brain hangs de- 
 pendent over figures and fads, amid the 
 walls and corridors and walls again, that 
 keep from him the sight of this sweet 
 world. Is any other love like love for 
 nature ? Is any joy like the joy of the 
 sportsman ? I have seen the mother with 
 eyes suffused with tears of love for the 
 chubby boy in her arms. I have heard 
 the maiden pray for power to love her
 
 5 6 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 lover more. But these loves are uncertain. 
 The boy grows wicked and brings gray 
 hairs and tears of sorrow. The lover is 
 better pleased with another. But nature 
 is steadfast. In the city the slinking street- 
 cur brings forth her mongrel whelps be- 
 neath the wharf, not knowing whence 
 shall come the food to turn to milk, and 
 the pampered pug, bonbon-fed, has not 
 the strength to propagate her kind. But 
 here all life multiplies, and in abundance, 
 and forever. 
 
 The bars of sand that divide currents 
 into currents and that direct the appor- 
 tionment of bay waters, are shining yellow 
 here and there, and the white froth rolls 
 up and blows across them. Hark ! From 
 out the west a merry, flying rabble ap- 
 pears, buffeting the winds, caring naught 
 for the cold. A rabble of warm birds that 
 on even line head down the bay with hurry- 
 ing wings and outstretched necks, chant- 
 ing as they go, and in good company. 
 Hark to the sound of their voices as they 
 pass. Did ever crowd of students seem 
 more hilarious ? Did ever more careless
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 57 
 
 throng play easy with the elements ? One 
 sings, and then another. Hear then all 
 throats together. Here a cluck and there 
 a tremolo, then back and forth the slogan 
 goes till the disappearing huddle leaves in 
 its wake vibrations that have softened the 
 winds and set the waves to tune. To-night 
 when all is still in the cabin you may hear 
 those voices of the morning when no birds 
 are near. When you are at home in the 
 city, a strange, weird music will come as 
 you sit before the grate fire in the twilight. 
 The chimney winds have caught the ca- 
 dence of the voices of the brant, and look- 
 ing into the gloom of the room you will 
 see again the moving wings that float 
 adown the ceiling. 'T is the shadow of 
 vibrations that have come from the far-off 
 bay. No others can hear the sound or see 
 the motion. 'T is for you alone, this de- 
 light of wandering impression that comes 
 through miles of shadow, to you sympa- 
 thetic. 
 
 Upon a narrow sand-bar lapped oy the 
 receding waves, Captain Jack and I step 
 out, to be saluted by the jets of forty
 
 58 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 clams. We will not forget this recog- 
 nition on their part when it is time to re- 
 turn to the boat. In the sand-bar there is 
 a sunken box just big enough for me to 
 hide in. Its edges are level with the sur- 
 face of the sand, excepting where the last 
 high tide wanted some of the sand to 
 make little wavy ridges with. Captain 
 spades up fresh sand to hide the box with, 
 and while this is being done I walk to a 
 higher part of the bar that has not been 
 under water for three or four tides. The 
 wind has thrown the light sand into waves 
 and ridges, just as the water would have 
 done it. So wind and water are good 
 chums off on the Bay. Here is a bunch 
 of old wrack that pulled a scallop shell 
 from its quiet bed, and came to grief on 
 the bar. Here is a dried bit of leathery 
 devil's apron that was torn from an ocean 
 meadow perhaps by some derelict hull 
 roving in the faintly-lighted depths with- 
 out commission. Here is a cork that once 
 was young and tender bark in Spain, 
 growing under southern stars until men 
 bargained for it with money. Then it
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 59 
 
 perhaps saw one carousal after travelling 
 to foreign shores, and it will be buried on 
 this cold bar by shifting sands. Here is a 
 feather that was shaken from the wing of 
 a goose yesterday, when I was not as near 
 as this to the goose. All about in the 
 sand are tracks of plebeian gulls, but here 
 is something better here is the patrician 
 track made by the pretty black foot of a 
 brant. 
 
 I lie down flat upon my back in the box. 
 The brant decoys are standing all about 
 so naturally that only the Captain and I 
 would suspect them to be such false 
 things. I am waiting. The box is cold 
 and wet. The spray flies into my eyes. 
 The surf roars in the distance. One eye 
 peers over the edge of the box and scans 
 the horizon. What a jingle of wings was 
 that, as a beautiful whistler and his homely 
 mate passed overhead. They have fin- 
 ished the preliminary love experience early 
 in the year, and are now constant and true 
 to each other long before the spring 
 zephyrs have felted into love the vaga- 
 rious fancies of other water fowl. How
 
 60 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 strange that the male should be the most 
 beautiful among almost all living things 
 excepting the people. And yet the male 
 whistler, superb as he is, had to seek his 
 mate and go through a lot of nonsense, 
 just as though she were a beautiful girl. 
 
 I did not shoot at that pair of whistlers. 
 They would have made an excellent stew, 
 with pork and potatoes in the same pot ; 
 but they were so happy with each other 
 that I allowed them to pass. It makes my 
 mouth water now to think of them for 
 dinner, but the treason is all in my stomach 
 and not a bit of it in my heart. Flocks 
 of brant are moving down the bay in 
 straggling bunches or in even lines. 
 Some oysterman has stirred them up, or 
 perhaps they think that the eel-grass is 
 more tender farther on, and they will en- 
 joy it until it seems to be not quite so 
 good as the grass that they left. Few 
 people know why the brant move back 
 and forth in this way, but I know just how 
 they feel, because I have many times 
 camped on one end of a pond and always 
 found the fishing best away up at the other
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 61 
 
 end, no matter which end I camped on. 
 Thus the eel-grass in the distance is 
 always green for the brant. 
 
 Four brant are coming this way. Are 
 they coming this way or will they choose 
 some other bar? They are winnowing 
 along low over the water and apparently 
 looking for companions. I throw up one 
 foot to attract their attention. They see 
 it. They slacken speed and "lift" for a 
 better view. Yes ! They see the decoys. 
 Look out now ! On they come and bigger 
 they grow. At first they were no larger 
 than pigeons, now they are as big as ducks, 
 and in a moment more they will look 
 as big as rocs, before my very eyes, and 
 right here with me all of us active in a 
 few cubic feet of the world. They have 
 ability to be elsewhere, but they won't use 
 their resources in time. They will be 
 right here in the midst of the trouble. 
 They call to the decoys. I answer. How 
 fine and black their shapely heads and 
 necks. What strong brown wings. They 
 are coming. Now they swerve to the 
 northward. There they circle back, show-
 
 62 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 ing white flanks as they wheel into line. 
 They are not coming. They are going 
 toward the middle of the bay. See that 
 persistent one. He wants to come to me 
 and the others do not, but that one is 
 so determined that the others weaken in 
 their good judgment and follow him. 
 Now they stop fluttering. One sets his 
 wings, another sets his wings, all four set 
 their wings, and come slantting down an 
 easy incline of air right toward the decoys. 
 Neck and neck, wing and wing, tail and 
 tail, on they come. Up I jump and breed 
 confusion. " Ronk ! " says one, and down 
 through the smoke he tumbles with a 
 mighty splash. " Kruk / Kruk!" says 
 another, and then he makes the spray fly 
 ten feet into the air at the edge of the 
 bar, and causes the clams to squirt for 
 rods around. " B-r-a-n-t / B-r-r-r-a-n-t ! 
 B-r-r-r-a-n-t ! " say the other two, swish- 
 ing themselves right up into high air. 
 Yes, brant they are, and beauties too. 
 
 The March wind is piercing, the box is 
 damp, the flying sleet rattles on my coat. 
 I lie upon my back listening to the lapping
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 63 
 
 of the waves, the crepitation of shifting 
 sand, the rustle of the moving- tide and 
 the voices of distant brant and gulls. The 
 cold clouds overhead have no comfort in 
 them. My teeth chatter and a tear runs 
 down my right cheek. Wet sand sticks 
 to the skin between my red fingers. One 
 small mouthful of just the right thing 
 suffices to start in my innermost depths 
 a dull cherry red glow that gradually 
 diffuses itself in grateful warmth to the 
 middle of every bone and to the ends of 
 my wet sandy fingers. Who would object 
 to that, I 'd like to know ? Now then for 
 another brant. There comes one from away 
 up the bay. Is he going or coming? Com- 
 ing ! No going ! Well, it all depends on 
 which end his head is placed, and I can- 
 not tell from here. He is coming ! Big- 
 ger he grows and rounder he appears, and 
 being alone will seek company. He sees 
 the decoys and comes straight toward 
 them without regard to the direction of 
 the wind. Now he stops flying and comes 
 tilting along unsteadily on curved set 
 wings, balancing, sidling, balancing, com-
 
 64 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 ing, growing bigger and bigger as he 
 skims the foamy, splattering waves without 
 quite touching them. I '11 let him alight. 
 There, now ! Right on the bar between me 
 and the decoys. How trim his outlines 
 are, and how gracefully he walks for one of 
 the goose family. Why do those bright 
 dark eyes fail to perceive me ? He is 
 young, as his wing coverts show by their 
 ashy tipped feathers, and knowing that 
 age is to be respected he puts confidence 
 in the old decoys, unwilling to believe 
 that I am terrible. He scoops up a bill- 
 ful of sand here and there where it looks 
 particularly tempting, and asks the decoys 
 something in a low voice. Now, I must 
 take him into the box, for other brant will 
 be coming. He jumps almost like a wood- 
 cock as I show him a great jack-in-a-box, 
 and Halloa ! Right barrel snapped ; left 
 one shot a little under as the wind slanted 
 him to one side. There he goes as fast 
 as ever he can, away, away, away. I 
 never saw that brant before in all my life 
 and never shall see him again. 
 
 Out of the west horizon a corps of
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 65 
 
 twenty brant comes marching along 
 through the air, as orderly as soldiers. 
 I throw up a hand to attract their atten- 
 tion. They swerve. They wanted to 
 come to this bar in the first place, but 
 they have somewhere seen someone else 
 throw up a hand to them, and the old 
 ganders are suspicious. There are too 
 many eyes in that flock. Some of the 
 younger birds start toward the bar again 
 and the wary ones follow. Good judg- 
 ment does n't count among friends. On 
 they come with a great clamor, some ris- 
 ing, some settling, some hoarse, some 
 clear voiced, some curving their wings to 
 sail in, some fluttering and wavering and 
 giving cries of warning. The whole flock 
 huddles and separates, and huddles and 
 rises, and wheels to go away. Then they 
 turn and head for the decoys again, but 
 the old birds have mounted high enough 
 to peer over into my box and they cry 
 " Look ! Look ! " with such vigor that the 
 whole drove again whirls into a broadside 
 for final departure nearly twenty rods 
 away. The shot slaps and cracks against 
 
 5
 
 66 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 their feathers, but only one bird slips 
 out of the flock and drops perpendicularly 
 into the water, while the rest choose a 
 horizontal trajectory. Too many eyes. 
 Too far away. 
 
 It is almost noon. The tide has fallen 
 so far away that there is no water near the 
 bar, and no more birds will come until an- 
 other tide has risen. There is plenty of 
 humble game within reach for the larder, 
 though. Razor clams first ! The edges 
 of their shells are just on a level with the 
 soft sand of the flat, but they must be ap- 
 proached gently, for they are sensitive in 
 the company of strangers, and the fingers 
 of a hungry enemy will grasp only a little 
 maelstrom of roily water unless he is care- 
 ful. I seize one of the razors, but how 
 hard he pulls ! Working him back and 
 forth rapidly in his hole causes the water 
 to loosen the sand all about him, and up 
 comes a long, fat fellow, twisting his white 
 foot in efforts to escape. When we work 
 a razor back and forth in his hole the sand 
 around him becomes mushy, according to 
 a definite plan of nature, which turns the
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 67 
 
 chances immediately against the clam in 
 favor of the one who ought to have him. 
 It will not do to be greedy and pull too 
 quickly, for nature has decreed that in 
 such case the microbes are to have the 
 plump separated foot, while man is to con- 
 tent himself with the pretty shell contain- 
 ing only liver and gills and other organic 
 bric-a-brac. It does not take long to 
 gather a handful of razor clams, but that 
 is not enough, and I cannot lay them down 
 while gathering more because they would 
 walk offand poke themselves endwise into 
 the sand while I was looking the other 
 way. It makes one feel like a cannibal to 
 eat such lively animals, but if men are 
 half as sweet as razor clams, we must be 
 cautious about criticising the habits of the 
 Sandwich Islanders of the old school. I 
 cannot lay this handful down, so my cap 
 must answer for a basket. A fine panful 
 of razors we finally have on the deck of 
 the sloop. Capt. Jack sets up serried 
 ranks of them in the dripping-pan and puts 
 small pieces of bacon in odd nooks and 
 corners. When they are done a delicious
 
 68 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 steaming morsel lies upon a gaping shell, 
 all ready for a little lump of butter and a 
 plunge for the good of those chosen ones 
 who know how to catch razor clams. 
 
 We .pull the boat up out of the main 
 channel and spear a few eels. Over miles 
 of this bottom one can strike a spear 
 blindly into the mud with fair probability 
 of hitting an eel that has stored himself 
 up for the winter a few inches below the 
 surface, and in choice spots two eels some- 
 times come up at once on the tines of the 
 spear. It is taking unfair advantage to 
 spear the half-torpid things, but they are 
 delectable and that makes a difference. 
 Then again we can get revenge on behalf 
 of the crabs, for nothing is more relentless 
 than an eel that has set out to remove 
 one by one the legs of a confused and 
 most uncomfortable soft crab. We can 
 spare the denizens of the bottom many 
 such sights by incarcerating a bucketful 
 of the offenders. When there are eels 
 enough in the pail we push the boat over 
 quahog ground, and no matter how hard 
 it blows or how fiercely the sleet drives, a
 
 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 69 
 
 lot of round quahogs are soon rolling into 
 the scuppers and wedging themselves into 
 the rake just as our fingers get warm and 
 dry. We have to be a little cautious in 
 walking about, because it is a well-known 
 fact that the quahog will turn when trod- 
 den upon. 
 
 Now for the soft-shelled clams that fired 
 a salute when we alighted upon their bar 
 in the morning. The shooting-box spade 
 turns them out of their compact moulds 
 in the sand half a dozen at a time. Ten- 
 der and luscious they are, and so corpulent 
 that they cannot draw their necks into the 
 shell and close the shell at the same time. 
 Just one thing more and the larder is 
 complete for the day. We anchor in deep 
 water between the submerged flats and 
 crack open a quahog, putting a sweet 
 clean piece upon the hook, and casting 
 the line astern. In a minute the sinker 
 is dancing ; I give a quick jerk and then 
 bring up hand over fist a fish as flat as 
 a flounder and weighing about a pound, 
 made of just the right shape to fit the 
 bottom , of a frying-pan and become
 
 70 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 
 
 nicely browned on both sides when the 
 fins curl up in a crisp. Five or six flappy 
 flounders are pulled up on deck, and away 
 we go again to our safe anchorage. Who 
 would ever go hungry on the Great South 
 Bay ? There, within a radius of half a 
 mile, we have helped ourselves abundantly 
 to brant, razor clams, quahogs, soft clams, 
 eels and flounders, and have had such fun 
 in doing it that we want the man who is 
 prepared for suicide to come down here 
 for one day's sport before he decides that 
 life is really too much of a bother. Our 
 hands are cold, our clothes are wet, espe- 
 cially at vital points. Our noses and ears 
 would do yeoman service in a summer 
 refrigerator. But the cabin stove has a 
 red hot lid, and the change to dry warm 
 woollen clothing with a cup of hot coffee 
 will pay for a month of discomfort. I am 
 sorry for the man who never stops to think 
 how well off he is with his every-day 
 clothes on.
 
 THE LAIR OF SOMETHING 
 STRIPED. 
 
 ''in HAT rock 's awash, aswash. Tighter 
 A draws the mussel on his byssus. 
 The tide has turned. A thousand kelp 
 streamers point the way the flood must 
 go, and eagerly, not drooping as at last of 
 ebb when obedience had seemed to satisfy 
 their importuning. 
 
 The seeping barnacles make merry 
 and clap their valves, for diatoms are 
 coming, the sweet, the beautiful, food for 
 the rough and ugly ; coming from the 
 devious gardens that they glorified among 
 the schist splinters and boulders, beneath 
 the swelling and subsiding and unceasing 
 flow of green illumined sea water. 
 
 The rock is yet uncovered. No 't is 
 not. And then once more it seems to 
 sink, till the lolling pelage of wrack lifts 
 71
 
 72 The Lair of Something Striped. 
 
 up a sign for help to the slow sweep of an 
 engulfing wave, and welters disconsolate 
 though the saved rock again appears. It 
 is not to disappear for long, this archaic 
 boulder of granite. It has never moved 
 but once e'en though the mammoth rubbed 
 it with his woolly ear or the heedless elas- 
 mosaurus bounced against it in the chase. 
 It moved but once, and then the straining 
 glacier dropped its load at the foot of the 
 cliff. Up that bold gray cliff the autumn 
 breaker bounds, roaring and splurging 
 with hoarse challenge, till clouds of spray 
 separated in the churning turmoil float up 
 to higher ether to make sunset nimbus, 
 and show the October foliage what gentle 
 beauty may come from harsh parentage as 
 well as from homes of peace. 
 
 At the foot of the cliff purling summer 
 coamers smooth the hard walls that resist. 
 
 The boulder, sunken but a fathom at 
 the flood, rises not enough to arouse the 
 ire of forceful antagonists, and unmoved 
 as sphinx to the questions of the changing 
 seas, it needs not to turn before the brunt, 
 not topple to the wooing. Now the tide
 
 The Lair of Something Striped. 73 
 
 runs smoothly over it. Caught in an eddy 
 a red seaweed whirls and spreads its shoots, 
 and a sertularia colony swinging near has 
 descended to mimicry of botany without 
 putting on any air of condescension. The 
 tremulous algse waving from cliff to boulder 
 and from boulder to cliff, make in the water 
 a clear arcade, a runway. Out from a 
 crevice glides a cautious chogset into the 
 runway, now poising by a crimson sponge, 
 then backing slowly underneath a trans- 
 lucent green sheet of sea kale. A crab 
 makes haste to cross the round yellow 
 bottom pebbles, carrying a burden that 
 he fain would hide, for this is a lair, and 
 he knows it. What is his burden, though ? 
 Oh, look, you unbelievers in disinterested 
 friendship. 'T is a stranger crab that had 
 to shed its armor, and unprotected needs 
 the guarding of a friend for two whole 
 days or more. There 's nothing " in it," 
 as the politicians say, for the faithful pro- 
 tector, and yet he will not weary, but fight 
 valiantly if necessary, and lose his very 
 life, and for that there is no reward nor 
 other life.
 
 74 The Lair of Something Striped. 
 
 Like silver arrows a troop of spearing 
 nervously dart from rock to wrack and 
 from algae to the surface, not stopping, 
 but alert, leaving a lazy enemy no hope. 
 What is it they fear in this quiet aisle ? 
 A slow tautog drops with the current into 
 the runway and then as deliberately has 
 gone. 
 
 A shrimp escaping from the sprightly 
 pilot-fish stupidly backs straight into 
 the clutches of a dull sea anemone at 
 the bottom of the boulder. This is what 
 might be called a turn in affairs. The 
 pilot-fish knew how to catch a shrimp. 
 The anemone did not. The anemone 
 has the shrimp, however, and possessing 
 now a fortune it withdraws from old 
 friends and becomes exclusive and dis- 
 agreeable. 
 
 A sinuous eel slides in and out among 
 the rocks, searching for love-lorn nereid, or 
 for mantis praying for relief from danger, 
 which is granted till danger comes, and 
 then he is lost, in spite of supplications, 
 for nature cares no more for the back- 
 sliding mantis than she does for sleek
 
 The Lair of Something Striped. 75 
 
 eels. The eel keeps near the bottom, as 
 though fearing. He dreads not the blue- 
 fish nor bonita nor swift squeteague, for 
 the runway between the boulder and the 
 cliff is not deep enough for them. See 
 them farther out, though, rising in the 
 curl of a mounting billow till the sun has 
 shot through beneath them, leaping with 
 an energy that goes with fish that fight 
 strong tides for life, not resting, never 
 lagging. How dangerous such needing 
 maws as theirs ! An ink-laden squid 
 pumps faster with his siphon engine as he 
 steers in graceful curve through the run- 
 way. He too suspects that it is a lurking 
 place. What shadow slowly moved across 
 the bottom then ? Was it from some 
 pausing cormorant or circling tern ? From 
 this jutting storm-bleached jag of cliff I 
 dare to look up, but no bird flies over- 
 head. 'T was but the shifting of the kelp 
 perhaps, for down in the runway waters I 
 see almost as clearly as through the north 
 wind. 'T was but the waving of sea 
 fronds. 
 
 Why though has all sign of life stopped
 
 76 The Lair of Something Striped. 
 
 in the runway ? The shadow falls across 
 the bottom, and following it from behind 
 the curtain of fronds there comes forth a 
 fish so stately, so dignified in bearing, 
 that surely he deigns not to notice these 
 lesser fish that flee from his presence. 
 Like a wolf he is. Not in outer likeness 
 perhaps, but in demeanor, and in weight, 
 and that great weight made up of all the 
 sorts of things that swim the tide or crawl 
 the bottom, collected by him and made to 
 form a fish of wondrous strength, with 
 dark straight stripes to mark the shapely 
 sides. A clear stern eye has he, and jaw 
 like any trap. His glistening scales are 
 white where white, and black they are 
 where black. Resting upon broad fins he 
 balances beneath the sea arbor of his lair 
 and shows no fear, but seems to be among 
 familiar surroundings. I '11 quietly toss 
 to him a choice bit of menhaden. It 
 slowly drifting sinks. The film of oil 
 rises. He takes the bait and looks for 
 more. I '11 give it to him. There 's a 
 hook in it, and fastened to the hook 
 600 feet of hard-laid line. Down the
 
 The Lair of Something Striped. 77 
 
 current it settles. He spreads a broad 
 tail and turns quizzingly sidewise to take 
 a look, then back he bends, and turning a 
 finely outlined nose into the tide rests 
 again, and lets the baited hook slide by. 
 
 The sun sinking below the horizon 
 takes one last look into the sea by a trick 
 of angular refraction, and finding the bass 
 all safe calmly moves away to make day 
 elsewhere for awhile. 
 
 The chink of a migrating finch over- 
 head, the squeak of a bat, are evening 
 sounds, and their harmony is not marred 
 by the splash of a hooked bass. 
 
 The moon rises. It makes a straight 
 
 O 
 
 and lighted road through the midst of 
 dark heaving waters. The fishes are 
 moving on beneath the waves, the birds 
 are flying southward overhead. I '11 hoist 
 my sail and follow the moon road between 
 the fishes and birds and think of ways to 
 catch the striped bass.
 
 SUCKER DAYS. 
 
 THE shytepokes dangled their loose 
 legs doubtingly before settling 
 down to a wobbly perch among the red- 
 budding tops of the soft maple saplings, 
 but after many balancings and upstretch- 
 ing of necks they could finally look 
 down through the white sumacs and 
 choose a safe alighting place in the mucky, 
 trembling swamp where we boys never 
 could go. It was not a large swamp ; in 
 fact, it would not strain any one very much 
 to heave a stone half way across it now- 
 adays, but at the time I have in mind it 
 was a great sphagnum-lined mystery of a 
 place, and it seemed to us youngsters that 
 the other side was way, way over there. 
 The boulders in the rough pastures round 
 about it were partly hidden with chaplets 
 of huckleberry bushes and sweet fern, 
 78
 
 Sucker Days. 79 
 
 and here and there along the stone walls 
 some of the butternuts that a past gener- 
 ation of squirrels hid too well had devel- 
 oped into scrawny trees. Through the 
 leafless bushes of the swamp we could get 
 a glimpse of a little round pond hole out 
 near the middle, and tradition had it that 
 no one had ever found bottom there. 
 That was because no one had ever tried. 
 If any one had ever found bottom there 
 he surely would have told of it ; and so 
 the question remained as settled with us. 
 The swamp was just one of a thousand in 
 New England, but special interest cen- 
 tered in this one because Brown Brook 
 emerged from it, and with its many little 
 swirls and pourings and bubblings among 
 the bogs and rocks finally entered the old 
 mill-pond right where the button bushes 
 grew thickest. 
 
 Brown Brook was not exactly a spring 
 brook, because in the summer-time the 
 water got pretty warm, and sometimes 
 there wasn't very much of it anyway, and 
 that 's why the boy of whom I am going to 
 write never heard from the ten small mot-
 
 8o Sucker Days. 
 
 tie-backed, skittish trout that he lugged 
 over from Sandy Brook in a tin pail and 
 .put into it. Possibly they are up in the 
 bottomless swamp hole now, and weighing 
 a pound or two apiece, but only the minks 
 know about that. 
 
 There was one thing that the brook was 
 good for and that was its suckers. Who 
 ever heard tell of a brook that was good 
 for nothing? In the springtime, when 
 the soft maples were beginning to invite 
 the purple finches, suckers ran up from 
 the mill-pond, and during the day re- 
 mained beneath the large stones in the 
 brook. When school was out for noon 
 recess "us boys" had time to run over to 
 the brook and catch a sucker or two in 
 our hands by feeling for them under the 
 stones and then encircling them in all the 
 death-like grip that was possible in short, 
 chubby fingers. The suckers were not 
 very large ones, but sometimes a half- 
 pounder was caught, and on a day that I 
 want to remember all about, the boy found 
 an "awfully" great big oneway in under a 
 shelving rock. Just as he was getting
 
 Sucker Days. 81 
 
 ready to grab, the sucker darted out be- 
 tween the boy's feet and fluttered and 
 splashed over the ripples into another hole 
 farther down stream. 
 
 Any fish is to a boy something worthy 
 of his entire attention, and it did n't mat- 
 ter if the water in the hole where the big 
 sucker had gone was rather deep, for who 
 cared about getting in over the tops of 
 his boots when such a fish was within 
 reach ! I don't remember exactly how 
 old the boy was, but probably he had not 
 heard the first jingling of the peep-frogs 
 more than eight times, and it was hard 
 for such small ears to notice the bell that 
 announced the ending of recess time, or 
 the calls of Ned Ellis and Joe Carroll as 
 they ran back to school. 
 
 The boy knew precisely under which 
 stone the big sucker had gone, and care- 
 fully reaching one hand beneath it he 
 could feel the cool, smooth sides of the 
 fish as it crowded a little farther in away 
 from him. Then, putting the other hand 
 in position to head off attempts at escape, 
 he suddenly held the struggling, gasping 
 
 6
 
 82 Sucker Days. 
 
 sucker in both hands. The stones were 
 slippery, and in an effort to steady himself 
 the boy partly lost his grip, and felt the 
 sucker surely working out of his hands 
 you know how it feels and despair- 
 ingly tossed it toward the bank. The 
 sucker landed among the dry pebbles, 
 protruded his long, white nose, and opened 
 his round mouth in surprise, and then with 
 one ungainly flop threw himself into the 
 brook again. Why can't a fish ever flop 
 the other way just once ? The boy in 
 confusion could not see which way the 
 fish went, and a moment later there was a 
 peculiar sort of mist in the boy's eyes that 
 prevented him from seeing much of any- 
 thing, and the round drops, welling up 
 straight from his heart, followed each 
 other in quick succession down his cheeks. 
 Sorrowfully he trudged up to the school- 
 house and made wet tracks to the hard 
 board seat in the middle of the room. 
 That seat had seen quieter moments, when 
 the boy had time to " fire " spit-balls upon 
 the wall overhead, or to bore converging 
 holes in the desk, into which various
 
 Sucker Days. 83 
 
 luckless flies were tucked when the teacher 
 was looking the other way. Miss Chap- 
 man was of the tall, austere type, and her 
 glasses presented the only smooth outlines 
 in her mein. She must have been young, 
 for her moustache was not markedly visi- 
 ble from the other end of the room, but 
 her strong right arm swung with a free- 
 dom that we were accustomed to see only 
 when the best of woodchuck skin flail 
 strings gave security at a joint. Usually 
 she took off her glasses before descend- 
 ing to the boy's seat, but on this occasion 
 there was too much necessity for prompt- 
 ness in attending to him, and they rattled 
 upon the floor in the midst of a medley 
 of ruler whacks and sobs. All that after- 
 noon and during the night visions of the 
 big sucker filled the boy's brain to the 
 exclusion of all other ideas, and at the 
 woodpile at home he unconsciously made 
 a sudden grab for the biggest stick and 
 scattered the armful already collected. 
 
 Of course we boys all rushed off to the 
 brook next day at recess, and while Ned 
 and Tom and Joe went -to fishing under
 
 84 Sucker Days. 
 
 the stones near the road, the other boy 
 followed the brook down into the pasture 
 and began to poke under rocks in all of 
 the holes, to see if the big sucker was still 
 in that part of the stream. All at once it 
 rushed out in sight, and the shouts of the 
 boy brought the others on a run as fast as 
 they could come. 
 
 " Right under that stone he is, fellers, 
 and an old whopper, too, by golly," said 
 he. " I 'm going to hold on to him this 
 time, you bet." Just then came the sound 
 of the school bell across the fields. It is 
 called a musical sound, but somehow or 
 another it seems to a boy to be different 
 from the voices of the robins and the 
 wood-thrushes. Ruefully the boy paused 
 a moment and listened, then reaching 
 around and feeling the tender parts that 
 had not quite recovered from the previous 
 day's reddening, he decided that they 
 would have to stand one more ruling 
 from the bench, and into the brook he 
 stepped. His hands trembled with excite- 
 ment as they went under the water and 
 under the stone and felt the fins of the
 
 Sucker Days. 85 
 
 hiding sucker, but with a decision that 
 brings results in all things he squeezed 
 the fish in a good double grasp and car- 
 ried it so far out in the meadow grass 
 that it left all hope behind. Was n't it 
 a beauty ! We picked it up and let it 
 flounce out of our hands a dozen times 
 before it became submissive. 
 
 "How will you trade him for mine?" 
 asked Tom Allen. " Oh, but that one of 
 yours ain't anywheres near so big as this 
 one," said the boy. " No," said Tom, 
 "but them big ones is all innards and no 
 meat. Just heft mine onct. There 's 
 twicet as much meat on him." So, always 
 ready to be taken advantage of in a bar- 
 gain for any plausible reason, the boy 
 traded the great big sucker for Tom's 
 smaller one, and we lugged our respective 
 fish almost to school and hid them under 
 the stone wall. It is unnecessary to refer 
 to our experience within the doors, but 
 our aches were tempered with the prospec- 
 tive exultation of carrying the suckers 
 home after school was out. And then 
 an unexpected movement of the boy's
 
 86 Sucker Days. 
 
 mind suddenly shifted it to an impulse 
 to give his fish to poor forlorn Uncle 
 Bennett, whose bent back and meagre 
 rheumatic legs tried all day long and 
 all night long to find one soft spot in 
 the lonely cabin down by the blacksmith 
 shop. His wife dead, his only son a 
 drunkard, his little hoard spent, it was 
 with a bowed head that he accepted a bit 
 of help from the town, and an occasional 
 gift of a bushel of potatoes or a peck of 
 turnips from some prosperous neighbor. 
 He could not go to the poorhouse over 
 the hill, where old Sperry's wife, and the 
 blind colored cooper, and the crazy Dutch- 
 man, and Mr. Bradley's worn-out hired 
 man, freed from the care of providing for 
 the immediate necessities of life, had risen 
 to a social position far superior to that of 
 the man whose pride forced him flat 
 against the earth. His poor old heavy 
 heart would lift for the moment and some- 
 thing like light would shine through his 
 sad blue eyes whenever we boys went in 
 to see him, carrying from home a kind 
 word and a batch of fallen sponge-cake
 
 Sucker Days. 87 
 
 that was taken out of the oven too soon 
 and would not do at all for the sewing 
 society on Thursday evening. How much 
 better to give a sucker to Uncle Bennett 
 than to receive almost anything from 
 Heaven one's self. He should have the 
 precious fish and the family at home must 
 depend upon the market down in the vil- 
 lage as they always preferred to do. 
 The boy laboriously wrote on a piece of 
 paper torn from the soiled fly-leaf of his 
 speller, "lets Givum 4we- too unkelbent," 
 and stealthily passed the note over to 
 Tom Allen's desk. A quick nod of Tom's 
 head from behind his " joggerphy " showed 
 that an enterprising boy who could de- 
 fraud his companion because that was one 
 of the laws of trade, was nevertheless 
 unable to resist the impulse to give his 
 plunder to Uncle Bennett. That ap- 
 peared to Tom a matter of right and 
 wrong in which he was governed no doubt 
 by the laws of compensation, because 
 Uncle Bennett had such a superlative de- 
 gree of nothing at all. 
 
 It was almost four o'clock. Who ever
 
 88 Sucker Days. 
 
 could remember the hard words in the 
 speller right on the verge of four o'clock 
 and freedom and good deeds ! Miss 
 Chapman slowly laid down the book 
 that she was accustomed to hold before 
 her face as a sort of ambush from which 
 she surprised new scholars who thought 
 that she was reading. The little brass 
 desk-bell tinkled and the announcement 
 was made that school was dismissed, ex- 
 cepting for the two boys who had waded 
 in the water, and they must stay for 
 fifteen minutes after school. One by 
 one those fifteen rusty minutes hitched 
 along the floor of time, and then the two 
 impatient boys, waving their caps in the 
 air, bounced out of the doorway and hip- 
 pety-hopped over to the stone wall for 
 their hidden treasures. Alas for the 
 trustfulness of youth ! The old gray cat 
 had found the fish and had dragged them 
 off to some other hiding-place,
 
 THE EVENING OF AUG. i, 1895. 
 
 AN Indian, a salmon, a syenite rock. 
 The salmon lies upon the grizzly 
 slope of syenite, and the Indian, fitting 
 his wet moccasins to the rough foothold, 
 rests one end of my gaff against the 
 silvery scales of the big salmon to prevent 
 him from sliding back into his roaring 
 home. 
 
 The sun is setting, and for a brief mo- 
 ment the rays seem to warm the bleak 
 hills of white caribou moss and the dark 
 gullies of stunted black spruce, but the 
 warmth is in the color only. The steel- 
 gray clouds come westward from the ice- 
 blocked straits of Belle Isle with a fine 
 bracing air, but there is no suggestion of 
 real midsummer. A white-throated spar- 
 row among the wild peas pipes loudly to a 
 neighbor up among the chicoutai berries
 
 90 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 and then sweetly and clearly the spiritual 
 notes of a hermit thrush ring out farewells 
 to the day that is passing. 
 
 The salmon has never known any other 
 river but this one. His mother hid the 
 egg securely under a heap of clean spark- 
 ling sand in a shallow tributary of the 
 river away up on the great Labrador 
 plateau one day in October, and then 
 hurried back to the sea before the ice 
 caught her. The sheldrakes and wild 
 geese had returned in the springtime be- 
 fore the little salmon had worked his way 
 out of the egg and up through the sand 
 into the clear water of the brook. Two 
 years he spent in the river as a gay parr, 
 splashing out after the ephemeridae on the 
 surface, scooting after the dodging stickle- 
 backs, and slyly waiting for the small eels 
 to venture away from their protecting 
 stones. Then he lost his scarlet spots, 
 and coming down the river in smolt colors 
 went out among the rocky islands in the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence, where sea plants 
 make red and yellow thickets at the bottom. 
 At first he caught snappy crustaceans- and
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 91 
 
 tender sandlaunces, and found such an 
 abundance of food that he soon grew to 
 proportions which enabled him to grapple 
 with a capelin or smelt. By the end of 
 his third year he dared to rush into a 
 scattering school of herrings and select 
 the fattest one for himself, and, as a trim 
 grilse, he appeared again in the river, 
 coming up with his older anadromous 
 relatives on their migration. He did not 
 have to keep an eye on the voracious sea 
 trout now, and he escaped the seals easily 
 because they chased the larger salmon 
 and did not give him much attention. 
 He felt the pride of a mature fish, how- 
 ever, and a superiority over his sisters, 
 who needed to wait in the sea a longer 
 time before they were ready to accom- 
 pany him up to the old homestead in 
 summer. 
 
 In six or seven years he became a won- 
 derfully strong salmon, making annual 
 trips up the river and fearing nothing but 
 the otters and the bears when he lay in 
 shallow currents at rest. The osprey and 
 the golden eagle occasionally dropped
 
 92 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 down at him from out of the sky, but they 
 stopped when they were near enough to 
 see how swift the water was in which he 
 rested with such apparent ease. The on- 
 set of the hissing chute and the smother- 
 ing white water of the exploding falls were 
 to him nothing more than a challenge to 
 try his strength. He would first leap into 
 the air below the falls and take a good 
 look at them, for they could kill him stone 
 dead in an instant if he were to allow it. 
 After looking at the falls he would run up 
 more closely and hold his head out of the 
 confusing, boiling foam for an inspection 
 of the easiest-looking place. Then he 
 would spring six feet into the thunder, 
 and hurled back violently with injury to 
 his dignity he would gather his powers 
 for a mighty effort, and in one clear pa- 
 rabola of twelve feet or more would sail 
 through the air over the flying water at 
 the foot of the falls and force himself up 
 through the awful current to a resting- 
 place in the eddy above. 
 
 This he would do when the day was 
 bright and clear, but through the night
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 93 
 
 and on dark days he would remain quietly 
 in favorite places where the water ran 
 at the rate of about two miles per hour, 
 over pebbles and cobble-stones. It looked 
 as though he remained in the open cur- 
 rent without a motion, but on close obser- 
 vation one could see that his nose was 
 behind a cobble-stone large enough to 
 make a little sunken eddy, and that his 
 tail curved a bit from side to side. After 
 mounting the first rapid near the sea he 
 usually spent two weeks in the pool 
 above, and then on ascending the second 
 fall he remained for a week in the next 
 pool, and in that way he proceeded like 
 any experienced traveller who has learned 
 how to enjoy himself and find comfort on 
 the road. When he first went into the 
 fresh water every year his colors were 
 startlingly silvery, gleaming in the light 
 that winnowed down through the crinkles 
 of swift water. Ten days later his back 
 and gill covers and fins began to become 
 blackish, arid his sides were a trifle less sil- 
 very. Two months later, at the head- 
 waters of the river, his colors were
 
 94 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 distinctly black and reddish. From the 
 first day of his entrance into the river the 
 kipper hook on his under jaw began to 
 grow, and his rounded sides became flat- 
 ter, because he did not eat while in the 
 river. He would often jump at a flutter- 
 ing miller or a little shiner at the surface 
 just as a kitten leaps for a ball but that 
 would not be called eating. 
 
 Last year while passing through the 
 estuary from the sea he was gilled in 
 Monsieur Jules's net, but he soon thrashed 
 himself out of that predicament, leaving a 
 ring mark around his neck where the net 
 had torn away the scales. Two years ago 
 he chose the wrong spot for a leap at the 
 falls and was thrown back over the rocks 
 so quickly that his side was badly torn 
 and one pectoral fin was split lengthwise. 
 So back he went down river and into the 
 sea until the wounds were healed, knowing 
 that if he remained in fresh water sapro- 
 legnia would grow in the injured tissues 
 and make him weak. He returned to the 
 upper waters of the river in time to find a 
 mate who did not object to his scars any
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 95 
 
 more than the German maiden objects to 
 the duel marks on the cheeks of her lover ; 
 but it was necessary for him to drive away 
 a ridiculous little parr and two or three 
 rivals, one of which locked jaws with him 
 and did not let go until he had damaged 
 his kipper hook. 
 
 This year the scarred old veteran came 
 up from the Gulf three weeks ago, but he 
 waited in brackish water below the first 
 rapid for a week until the temperature of 
 the river had risen to 50, and then in the 
 first pool he did not feel much like jump- 
 ing for exercise or at passing flies until 
 the water was several degrees warmer yet. 
 It is hard for a salmon to keep quiet for 
 a very long time though, and one need 
 not stand by a pool many minutes to learn 
 if salmon are there or not. 
 
 I did not care particularly to catch this 
 .fine old fish just now because we had had 
 sport enough for one day. First I hooked 
 an enormous salmon that sulked at the 
 bottom for two hours, in spite of all my 
 efforts to move him ; and then when he 
 was beginning to tire, the hook came away
 
 96 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 all at once, and so easily that one won- 
 dered at it having held so long. Another 
 salmon had given me a violent chase 
 down the rapids and I had torn my 
 clothes, lost my hat, and scratched my 
 hands in leaping over rocks while try- 
 ing to follow him ; but he finally ran out 
 all of 1 20 yards of line, whacked my rod 
 straight under water, and broke away. 
 After that I landed two large salmon and 
 a sea trout. No one would crave any 
 more physical exertion after that sort of 
 work, and so Jo-mul and I had gone back 
 to camp. 
 
 We were sitting at the edge of the rocks 
 in front of camp making the smelt jump at 
 a cast of small flies, while Caribou Charley 
 cooked the young murres that he had 
 condescended to collect for supper, along 
 with a pailful of cloudberries and hairy 
 currants. Several smelt would dart at 
 the flies at once, and I told Jo-mul of the 
 common saying among white men that 
 salmon fishing spoiled a man for any other 
 sort of sport with the rod, and asked him 
 if we had not many and many a time
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 97 
 
 rigged up a light rod and gone to fishing 
 for smelt, fork-tail charrs, whitefish, sea 
 trout, or brook trout, while a dozen leap- 
 ing salmon were in sight. Then again, 
 after a fine salmon had been brought to 
 gaff, we have gone down the bay and had 
 no end of fun digging clams and pulling 
 lobsters out from under the rocks, or we 
 have gone up to deep water and fished 
 on the bottom for lake trout with a plain 
 vulgar hook' and sinker, when salmon 
 would have risen to almost any cast of 
 the fly in the pools. No ! I am suspi- 
 cious of the color of the blood of a sports- 
 man who is ruined by salmon fishing. 
 Nevertheless, a salmon is the greatest 
 prize that is obtained by the fisherman. 
 
 While we sat waiting for supper an 
 hour ago and were catching the smelts in 
 order to fill in all chinks of time, two or 
 three fish that looked like ouananiche be- 
 gan to leap and play a few yards out in 
 the stream, so I got the salmon rod out 
 again in order to catch one of them for 
 identification. The Jock Scott fly was 
 cast gently into the smooth gliding rapid
 
 98 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 water at the head of a short but noisy 
 chute, and when the fly rounded up and 
 rippled the water at the end of a straight- 
 ened line this great salmon unexpectedly 
 appeared. He advanced close up to the 
 fly, almost touched it with his blunt nose, 
 stood poised for a moment in the current, 
 and then turned away, making a swirl 
 that boiled the water up in a smooth, 
 round dome at the place where he had 
 been an instant before. He was given 
 time to settle back to his resting-place, 
 and then the fly went out to search for 
 him again. This time he came with a 
 rush, and opening a great mouth that 
 shut the fly in completely, he turned to 
 disappear again ; but feeling the hook 
 and the tightening line he leaped eight 
 feet into the air, shook his head savagely, 
 and bending his body into a bow struck 
 at the line with his tail while high in 
 air. The water splashed to the shore and 
 splattered the rocks as he splurged under 
 again, and then with the speed of an ex- 
 press train he rushed fifty yards out into 
 the river and made a graceful broad jump
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 99 
 
 of fifteen feet over the surface. Turning 
 sharply down stream he shot instantly 
 through the chute, stopping to whirl once 
 in the broken water, and then pulled out 
 a hundred yards of line so swiftly that it 
 fairly took my breath away before I could 
 jump over the rocks and follow him along 
 the shore. Up he went into the air again 
 and then back into the current, yanking 
 his head furiously back and forth with 
 regular strokes. His next move was to 
 march up behind a rock in deep water, 
 where he sulked, remaining in the same 
 place for ten minutes, and giving nervous 
 twitches on the line, which was drawn so 
 tightly in the water that it hummed a 
 tune in G minor, and cut the water so 
 that a little transparent sheet an inch high 
 stood straight up. 
 
 In thirty minutes the salmon had be- 
 come sufficiently tired to allow me to 
 guide him into shallow water near Jo-mul, 
 who struck him fairly with the gaff and 
 lifted him out upon the rock at his feet. 
 A beautiful fish it is, and one that re- 
 quired a pretty good knowledge of his
 
 ioo The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 habits in order to take him out of the ele- 
 ment in which he was well equipped for 
 methods of escape. 
 
 As for Jo-mul, who stands there so 
 erect and solemn upon the rock holding 
 the salmon with the gaff, he too has 
 habits and a life history. His long black 
 hair is cut evenly around at the level of 
 his shoulders, and his straight thin nose, 
 high cheek-bones, and dark skin mark the 
 man whose ancestors were perhaps here 
 with the other indigenous animals. He is 
 not at all like a white man, although he says 
 that he can speak English. I asked him 
 if he had ever seen a moose so far north 
 and he replied, " Seen um be markin' on 
 de paper." That was an unusually good 
 and long answer for him. As a rule it is 
 necessary to ask him a question several 
 times before he makes any kind of an 
 answer in Montagnais, traders' French, 
 or English. He is not morose, but like 
 others of his race he has failed to develop 
 the bump of language. I do not remem- 
 ber to have seen him lauorh but once, and 
 
 o 
 
 that was when I asked him to cut enough
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 101 
 
 firewood to last for several days. It was 
 a good joke. Nothing appeals to an In- 
 dian's sense of the ludicrous like the idea 
 of laying up anything in advance. He 
 tries to imitate Caribou Charley and me 
 in some things, and I do not dare to leave 
 my tooth-brush out or he surely would try 
 it. He still prefers to lean over the river 
 Narcissus-like when parting his hair in 
 the morning instead of using our more 
 civilized mirror, which is made by sinking 
 a rubber coat-tail in a pan of water. 
 
 Every year in July Jo-mul comes down 
 to the coast and disposes of his canoe load 
 of furs to some trader. A fine black mink 
 skin is worth two dollars, so for that the 
 trader gives him a five-cent pipe on which 
 he has placed the value of two dollars. 
 His skins of beaver, otter, fox, marten, 
 lynx, fisher, wolverine, and bear are traded 
 off for pickles, Florida water, gunpowder, 
 tobacco, and the simplest necessaries in 
 the way of clothing and provisions, but 
 usually to pay the last year's debt ; and 
 the things that he wants are advanced to 
 him, for he is known as an honest Indian,
 
 102 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 That means that he has learned that ad- 
 vances will not be made unless debts are 
 paid. An Indian is apt to be relatively 
 honest. Jo-mul would probably not steal 
 a gold watch because he does not know 
 what it is good for, but it would not be 
 safe to leave a pound of pork near him. 
 He would cross himself with one hand 
 while purloining the pork with the other, 
 for the missions have not been without 
 their influence in this region. 
 
 Jo-mul has a wife and two children, but 
 his ideas of family are not troublesome, 
 and he would not feel so very badly if 
 some young brave were to run off with 
 his comely daughter before marriage, 
 especially if the young brave could furnish 
 food enough and would give the daughter 
 a bright red ribbon or two. After Jo-mul 
 has traded off his furs and has lain about 
 camp for four or five weeks the family 
 start off on their annual trip into the in- 
 terior, to come down the river in the 
 following year just as the salmon are 
 going up. Jo-mul has few motives or am- 
 bitions beyond those of any of the other
 
 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 103 
 
 large animals of this latitude. He would 
 never think of making a pet of any wild 
 animal. He would not live a moral life 
 for its own reward, because there would 
 be some difficulty in explaining to him 
 the nature of that reward. He would not 
 be content with four meals a day if he 
 could get eight, and he does not feel like 
 working when he is full of food and wants 
 to sleep. 
 
 He seems to live for the purpose of 
 completing a round of life. One round 
 begins with the water bacteria which are 
 eaten by infusoria, which are eaten by 
 mollusks, which are eaten by fish, which 
 are eaten by Jo-mul, who will be eaten by 
 bacteria in turn if he is not careful in 
 shooting the rapids. Another round be- 
 gins with the land plants, which are eaten 
 by the caribou, which are eaten by Jo-mul, 
 who will be eaten by the bacteria and 
 turned over to the land plants again if he 
 is careful about shooting the rapids. Thus 
 will Jo-mul fill his place in the economy 
 of nature, and apparently there is no other 
 mission for him on earth,
 
 104 The Evening of Aug. i, 1895. 
 
 The syenite rock is about the only thing 
 near camp which has no habits. It lies 
 there partly submerged beneath the sullen 
 current. It is waiting.
 
 IN THE SANDY END OF 
 
 A CONNECTICUT 
 
 TOWNSHIP. 
 
 " r I ^HAT nigh mare is a cribber, is n't 
 J_ she, Jim ? 
 
 " Cribber ? Why goddlemitey, yes. 
 All the hosses up this way is cribbers ; 
 or most on 'em is, cause the air is so gol 
 darned good up here that they want to 
 suck 'emselves full of it and keep sucked 
 full, besides what they kin git into their 
 innards reg'lar ways. Say ! you 'd better 
 come up here to stay fer a spell and you 'd 
 git as healthy as a hoss. Whoa thar, 
 Jinny! Whoa thar, Lije ! Git on here 
 quick, you fellers. Whoa, Lijah ! Aint 
 this a mornin' fer trout, though ? Sling 
 them baskets and poles in and git fixed as 
 soon 's you kin." 
 
 105
 
 106 In the Sandy End of 
 
 " Little bit frisky this morning, are n't 
 they, Jim?" 
 
 " Stiddy thar, Jinny ! Oh, that 's noth- 
 in'. I '11 run 'em up Bald Hill lickety 
 split and they '11 stand while we 're fishin' 
 after that. Say ! Look here ! Don't 
 let yer feet swing too fur from the front 
 of the waggin so 's to hit Jinny's legs." 
 
 " Is she a kicker, Jim ? " 
 
 "Kicker? Well, no; not zactly, 'less 
 you begin it yerself. Be a little keerful, 
 though. Oh, never mind 'bout movin' 
 back. Stay whar you be. Don't get 
 skeered. She won't kick 'less she 's 
 s'prised. I 've only jist got her, and I '11 
 treat her kinder kind, and bimeby she 
 won't never kick. Git up, Jinny !" 
 
 Jim accompanied the injunction with a 
 cobble-stone which he pulled out of his 
 side pocket, striking the mare between 
 the ears. 
 
 "Git up!" 
 
 Another stone from the side pocket hit 
 her on the neck. 
 
 " Why do you do that, Jim ? Why 
 don't you use your whip ? "
 
 A Connecticut Township. 107 
 
 " Whip ! Can't use no whip on her. 
 I jist carry along a pocket full of stuns 
 and tetch her up ahead a leetle. That 's 
 whar she needs it. Don't need no stir- 
 rin' up behind. Too gol darned smart 
 there aready." 
 
 " Where did you buy her, Jim?" 
 
 " Buy her? I haint never bought no 
 hosses. Aint no use a-buyin' 'em. Traded. 
 Allers traded ! Leastways, most allers 
 traded. They 's men that '11 pay a hun- 
 dred dollars cash down fer a hoss, but 
 them folks can't get ahead none. Bought 
 my fust hoss, come to think. I was down 
 to Stony Creek and they was a-loadin' a 
 schooner fer York, and the feelin' come 
 over me all to once that I wanted to go 
 fur a travel, and I says to the cap'n, says I : 
 
 " ' Cap'n, what '11 you take to let me go 
 to York with you ?' 
 
 "'Come on, Jim,' says he, 'and help 
 me load up and I '11 take you down and 
 back if you '11 help both ways.' 
 
 " That 's how I got my start. Kinder 
 curis, aint it, how a feller '11 git a start from 
 a feelin' that comes over him and he 's in a
 
 io8 In the Sandy End of 
 
 handy spot fur the feelin'. Well, we got 
 down to York, and one day while he was 
 a-waitin' I come to a hoss-car track in the 
 road, and bein' kinder curis, I follered it 
 up and bimeby I come to a big stable and 
 the gol dumbedest pile of horses that ever 
 you seen. Bimeby they onhitched a hoss 
 that come in kinder lame and dumpish, 
 and the hoss doctor he looked him over 
 and he says to the boss, says he : 
 
 " ' Sudden attack of spilin'-men-an- 
 cheat-us. Hoss busted,' says he. 
 
 " Then they went away, and I histed 
 up that hoss's off hind leg and I seen that 
 ere spilin'-cheat-us lodged in under the 
 shoe, and it wa'n't no bigger 'n a robin's 
 egg. I did n't pry it out just then, but I 
 kinder waited round, and bimeby I went 
 up to the boss and I says : 
 
 " ' What '11 you take fer that hoss ? ' 
 
 " ' Take fifty,' says he, thinkin' he was 
 cheatin' me. 
 
 " Them city fellers '11 cheat you quick- 
 er 'n a wink. Nothin' agin you fellers, 
 'cause you aint thar now. 
 
 " ' Give you five,' says I.
 
 A Connecticut Township. 109 
 
 " ' Twenty-five/ says he. 
 
 " ' Six,' says I. 
 
 " ' Give me eight and take him,' says he. 
 
 " So I give him eight and had three 
 dollars left in my pocket. Made it burnin' 
 charcoal summer before, and was lookin' 
 fer a chance to speckerlate, never thinkin' 
 't would come unexpected like that. Well, 
 when I got down the road I pried out that 
 'ere cheat-us and got the hoss aboard the 
 schooner and got him up here, and from 
 that start I 've been tradin' and tradin' 
 and I Ve had lots of hosses and waggins 
 and harnesses, besides a purty good livin'.' 
 
 " Ever get any bad horses, Jim ?" 
 
 " Bad uns? Why, no, not r-e-e-1 bad." 
 
 " How did the dashboard get knocked 
 out of the buggy up at the house ?" 
 
 " Kicked out, I s'pose !" 
 
 "Bad horse?" 
 
 " No ; not r-e-e-1 bad ! Can't remem- 
 ber jest which one it was. Long time 
 ago." 
 
 " What did you feed the horse, on board 
 the schooner?" 
 
 "Hay!"
 
 i io In the Sandy End of 
 
 " Where did you get hay ? " 
 
 " Oh, they was a lot of it on the dock 
 all done up fancy. Good hay though. 
 Smelt of it." 
 
 "Whose hay was it?" 
 
 "Dunno!" 
 
 " I wish we could fish the old Howell 
 brook this morning, Jim ; but they say 
 that a club has bought rights and posted 
 it. How do you like that sort of thing 
 here in this part of the country?" 
 
 " Like it ? Why, fust rate. Ketched 
 bigger trout and more of 'em than ever 
 before." 
 
 " But don't you ever run across the 
 watchman ? " 
 
 "Oh, lordy, yes! Run acrost him 
 more 'n forty times." 
 
 " But did n't he stop you ?" 
 
 " Stop me?" and Jim's voice sounded 
 like the sudden breaking of a bed slat 
 "Stop me? Why, no. He knows I kin 
 lick him quicker 'n lightnin'. Allers licked 
 him at school when we was boys. But 
 I Ve got a brook all posted for you fel- 
 lers. Three miles on it."
 
 A Connecticut Township. 1 1 1 
 
 " I did n't know that you owned so 
 much land, Jim." 
 
 " I don't own none o' that land," said 
 Jim ; " but you see it 's this way. Them 
 club fellers got a notion of comin' over 
 to this brook, so I went and stuck up a 
 lot of signs." 
 
 " But how about the owners?" 
 
 " Well, you see how it is ; the land up 
 here 's mortgaged 'way up, and the men 
 what 's on the farms thinks that the mort- 
 gagers put up them signs, and the mort- 
 gagers thinks that the men what 's on the 
 farms put 'em up, and bein' a leetle skeered 
 of each other, they don't ask no questions." 
 
 " So you did not have to pay any- 
 thing?" 
 
 " No ; nothin'. They aint no money up 
 this way to pay for things nohow, so we 
 hev to do the best we kin without money. 
 Money aint nec'ssary fer folks with heads 
 on 'em. It 's fer dudes. Nothin' agin 
 you fellers cause cause praps you 
 haint got much on it. They was a feller 
 up here had two hundred and forty-six 
 dollars saved up, burnin' charcoal, and he
 
 112 In the Sandy End of 
 
 was awful skeered that some un would 
 ketch him and git it wuss 'n a mink with 
 a black hide and so he slept over in that 
 charcoal hut over yender 'way from 
 folks." 
 
 " Did they find him, Jim?" 
 "Yep!" 
 
 " Get his money?" 
 "Yep! Killed him." 
 " Was it known who did it ? " 
 " Yep ! Seen the feller what done it 
 down to the railroad station t'other day." 
 " But did n't they arrest him ?" 
 " Oh, yep ! Took him over to Hartford 
 and tried him fer it. Could n't prove 
 nothin', cause he was jest that fool fer 
 luck, that they wa' n't nobody lookin' on 
 when he done it, so he was 'quitted. 
 When I seen him t'other day down to 
 the station, I walked up to him and I 
 says, says I : 
 
 " ' Gabe, you know gol darned well that 
 you was the feller that killed Mart.'" 
 " What did he say to that, Jim ? " 
 " Oh, he says, ' Git out,' says he, and 
 poked me in the ribs with his thumb. He
 
 A Connecticut Township. 113 
 
 knows me fust rate, you know. Wish 
 you fellers 'd go up to Hall's pond some 
 day and ketch some of them black bass 
 that was put in up there." 
 
 " Have you tried them, Jim ? " 
 
 " Yep ! Tried 'em with that purty little 
 trout pole you give me three years ago." 
 
 "Catch any?" 
 
 "Dunno!" 
 
 "A man usually knows whether he has 
 caught a bass or not." 
 
 " Well, it 's this way. You see I put on 
 a frog and hove him out by a good-lookin' 
 rock, and all to oncet they was a yell of a 
 yank, and I pulled my all firedest, and the 
 bass he pulled his all firedest, and bimeby 
 somethin busted, and I haint got that 
 purty leetle pole now. Next time I go 
 bassin' I '11 take along a bean pole, and a 
 purty gol darned stubbed one at that." 
 
 " We will write to you if we find that 
 we can come up again this spring for the 
 bass, Jim." 
 
 " 'T won't do no good to write." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Cause old Hank, the postmaster, he 's
 
 ii4 In the Sandy End of 
 
 got a grudge agin me. Last year he sent 
 word over they was a letter fer me to the 
 post-office, and said he would n't give it to 
 me till I licked him fer it. He would n't 
 let me have it fer two weeks just to tan- 
 terlize me, but I found out what was in it, 
 cause his woman she opened it and told 
 some of my folks, so he wa'n't so gol 
 
 darned smart as he thought he was." 
 # # * * * * 
 
 "Guess I '11 hitch up Syb to take you 
 fellers down to the station this mornin'. 
 Sorry you can't stay and git another big 
 mess like yest'day. Like to hev you 
 round. Thar 's Mary, she goes and slicks 
 up when you 're round jest like when I 
 was courtin' her. They 's lots of trout 
 too. Why, I ketched one over by Barnes's 
 t' other day that weighed a pound and a 
 half. Pound an ! a half, wa'n't it, Mary ? " 
 
 "Two pound, plumb, James." 
 
 " And then up there to the hog hole I 
 ketched, 1'e's see, 't was some thirty-odd, 
 wa'n't it, Mary?" 
 
 " Forty-eight, James." (Loyalty, thy 
 name is woman !)
 
 A Connecticut Township. 115 
 
 " Get in, boys. Springs a leetle weak 
 for three, but Syb don't mind if anything 
 busts." 
 
 " That 's a pretty mare, Jim, where did 
 you get her?" 
 
 ''Traded! Traded with a feller over 
 to Madison when she was a colt. Aint 
 she a beaut ? " 
 
 " What does the name Syb stand for, 
 Jim?" 
 
 "Sybil!" 
 
 " How in the name of goodness did you 
 ever come to name a colt Sybil ?" 
 
 " Sybil ? Why, that was the name of 
 the gal of the feller I got the colt of. 
 Sech a gol darned purty gal, I named 
 the colt after her, knowin' it must grow 
 up beautiful with sech a name." 
 
 " Do you know what a sibyl is, Jim ?" 
 
 " No. It must be somethin' too gol 
 darned sweet and beautiful fer these parts, 
 'ceptin' as I Ve got it in that mare." 
 
 Sybil was really a most beautiful and 
 intelligent little mare, and Jim had made 
 her his pet. The tenderness that his 
 knotty hands displayed in managing her
 
 n6 In the Sandy End of 
 
 and the soft voice in which he spoke to 
 her were very touching, and she, like a 
 spoiled girl, did just as she pleased, but 
 with the evident intention of reciprocating 
 Jim's affection. She wore no blinders and 
 went along the sandy road at any gait 
 that happened to please her for the mo- 
 ment. The little mare would leisurely jog 
 off to one side of the road to keep in the 
 shade of the maples, and then deliberately 
 cross over to trot in the shade of the but- 
 ter-nuts on the other side, if that was the 
 better side. She threw her head around 
 over her shoulder and looked straight at 
 Jim when he spoke to her, meanwhile not 
 changing her gait. She stopped a moment 
 to rub noses with a cow near the road and 
 then went on again without command. 
 Passing an old stone wall, Syb stopped so 
 quickly that we were almost pitched out, 
 and with ears pricked up she reached her 
 head over the fence to look at something. 
 
 " What is it, Jim ? " I asked. 
 
 " Woodchuck rustlin' in the leaves, I 
 guess. [Standing up to look.] Yep ! 
 woodchuck ! G' long, Syb ! "
 
 A Connecticut Township. 117 
 
 " What will you take for that mare, 
 Jim!" 
 
 " Take fer her ? No, sir-e-e. She aint 
 to sell. That 's talkin' 'bout the soul, or 
 leastways as near as I ever git to it. 
 G'long, darlin'!" 

 
 A DAY WITH THE GROUSE. 
 
 ON one of those clean, northerly, 
 transparent November mornings, 
 when the elfin frost sketchers had left the 
 tops of the kitchen window-panes suffi- 
 ciently clear to give an impressionist effect 
 of yellow sassafras leaves in the yard and 
 embers of autumn over beyond upon the 
 mountain side, John and I moved our 
 creaky old-fashioned chairs up to the 
 farm-house table and fortified ourselves 
 for the prospective hunt with hot buck- 
 wheat cakes and sausage gravy, with 
 home-made sausages that had spluttered 
 and burst in the frying-pan and then 
 turned all crunchy where their contents 
 had quickly browned, and finally, with a 
 warmer of coffee containing blobs of real 
 cream and doubtful sugar. 
 
 We were clad in stout canvas hunting 
 1x8
 
 A Day with the Grouse. 119 
 
 suits, flannel shirts, thick hob-nailed bro- 
 gans, and corduroy caps ; and if any one 
 doubted our intentions for the day they 
 should have seen Don and Belle, the two 
 setters, as they rapped the table legs with 
 their tails, and poking their heads into 
 our laps with impatient whines looked up 
 with that intense expression that one sees 
 when the dog realizes that his master is 
 all ready for a hunt. Honest old Fog- 
 horn, the hound, sat in droop-eared dig- 
 nity with bowed head near the stove, 
 looking at us occasionally out of the 
 corners of his eyes and hoping that he 
 would be invited to follow, but knowing 
 full well that when we were out after 
 grouse it was his day to remain at home. 
 One who has not lived and loved with 
 well-bred dogs cannot appreciate their 
 keen perceptions and their quick divina- 
 tion of many of the master's thoughts and 
 intentions. The ordinary observer would 
 have said that Foghorn did not care to 
 go with us on that day, and that the other 
 dogs were wistful because such was their 
 habit, but not a word had been spoken
 
 120 A Day with the Grouse. 
 
 to them and they all judged of our plans 
 for the day from something in our man- 
 ner that the gift had not been given us 
 to realize ourselves. Dogs seem to see 
 their masters' thoughts, and their de- 
 ductions are all made while the phi- 
 losopher is waiting for something more 
 definite ; and although the quickness of 
 their conclusions is antagonistic to good 
 analyses of our motives, they turn at 
 each limitation of their understanding to 
 a friendly supposition, and it is with a 
 wag of the tail instead of a growl that 
 they await further information. I re- 
 spectfully refer philosophers to the dogs. 
 We were not out of the door before 
 Don and Belle had bounced through ahead 
 of us, and the frightened hens about the 
 stone steps ran and flew ca-dark-ut-ing in 
 great confusion back to the barnyard and 
 over the fence into the orchard. A chilly 
 crow unhunched himself from a frosty rail 
 and flopped heavily along over the fields 
 of corn-shocks and ungathered pumpkins, 
 and out of the stiff frozen grass fluttered 
 a few migrating sparrows as we rustled
 
 A Day with the Grouse. 121 
 
 noisily along through the windrows of 
 dead leaves in the path. High up on the 
 hill-tops the sun was just beginning to 
 mingle with the few brilliant leaves that 
 still clung to the maples, and down in 
 the valley a line of haze above the dark 
 pines marked the course of the stream 
 that had been so interesting to us in the 
 trout season. It was a rough climb 
 through the woods to the upper grounds 
 where we intended to hunt, and the air 
 was provocative of such energetic move- 
 ments that we were in a glow when the 
 high levels and the morning sunshine were 
 reached. Away to the right of us stretched 
 a series of beech and chestnut ridges, with 
 many acres of thick pines and hemlocks, 
 while the edges of the woodland were 
 lined with brush-lots of young poplars, 
 birches, sumacs, and witch hazel ; patches 
 of reddish buckwheat stubble here and 
 there adjoined the saplings. To the 
 hunter's eye buckwheat stubble is the 
 finishing touch of beauty in a landscape. 
 Festoons of grape-vines hung from the 
 hornbeams in the gullies, and the ground
 
 122 A Day with the Grouse. 
 
 in many places was thickly carpeted with 
 wintergreens and princess pine. In the 
 debris of the very first crumbling log we 
 found a group of four wallow holes and a 
 loose grouse-feather that looked as though 
 it had been recently shaken out. Neither 
 Don nor Belle made any signs of game 
 just there, but they ranged eagerly back 
 and forth to the loose heaps of brush, 
 through clumps of sapling pines and along 
 the stump fence, until the rapid wagging 
 of Don's tail as he hesitated for a moment 
 in the cart-path showed that a grouse had 
 been along there that morning. For 
 several minutes Don was busy in trying 
 to determine the direction of the trail, but 
 gradually becoming convinced he started 
 off cautiously through the scrubby oak 
 bushes with elevated nose and swinging 
 tail. We could see his nostrils dilate and 
 hear him snuffing, as with half-closed eyes 
 his every energy seemed concentrated in 
 the delicate effort of catching the floating 
 scent. How lightly he stepped as he led 
 us off toward a fallen tree-top ! And then 
 he began to grow stiff-legged, and stopped.
 
 A Day with the Grouse. 123 
 
 His tail straight out : every muscle rigid : 
 and his right foot lifted from the ground. 
 Belle, seeing that he had found a bird, 
 bounded up so hurriedly that the grouse 
 rushed out and disappeared behind a pine 
 before we could shoot. Out from under 
 a scrub-oak went another grouse, and 
 neither of the guns happened to be ready, 
 It was necessary to call Belle in and 
 scold her for being so careless, and her 
 drooping ears and tail showed that her 
 feelings were hurt more than they would 
 have been if we had punished her. The 
 direction that one of the birds had taken 
 led us out to a sumac thicket on a knoll. 
 Both dogs were making signs of game and 
 trying to locate the birds, when suddenly 
 out of the ferns at my very feet burst a 
 great gray cock grouse and sprang whir- 
 ring into the air, shaking the saplings with 
 his wings and whisking a circle of loose 
 dead leaves into the air of his wake. 
 The instant that the gun-stock struck my 
 shoulder and the trigger was simultane- 
 ously and intuitively pulled, the feath- 
 ers flew in a puff, the powerful bird
 
 124 A Day with the Grouse. 
 
 dropped headlong through a thorn-bush, 
 and struck the ground with a thump, 
 leaving a few loose feathers hanging 
 lightly among the twigs, while dried thorn- 
 leaves rattled down from limb to limb as 
 they followed the bird. The empty shell 
 in the gun was quickly replaced by a 
 loaded one and Don was given the order 
 to fetch. How proudly he came trotting 
 toward us, tossing the prize upward in 
 order to get a better hold as he ran, and 
 at the same time being careful not to muss 
 the feathers. His eyes were not for a 
 moment taken from the limp grouse in 
 my hand until its tail had disappeared in 
 the capacious hunting-coat pocket. 
 
 Along the edge of a buckwheat stubble 
 both dogs worked ambitiously back and 
 forth, following first one trail and then 
 another until we were convinced that a 
 whole covey of grouse had been gleaning 
 there and that their tracks were so inter- 
 mingled that the dogs had a difficult riddle 
 to solve. We were making a wide detour 
 of the field when it was noticed all at once 
 that Belle was standing on a "dead point"
 
 A Day with the Grouse. 125 
 
 at a small wisp of foxtail grass and rag- 
 weeds, and Don was a few yards away back- 
 ing her. The idea that a whole big grouse 
 could hide in such cover without being 
 visible seemed ridiculous, but we had en- 
 tire confidence in the two mute authorities 
 standing there so motionless in the stub- 
 ble, and as I walked up to Don a grouse 
 sprang like a new revelation out of the 
 wisp and started off with plenty of room 
 to gain all needful headway. The first 
 charge of shot loosened a couple of wing 
 feathers and the second shot sent the bird 
 bounding all in a bunch among the seedy 
 ragweeds. Just then two more clucking 
 and squealing grouse with spread tails and 
 half-opened wings unexpectedly appeared 
 and ran straight toward me, mounting on 
 wing so close that I could almost have 
 touched them with the gun. Another one 
 jumped from the wisp straight up high 
 into the air, and a moment later two red 
 fellows whirred away side by side low over 
 the field. A volcano and earthquake of 
 grouse ! There I stood with unloaded 
 
 ^ 
 
 gun and trying so hurriedly to get two
 
 i26 A Day with the Grouse. 
 
 cartridges into the breech that they would 
 not have gone into a peck measure just 
 then. If my efforts at being wise had 
 ever been so severe and so energetic as 
 my efforts to get those cartridges into the 
 breech in time for a shot, the nineteenth 
 century would have had its Solomon. 
 
 One of the birds scudding down the 
 wind past John suddenly folded itself up 
 in mid air, and a long shot at another so 
 surprised the bird that it wheeled and 
 alighted in a hemlock at the edge of the 
 field. 
 
 In brush lot and in bark slashing and 
 from hill-top to swale we found grouse that 
 day, and when in the long shadows of the 
 thin sunlight on a cold-waxing autumn 
 evening we reached the farm-house and 
 spread our birds out upon the woodshed 
 floor, the dogs, with ears full of burrs and 
 memories replete with good deeds, curled 
 up contentedly behind the stove for the 
 night. 
 
 The cider in the blue pitcher that was 
 set upon the table after supper helped to 
 strengthen many of the weak points in the
 
 A Day with the Grouse. 127 
 
 yarns of the old settler who had dropped 
 in to tell us of the three coons that he had 
 found in one tree that day, and Grandad 
 Bradtree, leaning- his sunken cheek on the 
 trembling hand that balanced the cane 
 against the arm-chair, was encouraged to 
 tell again such stories of his exploits in 
 the good old days as are usually reserved 
 for grandchildren and withheld from con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 I know the beds of Eastern princes, and 
 the luxurious couches of Occidental pluto- 
 crats, but under the rafters of a farm-house 
 in western New York, where the mud 
 wasp's nest answers for a Rembrandt and 
 the cobweb takes the place of a Murillo, 
 there is a feather bed into which the 
 hunter who has killed a dozen ruffed 
 grouse in the day softly sinks until his 
 every inch is soothed and fitted, and set- 
 tling down and farther down into sweet 
 unconsciousness, while the screech owl is 
 calling from the moonlit oak and frost 
 is falling upon the asters, stocks may 
 fluctuate and panic seize the town, but 
 there is one man who is in peace.
 
 NEPIGON AND SAGUENAY 
 RIVERS. 
 
 A FIVE-MINUTES' COMPARISON'. 
 
 " I "HE Xepigon River has for its source 
 JL a great spring which presses against 
 more than ninety miles of encircling rocks 
 in seeking for a chance to escape, and 
 then pours heaps of canorous water pell- 
 mell through a forty-mile chute straight 
 into diaphanic Lake Superior. If the 
 river stops a bit wherever there is need to 
 touch up the landscape with a lake, or if 
 it runs slowly past engaging scenery, no 
 one cares very much, because it makes up 
 for lost time in a headlong chase over the 
 rocks all of the rest of the way. 
 
 The Saguenay River, with its forty miles 
 
 of tannate water debouching into a dark 
 
 sullen estuary, is the result of a conference 
 
 of long rivers which meet at Lake St. 
 
 126
 
 The Nepigon and Saguenay. 129 
 
 John and require ninety miles of sandy 
 circumference for the assembly. If you 
 would know which St. John the lake is 
 named after, try to cross it in a birch-bark 
 canoe when a question of north wind is 
 before the conference. The Nepigon 
 River, as a strong individual character, 
 retains its original motives and carries 
 into Lake Superior the same volume of 
 clearest cold water with which it started, 
 water that makes such white foam and 
 spray in the rapids that the Indians could 
 not help calling the river the Nepi-gon, or 
 river-that-is-like-snow. Such a river is not 
 very susceptible to passing influences, and 
 during the whole year it may not rise or 
 fall more than twenty-five inches, while the 
 Saguenay, responding to many influential 
 constituents, rises and falls as many feet 
 in the course of two months, and not only 
 that, but it is warm or cold at the dictation 
 of the season. 
 
 The Nepigon is not afraid to show its 
 true nature at the outset of its career, 
 and it gives honest warning that it is pow- 
 erful. The Saguenay, on the other hand,
 
 13 The Nepigon and Saguenay. 
 
 leaves the St. John Conference with mur- 
 der in its heart. Stealthily as a leopard 
 it noiselessly glides to the Isle d'Alma, 
 then it mutters and growls for a while, and 
 suddenly bursts out with demoniacal fe- 
 rocity upon the rocks in its path. If you 
 are a master of rivers and fear none of 
 them, go to the Nepigon and to the 
 Saguenay and see how grandly nature is 
 displayed along these two great "tributa- 
 ries of the St. Lawrence which are so 
 much alike upon the map and so different 
 in their characters. Leave behind the 
 pleasures of the city that are dependent 
 upon arts which stimulate the mind 
 without nourishing the soul ; where the 
 gardener makes the rose more and more 
 beautiful as he gradually forces its stamens 
 to become petals, until, as the queen of 
 flowers, it has lost the power of gener- 
 ation ; where the arts of civilization 
 stimulate the mind until it flames up in 
 genius and a degenerate body falls back. 
 Go to the Nepigon and to the Saguenay 
 and see what substantial things can be 
 found there in nature. On the Nepigon,
 
 The Nepigon and Saguenay. 131 
 
 igneous cliffs of trap rock tower in stern 
 grandeur over the river-that-is-like-snow. 
 The dark forest growth of fir and tama- 
 rack, toned by poplar, birch, and round- 
 wood, becomes thinned and sparse on the 
 mountains, just as though the Oreads had 
 planned their forest before violent up- 
 heavals of the earth made ten humpy miles 
 out of one smooth mile, and thereby upset 
 their calculations. On the Saguenay the 
 corrupted name for the Shagahneu-hi, or 
 ice-hole river, so named because the seals 
 used to keep many air-holes open in the 
 ice of the estuary Laurentian rocks in 
 sombre piles lift up their covering of 
 coniferous and deciduous trees, which are 
 much like those of the Nepigon, but here 
 and there a fine yellow pine holds mo- 
 narchial possession of a jagged island, and 
 the trunks of the northern white birch 
 light up the forest aisles. An area of fos- 
 siliferous limestone on Lake St. John has 
 come to the surface, bearing evidence of 
 the abundance of life in Silurian days. A 
 devout clergyman remarked that these 
 fossils were never alive, but were placed
 
 132 The Nepigon and Saguenay. 
 
 there in their present form to test our 
 faith, and they have done it. Moose and 
 caribou sometimes leave tracks among 
 the twin-flowers and adder-mouths along 
 the banks of both the Nepigon and Sague- 
 nay rivers, and one need not go very far 
 away to find abundance of such game. 
 Black bears swim the rivers at safe cross- 
 ing-places, and the voice of a gray wolf 
 may be heard above the sound of rushing 
 waters when all else under the stars is 
 still. Along both rivers the northern 
 hares furnish the principal food supply 
 for carnivorous animals and birds, just as 
 the ciscoes furnish a large food supply for 
 the predatory fishes of the region. Spruce 
 grouse and ruffed grouse fly into the bushes 
 near the fisherman, and look at him in 
 wonderment, and the cinereous owl catches 
 ptarmigans on the hills in winter. In the 
 Nepigon River brook trout find such an 
 abundance of food and such agreeably 
 cold water that they grow to an enormous 
 size, and are ready to spring after the fly at 
 almost any time of day after 10 o'clock in 
 the morning. Like fish in other very cold
 
 The Nepigon and Saguenay. 133 
 
 streams, they do not rise readily in the 
 early morning, and the best sport may be 
 had with them in the middle of the sun- 
 shiniest day. The big 6-pounders jump 
 at the fly almost as eagerly as the young- 
 sters do, and the very largest trout are so 
 sleek and fat that they are delicious for 
 the camp table quite different from the 
 mill-pond trout of warmer waters, which 
 lose flavor and activity as soon as they 
 have passed the ounces period in their 
 lives. Side by side with the trout are 
 swarms of monstrous pike (Esox lucius), 
 and sometimes one of these will take a 
 silver-doctor fly. So will the salmon trout 
 which lurk in the tail water of deep rap- 
 ids, and so will the pike-perch if one is 
 casting the fly at night. The Nepigon 
 looks like good bass water from the fish- 
 erman's point of view, but the bass them- 
 selves say that it is too cold, and I know 
 of only two that have been caught there. 
 If we leave the best trout water to itself 
 for a while and toss the fly over still black 
 reaches where the water is ever so many 
 fathoms deep, a surprise may come to the
 
 i34 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 
 
 surface in the form of a pale trout with 
 translucent nose and fins, who shows by 
 his colors that he lives away down in the 
 gloom of bottom caverns. We must not 
 expect to catch one of these trout, but 
 once in a while there comes an hour when 
 they are all at the surface. 
 
 Whitefish take the fly readily if one is 
 knowing enough to tempt them in a poli- 
 tic way, and they certainly belong to the 
 game fishes of America. They cannot 
 chase and capture an ordinary artificial fly, 
 but if we put half a dozen flies, tied on 
 No. 14 hooks on a single leader, and drop 
 this affair lightly among the fins that are 
 circling about at the surface in the even- 
 ing, and keep it perfectly still, pretty soon 
 the whitefish will move up to it and try 
 to pick off the small flies as daintily as a 
 red deer nips a lily bud. 
 
 Although there are half a dozen species 
 of fish that will rise to the fly in the Nepi- 
 gon, the chief game fish of the river is 
 first and last the red-spotted square-tailed 
 brook trout. In the Saguenay the chief 
 game fish is the ouananiche, or so-called
 
 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 135 
 
 landlocked salmon. This is the inland 
 salmon that is found in many lake streams 
 from Maine to Labrador, if the streams 
 contain smelts. Ichthyologists find the 
 landlocked salmon anatomically much like 
 the salmon that goes to the sea, but 
 the ouananiche are content to remain 
 with the food supply that is in sight 
 in fresh water ; just as certain people who 
 might be important in the city prefer to 
 remain small in the village, because they 
 are satisfied with the opportunities in 
 sight, though anatomically they are the 
 same folks. It is principally a question of 
 size of opportunity. 
 
 In the Saguenay we find the same mon- 
 strous pike and the same pike-perch and 
 whitefish as in the Nepigon, but the 
 trout are absent. There are plenty of 
 trout in the tributary streams which are 
 not inhabited by the ouananiche, but the 
 two fish rather avoid each other because 
 they are such close rivals. Both are mag- 
 nificent, but they cannot see it in each 
 other. 
 
 The guides of the Nepigon are for the
 
 1 36 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 
 
 most part Chippewa Indians or half-breeds, 
 who are willing enough to have visitors 
 enter their domain, but who are not very 
 amiable. Such is their nature. They do 
 not even make friends of their dogs, who 
 would gladly love them and forgive all of 
 their failings. A stray Indian dog of the 
 most pathetic yellow color came to our 
 camp one day, and when we tried to pat 
 his head the poor little fellow spread his 
 legs apart and braced himself, thinking 
 that we were trying to push him over. He 
 did not know that there was any such 
 thing as affection in the whole round 
 world ; but we developed that latent trait 
 for him, and glad indeed was he to frnd at 
 the end of a week that his tail had a use 
 and that it could wag. 
 
 On the Saguenay the guides are hardy, 
 polite French-Canadians, simple in their 
 ways, and delighted to have a chance to 
 show their hospitality if we visit their 
 humble homes. In their relations with 
 each other every man stands on his real 
 merits and accepts the position that is 
 given him in the estimation of his con-
 
 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 137 
 
 freres. Monsieur E. R. Dutou cannot block 
 up a shaky reputation by signing himself 
 Eelnavo Reanne Dutou. He cannot ele- 
 vate the neighborhood by forcing his name 
 under society in the form of a wedge as 
 E. Reanne Dutou ; nor can he send the 
 chain-shot name of Eelnavo Reanne- 
 Dutou hurtling through a startled public 
 if he is personally deficient in powder. 
 
 The Nepigon has completed its duty 
 when the tribute of waters is freely paid 
 to Lake Superior, but the Saguenay 
 avariciously makes its current pass 
 through a long estuary before deliver- 
 ing its property to the sea. The es- 
 tuary is full of weird interest. The 
 sombre current, the beetling mountains, 
 and the cold northern air are all in keep- 
 ing. White whales gleam out of the dark 
 flood in striking contrasts of color. A 
 beluga is not " sort of white," but is one 
 of the most beautiful of white animals, the 
 quality of his coloring reminding one of 
 the soft, supple white of a pure white 
 stallion. 
 
 At Tadousac, with its lofty terraces of
 
 133 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 
 
 shifting dunes, the Saguenay joins the St. 
 Lawrence grudgingly, and the reddish 
 waters push far out into those of the 
 greater river before their moroseness is 
 tamed. 
 
 A NOTE ON TANNATE WATER. 
 
 Wishing to have an explanation for the 
 reddish stain of many northern streams, I 
 wrote for information to the Department 
 of Agriculture at Washington and at Ot- 
 tawa. From Washington came the reply 
 that no information on that subject was 
 obtainable. From Ottawa I received a 
 personal letter from Secretary H. B. 
 Small, who kindly stated that while no 
 definite answer could be given, it was his 
 impression that the stain was due to the 
 action of tannin in the water, and that the 
 question would be referred to the chemists 
 and botanists of the Department of Agri- 
 culture of Canada. A report from Chief 
 Chemist F. T. Schutt contained analyses 
 of Ottawa River water showing that the 
 coloring of that river was largely due to
 
 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 139 
 
 peaty matter held in suspension, but there 
 is no peat on some of the reddest streams 
 that I have fished, so acting upon the sug- 
 gestion of Secretary Small I made experi- 
 mental test-tube tannates of iron and of 
 manganese in weak aqueous solution. The 
 iron tannate was at first redder than stream 
 water and the manganese tannate was too 
 smoky. A combination of equal parts of 
 solution of iron tannate and of manganese 
 tannate gave at first too smoky a color, 
 but after standing exposed to the light 
 for a few hours an abundant flocculent 
 precipitate formed in all of the test tubes, 
 and all of the solutions assumed a tint 
 quite characteristic of that of the streams. 
 This stain was little changed at the end of 
 two weeks. Rain water coming in con- 
 tact with dead tannin-bearing trees and 
 plants would take tannin into solution, 
 and this solution percolating through a 
 soil containing iron or manganese would 
 make highly colored tannates of the met- 
 als before reaching a stream. Even in 
 peaty waters the color could be due in 
 part to the presence of tannates. It was
 
 Nepigon and Saguenay Rivers. 
 
 a pleasure to feel that my nice red streams 
 were not unclean, and that they apparently 
 represented nothing more than a pretty 
 reaction in Nature's laboratory. It is true 
 enough that nothing in science is unclean, 
 but a trout is particular and would a little 
 rather know that the tinting of his water 
 came from neat tannates of iron and man- 
 ganese.
 
 THE NUMBER NINE AS A TALE 
 VARNISHER. 
 
 " I ^HE number nine is apparently the 
 JL numeral of hyperbole. It is used in 
 the place of a lesser numeral in a careless 
 way to fill gaps in the memory of the 
 story-teller, and it is also employed inten- 
 tionally for impressive effect. 
 
 Curiously enough the use of the num- 
 ber nine for purposes of exaggeration has 
 been employed since early days in history. 
 One's attention having been attracted to 
 the subject, it is a source of surprise to 
 observe to what frequent use the chosen 
 numeral is put. 
 
 A boatman who takes me out on hunt- 
 ing and fishing excursions is in the habit of 
 using the number nine so often in speak- 
 ing of the numbers or weight of fish and 
 game that the listener soon perceives that 
 141
 
 H2 The Number Nine. 
 
 he is allowing the numeral in question to 
 stand for a lesser number of birds, or 
 pounds of fish. In my boatman's inaccu- 
 rate memory the number nine rounds out 
 the bag to a satisfactory extent. 
 
 Beyond my amusement at this man's 
 fibs, the subject caused no reflection until 
 one day when off for a walk I met a man 
 who had not succeeded in killing any snipe 
 on that day but who said that he had 
 killed nine on the previous evening. A 
 little farther on a man who was fishing for 
 bass said that he had caught only nine. 
 On asking him to let me see them he said 
 that they were in a scap net in the spring 
 where they would keep cool, and on lift- 
 ing out the net I found seven bass. The 
 fisherman then decided that his wife must 
 have come down and taken two of them 
 to the house for dinner without his know- 
 ing it. Before reaching home that day I 
 found a man who had killed nine ducks 
 before breakfast just across the way from 
 the boat-house. It then occurred to me 
 that I was on the verge of an observation, 
 and there came to mind at once a number
 
 The Number Nine. 
 
 of familiar nines that have been handed 
 down to us. A stitch in time saves nine. 
 Nine tailors make a man. A nine-days' 
 wonder. A cat has nine lives. A cat 
 o'nine tails. The nine days' fast. The 
 nine-days' prayer. Ninebark is the name 
 of a plant, Spir<za opulifolia, in which the 
 bark separates into several layers. Nine 
 killer is the name of a shrike, Collurio 
 borealis, which suspends several small 
 objects of prey upon thorns and twigs. 
 Nine-day fits is the name for a disease, 
 Trismus nascentium. Nine was the 
 number of books that the Sibyl laid be- 
 fore Tarquin. The Muses were nine. 
 
 We can almost formulate a law that 
 when an exaggerator deals with numerals 
 ranging up to eight he instinctively finds 
 that the number nine represents the im- 
 aginative value of such numerals. One 
 can often take up a copy of a daily 
 newspaper and find that reporters are 
 fond of the number nine. The follow- 
 ing clippings are to the point. While 
 the number nine is used by various classes 
 of people hyperbolically, it is most often
 
 144 The Number Nine. 
 
 heard when sportsmen are relating their 
 tales, and it occurs so persistently in the 
 sportsmen's papers that I instinctively 
 glance over game and fish reports before 
 reading them for the purpose of picking 
 out the nines. Three and seven are 
 favorite numbers, but are not used like 
 nine for hyperbole. 
 
 "NINE KNOWN TO BE KILLED. 
 
 "FIFTEEN OTHER MINERS BURIED IN THE YORK FARM 
 COLLIERY NEAR POTTSVILLE. 
 
 " ANOTHER TERRIBLE MINE EXPLOSION IN THE READING 
 COAL FIELD. 
 
 " The Cause of the Disaster Unknown, but it is Supposed that 
 the Miners Struck a ' Feeder' and Ignited the Gas with 
 their Lamps Women and Children at the Mine's Mouth 
 The Work of Rescue Pushed Rapidly. 
 
 " [SPECIAL TO THE ' WORLD.'] 
 
 " POTTSVILLE, PA., July 23. York Farm Colliery, 
 situated about two miles from this city, was the 
 scene of a terrible explosion about noon to-day. 
 Eight men are known to have been killed outright, 
 and it is believed that fifteen more have suffered 
 the same fate. Those known to have been killed 
 are as follows : 
 
 " i. John Harrison, of Wadesville (fire boss) ; 
 leaves a widow and four children.
 
 The Number Nine. H5 
 
 " 2. Thomas Jones, Minersville ; married. 
 " 3. William Jones, Minersville ; single. 
 " 4. William Wehman, Minersville. 
 " 5. James Hartzel, Llewellyn. 
 " 6. George Kreiss, Middle Creek. 
 " 7. Herman Werner, St. Clair ; leaves a widow 
 and eight children. 
 
 " 8. Anthony Putchlavage, Pottsville. 
 
 " Those known to have been injured are : 
 
 " Anthony Stock, boy, leg broken and burned ; 
 
 " NINE PERSONS WERE KILLED, AND THE 
 INJURED LIST IS A LONG ONE. 
 
 "A Dense Fog Prevailed at the Time, and the Accused En- 
 gineer Claims he could not See the Signals Rear Coach 
 of the Passenger Train Smashed, and Few of the Travellers 
 Escaped Uninjured List of the Dead. 
 
 " [SPECIAL TO THE ' WORLD.'] 
 
 " BOSTON, MASS., Sept. 13. To a dense fog and 
 apparent carelessness on the part of the engineer of 
 the freight train is to be charged the fatal accident 
 on the Fitchburg Railroad shortly before n o'clock 
 last evening, at West Cambridge, by which eight 
 were killed and many injured. 
 
 " The dead are : 
 
 " i. Adams, Miss Margaret, 35 years, Water- 
 town. 
 
 " 2. Barnes, John H., 61 years, Newtown. 
 
 " 3. Feyler, Miss Rhita, 23 years, Waltham.
 
 146 The Number Nine. 
 
 "4. Hudson, John, 51 years, Watertown. 
 
 " 5. Lane, John, 46 years, Watertown. 
 
 " 6. Merrifield, H. F., Watertown. 
 
 " 7. Raymond, Leon O., freight brakeman, 
 Winchendon. 
 
 " 8. Sullivan, Standish P., 56 years, East Water- 
 town. 
 
 " Following is a complete list of the injured. 
 
 " NINE HAT FACTORIES REOPENED. 
 
 "BUT IT IS SAID THAT FEW OF THE OLD EMPLOYES HAVE 
 RETURNED TO WORK. 
 
 "[BY TELEGRAPH TO THE * HERALD.'] 
 
 " DANBURY, CONN., Jan. 25, 1894. Nine of the 
 twenty hat factories that have been closed two 
 months by a lockout of their employes reopened 
 this morning. The manufacturers refuse to tell 
 how many of their late employes returned, but the 
 Executive Committee of the unions places the total 
 number at twenty-two. The firms that reopened 
 their factories and attempted to resume operations 
 were: i, C. H. Merritt & Son ; 2, White, Tweedy & 
 Smyth ; 3, W. Beckerle & Co. ; 4, John W. Green ; 
 5, D. E. Lowe & Co.; 6, T. Brothwell& Co. ; 7, E. 
 A. Mallory & Sons ; and 8, T. C. Millard & Co. 
 Several of the firms started work in some depart- 
 ments, and all agree that they will be running in all 
 departments next week."
 
 The Number Nine. 147 
 
 "$900 FOR ONE MUSHROOM. 
 
 " AN AMATEUR GROWER RECOUNTS HIS COSTLY EXPERIENCE. 
 
 " ' What do you say to a little roast duck and ap- 
 ple sauce ? ' Jones asked of a reporter, looking 
 over the bill of fare after they had seated them- 
 selves in the restaurant. 
 
 " 'Too rich/ the reporter answered. 'Why not 
 beefsteak and mushrooms ? ' 
 
 " ' Anything but mushrooms ! ' Jones exclaimed. 
 'The last one I ate cost me something over $900, 
 and I 'm under a . . . " 
 
 "... near the east shore. He has recovered 
 nine bodies from Cayuga Lake and as many more 
 from Seneca Lake." 
 
 " Last week I found nine coveys of chickens 
 within a half-mile of each other. On an eighteen- 
 mile drive I ... 
 
 " . . . any Warren Street school-boy can solve. 
 You have a divisor, quotient, and remainder, now 
 find the dividend that fish measures exactly 9 ft. 
 in length." 
 
 . . . dashed over an old log. The bait 
 was no sooner out of sight than it was caught and I 
 landed a g-in. trout. Then I began to think how I 
 could carry them all home and . . . 
 
 . . . neighborhood had skinned out the 
 pheasants very materially ; in fact Mr. Crawford
 
 148 The Number Nine. 
 
 told us that he had killed only the day before nine 
 pheasants over the same grounds that we hunted, 
 and we only got four ..." 
 
 "Yesterday a fisherman caught nine bass in a 
 forenoon's fishing on Ballast Reef, and the news 
 was quickly circulated among the disappointed 
 visitors, with the result of inducing several of them 
 to stay over another day to ... 
 
 . . . the ' bar,' as the strip of sand known 
 as Fire Island is called. Mr. William Ryan landed 
 a nine-pounder the other day while trolling near the 
 light-house. Mr. Ryan is very fond of fast horses, 
 and is one of the most expert . . . 
 
 "Two peddlers met in front of a nine-story tene- 
 ment-house in New York. ' How is business, 
 Aaron ? ' ' Very good, indeed. And how is it 
 with you ? ' ' A woman just called me from the 
 top story of this tenement. I ... 
 
 "... that Jocko Lake furnishes unusually 
 good fishing. Sometimes a single line is rigged 
 with nine hooks, and, if left down a short time 
 when the trout are biting freely, will often secure 
 nine trout, or a fish on each hook, at a single time." 
 
 " Hoi' Joe he '11 come any place where dere be 
 some folkses, he '11 beegin holler, ' Any one man 
 want see nine rattlin snake, for twanty-fav cen', 
 jomp on de woggin.' 
 
 " Den w'en you '11 gat on for look, hoi' Joe he '11 
 stroke it
 
 The Number Nine. 149 
 
 ' ' If you will come with me about a mile out in 
 the country, I will introduce you to the widow 
 Sneider, now an old lady. The widow Sneider 
 will tell you that on one morning she counted 900 
 (nine hundred) wagon-loads of bullheads on their 
 way from the geyser below the dam.' " 
 
 " Mack turned to the bottom of the boat, where the 
 three fish lay a big old hook-jaw and two small 
 ones, and picked up the smallest, rinsed him till he 
 glistened, and hung him in the air about 9 in. of 
 trout. Then a howl of derision went up and they 
 put on exhibition a string of ... 
 
 "MR. ROBERTS I do not think the winninish 
 and land-locked salmon are the same by any means. 
 Why is it we never get the winninish any larger ? 
 We get the salmon weighing 25 Ibs., but the winni- 
 nish never weigh over 5 Ibs. 
 
 " MR. BRACKETT I have seen them weighing 9 
 Ibs." 
 
 "From Pueblo the report says that nine men 
 have been killed, while the operator at Rouse Junc- 
 tion places the number at five, and this is confirmed 
 by the manager of a mine at Rouse ; while Trini- 
 dad states that only one man, a Deputy Sheriff, was 
 slain. Everything favors the death of at least nine 
 men ..." 
 
 " Our wood-sawyer Willis, whose testimony differs 
 from all others, has, notwithstanding his lack of 
 adherents, much better proof of his position, for,
 
 150 The Number Nine. 
 
 when questioned, he not only affirmed that 'th* 
 jays tote " trash " nine times ev'ry Friday t' make 
 th' fire hotter to burn up we's souls with, in the 
 " Bad Place," ' but that he has actually seen them 
 engaged in the business."
 
 EN KLAPJAGT PAA DANSKE 
 FJELDE. 
 
 THE gray haze of a November morn- 
 ing made a monochrome with the 
 gray walls and paved streets of Denmark's 
 capital, as Dr. Warming and I with our 
 guns and canvas suits and big boots, 
 stepped into our carriage in Vesterbro- 
 gade and rattled off past the early milk- 
 man with his bumping, thumping cans, 
 and past the homeward-bound gambler, 
 who was damp and limp from long ex- 
 posure to night air. 
 
 Uncas, the setter, we had left whining 
 and barking and pawing at the door, and 
 my heart went out in pity for the poor 
 fellow as my mind reverted to earlier days 
 and a little red school-house beneath the 
 butternut trees in a small Connecticut 
 village. A loose clap-boarded, lichen-
 
 152 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 blotched school-house in which I myself 
 could have whined and barked and pawed 
 at the door when the gentians by the 
 brookside were nodding toward the musk- 
 rat tracks in the sand, and when the 
 ruffed grouse in freedom walked and flew 
 whither they would in the gay-colored 
 breezy autumn forest. Yes ! I could sym- 
 pathize with Uncas now. We were going 
 on a drive hunt, and knew that the ambi- 
 tious setter could not resist the temptation 
 to follow if a sleek-limbed hare should 
 shake its tail in his face and challenge him 
 for a run. I had hunted deer in the Royal 
 Forest, had shot partridges on the private 
 estates of wealthy landowners, and in fact 
 had enjoyed every luxury in the way of 
 shooting that my Danish friends could 
 furnish, with the exception of the drive 
 hunt which had been arranged for the 
 day of which I write. 
 
 We reached the suburbs of Copenhagen 
 and smelled the rich salt air from the 
 reedy marshes just as the haze in the east 
 began to grow coppery, and the peeps of 
 the small birds fluttering from the hedges
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 153 
 
 by the wayside told of the beginning of 
 their day. Flocks of sparrows were al- 
 ready feeding in the stubble, and their 
 chirrups sounded clear and loud through 
 the crisp morning air. The white frost 
 on the fences sparkled on the eastern side 
 of the way, and the heavy-framed laborers 
 with wooden shoes, carrying agricultural 
 implements on their shoulders, bowed po- 
 litely to us as they passed on their way to 
 work. Broad meadows stretched out to 
 the right and to the left. Fields of yellow 
 wheat stubble, of green and gray turnips, 
 and of red cabbage dotted the hillsides. 
 Here and there stood a dark Norway 
 spruce tree or a clump of beech trees. The 
 air felt just as Pennsylvania air feels, and 
 the groups of apple and pear and cherry 
 trees might just as well have been stand- 
 ing in somebody's back yard in Massa- 
 chusetts ; but nevertheless there was a 
 something different, an indescribable for- 
 eignness about the scenery which im- 
 pressed me constantly and pleasantly. 
 
 My enthusiastic companion, who spoke 
 no English, and whom I constantly ad-
 
 154 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 monished to speak slowly, would start off 
 on an enraptured strain about prospects 
 every few minutes, in the same way as 
 Sam and I encourage each other when 
 the ruffed grouse at home are fat and 
 the chestnuts shine in plump brownness 
 through the yellow and crumply leaves 
 under foot. Thistles and plantain and 
 clover grew with familiar grasses along 
 the road, and shocks of corn were waiting 
 to be husked. A little way ahead a high 
 thatched windmill swung its long arms 
 slowly around in the light breeze, and 
 over the top of a hill to the right the 
 ends of another windmill's arms appeared 
 and disappeared at regular intervals. 
 Every now and then a big white and 
 black magpie slid from a tree overhead 
 as we jogged along, or a flock of lead- 
 colored crows (Corvus cornix) changed 
 fence-posts and cawed a recognition. Over 
 the bay long lines of geese were cleaving 
 the air with waving wings, and an occa- 
 sional mallard or snipe settled in among 
 the feathery-topped rushes near us. 
 
 The sun was beginning to soften the
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 155 
 
 air of the perfect autumn morning when 
 we espied the group of jolly Danes who 
 were waiting at the place of rendezvous. 
 There were Ole Larsen and Lars Olesen, 
 and Neils Holmsen and Holm Nielsen, 
 and Asmus Rasmussen and Rasmus As- 
 mussen, and Ask Bjoerken, and Axel Ha- 
 gerup, and Olof Qvist, Hjelt Raavad, and 
 Sell Maag, and Hjalmer Bjoernsen, and a 
 lot of others whose names have in some 
 unaccountable way slipped my mind. 
 
 Twenty or thirty flaxen-haired, strong- 
 waisted boys wearing home-made clothes 
 and heavy wooden shoes, carried wooden 
 clappers and old tin pans and other racket- 
 producing implements. The noise part 
 of the hunt was to be left to the responsi- 
 bility of the boys, and never was respon- 
 sibility carried more lightly. There were 
 hunting suits of corduroy, and hunting 
 suits of canvas, and hunting suits of 
 business suits there. There were Eng- 
 lish guns with shoulder-straps, and Belgian 
 guns with shoulder-straps, and American 
 guns with shoulder-straps : and all these 
 straps wrinkled the coats of their respective
 
 i5 6 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 owners as the hunters stood about chat- 
 ting in Danish and preparing for the start. 
 Many of the men could speak German 
 and French, and it was surprising to find 
 that many who had had little opportunity 
 to speak English were able to carry on 
 conversation in that tongue. 
 
 A few minutes were spent in making 
 arrangements, and then we formed in a 
 line out across the fields, the hunters 
 about two gunshots apart and the boys 
 sandwiched in between. There we stood 
 in picturesque style, the fox-tail grass and 
 and the red-flowered wild poppies and the 
 seedy pig weeds glistening about our feet 
 with melting frost, while every one impa- 
 tiently awaited the signal to start. Sud- 
 denly a bugle blast rang out along the 
 line, and at the same instant the boys be- 
 gan a lively clapping and clattering, and 
 the shooters shouted in glee to each other, 
 as with cocked guns and accelerated heart- 
 beats we began a military march toward 
 the horizon. 
 
 From under the very feet of Stjerne on 
 my left an enormous hare bounds out like
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 157 
 
 a mule struck by a locomotive, and with 
 ears laid back and short tail bobbing be- 
 gins to measure off the ground in rods. 
 A No. 10 roar calls out for him to halt, 
 and through the smoke we see the hare 
 tumbling and rolling and kicking sand 
 and grass into the air. A boy runs for- 
 ward, and grabbing the heavy animal by 
 its hind legs throws it over his shoulder 
 and hurries back to the line. A hare 
 weighs as much as a shotgun, but no boy 
 ever felt too tired to carry one of them. 
 Another flash further down the line, and 
 another an instant later, excite the boys 
 to the development of a tin pandemonium. 
 There goes a hare which was not hit 
 and three dogs start after him at once. 
 Over the meadow they go at a tremendous 
 rate, the hare hardly touching the ground 
 with his feet, but in a brown and white 
 line of waving motion leading the canines 
 easily. Were he to keep straight on at 
 this rate he would be in Moscow in time 
 for luncheon, but playful in his fleetness he 
 turns, and circling back runs almost up to 
 Hvide, who strikes him in the fore quarter
 
 158 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 with a stray shot. Off he scurries, handi- 
 capped, with one of the dogs close at his 
 heels ; but it seems as though a bar of 
 steel prevented the dog from gaining the 
 last necessary foot of distance, while the 
 hare bounds up and down so fast that I 
 wonder why he does n't shake his head off 
 or fray the end of his tail. Hares are put 
 together with strings, and this one does 
 not even shake an ear loose. The shooters 
 hold their breaths in their intense inter- 
 est. Suddenly the hare doubles, and 
 the dog in the funniest kind of a way 
 goes sprawling several yards past before 
 he can acquire the saw-horse stiff-legged- 
 ness which he requires for stopping. An- 
 other dog springs open-mouthed on the 
 hare, but he opens his mouth too widely 
 or something of the sort, because the hare 
 seemed to pop right through him and 
 come out smiling. The third dog joins the 
 first one, and together they dash furiously 
 through the grass and out across the 
 ploughed field. The hare misses his 
 footing and a gleam of white belly fur 
 appears for an instant as he rolls on a
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 159 
 
 furrow. The dogs make a dive for him, 
 but they are too simultaneous and stand 
 themselves up like three muskets on an 
 armory floor. The hare has all of the 
 room and time that he wants, and leaves 
 the dogs standing as pigeon-toed and dis- 
 couraged as a man with a broken collar- 
 button on a hot evening at the theater. 
 A puff of smoke and a loud bang are fol- 
 lowed by a reaping of grass leaves about 
 the hare, and the dogs have an oppor- 
 tunity to "quit their fooling." It seems 
 as much a pity to let off that hare's energy 
 as it does to waste the steam from an en- 
 gine at the end of a day's work. 
 
 As we start on again Bjoernstjerne 
 quickly jumps around and fires into the 
 turnip leaves through which we have just 
 passed, bagging a hare and half a dozen 
 turnips, but letting a boy get off as a fast 
 driver to the right without hitting him. 
 Notwithstanding the noise and distur- 
 bance the hare had lain so close that he 
 was passed unobserved and might have 
 escaped if he had allowed us to do the de- 
 parting instead of trying to do part of it
 
 160 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 himself. Division of labor has its disad- 
 vantages. Ploughed land seems to be the 
 best for hares, and every few minutes one 
 goes bounding out from a furrow and 
 vaulting from one hummock to another. 
 Occasionally one will jump wild but the 
 dogs usually manage to get him back to one 
 of the hunters. All at once the clappers 
 stop their racket and every one looks to see 
 what game is coming. A couple of big 
 wood-pigeons are bearing for us bow on. 
 Nearer they come and larger they grow, 
 until it is too late for them to pass put 
 their tails as hard to port as they may. 
 Their white-lined wings go with misty 
 speed and they spring away from each 
 other overhead. Three or four guns 
 belch forth rolling volumes of smoke, and 
 the hurtling storm of lead perforates 
 atmosphere and pigeons alike. Down 
 come both birds together, twisting and 
 whirling and losing downy feathers as 
 they fall. Little straw-colored Harold 
 runs out and brings in the biggest bird, 
 wiping the blood from its bill with his 
 fingers and then wiping his fingers on his
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 161 
 
 pantaloons just as he does for his own 
 chubby nose. He is anxious to carry the 
 bird and I tell him he must be very careful 
 with it as I want the skin to stuff. Such 
 obedient carefulness as he displays one 
 seldom sees in a boy, and when he is 
 trudging through a wet spot he holds 
 the bird over his head where the saw- 
 grass won't muss it, until tripping up on 
 a willow root the poor little fellow snaps 
 shut like a jackknife and pokes the 
 pigeon so deep down in the mud with 
 one knee that the saw-grass turns green 
 with envy. 
 
 Here comes a short-eared owl from the 
 marsh. Swinging along with soft noise- 
 less flip flops he skims the perfumed air 
 from the aster tops, and carelessly wafts 
 himself into our dangerous midst. The 
 opportunity is too good an one for Sven- 
 sen to resist. 
 
 The clappers are again quiet as a mal- 
 lard duck flying high passes over the line 
 on his way to some small inland pond which 
 he knows about. Half a pound of shot 
 goes up after him, but he points his bill
 
 1 62 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 toward the heavens and winnows the air 
 finer than ever with his stout whistling 
 pinions. Hardly has the smoke stopped 
 sifting through the poplar sprouts ahead 
 before a pair of pretty little blue doves 
 dart past like arrows. One, two, three 
 shots and one dove is down ; four, five, 
 six, seven shots and the second one 
 tumbles into the clover. How smooth 
 their feathers are, and what delicately 
 moulded heads and dainty red feet they 
 have ! 
 
 " Smukke dove ! Saa lille og nydelig," 
 says big Waldemar, as he brings one in 
 in his hand. 
 
 It does n't take long for the sun to 
 reach the noon-mark in Danish November, 
 and it gets there before one really feels 
 that Phoebus dare stand up straight. A 
 wagon which has been following us slowly 
 through the meadows now drives up and 
 the hunters and boys brush each others' 
 ears with their elbows as they help them- 
 selves to the cheese and beer and boiled 
 eggs, and other luxuries which the wagon 
 contains.
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 163 
 
 A small ravine, on the grassy banks of 
 which Vikings probably sat on grasshop- 
 pers and sharp stones just as we do 
 to-day, runs through the fields near 
 our halting place. We pull the crooked, 
 stiff hares out straight, smooth their 
 fur, and lay them in heaps by our sides. 
 We toss lunch tidbits to the dogs, light 
 pipes and cigars, kick our heels into 
 the sod, throw egg-shells at the boys, 
 and joke and laugh until the uneasy 
 members of the party suggest that we be 
 off again. The dogs notice the first 
 movement, and in exuberant spirits leap 
 over their masters, and over each other, 
 and bark in good plain English. This time 
 the line of march extends down towards 
 the sea. More hares spring up and die, 
 ephemerally. Another short-eared owl 
 and another pair of doves find that our 
 influence was more reaching than they had 
 thought. We are approaching a series of 
 sand knolls which are covered with tall, 
 dry, sparsely growing grass. The clap- 
 pers remain quiet. A word of caution is 
 passed along the line.
 
 164 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 Hardly have our feet begun to crunch 
 the loose sand when a covey of twenty 
 partridges bursts out of the grass with an 
 explosive rush of wings, and spreading 
 their ruddy tails widely, and crying quirlp- 
 quirlp, quirlp-quirlp, in shrill, quail-like 
 tones, they lengthen out into a straggling 
 flock and head for the marsh. Poulsen, 
 who is nearest to the birds, coolly stops 
 one of them with each barrel, but Iversen, 
 who tries to kill the whole bevy at once, 
 fails to get any of it. Two men off on 
 the left pick out four passing birds, and 
 the rest of the partridges, after a rapid 
 flight of a few hundred yards, sail off on 
 curved wings and scatter singly among 
 the tussocks of grass. A bird which 
 stayed behind flies up almost at my feet 
 with a startling whirr, but he joins the 
 minor part of the flock. The scattered 
 patridges lie in a territory which belongs 
 to a distant part of our line. 
 
 The sand knolls crossed, we reach the 
 marsh, but on we go through the sloppy 
 reeds and splashy grass holes as though 
 we were on a board floor. In goes little
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 165 
 
 Ivan just ahead of me, splattering the 
 water with his heavy shoes, and sprink- 
 ling it over his fox-skin cap and home- 
 made blue blouse. In go Bjoerken and 
 Jansen and Raavad. Out go a snipe 
 and a fox and a duck. Snipe jump up on 
 all sides and zig-zag off " skaiching " husk- 
 ily, just as they do when Culver and I 
 flush them from the rich juicy ground of 
 a sweet New Jersey swamp. 
 
 The marshes here look very much like 
 our own marshes at home, and any 
 one not a botanist would have difficulty 
 in determining from the surroundings 
 whether he were in New Jersey or in this 
 far north Sjaelland. The ducks are rather 
 wild and they usually manage to get out 
 of the way of our noisy party before we 
 get within range of them. Now and then 
 a single mallard will lie concealed under 
 the fallen sedge until we are close upon 
 him, and then with loud quacks and swish- 
 ing wings he tries to escape. 
 
 The daylight is fading rapidly and by 
 four o'clock it will be too dark to shoot. 
 Working back toward the hills in broken
 
 1 66 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 line we pass the house of a peasant family 
 and my friend Dr. Warming and I stop 
 for a moment to see the place. The one- 
 story house with whitewashed stone and 
 mortar walls is built to surround a square 
 court-yard. A single large gateway leads 
 through the south wall of the building into 
 this court, in the middle of which latter 
 a high wooden pump is surrounded by 
 ducks and geese and chickens. The court 
 is cobble-stoned, and pretty green mosses 
 run off along the damp crevices between 
 the stones. Several doors open into this 
 central yard. The few small windows are 
 set deeply in the walls of the house. The 
 high-peaked roof of two-foot-thick straw 
 thatching is covered with broad patches of 
 rich green moss. Part of the house is the 
 barn, and the horses, cows, wagons, 
 poultry and family all go and come 
 through the opening in the south wall of 
 the building. Two or three dark Norway 
 spruce trees spread their bottle-green 
 branches over the house, and the contrast 
 with the whitewashed walls is a striking 
 one. Several lead-colored crows flew up
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 167 
 
 on the thirty-foot-high straw stack by the 
 barn as we approached, and they now sat 
 cawing at us within easy stone shot. 
 
 We are greeted by the children, who 
 pull off their caps politely and then rattle 
 their wooden shoes on the cobbles as they 
 run off to their mammas in the doorways. 
 Strong, handsome, yellow-haired children, 
 with bright faces and clear gray eyes. I: 
 looked in at a school window one day and 
 the whole room seemed to be lighted up 
 with a mellow glow of yellow hair. All 
 Danish children have to be strong. The 
 weak ones die off when they try to 
 learn the language, and like Connecticut 
 River shad, only the most robust are able 
 to surmount the difficulties which beset 
 their way. 
 
 Doctor and I, on invitation, step into a 
 simply-furnished room, with white^sanded 
 floor, and sit down by the square table in 
 straight-backed chairs. Our host is de- 
 lighted when he hears that I am a Yankee, 
 and he wishes to bring out the house- 
 hold penatesin bottles. Turning to little 
 Maren, who stands bashfully covering up
 
 1 68 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 two-thirds of her grin with a fold of her 
 mother's dress, I say in my most enticing 
 Danish, " Kom him lille pige, og sit paa 
 mit knae. Jeg skal ikke gjoere digondt." 
 But my pronunciation gives her a terrible 
 fright, and, disappearing from sight in 
 the dress like a young kangaroo in its 
 mamma's waist, she begins to sob. A 
 looking-glass hangs on the wall, together 
 with two or three highly colored litho- 
 graphs representing "The Girl of the 
 Period," "The Old Oaken Bucket" and 
 "The Pleasures of the Country," etc. 
 Several mottoes worked on perforated 
 paper with bright-colored worsted are 
 stuck up here and there, but one can't 
 read the words any better than he can 
 read the same in worsted English. I 
 guess likely they say " God bless our 
 home," and things like that. A large 
 Jerome clock stands on top of the un- 
 painted cupboard in one corner of the 
 room, and from poles overhead are hung 
 dried herbs. A wooden bracket by the 
 looking-glass holds the usual comb, which 
 needs false teeth, and the loose-backed
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 169 
 
 hair brush, which has spanked some boy 
 too hard. 
 
 It is time to go. As I step to the stone 
 threshold, the lord of the manor extends 
 a hand like the hand of Providence, and 
 engulfing my own in a maelstrom of fin- 
 gers, he works my arm up and down in 
 the same manner as he does an eight-foot 
 pump-handle out in the court. I escape 
 in fairly good condition, however, and 
 amid profuse good-byes we go out through 
 the big gate and into the field of tall, curly- 
 leaved green cabbage to join the straggling 
 hunters who are preparing a line for one 
 more trip across the fields. 
 
 All is ready, and together we advance 
 in imposing array, each man anxious to 
 add just a little more game to his list. 
 Every few minutes a big hare makes a 
 sudden spurt, and tries to kick the world 
 around faster on its axis, but he is stopped 
 in time to save the time of day. A flock 
 of partridges make the trembling dry 
 grass wave in little swirls, as the birds, 
 with a mighty spring, launch out into the 
 air right near us. Glass-ball shooters
 
 1 7 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 would have instinctively yelled out 
 " broke " if they had seen the feathers 
 start when four or five of the birds sud- 
 denly became noiseless in mid-air. 
 
 It is almost dark when we reach the 
 road and take a short cut for the old inn 
 of Valdby Kro. A fox runs out into the 
 field in the distance, and I make every 
 one laugh by my pronunciation of his 
 Danish name " raev." They say that the 
 word which I use sounds like the Danish 
 name for a boot target. Two or three of 
 us try to scramble over the rickety fence 
 at the back of the inn, but a sample dog, 
 a Great Dane, is waiting for us on the 
 other side, and as my friend says that it 
 hurts to have a leg pulled off by a dog of 
 this size, we decide to disappoint the dog, 
 and let him wait for somebody else. I don't 
 care how prosperous a hotel may be, it is 
 bad policy for the landlord to keep a dog 
 which destroys customers before they have 
 paid any bills. Inside the hotel guns* are 
 stacked and hung up in the reception 
 room, and hats and heavy coats follow 
 suit, Over in one corner is a great heap
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 171 
 
 of hares, boys, birds, and dogs. Every- 
 one is happy, and securely seated with 
 his glass of lager of cool, cream-foamed 
 lager which trickles over the edge of the 
 mug, and mingles with the misty con- 
 densed moisture on the outside is telling 
 his neighbor confidentially just how it 
 was that he had the good luck to kill most 
 of the game bagged during the day. 
 
 A smile born of light hearts and lighter 
 stomachs seems to flash across the room 
 when the dining-room bell gives the sig- 
 nal for the shuffling of heavy boots to 
 commence. The tables are creaking with 
 solid sections of brown, juicy, steaming 
 roasts, and piles of mealy potatoes envel- 
 oped in hot fog, and long white platters of 
 whole salmon through whose tender torn 
 skin the pink flakes and streaks of white 
 fat look all ready for the limpid golden 
 butter-sauce which stands in the brimming 
 full dishes near by. Tall handsome Dan- 
 ish girls are running hither and thither with 
 chicken soup for this man, and hare soup 
 for that man, and extricating order from 
 the chaos on the table with a marvellous
 
 1 72 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 degree of skill. Good nature is rampant, 
 and the fast delivered hearty speeches are 
 followed by rousing echoing cheers. Cries 
 of " skol ! skol ! " follow every toast in 
 which the Yankee is mentioned, with a 
 vigor which shows how deep and real their 
 feelings of hospitality are, and men come 
 from the distant tables to express friendly 
 sentiments toward America and Ameri- 
 cans in general. 
 
 An hour passes by, and the tide of 
 speech gradually subsides. The stage of 
 quiet enjoyment is ushered in with the 
 blue-flaming plum-pudding ; and coffee 
 with cream melts all dispositions into one 
 easy flowing current of serene content- 
 ment. Snatches of Danish song which 
 have been idly travelling about the table 
 for several minutes, begin to join forces as 
 we light fragrant cigars and pipes, and 
 lean back lazily and stretchful in our 
 chairs. 
 
 While others sing, I pull from my 
 hunting coat-pocket the old battered 
 meerschaum, and fill it with yellow, fragile 
 grained "Lone Jack." That dear old
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 173 
 
 meerschaum that I have smoked by my 
 campfire in the Adirondack forest, while 
 the birch log sizzled and snapped, and fit- 
 ful gleams of red flame lighted up the 
 form of the strong antlered buck which 
 was drawn up on the moss by my side. 
 
 The same fond pipe that I have smoked 
 in the evening light while I sat with Sam 
 on the threshold of a Pennsylvania farm- 
 house, and the October breeze whirled 
 the dead leaves about our day's load of 
 ruffed grouse, woodcock, and quail, and 
 toyed with the wavy locks of our tired 
 and sleepy setters. 
 
 The same beloved meerschaum that I 
 have smoked on a Connecticut June 
 noontime in a sunny, ferny corner of the 
 rail fence among the white birches, where 
 the fresh growing grass on the bank 
 stirred shadows into the clear waters of 
 Poohtatook Brook with every zephyr, and 
 the brown thrush in the willow-top asked 
 the buttercup-dancing, air-prancing, soul- 
 entrancing bobolink to call me away from 
 my reverie. 
 
 The same quieting pipe that I have
 
 i?4 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 
 
 smoked in the midwinter icy blast in 
 Great South Bay, while the staunch sloop 
 plunged and strained at her anchor among 
 the rushing, voice-smothering, white- 
 capped waves, while the wind whistled 
 and hissed through the rigging, the boom 
 creaked and swung with every lurch, and 
 the heap of ducks exchanged places with 
 the bushel of oysters on the cabin floor. 
 While the thundering breakers on the 
 outer beach, furious in the easterly gale, 
 bellowed and groaned in hoarse monotone 
 between the reverberations from the tons 
 of black and whitening billows rolling in 
 mighty front high upon the sand bulwarks, 
 and dark night clouds, all ragged and torn, 
 drifted low and swiftly overhead. 
 
 Every whiff of smoke from the pipe is 
 richly flavored with the essence of old 
 associations, but I am precipitated back 
 into Denmark as one of the party, a 
 gigantic, red faced, good-natured hunter, 
 mounts a platform at one end of the 
 dining-room, and prepares to auction off 
 our game for the benefit of the poor peo- 
 ple of the village. This is a customary
 
 En Klapjagt Paa Danske Fjelde. 175 
 
 proceeding after such a hunt as we have 
 had, and the bidding is spirited, some of 
 the hares bringing four or five times their 
 market price. 
 
 The auctioneer gets one krone (twenty- 
 seven cents) for one of his assistants 
 whom he holds up before the audience, 
 and a smaller man who is held out at half 
 arm's-length by the big one, is knocked 
 down to a bidder at ti oere (two and a 
 half cents).
 
 ONE DEER. 
 
 DICK and I were camping at a beau- 
 tiful lake in the Adirondacks. It 
 was rather late in the season and the deer 
 that a few weeks previously had been in 
 the habit of coming to the edges of the 
 streams and lakes to nip the lily-buds and 
 wade about in the shallow water, were 
 seldom seen. Occasionally an old buck 
 would come out at evening and take a 
 stroll along the sandy margin of the lake, 
 adding for the moment a touch of wilder 
 beauty to the dark forest background, and 
 after standing proudly at some rocky 
 point and surveying the scene, would dis- 
 appear again into the woods. 
 
 A small bay half way up the lake 
 seemed to be a favorite place for the, 
 deer as innumerable tracks were always 
 
 to be seen in the sand along the shore, 
 176
 
 One Deer. 177 
 
 and one afternoon when we were almost 
 out of venison in camp I suggested to 
 Dick that it would be the proper thing 
 for us to make a trip in the evening to 
 this place. 
 
 The wood for the camp-fire was cut and 
 piled at a convenient distance from the 
 smouldering back-log all ready for a glo- 
 rious blaze on our return, and just before 
 sundown I took my place in the bow of 
 our little boat with the Ballard rifle across 
 my knees, while Dick took the stern with 
 the paddle. 
 
 Long shadows were reaching out from 
 the big pines and hemlocks on the west 
 shore, the valleys were already in dark- 
 ness, and the long red rays of the fast 
 setting sun streaming through the tree- 
 tops illumined the rest of the forest with 
 a hazy evening light. Great tree trunks 
 lay partly sunken in the dark clear water, 
 their arms reaching grimly out, and quiet 
 reigned over all, the paddle in Dick's 
 skilled hand making not the slightest 
 sound. 
 
 As we silently glided along, a loon far
 
 178 One Deer. 
 
 up the lake caught sight of us, and his 
 wild querulous call ringing through the 
 forest was answered by echo and sent 
 wavering from cliff to cliff. Again and 
 again the weird cry echoed and re-echoed 
 from the mountain sides and was sent 
 from shore to shore, and an eagle soaring 
 high overhead answered with its screams. 
 The reverberations ceased, and the still- 
 ness was broken only by the song of a 
 happy cross-bill within the short range 
 of his little voice. A mink came swim- 
 ming alongside of us, his bright mis- 
 chievous eyes trying to make out what we 
 were. Suddenly an otter's head appeared 
 above the water, and soon another, and 
 another, and in the most amusing way 
 they bobbed up and down and spit at us 
 in their spiteful way. For two or three 
 minutes the otters swam along ahead of 
 us, diving and appearing again, and finally 
 they disappeared all at once, probably 
 going to pursue their calling of catching 
 the big trout which abounded in the lake. 
 Gradually we neared the little bay, and 
 as we rounded the rocky point Dick
 
 One Deer. 179 
 
 stopped paddling. The boat glided slowly 
 aldng with its own motion as we care- 
 fully scanned every fallen hemlock for a 
 sight of red hair, and in a moment I heard 
 a low whisper, " See that buck on the 
 right ! " at the same instant catching sight 
 of a pair of horns behind a stump that 
 stood quite a way out in the water, and 
 not more than ten rods from us. The old 
 fellow had evidently been watching us just 
 a little longer than we had been watching 
 him, and had taken good pains to keep 
 his eyes over the stump and very little 
 of the rest of his body in sight. I felt the 
 tremor of the boat again as Dick cautious- 
 ly plied the paddle, and we tried to move 
 to a position where I could see enough to 
 shoot at, but the buck knew what we were 
 about, and kept backing around until he 
 could go no further, when with five or six 
 long bounds, with flag raised, he made for 
 a windfall and stopped behind it for a 
 minute, snorting and stamping, before 
 taking his final leap into the underbrush. 
 He stood tail toward me, with his head 
 turned and looking over his shoulder,
 
 180 One Deer. 
 
 supposing that he was well protected 
 by the branches, but there was where 
 he made a miscalculation, for at least a 
 square foot of red was in sight. Quickly 
 I levelled the rifle, and as the echoes rang 
 through the forest the buck made one 
 grand leap and stumbled as he struck the 
 ground, rolling clear over, with feet kick- 
 ing wildly in the air. In an instant he 
 was up again and had disappeared. A 
 few quick strokes with the paddle toward 
 shore, and Dick jumped out and started 
 in the direction that the deer had taken, 
 stopping long enough to motion to me 
 that he found blood. 
 
 For several minutes I waited in sus- 
 pense. It was fast growing darker, and 
 the minutes were getting twice as long as 
 in a stopped watch, when I heard Dick 
 call from a point along the shore above 
 me. The paddle was no longer needed, 
 so I pulled out the oars and, getting them 
 into the locks, rowed as rapidly as pos- 
 sible toward Dick. He had tracked the 
 buck to the water's edge, and was just 
 saying that we would find him mortally
 
 One Deer. 181 
 
 wounded along the shore somewhere, 
 when, with a great snapping of branches 
 and splashing of water, the red fellow 
 sprang out of a windfall into the lake and 
 started to swim for a little island near by. 
 Dick jumped into the bow, and I pulled 
 the oars with a vengeance, not daring to 
 look around, but guided by the hoarse 
 breathing of the panting deer as he swam. 
 Rapidly we neared him, and just as Dick 
 called out " Right oar, quick!" the boat 
 gave a lurch, and I knew that he had our 
 game by the tail. At that moment the 
 handles of the oars came against my ab- 
 domen with a jerk and pressed so hard 
 that I could n't catch a breath for the life 
 of me. " Hold up, Dick!" I gasped. 
 " For H-e-a-v-e-n-'s s-a-k-e hold up ! " 
 The oars kept pressing so hard that I 
 could not get out another word, until 
 Dick, roaring with laughter, reached 
 around and threw one of the oars out of 
 its rowlock. In my excitement I had for- 
 gotten that Dick was not the motive 
 power at the bow, and that the fast 
 swimming buck was the cause of bring-
 
 182 One Deer. 
 
 ing into practice a very simple problem in 
 levers. 
 
 We had only a few .yards more to go 
 before shallow water would be reached, 
 and picking up the rifle, I intended to stop 
 our locomotive, but the boat was un- 
 steady, and I fired the bullet directly into 
 the heart of the Adirondack wilderness. 
 Another bullet went on the same errand- 
 less mission. We were almost in the 
 shallow water, and shutting my teeth to- 
 gether with a firm resolve to hold steady, 
 I sent a bullet through the neck of the 
 deer, and with a convulsive start he sent 
 the spray flying in every direction, and 
 then lay kicking upon the water. 
 
 Towing the deer to the shore, we got 
 him into the boat, and as I took the bow 
 again, Dick took up the paddle and we 
 started for camp. 
 
 How fine the old buck looked in the 
 evening light, with his white belly up and 
 legs gracefully bent, as his head lay be- 
 tween my knees and I stroked his smooth 
 ears and opened the dark eyes and pat- 
 ted his neck.
 
 One Deer. 183 
 
 As we neared camp the stars were 
 sending silvery gleams over the ripples in 
 our wake. A glimpse of the back-log 
 burning low showed us where to land, and 
 the smell of the smoke hanging heavily 
 over the water was a reminder of the 
 comforts in store. 
 
 The boat grated on the pebbly bottom, 
 and jumping out, we rolled out our game 
 and dragged him the short distance to 
 camp. Lichen-covered sticks were soon 
 snapping and roaring on the camp-fire, 
 and the forest around was all aglow as the 
 sparks arose with the smoke and floated 
 off among the branches of the trees over- 
 head. The red embers settled in a ruddy 
 heap, and the last piece of venison from 
 the deer which Dick had killed a few days 
 previously, and half a dozen big trout were 
 pulled from the moss by the spring where 
 we had stored them ready for use. As 
 they broiled and browned before the birch 
 logs the juice trickled out and fell sizzling 
 among the coals, sending fragrant aromas 
 in every direction. Our birch-bark plates 
 were filled as only the rich can afford
 
 1 84 
 
 One Deer. 
 
 to fill them in the city. And then, in 
 a condition of supreme contentment I 
 leaned my back against a giant pine, 
 crossed my feet over the buck's glossy 
 flank and lit my pipe. Dick stretched 
 himself out at full length upon the moss 
 near by, and as the blue puffs floated 
 around our heads we told of former ex- 
 ploits with deer and bears until the pipes 
 and the camp-fire burned low.
 
 A BIT OF GROUSE HUNTER'S 
 LORE. 
 
 THE game laws of New York allow 
 ruffed grouse shooting between the 
 first day of September and the first day 
 of January, and although the young birds 
 are powerful and quite knowing early in 
 the season, they are not much hunted un- 
 til the autumn leaves are falling and the 
 cool, invigorating air allows the hunter to 
 climb and tramp over windfalls and rocks 
 with comfort. During the months of 
 September and October the young grouse 
 have comparatively short tails and small 
 ruffs, so that they are readily distinguished 
 from the old birds, but by the latter end 
 of the season many of them are in perfect 
 feather except that they lack the sheen, 
 like that of polished mahogany, which can 
 be observed when the back of an old bird 
 185
 
 1 86 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 is held in the proper light. The very 
 large birds with iridescent black ruffs are 
 usually cocks, although it is frequently 
 difficult to find any marks of differentia- 
 tion in plumage which will distinguish 
 them from hens, and hunters are very 
 often mistaken as to the sex of any par- 
 ticular ruffed grouse. The best test with- 
 out dissection is perhaps that afforded by 
 spreading the tail to its full extent. If 
 the two external tail feathers can be 
 brought into a straight line with each 
 other before the other feathers of the tail 
 separate from each other at the margins, 
 the possessor of that tail is in all proba- 
 bility a male bird. The feathers of the 
 tail of the hen bird usually separate from 
 each other while the two external tail 
 feathers are making an obtuse angle. It 
 is customary for hunters to suppose that 
 the birds with brown or chocolate-colored 
 ruffs are females, but the color of the ruff 
 is not a distinctive sex mark. 
 
 The general coloration of ruffed grouse 
 varies greatly in different localities, the 
 "partridges" from northern New Eng-
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 187 
 
 land, for instance, being almost invariably 
 ashy gray in general effect, the color of 
 the tail being most pronounced. In Penn- 
 sylvania the "pheasants" give an impres- 
 sion of reddish brown coloring, and the 
 tails of these birds are beautifully rich in 
 their reddish elements. In New York 
 State we find red birds and gray birds in 
 about equal numbers, and in one brood 
 we find individuals representing both ex- 
 tremes in such color variation, just as is 
 the case among the screech owls. Ruffed 
 grouse from Oregon and from Texas are 
 smaller and much lighter than their East- 
 ern relatives. Late in the autumn the 
 grouse develop a row of narrow movable 
 projecting scales along the sides of the 
 toes for aids in walking upon slippery 
 snow and ice, and these scutellse, as they 
 are called, drop off when the snow melts 
 in the spring. The average weight of 
 full-grown Eastern grouse is about twenty- 
 three ounces, but this weight varies two 
 or three ounces in accordance with the 
 character and abundance of the food sup- 
 ply. The food in the autumn includes
 
 1 88 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 almost all berries that are accessible in 
 any given locality, but sumac and cedar 
 berries are not usually eaten until winter. 
 The grouse eat beechnuts, acorns, chest- 
 nuts, mushrooms, vetch pods and seeds, 
 witch-hazel flowers, and many succulent 
 leaves. They rarely touch wheat, maize, 
 oats, or barley, but of buckwheat they are 
 inordinately fond, and early in the season 
 they strip off the flowers and immature 
 grains, and continue to glean in the buck- 
 wheat fields until the stubble is deeply 
 covered with snow. 
 
 Hunters who are familiar with the birds' 
 habits beat the fences and deep-furrowed, 
 plowed ground all about the buckwheat 
 fields that are not too far removed from 
 the woods, and find there many birds that 
 the sportsman in the brush knows nothing 
 about. Grouse are fond of tearing the 
 fleshy fruit of the skunk cabbage to pieces 
 in order to get at the seeds and pulp. 
 They devour the fruit of all of the species 
 of wild grapes with avidity, and a covey 
 of grouse feeding among the tangled fes- 
 toons of grape-vines furnishes an inspirit-
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 189 
 
 ing spectacle for one who knows how to 
 approach them with due caution. The 
 leaves of the bishop's cap ( Tiarella cordi- 
 folia and T. nuda) are as staple an article 
 of diet with ruffed grouse as bread and 
 butter are for the American citizen, and 
 at all seasons of the year fragments of the 
 rough-lobed leaves may be found in their 
 crops ; even to the exclusion of all other 
 articles of diet at times. During the winter 
 the food consists principally of the buds of 
 birch, poplar, and maple trees, the leaves 
 and berries of the wintergreen, and the 
 leaves of the bishop's caps ; and as there 
 are very few days during the winter when 
 grouse cannot find an abundance of some 
 one of these forms of provender they are 
 almost always in good condition and "as 
 plump as partridges." Kalmia leaves, which 
 are sometimes eaten by them in winter, are 
 said on good authority to make the flesh 
 temporarily poisonous for man, and the 
 fact that the birds' food directly affects their 
 flesh is exemplified in the delicious aro- 
 matic flavor of grouse that have been feed- 
 ing extensively upon birch buds and win-
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 tergreens, the grateful odor pervading the 
 whole house when such birds are so 
 unfortunate as to get upon the hot 
 kitchen stove just before dinner time. 
 
 Ruffed grouse are as neat in their 
 habits as such proud and self-respecting 
 birds ought to be, and they are very fond 
 of dusting in the wallow holes which they 
 make in the dry dust of crumbling logs in 
 the woods. Wherever the grouse live 
 we are so certain to find their dusting 
 holes that the hunter wastes no time in 
 the woods in which the crumbling logs 
 have not been thus utilized by the elite. 
 During the day the birds spend most of 
 their time in the brushy edges of the 
 woods and in the brambly gullies that 
 extend out in the fields, and if there are 
 stumps near at hand in the open, the 
 grouse are fond of running out about them 
 and hiding there during the middle of the 
 day. We should naturally expect to find 
 the grouse on the sunniest hillsides when 
 the weather is very cold, but they seem to 
 be rather indifferent to the temperature of 
 their surroundings and the covey is almost
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 19 ! 
 
 as likely to be found in the dreary north- 
 facing ravine as on the warm southern 
 exposures. When they are in company the 
 birds keep up a constant talking to each 
 other, but in low voices as though fearful 
 of being overheard. There are querulous 
 notes from the spinsters and solemn warn- 
 ings from the dignified matrons when the 
 obstreperous young cocks challenge each 
 other to a wrestle, but the loudest vocal 
 expression of the ruffed grouse is the 
 clucking and squealing of a bird that has 
 lain long to the dog, when, running like a 
 rabbit out from under the brush-heap, he 
 bustles on roaring wing away through the 
 swishing birch twigs and gives vent to his 
 emotions as he departs. Not all grouse 
 squeal when thus flushed, but they seldom 
 fail to utter their loudest notes when 
 alighting on a tree overhead after being 
 startled ; and when running for a hiding- 
 place they utter a hurried "quit, quit, quit" 
 that attracts the immediate attention of 
 the dog. A mother grouse, with young, 
 whines precisely like a dog when an enemy 
 is near her brood.
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 At night the grouse usually sleep upon 
 the ground, and indifferently in the woods 
 or out in the open clearing if the weather 
 is dry. When it is rainy they sleep under 
 logs, or rocks, or clumps of conifers, and 
 frequently a whole covey will be found at 
 night scattered along under an old tumble- 
 down fence in the woods. In winter when 
 the snow is deep they sleep either high up 
 in coniferous trees or under the snow in 
 the open, so that just at evening it is no 
 uncommon sight to see a covey of grouse 
 diving from wing, one after another, into 
 the snow. If the weather is very boister- 
 ous and the birds happen to dive down to 
 a patch of wintergreens or clover or young 
 winter wheat they may remain under the 
 snow for several days, burrowing for short 
 distances and eating the green leaves that 
 are thus found. When a grouse is sitting 
 quietly at no great depth beneath the snow, 
 a little hole about as large as one's finger 
 is kept open by the bird's breath, and the 
 moisture congealing in large flakes upon 
 the frosty twigs or grass just over the hole 
 will easily locate the bird for a good ob-
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 193 
 
 server ; and the grouse in such a position 
 will allow one to approach quite near 
 before he leaves his comfortable room 
 beneath the, winds. 
 
 The snow is sometimes too hard to serve 
 for house purposes, and then the birds 
 may not alight upon the ground for many 
 days at a time, but fly from the hiding tops 
 of evergreens to the trees in which they 
 bud at morning and at evening. On the 
 first warm day though, when the sun has 
 softened the snow, the boy who is follow- 
 ing a rabbit in the warm corner of the 
 thicket will suddenly come upon the neat- 
 est, the trimmest and the most inspiring 
 bird track that is ever imprinted in any 
 woods on the pure white surface of this 
 good earth of ours. Three evenly spread 
 toemarks in front and one short straight 
 mark behind. One footmark just as far 
 in advance of the previous one as that is 
 ahead of the one before it, and all in defi- 
 nite order. Here the track leads around 
 a rock ; there it goes along the whole 
 length of that half-sunken log and then 
 straight out through the sheep path among
 
 194 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 the hazels. No slipshod stepper ever made 
 such marks. So clear, so well defined, so 
 mathematical a track is indicative only of 
 such character as belongs to the noblest 
 of all game birds, and perhaps the boy will 
 hear from him in a moment. No ! there 
 is where he strutted ; and there are the 
 concentric segments of circles made by the 
 wing tips in the snow as the wise bird flew, 
 several minutes before danger approached. 
 His danger was not so great, though, 
 after all, if I am familiar with that boy, 
 for the bird that left was game for a man 
 of sharp wit and good judgment. 
 
 Grouse are quite apt to keep each other 
 company in small coveys until spring, ex- 
 cept when they are much disturbed, but 
 certain very old birds are quite content to 
 be solitary, and they are then difficult to 
 approach under ordinary circumstances. 
 A wary old bird will slide quietly out of 
 the way as soon as he hears the sportsman 
 approaching, and it is folly to attempt to 
 corner him, but most of the grouse run 
 and hide when there are signs of danger, 
 and a good pointer or setter will follow
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 195 
 
 them easily to their places of concealment. 
 A grouse will not often remain before the 
 pointing dog for more than two or three 
 minutes, and then he bursts forth with the 
 startling roar that reminds one of the sud- 
 den dumping of a coal cart upon the pave- 
 ment, unnerving the hunter who is not 
 cool and steady in his aim. If the bird 
 makes a high flight at first he may be ex- 
 pected to alight upon the ground on de- 
 scending. If he goes off low he will 
 probably slant upward at the end of his 
 flight of a few hundred yards and alight 
 in a tree, barring accidents which are lia- 
 ble to happen at the hands of the gunners. 
 Grouse are sometimes caught in snares 
 that are set for them on their feeding- 
 grounds, and hunters who cannot kill a 
 flying bird are not beneath chasing them 
 with spaniels which bark at the flushed 
 birds and cause them to stop, out of curi- 
 osity, and alight on limbs overhead in 
 order to watch the antics of the dogs. 
 The hunter can then approach closely 
 before attracting the attention of the 
 
 preoccupied grouse. It is a very difficult 
 13
 
 196 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore- 
 
 matter to see a grouse that has alighted 
 in a large tree at the end of a deliberate 
 flight, as he usually sits bolt upright very 
 close to the trunk and moves not a feather, 
 and unless one scans every foot of the 
 tree systematically the bird will probably 
 not be discovered. Hunters often declare 
 that they have never been able to find a 
 grouse in a tree, just as we hear young 
 women complain that they cannot discover 
 a four-leafed clover, and yet certain eyes 
 are very expert at detecting grouse in 
 trees and four-leafed clovers in the green- 
 sward ; much to the discomfiture of un- 
 trained observers who were not previously 
 aware of their lack of the requisite power. 
 Wing-shooting is the most certain and 
 the most satisfactory way of getting a 
 good bag of grouse, and for this purpose 
 well broken pointers or setters are indis- 
 pensable. Their keen noses enable them 
 to detect the scent of a bird that has 
 walked along the ground perhaps half an 
 hour previously, and they follow the trail 
 until the vicinity of the game is reached. 
 The bird being located in his hiding-place,
 
 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 19? 
 
 the dog stands silently pointing until the 
 hunter has found a good place from which 
 to shoot when the grouse springs out on 
 wing. The most successful shots in the 
 brush are not often the men who make 
 good scores in open field shooting, for in 
 the latter sort of work one learns to take 
 sight along the barrel of his gun, and in 
 the woods such sighting is naturally in- 
 terfered with. The best grouse hunters 
 of my acquaintance shoot with both eyes 
 open and head erect, moving the gun with 
 the same intuition that guides the bat- 
 ter in striking a ball after "suppressing 
 the image" of everything except that of 
 the object aimed at. The image of 
 branches and trees upon the retina of the 
 eye being suppressed at will by the hunter, 
 he is then conscious only of the presence 
 of the swiftly moving bird, and this ob- 
 ject he follows as accurately with the 
 gun as he would with his finger if he were 
 pointing out the bird to a friend. 
 
 Very nice calculations are required in 
 order to hit the bird, however, for if the 
 gun were aimed directly at a crossing
 
 198 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 
 
 grouse at the instant of firing, the charge 
 of shot would pass far to the rear of the 
 game. It is necessary to know approxi- 
 mately the length of time required for 
 combustion of the powder, the time occu- 
 pied by the charge of shot in reaching any 
 given point, and to judge correctly of the 
 distance and direction of the angles and 
 curves of flight of the bird. All of the 
 factors excepting the first vary with each 
 fraction of a second after the bird is on 
 wing, so it would seem almost impossible 
 that any one could be capable of making 
 the calculations requisite for striking a 
 swift-speeding grouse among the trees 
 were it not for the aid of that peculiar 
 faculty of instinctive co-ordination in 
 action of brain and muscle. A strong 
 bird is not easily killed even when fairly hit, 
 and it seemed cruel to allow a wounded 
 grouse to escape, but men who have been 
 struck with shot testify that the benumb- 
 ing effect was such that they did not 
 suffer any real pain after the receipt of the 
 injury. When we know what a fox or 
 hawk would do with a captured grouse it 
 makes the hunter's conscience easy.
 
 TROUT IN A THUNDER-STORM. 
 
 ONE day in the summer of 1880, 
 Charley and I, with our guide, 
 Dick Crego, left our camp on Fourth 
 Lake, for a day's trout-fishing in the 
 south branch of Moose River. It was 
 one of those days in July when the 
 dweller in the city would ponder over the 
 question in his philosophical mind as 
 to whether life was worth living or not 
 and decide in the negative, but in the 
 woods the fragrant breaths from hem- 
 locks and cool air waves from the moss- 
 covered and ferny ground gave one an 
 exhilaration and exuberant delight in mere 
 existence. 
 
 The day was not a perfect one for 
 trout-fishing, but for us lovers of na- 
 ture the summer stillness of the deep 
 forest possessed such an enchantment 
 199
 
 200 Trout in a Thunder-Storm. 
 
 that the prospect of a light creel at 
 evening had no effect on our spirits. 
 Trout were abundant anyway, and we 
 were catching enough every day for camp 
 use. 
 
 As Dick quietly paddled us near the 
 spring holes we could see the trout lazily 
 poising themselves on their red and white 
 marginal fins, and slightly stirring the 
 sandy bottom with slow sweeps of their 
 mottled tails, not caring to exert them- 
 selves to make a move for the flies which 
 we seductively cast near them. 
 
 Once in a while under the low hanging 
 branches of a hemlock or bunch of alders 
 we would find a trout that was anxious to 
 have a pull at the fly, but on the whole we 
 had taken very few up to the middle of 
 the afternoon, when ominous mutterings 
 began to be heard in the south. Great 
 thunder-heads of dark cumulus appeared 
 over the tall pines and hemlocks and 
 rapidly rolled toward us. The forest was 
 wrapped in an awful stillness. Not a 
 sound could be heard near us save an 
 occasional muffled murmur of the water as
 
 Trout in a Thunder-Storm. 201 
 
 it whirled in an eddy under some fallen 
 tree trunk. 
 
 We had arrived at the " big spring hole " 
 and as Dick cautiously sent the light boat 
 close to the bank Charley and I stepped 
 out, and bending low behind the bushes 
 crept to an open place where we could 
 cast our flies easily. Charley made the 
 first cast. His flies had hardly made a 
 ripple on the water when splash ! down 
 went his red ibis. His light rod bent into 
 a half circle, and as I cast a quick glance 
 at the spot I saw half a dozen trout glid- 
 ing about near his hooked one with the 
 restless eager movements which always 
 mean hunger. My flies alighted instantly 
 in the same place, and down went my 
 stretcher fly with a whirl. As that trout 
 made a quick turn I saw another calmly 
 fasten himself on one of the dropper 
 flies. We led our trout to one side of 
 the pool and Dick slipped a landing net 
 under them and threw them, tumbling and 
 squirming, upon the grass. In a moment 
 we had both made another cast and 
 hooked our fish, and the rest of the trout
 
 202 Trout in a Thunder-Storm. 
 
 in the eddy were excited and angry be- 
 cause they had not snatched the flies first. 
 
 Meanwhile the forest had grown darker 
 and darker. The great banks of inky 
 black clouds were low over our heads. 
 Quivering flashes of lightning lighted up 
 the mountains, and the heavy thunder 
 shook the very ground and reverberated 
 and echoed. 
 
 Cast after cast we made, and the trout 
 seemed invigorated by the rigor of the 
 elements. Big lusty fellows made the 
 spray fly as they plunged after our flies 
 with might and main. Some in their 
 eagerness dashed clear over the flies and 
 turned double somersaults in the air. At 
 almost every cast a trout was hooked, and 
 a sight of our bent rods and whirring reels 
 would have made the Sphinx arise and 
 whoop for joy just for once. 
 
 A gale rushed through the tops of the 
 pines, and as they bent before the blast 
 and the wind soughed through their 
 branches the big drops began to fall. 
 Still we fished until Dick fairly dragged 
 us to the boat, which he had pulled up on
 
 Trout in a Thunder-Storm. 203 
 
 the bank and turned over. Under the 
 boat we crawled, and the trout flapped 
 about in the wet grass near us, while 
 lightning flashed and thunder roared. 
 Who says that trout will not bite in a 
 thunder-storm ?
 
 COOT SHOOTING IN NEW 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 12. 
 
 IN a recent number of Forest and Stream 
 "M. H. Able" asks if the "coots" 
 which the Eastern gunners works so hard 
 to get are the same as the mud-hens of 
 the Western States. One day's shooting 
 in line would convince our friend that he 
 was not shooting mud-hens, but that big, 
 sturdy sea-ducks, worthy of his lead, were 
 carrying off ounces of his Number 4 
 shot. The ducks which are called coots 
 along the coast consist of three or four 
 species. The male surf-ducks are called 
 skunkhead coots, and their wives and 
 yearlings gray coots. The velvet scoter is 
 known as the white-winged coot, and the 
 American scoter is the butter-billed coot. 
 The eiders, also, are dragged into the 
 204
 
 Coot Shooting in New England. 205 
 
 "genus coot." In no sort of shooting do 
 hunters ever get aroused to so high a 
 pitch of excitement as while gunning 
 for these heavy sea-ducks. The birds are 
 abundant and are constantly on the move 
 from one feeding-ground to another. The 
 fresh ocean breezes key the hunters up to 
 the last degree of manly vigor, and as the 
 light boats ride the long swells as grace- 
 fully as a swallow floats through the air, 
 the boom and roar of the surf among the 
 rocks on the shore inspires the gunners 
 with its freedom. The boats are swing- 
 ing on their long anchor-lines twenty rods 
 apart ; the ducks are flying swiftly through 
 between the boats, and every moment the 
 heavy ten-bores are ringing out loud and 
 clear, and the puffs of thick smoke are 
 borne rapidly away on the breeze. Here 
 a white-wing, the leader of the flock, struck 
 with the Number 45, halts and falters and 
 plunges headlong into the waves ; there a 
 skunkhead, proud in his speed, wilts sud- 
 denly high in the air down, down, down 
 he comes, and the spray flies in every 
 direction as he surges heavily into the
 
 206 Coot Shooting in New England. 
 
 water, while a few feathers float back on 
 the breeze. Men are shouting, ten-bores 
 booming ; wings are whistling, feathers 
 flying ; coots are splashing, bounding, 
 diving while the rush and the roar of 
 the breakers in the rocks keep time to 
 the riding of the boats.
 
 RUFFED GROUSE AMONG THE 
 GRAPE-VINES. 
 
 SAM and I had been hunting ruffed 
 grouse every day for a week, and 
 Sunday had finally brought us to a halt to 
 rest for the week ahead. It was a glori- 
 ous Sabbath in a little quaint village in 
 Wayne County, Pa. We sat on the stone 
 slab at the kitchen door of the old farm- 
 house, and smoked our pipes in content- 
 ment, watching the yellow leaves as they 
 lazily zig-zagged down to the ground from 
 the limbs of the half bare maples, and the 
 antiopa butterflies slowy flitting from one 
 decayed apple to another under the trees 
 in the orchard close by. A blue dove 
 on the eaves of the barn cooed occasion- 
 ally in a quiet, Sunday way as he basked 
 in the November sunshine, and the hens 
 were dozing in the holes where they had 
 207
 
 Ruffed Grouse, 
 
 been dusting themselves an hour before, 
 in front of the barn door. Belle and Carrie 
 were curled up in the grass near us, 
 dreaming of grouse that never flushed 
 wild ; and everything was still. The 
 sound of the church-bell down in the vil- 
 lage seemed mellowed as though in har- 
 mony with the color of the beech and 
 maple woods through which its vibrations 
 reached us. 
 
 " Sam ! " said I, " those grouse down 
 by the rock cut will be in the frost grapes 
 this morning, and I 'm going down across 
 the lot to see if I can get near them. 
 Don't let the dogs follow me." 
 
 The dry leaves, a foot deep, along the 
 fence by the grape-vines seemed to rustle 
 louder than they ever did before, as I 
 cautiously climbed over the rails, but no 
 grouse was near to be frightened, and 
 although expecting the sudden dash and 
 whirr every moment, I got near to the 
 farther side of the little patch of vines 
 without starting a bird, and sitting down 
 in the leaves with my back against a 
 mossy boulder, tried to fit it well, and
 
 Ruffed Grouse. 209 
 
 waited. In a few minutes there was a 
 pattering of very light footsteps in the 
 leaves back of me. Nearer and nearer 
 they came, stopping for a second and then 
 proceeding again, coming my way all of 
 the while. Suddenly a surprised " peet " 
 on the right caused me to slowly turn my 
 eyes in that direction, and there, within 
 six feet, was a splendid male grouse, with 
 crest erect and tail partially spread, look- 
 ing curiously at me. I kept stiller than any 
 little mouse, and the grouse satisfied him- 
 self that I was harmless. He came a few 
 steps nearer, clucking all of the while, and 
 mounting a stone, spread ' his tail to its 
 fullest extent, and with crest and tail erect, 
 with ruff displayed, and with wings droop- 
 ing to his feet, he turned two or three 
 times around, like a turkey gobbler. 
 Then composing himself again he took 
 another good look and walked around in 
 front. 
 
 At that moment another grouse, a 
 younger one, had come around the rock 
 by which I was sitting, and he too went 
 through the same performance, but not in
 
 210 Ruffed Grouse. 
 
 such fine style. Both birds then walked 
 on a way, watching me all of the while, 
 and soon four more grouse came in sight. 
 They walked within three rods, but paid 
 me no attention, and busied themselves 
 picking up fallen frost grapes. Suddenly 
 there was a rush overhead and a grouse 
 alighted in the vines just above me and 
 commenced picking at a bunch of grapes, 
 his smooth plumage with the dark mark- 
 ings on the sides seeming more beautiful 
 than anything I had ever seen. Once in 
 a while he looked down at me over his 
 shoulder, erected his crest, and gave an 
 interested " peet, peet," and then went on 
 picking grapes again. 
 
 In a short time eleven grouse were in 
 sight, moving about as gracefully as could 
 be, putting their little feet lightly down 
 on the dead leaves, and all engaged in 
 hunting for food. One of them flew up 
 to the one already in the vines, and then 
 nearly all followed, and commenced pick- 
 ing the grapes that hung in scattered 
 clusters. 
 
 All of this while I had remained perfectly
 
 Ruffed Grouse. 211 
 
 quiet, but my position was fast becoming 
 uncomfortable. An edge of rock was boring 
 into the middle of my back ; another sharp 
 piece had done its level best to penetrate 
 the back of my head, and a jagged stump 
 had worked just as far into my leg as it 
 could possibly get, so that I had to move. 
 The grouse all seemed alarmed at the 
 sight. They sat straight and motionless 
 among the vines, but none flew. For 
 several minutes they remained in this 
 position, and knowing that I was discov- 
 ered I arose, expecting to see all of them 
 dart off at once. This they did not do, 
 however, but started slowly one at a time, 
 and sailed off only a few rods into the 
 woods.
 
 WING SHOOTING VERSUS 
 GROUND SHOOTING. 
 
 NEW YORK, Jan. 2ist. 
 
 Editor Forest and Stream : 
 
 This controversy as to whether it is 
 proper to shoot a sitting grouse or not 
 will probably never be brought to an end. 
 I am acquainted with a great many men 
 who would scorn to shoot a quail or 
 woodcock, if the bird was not upon the 
 wing ; but who would not hesitate to 
 shoot a grouse upon the ground. On the 
 the other hand, I know sportsmen to 
 whom a grouse so killed would be an 
 albatross about the neck. 
 
 A certain number of men will never 
 consent to lose caste by shooting any 
 game bird that is not flying, while others 
 will allow their color-line to shade off into 
 the dusky by making an exception of the 
 ruffed grouse.
 
 Wing vs. Ground Shooting. 213 
 
 Then there are the boys to be consid- 
 ered. How well do I remember the joy- 
 ous days of childhood when most of my 
 hours were spent in the woods, and when 
 the birds, and animals, and fishes, and 
 plants seemed to be the only things in the 
 whole world worthy of any consideration. 
 
 I knew just where to find the old par- 
 tridge's nest in early May on the warm 
 sunny hillside among the sprouts and 
 junipers. How often I have watched the 
 mother bird on her nest ; and when she 
 skurried away I would stretch myself at 
 full length by her treasures, and with my 
 head between my little hands would gaze 
 eagerly at the eight or ten bufT-colored eggs 
 and ponder over their contents, and think 
 of what they would bring forth. When my 
 visits to the nest were frequent, I used to 
 imagine that the old bird grew tamer, and 
 that she knew better than to be afraid. 
 
 After the little downy chicks were 
 hatched I could always find the brood. If 
 they were not down by the spring brook, 
 where the fox-grapes and hellebores grew, 
 they were up along the old fence among
 
 214 Wing vs. Ground Shooting. 
 
 the cedars and cat-briers, or they were in 
 the pastures among the huckleberry bushes. 
 At any rate, they had favorite resorts, and 
 I always knew where those resorts were. 
 
 When the autumn days drew near and 
 the birds had grown, I used to lug out the 
 old gun, and, while hunting lesser game, 
 my heart would beat fast as I penetrated 
 the haunts of the partridges. The old gun 
 was long and heavy, and it balanced like 
 an armful of oars ; and I was too little and 
 too anxious to be steady. 
 
 When after much patient watching I 
 happened to see one of my patridges upon 
 the ground before he flew, I nervously set 
 the ponderous hammer back, and poking 
 the long barrel through the tangling 
 branches, and trembling more than I 
 ever have since in the presence of much 
 larger game, I would pull hurriedly on 
 the trigger. 
 
 Why would n't that trigger hurry up ? 
 I could feel it pull, and pull, and pull, and 
 then my small finger would take a fresh 
 grip and draw with a vengeance, and 
 through the smoke from the explosion I
 
 Wing vs. Ground Shooting. 215 
 
 could see the bird go whirring away with 
 no part of him blasted. 
 
 Later in the season I used to set twitch- 
 ups for the rabbits, and steel-traps for 
 muskrats, and snares for the partridges. 
 How anxiously and how often I would visit 
 those snares, and every time that I ap- 
 proached them, with bated breath I peered 
 through the bushes to see if there was 
 "one in." When from a distance, part of 
 the snare fence could be seen all knocked 
 out of shape and the dried leaves scat- 
 tered about in confusion, I would eagerly 
 jump to the dead partridge that lay in 
 their midst, and pulling from his neck the 
 coil he could not shuffle off, I would take 
 the bird in my lap and stroke his feathers 
 one by one, spread his feet out in my 
 hand, and rub his soft breast against my 
 cheek. It seemed to be too good to be 
 true ; life was overflowing with happiness. 
 The robins and red squirrels and other 
 standard boys' game would fade into in- 
 significance for the time being, and the 
 partridge brought a pleasure keener than 
 some mortals seem to experience.
 
 216 Wing vs. Ground Shooting. 
 
 But years have rolled by, and the snare 
 and the old single-barrel are things of the 
 past. I have owned many a fine gun and 
 hunted many a fine setter or pointer in far 
 distant States and countries, and the days 
 spent in the woods with dog and gun are 
 enjoyed even now with a boyish enthu- 
 siasm. It is many years since I have shot 
 at a sitting game-bird, and it will be a 
 great many more before I do it again. 
 There is a grand feeling of pride in being 
 able to kill the " hurtling grouse " as he 
 dashes forth from the brush in front of 
 the well-trained setter ; and a pleasure 
 that would be marred by the presence of 
 a murdered bird in the game-pocket. 
 
 Some of your correspondents are skep- 
 tical about the existence of sportsmen who 
 delight in having a ruffed grouse do his 
 very worst when he bursts away through 
 the thicket, but your humble servant is 
 one of the number who does enjoy such 
 shooting the best. A few of my friends 
 will tell you that I am a good shot, but the 
 aforesaid friends are kindly persons who 
 only look at the bag of birds after a day's
 
 Wing vs. Ground Shooting. 217 
 
 shooting, and do not count the empty 
 shells. There is an interesting story in 
 many of these empty shells, and I would 
 prefer that it remain untold. 
 
 In your last issue " Octo " says that in 
 fifty-four flying shots at grouse he has killed 
 sixteen birds. I have counted shells often 
 enough to know what that means. There 
 have been days when eight or ten empty 
 shells represented as many ruffed grouse 
 in my bag ; and there have been other 
 days when the same number of shells 
 would indicate only a bird still in the fu- 
 ture. I can show you men, though, who 
 can and do average one bird to every two 
 shots, but they are market shooters, who 
 pick out only the fairest chances, and 
 thereby save an amunition bill. " Octo " 
 probably shoots at all of the birds that 
 rise within range, and so do I, and ten to 
 one we have the most fun. " Octo," I 'm 
 sorry that you killed those two sitting 
 birds. If you can keep up your average 
 on wing shots, come over to our side of 
 the fence, and your virtue will be its own 
 reward.
 
 MY WHITE VIOLET. 
 
 T ITTLE white violet you are my love, 
 
 Nestling so modestly down in the moss. 
 Shyly you hide from the bold sun above, 
 Humble the home that the oak shadows cross, 
 Yet 't is the one of your choice, dainty love. 
 
 Pretty white violet you are my own, 
 
 Here on the leaves I will lie by your side. 
 
 Happy am I at not being alone, 
 
 Never a feeling or mood need I hide 
 
 When I am with you, my pure one, my own. 
 
 Honest white violet you'll not deceive, 
 Nor do I ask you to give love for mine. 
 
 Comfort enough 't is for me to believe, 
 Pleasure to feel that you cannot design, 
 
 Then when I love you, you will not deceive. 
 
 218
 
 AN EASTER CROCUS. 
 
 I WATCHED a budding crocus 
 As it rose to meet the light, 
 From a slumber 'neath the snowbanks 
 Through the dreary winter night, 
 And it seemed too bright and lovely 
 For a thing with roots in dirt. 
 
 Came a whisper from Ostara : 
 
 Stored-up forces from the sun 
 Sprang from out that bulb all potent 
 
 And its mission was begun. 
 For it pleased men with true beauty, 
 Though the roots were deep in dirt. 
 
 Then I thought of Easter morning, 
 
 When a man divine arose, 
 Calling forth a power eternal 
 
 For believers ; to disclose 
 All the sin and human folly 
 That we slumber in, as dirt. 
 
 And to-day from all that 's worldly 
 
 May fine character arise 
 Out of envies, lies, injustice. 
 
 There 's to us a glad surprise 
 That such thing can spring from forces 
 Hidden in the midst of dirt. 
 219
 
 THE EMPTY KENNEL. 
 
 ON the kennel floor the chain lies 
 Where it lay a year ago 
 Rusty, knotted, wound in cobweb, 
 Where cold spiders hide below. 
 Creaking on its unused hinges 
 
 Swings the loose door to and fro, 
 And the kennel straw is mildewed 
 Dampened by the sifting snow. 
 
 Now there is no dog to care for, 
 
 Silence only when I call, 
 But I must call : Grouse ! My beauty ! 
 
 Hark ! A moan behind the wall. 
 Listen ! was that not his voice then ? 
 
 Moans the wind there that is all. 
 Sighs the wind about the kennel 
 
 While the rustling dead leaves fall. 
 
 When the autumn leaves were falling, 
 
 Just one year ago to-day, 
 Grouse, the noblest of the setters, 
 
 Listened in the morning's gray 
 
 220
 
 The Empty Kennel. 221 
 
 Till he heard my footsteps coming. 
 
 Leaping sprang at me in play. 
 Shook his sides and barked so gladly, 
 
 Said to me all he could say. 
 
 And he told me that he loved me, 
 
 Said he wanted to obey, 
 Said he knew just where a partridge 
 
 Hidden 'neath the windfall lay. 
 There he pointed, staunch as granite, 
 
 While the bold bird dared to stay : 
 Brought the shot bird back so proudly, 
 
 Asked if that was not the way. 
 
 Then I praised the dear old setter, 
 
 Looked down at his earnest eyes, 
 'Til we felt like two good fellows, 
 
 Bound by all the hunter's ties. 
 And I said to him : now Grousie, 
 
 Many a year before us lies, 
 Many a day we '11 hunt together 
 
 Ere the soul of either flies. 
 
 So we ranged along together, 
 
 Over meadow, ridge and swale ; 
 In the swamp the twittering woodcock 
 
 In the brush the calling quail, 
 Found their hiding spots discovered, 
 
 Found their tricks of no avail. 
 All in vain the running partridge 
 
 Tried to throw us off his trail.
 
 222 The Empty Kennel. 
 
 When at noon we stopped a moment, 
 
 At the spring beneath the pine, 
 If he put his nose in first there, 
 
 His was just as good as mine. 
 For we shared nice things together, 
 
 On the moss we 'd drink and dine. 
 Side by side our single shadow 
 
 Made a pretty friendship sign. 
 
 Late that day the slanting sunbeams 
 
 Reddened all the rocky hill, 
 With a strange unnatural lighting, 
 
 Colors boding something ill. 
 Through the forest sped a rabbit, 
 
 Tempting me to try my skill, 
 'T was no rabbit, but a spirit, 
 
 Some foul thing I could not kill. 
 
 Soon its evil work was ended. 
 
 Grouse came slowly back to me, 
 Looked up at me, asked a question, 
 
 Laid his head against my knee. 
 On his neck there was a blood stain, 
 
 But no mortal eye could see 
 What the wound was how it came there, 
 
 Boy ! asked I, what can this be ? 
 
 What is this my bonnie setter ? 
 
 Why do you my presence seek ? 
 'T is not true that I have harmed you, 
 
 Oh ! if you could only speak.
 
 The Empty Kennel. 223 
 
 Tell me if you think I meant it, 
 
 Tell me not in manner meek, 
 Hurt me not with your forgiveness, 
 
 But on me quick vengeance wreak. 
 
 Said he : " Master if you did it, 
 
 Then I know it must be right, 
 I have been a true companion, 
 
 Worked and loved with all my might. 
 If from you I should receive this, 
 
 Then my dying pains are light ; 
 If my day has brought you pleasure, 
 
 Gladly pass I into night." 
 
 Tenderly I laid him out then 
 
 On a golden wood-brake sheaf, 
 Made for him a brilliant covering 
 
 Of the sumac's scarlet leaf. 
 Sadly left him with the Dryads, 
 
 Asked of them to share my grief : 
 Faithful friend of man the setter, 
 
 Dead with friend of nymph the leaf. 
 
 On the kennel floor the chain lies 
 
 Where it lay a year ago ; 
 Rusty, knotted, wound in cobweb, 
 
 Where cold spiders hide below. 
 Creaking on its unused hinges, 
 
 Swings the loose door to and fro, 
 And the kennel straw is mildewed 
 
 Dampened by the sifting snow.
 
 THE OLD-SQUAW. 
 
 ALL the coast in white is covered 
 Dark-limbed pines snow burdens bear 
 Sea rocks growing thick with fucus 
 Hide beneath an icy glare ! 
 
 Out beyond, the waves are surging, 
 
 Darkly, slowly, changing form 
 While the sea-breeze lulled and quiet 
 
 Waits the coming of the storm. 
 
 See the snow-flakes light descending, 
 
 Floating down from leaden sky. 
 Listen ! o'er the waves a sound comes, 
 
 Ah-ar-luk, the old-squaw's cry. 
 
 Low and mellow comes an answer 
 
 From the flock out in the bay, 
 And the swift bird hears the greeting, 
 
 Turns and throws aloft the spray. 
 
 Warm his feathers, cheery-hearted, 
 
 What cares he for wintry cold ? 
 Gay companion always welcomed, 
 
 Feelings all in singing told. 
 224
 
 The Old-Squaw. 
 
 Ah-ar-luk, as snow is falling, 
 Clearly rings o'er all the bay ; 
 
 And the voices, floating shoreward 
 Chant their love for such a day. 
 
 225
 
 WHAT I FOUND IN THE HUNT- 
 ING-COAT POCKET. 
 
 IN my house there 's a half-hidden closet 
 Just under the stairs to the loft, 
 And cobwebs are safe in its corners, 
 For none of the hands that are soft 
 Ever dare touch the latch that will open 
 
 To cartridge belts, shotguns, and dangers. 
 But old Don and I have a feeling 
 
 Of pity for all the poor strangers 
 To things that are hung on those walls. 
 
 There 's a pair of big boots in one corner, 
 
 And snipe decoys, rods and a float ; 
 But dearest of all the odd things there, 
 
 To me, is the soiled canvas coat. 
 And to-day in the hunting-coat pocket 
 
 I find a dry, shrivelled-up leaf, 
 A feather that once was a woodcock's, 
 
 And one little twig, come to grief. 
 There 's some rabbit hair too, and loose grass-seed. 
 
 How quickly for alders of autumn 
 
 My thoughts leave this hot summer day, 
 
 For frost-covered corn-shocks and stubble, 
 And windrows of brown leaves and gay, 
 226
 
 The Hunting-Coat Pocket 227 
 
 That rustle to partridge and hunter. 
 
 The black duck springs quacking from sedges 
 That shelter the muskrat and mink, 
 
 And visions of rough, craggy ledges 
 Are all in plain view in my closet. 
 
 The freedom that makes a man noble 
 
 And draws him from sordid desires 
 Has come to me here for a moment, 
 
 And stays while a wood-sprite inquires 
 If the seeker for fame and a fortune 
 
 Who wrecks both his body and mind, 
 Ever gains at the end of the struggle 
 
 A treasure as rich as I find 
 In the twig, and the leaf, and the feather.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBRARYFAOJTY 
 
 A 000 561 890 5