In New England Fields and Woods Part 7

All this while our trolling gear was in tow: the boy's a "phantom minnow" bristling with barbs, a veritable porcupine fish; mine a fluted spoon. The larger fish seemed attracted by the better imitation, or perhaps age and experience had given them discernment to shun the other more glaring sham, and the best of them went to the boy's score; but the unwise majority of smaller fish were evidently anxious to secure souvenir spoons of Little Otter, and in consequence of that desire I was "high hook" as to numbers. They were only pickerel at best, though some of them, bearing their spots on a green ground, are honored with the name of "maskalonge" by our fishermen. A scratch of the finger-nail across the scaly gill-cover gives proof enough to convince even a blind man of the worthlessness of this claim to distinction.

Once I enjoyed an exaltation of spirit only to suffer humiliation. There was a tug at the hooks, so heavy that my first thought was of a snag, and I was on the point of calling out to my friend to stop rowing. Then there was a slight yielding, and the tremor that tells unmistakably of a fish. "Now," said I, with my heart but a little way back of my teeth, "I am fast to something like a fish, but I shall never be able to boat him.

He is too big to lift out with the hooks, and I can't see to get him by the gills, and so I shall lose him." As he came in slowly, stubbornly fighting against every shortening inch of line, I almost wished he had not been hooked at all only to be lost at last. When, after a time, my fish was hauled near the boat and in sight of my companions, my catch proved to be no monster, but a pickerel of very ordinary size hooked by the belly, and so my hopes and fears vanished together.

I think distances are magnified to the blind, for it seemed twice as far as it did of old from the East Slang to the South Slang, as we pa.s.sed these oddly named tributaries of Little Otter.

At last I sniffed the fragrance of cedars and heard the wash of waves on the southward-slanted sh.o.r.e of Garden Island, and these informed me we were at the lake. In confirmation thereof was the testimony of my companions, given out of their light to my darkness, of an eagle's royal progress through his ethereal realm, making inspection of his disputed earthly possession. I was glad to know that his majesty had escaped the republican regicides who haunt the summer sh.o.r.es.

We made a difficult landing on the mainland, on the oozy sh.o.r.e of mixed sawdust and mud, and followed the old trail to the old camping ground under the rocks, a place full of pleasant memories for the elder two of our trio, and offering to the boy the charms of freshness and discovery.

For him the cliff towered skyward but little below the eagle's flight; its tiny caves were unexplored mysteries, their coral-beaded curtains of Canada yew and delicate netting of mountain-fringe strange foreign growths. Through his undimmed eyes I had glimpses of those happy sh.o.r.es whereon the sun always s.h.i.+nes and no cloud arises beyond. What a little way behind they seem in the voyage that has grown wearisome, and yet we can never revisit them for a day nor for an hour, and it is like a dream that we ever dwelt there.

Bearing with us from this port something not marketable nor even visible, yet worth carrying home, we reembarked, and the wind, blowing in my face, informed me we were homeward bound. One after another, we pa.s.sed five boats of fis.h.i.+ng parties tied up at as many stakes, the crews pursuing their pastime with steadfast patience, as their intent silence proclaimed. To me they were as s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed in the night. I had no other knowledge of them than this, except that my friend told me there was a fat woman in each boat, and that one of them boasted to us, with motherly pride, of a big pickerel caught by her little girl.

A blended hum of b.u.mblebees droned in among us, and my companions remarked that one of the aerial voyagers had boarded our craft, while I maintained there were two, which proved to be the fact; whereupon I argued that my ears were better than their eyes, but failed to convince them or even myself. I welcomed the bees as old acquaintances, who, in the duck-shooting of past years, always used to come aboard and bear us company for awhile, rarely alighting, but tacking from stem to stern on a cruise of inspection, till at last, satisfied or disappointed, they went booming out of sight and hearing over marshfuls of blue spikes of pickerel weed and white trinities of arrowhead. I cannot imagine why bees should be attracted to the barrenness of a boat, unless by a curiosity to explore such strange floating islands, though their dry wood promises neither leaf nor bloom.

I hear of people every year who forsake leaf.a.ge and bloom to search the frozen desolation of the polar north for the Lord knows what, and I cease to wonder at the bees, when men so waste the summers that are given them to enjoy if they will but bide in them.

We pa.s.sed many new houses of the muskrats, who are building close to the channel this year in prophecy of continued low water. But muskrats are not infallible prophets, and sometimes suffer therefor in starvation or drowning. The labor of the night-workers was suspended in the glare of the August afternoon, and their houses were as silent as if deserted, though we doubted not there were happy households inside them, untroubled by dreams of famine or deluge, or possibly of the unmercifulness of man, though that seems an abiding terror with our lesser brethren. Winter before last the marshes were frozen to the bottom, blockading the muskrats in their houses, where entire families perished miserably after being starved to cannibalism. Some dug out through the house roofs, and wandered far across the desolate wintry fields in search of food. Yet nature, indifferent to all fates, has so fostered them since that direful season that the marshy sh.o.r.es are populous again with sedge-thatched houses.

As we neared our home port we met two trollers, one of whom lifted up for envious inspection a l.u.s.ty pickerel. "He's as big as your leg," my friend replied to my inquiry concerning its dimensions, and in aid of my further inquisitiveness asked the lucky captor how much the fish would weigh. "Wal, I guess he ought to weigh abaout seven pounds," was answered, after careful consideration. We learned afterwards that its actual weight was nine pounds, and I set that man down as a very honest angler.

Presently our boat ran her nose into the familiar mire of well-named Mud Landing, and we exchanged oars for legs, which we plied with right good will, for a thunderstorm was beginning to bellow behind us.

XXVII

THE SUMMER CAMP-FIRE

A thin column of smoke seen rising lazily among the leafy trees and fading to a wavering film in the warm morning air or the hotter breath of noon, a flickering blaze kindling in the sultry dusk on some quiet sh.o.r.e, mark the place of the summer camp-fire.

It is not, like the great hospitable flare and glowing coals of the autumn and winter camp-fires, the centre to which all are drawn, about which the life of the camp gathers, where joke and repartee flash to and fro as naturally and as frequently as its own sparks fly upward, where stories come forth as continuously as the ever-rising volume of smoke.

Rather it is avoided and kept aloof from, held to only by the unhappy wretch upon whom devolves the task of tending the pot and frying-pan, and he hovers near it fitfully, like a moth about a candle, now backing away to mop his hot face, now darting into the torrid circle to turn a fish or s.n.a.t.c.h away a seething pot or sizzling pan. Now and then the curious and hungry approach to note with what skill or speed the cookery is progressing, but they are content to look on at a respectful distance and to make suggestions and criticisms, but not to interfere with aid.

The epicurean smoker, who holds that the finest flavor of tobacco is evoked only by coal or blazing splinter, steals down upon the windward side and s.n.a.t.c.hes a reluctant ember or an elusive flame that flickers out on the brink of the pipe bowl, but most who burn the weed are content now to kindle it with the less fervid flame of a match.

And yet this now uncomfortable necessity is still the heart of the camp, which without it would be but a halting place for a day, where one appeases hunger with a cold bite and thirst with draughts of tepid water, and not a temporary home where man has his own fireside, though he care not to sit near it, and feasts full on hot viands and refreshes himself with the steaming cup that cheers but not inebriates.

Its smoke drifted far through the woods may prove a pungent trail, scented out among the odors of balsams and the perfume of flowers that shall lead hither some pleasant stranger or unexpected friend, or its firefly glow, flas.h.i.+ng but feebly through the gloaming, may be a beacon that shall bring such company. In its praise may also be said that the summer camp-fire demands no laborious feeding nor careful tending, is always a servant, seldom a master.

XXVIII

THE RACc.o.o.n

Summer is past its height. The songless bobolink has forsaken the shorn meadow. Grain fields, save the battalioned maize, have fallen from gracefulness and beauty of bending heads and ripple of mimic waves to bristling acres of stubble. From the thriftless borders of ripening weeds busy flocks of yellowbirds in faded plumage scatter in sudden flight at one's approach like upblown flurries of dun leaves. Goldenrod gilds the fence-corners, asters s.h.i.+ne in the dewy borders of the woods, sole survivors of the floral world save the persistent bloom of the wild carrot and succory--flouris.h.i.+ng as if there had never been mower or reaper--and the white blossoms of the buckwheat crowning the filling kernels. The fervid days have grown preceptibly shorter, the lengthening nights have a chilly autumnal flavor, and in the cool dusk the katydids call and answer one to another out of their leafy tents, and the delicate green crickets that Yankee folks call August pipers play their monotonous tune. Above the katydid's strident cry and the piper's incessant notes, a wild tremulous whinny s.h.i.+vers through the gloom at intervals, now from a distant field or wood, now from the near orchard.

One listener will tell you that it is only a little screech owl's voice, another that it is the racc.o.o.n's rallying cry to a raid on the cornfield. There is endless disputation concerning it and apparently no certainty, but the racc.o.o.n is wilder than the owl, and it is pleasanter to believe that it is his voice that you hear.

The corn is in the milk; the feast is ready. The father and mother and well grown children, born and reared in the cavern of a ledge or hollow tree of a swamp, are hungry for sweets remembered or yet untasted, and they are gathering to it, stealing out of the thick darkness of the woods and along the brookside in single file, never stopping to dig a fiery wake-robin bulb nor to catch a frog nor harry a late brood of ground-nesting birds, but only to call some laggard, or distant clansfolk. So one fancies, when the quavering cry is repeated and when it ceases, that all the free-booters have gained the cornfield and are silent with busy looting. Next day's examination of the field may confirm the fancy with the sight of torn and trampled stalks and munched ears. These are the nights when the c.o.o.n hunter is abroad and the robbers' revel is likely to be broken up in a wild panic.

Hunted only at night, to follow the c.o.o.n the boldest rider must dismount, yet he who risks neck and limbs, or melts or freezes for sport's sake, and deems no sport manly that has not a spice of danger or discomfort in it, must not despise this humble pastime for such reason.

On leaving the highway that leads nearest to the hunting ground, the way of the c.o.o.n hunters takes them, in darkness or feeble lantern light, over rough and uncertain footing, till the cornfield's edge is reached and the dogs cast off. Away go the hounds, their course only indicated by the rustling of the corn leaves, as they range through the field, until one old truth-teller gives tongue on the track of a c.o.o.n who perhaps has brought his whole family out on a nocturnal picnic. The hounds sweep straight away, in full cry, on the hot scent to hill or swamp, where their steadfast baying proclaims that the game is treed.

Then follows a pell-mell scramble toward the musical uproar. Stones, cradle knolls, logs, stumps, mud holes, brambles and all the inanimate enemies that lie in wait for man when he hastens in the dark, combine to trip, b.u.mp, bruise, sprain, scratch, and bemire the hurrying hunters.

Then when all have gathered at the centre of attraction, where the excited hounds are raving about the boll of some great tree, the best and boldest climber volunteers to go aloft into the upper darkness and shake the quarry down or shoot him if may be. If he succeeds in accomplis.h.i.+ng the difficult task, what a melee ensues when the c.o.o.n crashes through the branches to the ground and becomes the erratic centre of the wild huddle of dogs and men.

Fewer voices never broke the stillness of night with sounds more unearthly than the medley of raging, yelping, growling, cheering, and vociferous orders given forth by dogs, c.o.o.n, and hunters, while hillside and woodland toss to and fro a more discordant badinage of echo. The c.o.o.n is not a great beast, but a tough and sharp-toothed one, who carries beneath his gray coat and fat ribs a stout heart and wonderful vitality; and a tussle with a veteran of the tribe of cornfield robbers tests the pluck of the dogs.

If the c.o.o.n takes refuge in a tree too tall and limbless for his pursuers to climb, there is nothing for them but to keep watch and ward till daylight discovers him crouched on his lofty perch. A huge fire enlivens the long hours of guard keeping. A foraging party repairs to the nearest cornfield for roasting ears, and the hunters shorten the slow nighttide with munching scorched corn, sauced by joke and song and tales of the c.o.o.n hunts of bygone years.

The waning moon throbs into view above a serrated hill-crest, then climbs the sky, while the shadows draw eastward, then pales in the dawn, and when it is like a blotch of white cloud in the zenith, a sunrise gun welcomes day and brings the c.o.o.n tumbling to earth. Or perhaps not a c.o.o.n, but some vagrant house cat is the poor reward of the long watch.

Then the weary hunters plod homeward to breakfast and to nail their trophies to the barn door.

When the sweet acorns, dropping in the frosty night, tempt the c.o.o.n to a later feast, there is as good sport and primer peltry. In any of the nights wherein this sport may be pursued, the man of lazy mould and contemplative mind loves best the hunt deemed unsuccessful by the more ardent hunters, when the hounds strike the trail of a wandering fox and carry a tide of wild music, flooding and ebbing over valley and hilltop, while the indolent hunter reclines at ease, smoking his pipe and listening, content to let more ambitious hunters stumble over ledges and wallow through swamps.

When winter begins, the c.o.o.n retires for a long and comfortable sleep, warmly clothed in fur and fat. A great midwinter thaw awakens him, fooled out of a part of his nap by the siren song of the south wind, and he wanders forth in quest of something. If food, he never finds it, and as far as I have been able to determine, does not even seek it. I should imagine, reading the record of his journey as he prints it in his course from hollow tree or hollow ledge to other hollow trees and hollow ledges, that he had been awakened to a sense of loneliness and was seeking old friends in familiar haunts, with whom to talk over last year's cornfield raids and frogging parties in past summer nights--perchance to plan future campaigns. Or is it an inward fire and no outward warmth that has thawed him into this sudden activity? Has he, like many of his biggers and betters, gone a-wooing in winter nights?

At such times the thrifty hunter who has an eye more to profit and prime peltry than to sport, goes forth armed only with an axe. Taking the track of the wanderers, he follows it to their last tarrying place. If it be a cave, they are safe except from the trap when they come forth to begin another journey; but if it is a hollow tree, woe betide the poor wretches. The hunter saps the foundation of their castle, and when it crashes to its fall he ignominiously knocks the dazed inmates on the head. It is fas.h.i.+onable for others to wear the coat which becomes the racc.o.o.n much better than them and which once robbed of he can never replace.

During the spring and early summer little is seen of the racc.o.o.n. His tracks may be found on a sandy sh.o.r.e or margin of a brook and occasionally his call can be heard, if indeed it be his, but beyond these he gives little evidence of his existence. There must be nocturnal excursions for food, but for the most part old and young abide in their rocky fortress or wooden tower. They are reported to be a playful family, and the report is confirmed by the pranks of domesticated members of it. Sometimes there will be found in one of their ravaged homes a rounded gnarl worn smooth with much handling or pawing, the sole furniture of the house and evidently a plaything.

This little brother of the bear is one of the few remaining links that connect us with the old times, when there were trees older than living men, when all the world had not entered for the race to gain the prize of wealth, or place, or renown; when it was the sum of all happiness for some of us to "go a-c.o.o.nin'." It is pleasant to see the track of this midnight prowler, this despoiler of cornfields, imprinted in the mud of the lane or along the soft margin of the brook, to know that he survives, though he may not be the fittest. When he has gone forever, those who outlive him will know whether it was his quavering note that jarred the still air of the early fall evenings or if it was only the voice of the owl--if he too shall not then have gone the inevitable way of all the wild world.

XXIX

THE RELUCTANT CAMP-FIRE

The depressing opposite of the fire that is the warm heart of the camp is the pile of green or rain-soaked fuel that in spite of all coaxing and nursing refuses to yield a cheerful flame. Shavings from the resin-embalmed heart of a dead pine and scrolls of birch bark fail to enkindle it to more than flicker and smoke, while the wet and hungry campers brood forlornly over the cheerless centre of their temporary home, with watery eyes and souls growing sick of camp life.

Night is falling, and the shadows of the woods thicken into solid gloom that teems with mysterious horrors, which stretch their intangible claws through the darkness to chill the backs of the timid with an icy touch, and the silence is terrible with unuttered howlings of imaginary beasts.

Each one is ready to blame the other for the common discomfort, and all, the high priest, who so far fails to kindle the altar fire. He is an impostor, who should be smothered in the reek of his own failure. Yet, as the group regard him with unkind glances and mutterings of disapproval, he perseveres, feeding the faint flame with choice morsels of fat wood and nursing it with his breath, his bent face and puffed cheeks now a little lightened, now fading into gloom, till suddenly the sullenness of the reluctant fuel is overcome, wings of flame flutter up the column of smoke, and the black pile leaps into a lurid tower of light, from whose peak a white banner of smoke flaunts upward, saluted by the waving boughs that it streams among.

Tent and shanty, familiar trees, and moving figures with their circle of grotesque, dancing shadows, spring into sudden existence out of the blank darkness. The magic touch of the firelight dispels every sullen look, warms every heart to genial comrades.h.i.+p; jokes flash back and forth merrily, and the camp pulses again with reawakened cheerful life.

Verily, fire worketh wonders in divers ways.