In the Forest; Or, Pictures of Life and Scenery in the Woods of Canada Part 1

In the Forest.

by Catherine Parr Traill.

CHAPTER I.

THE FLYING SQUIRREL--ITS FOOD--STORY OF A WOLF--INDIAN VILLAGE--WILD RICE.

"Nurse, what is the name of that pretty creature you have in your hand? What bright eyes it has! What a soft tail--just like a gray feather! Is it a little beaver?" asked the Governor's little daughter, as her nurse came into the room where her young charge, whom we shall call Lady Mary, was playing with her doll.

Carefully sheltered against her breast, its velvet nose just peeping from beneath her muslin neckerchief, the nurse held a small gray-furred animal, of the most delicate form and colour.

"No, my lady," she replied, "this is not a young beaver; a beaver is a much larger animal. A beaver's tail is not covered with fur; it is scaly, broad, and flat; it looks something like black leather, not very unlike that of my seal-skin slippers. The Indians eat beavers'

tails at their great feasts, and think they make an excellent dish."

"If they are black, and look like leather shoes, I am very sure I should not like to eat them; so, if you please, Mrs. Frazer, do not let me have any beavers' tails cooked for my dinner," said the little lady, in a very decided tone.

"Indeed, my lady," replied her nurse, smiling, "it would not be an easy thing to obtain, if you wished to taste one, for beavers are not brought to our market. It is only the Indians and hunters who know how to trap them, and beavers are not so plentiful as they used to be."

Mrs. Frazer would have told Lady Mary a great deal about the way in which the trappers take the beavers, but the little girl interrupted her by saying, "Please, nurse, will you tell me the name of your pretty pet? Ah, sweet thing, what bright eyes you have!" she added, caressing the soft little head which was just seen from beneath the folds of the muslin handkerchief to which it timidly nestled, casting furtive glances at the admiring child, while the panting of its breast told the mortal terror that shook its frame whenever the little girl's hand was advanced to coax its soft back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FLYING SQUIRREL]

"It is a flying squirrel, Lady Mary," replied her nurse; "one of my brothers caught it a month ago, when he was chopping in the forest.

He thought it might amuse your ladys.h.i.+p, and so he tamed it and sent it to me in a basket filled with moss, with some acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast for him to eat on his journey, for the little fellow has travelled a long way: he came from the beech-woods near the town of Coburg, in the Upper Province."

"And where is Coburg, nurse? Is it a large city like Montreal or Quebec?"

"No, my lady; it is a large town on the sh.o.r.es of the great Lake Ontario."

"And are there many woods near it?"

"Yes; but not so many as there used to be many years ago. The forest is almost all cleared, and there are fields of wheat and Indian corn, and nice farms and pretty houses, where a few years back the lofty forest grew dark and thick."

"Nurse, you said there were acorns, and hickory-nuts, and beech-mast in the basket. I have seen acorns at home in dear England and Scotland, and I have eaten the hickory-nuts here; but what is beech-mast? Is it in granaries for winter stores; and wild ducks and wild pigeons come from the far north at the season when the beech-mast fall, to eat them; for G.o.d teaches these, His creatures, to know the times and the seasons when His bounteous hand is open to give them food from His boundless store. A great many other birds and beasts also feed upon the beech-mast."

"It was very good of your brother to send me this pretty creature, nurse," said the little lady; "I will ask Papa to give him some money."

"There is no need of that, Lady Mary. My brother is not in want; he has a farm in the Upper Province, and is very well off."

"I am glad he is well off," said Lady Mary; "indeed, I do not see so many beggars here as in England."

"People need not beg in Canada, if they are well and strong and can work; a poor man can soon earn enough money to keep himself and his little ones."

"Nurse, will you be so kind as to ask Campbell to get a pretty cage for my squirrel? I will let him live close to my dormice, who will be pleasant company for him, and I will feed him every day myself with nuts and sugar, and sweet cake and white bread. Now do not tremble and look so frightened, as though I were going to hurt you; and pray, Mr Squirrel, do not bite. Oh! nurse, nurse, the wicked, spiteful creature has bitten my finger! See, see, it has made it bleed! Naughty thing!

I will not love you if you bite. Pray, nurse, bind up my finger, or it will soil my frock."

Great was the pity bestowed upon the wound by Lady Mary's kind attendant, till the little girl, tired of hearing so much said about the bitten finger, gravely desired her maid to go in search of the cage and catch the truant, which had effected its escape, and was clinging to the curtains of the bed. The cage was procured--a large wooden cage, with an outer and an inner chamber, a bar for the little fellow to swing himself on, a drawer for his food, and a little dish for his water.

The sleeping-room was furnished by the nurse with soft wool, and a fine store of nuts was put in the drawer; all his wants were well supplied, and Lady Mary watched the catching of the little animal with much interest. Great was the activity displayed by the runaway squirrel, and still greater the astonishment evinced by the Governor's little daughter at the flying leaps made by the squirrel in its attempts to elude the grasp of its pursuers. "It flies! I am sure it must have wings. Look, look, nurse! it is here, now it is on the wall, now on the curtains!

It must have wings; but it has no feathers!"

"It has, no wings, dear lady, but it has a fine ridge of fur that covers a strong sinew or muscle between the fore and hinder legs; and it is by the help of this muscle that it is able to spring so far and so fast; and its claws are so sharp, that it can cling to a wall or any flat surface. The black and red squirrels, and the common gray, can jump very far and run up the bark of the trees very fast, but not so fast as the flying squirrel."

At last Lady Mary's maid, with the help of one of the housemaids, succeeded in catching the squirrel and securing him within his cage. But though Lady Mary tried all her words of endearment to coax the little creature to eat some of the good things that had been provided so liberally for his entertainment, he remained sullen and motionless at the bottom of the cage. A captive is no less a captive in a cage with gilded bars and with dainties to eat, than if rusted iron shut him in, and kept him from enjoying his freedom. It is for dear liberty that he pines and is sad, even in the midst of plenty!

"Dear nurse, why does my little squirrel tremble and look so unhappy?

Tell me if he wants anything to eat that we have not given him. Why does he not lie down and sleep on the nice soft bed you have made for him in his little chamber? See, he has not tasted the nice sweet cake and sugar that I gave him."

"He is not used to such dainties, Lady Mary. In the forest he feeds upon hickory-nuts, and b.u.t.ternuts, and acorns, and beech-mast, and the buds of the spruce, fir and pine kernels, and many other seeds and nuts and berries that we could not get for him; he loves grain too, and Indian corn. He sleeps on green moss and leaves, and fine fibres of gra.s.s and roots, and drinks heaven's blessed dew, as it lies bright and pure upon the herbs of the field."

"Dear little squirrel! pretty creature! I know now what makes you sad.

You long to be abroad among your own green woods, and sleeping on the soft green moss, which is far prettier than this ugly cotton wool.

But you shall stay with me, my sweet one, till the cold winter is past and gone, and the spring flowers have come again; and then, my pretty squirrel, I will take you out of your dull cage, and we will go to St. Helen's green island, and I will let you go free; but I will put a scarlet collar about your neck before I let you go, that if any one finds you, they may know that you are my squirrel. Were you ever in the green forest, nurse? I hear papa talk about the 'Bush' and the 'Backwoods;' it must be very pleasant in the summer to live among the green trees. Were you ever there?"

"Yes, dear lady; I did live in the woods when I was a child. I was born in a little log-shanty, far, far away up the country, near a beautiful lake called Rice Lake, among woods, and valleys, and hills covered with flowers, and groves of pine, and white and black oaks."

"Stop, nurse, and tell me why they are called black and white; are the flowers black and white?"

"No, my lady; it is because the wood of the one is darker than the other, and the leaves of the black oak are dark and s.h.i.+ning, while those of the white oak are brighter and lighter. The black oak is a beautiful tree. When I was a young girl, I used to like to climb the sides of the steep valleys, and look down upon the tops of the oaks that grew beneath, and to watch the wind lifting the boughs all glittering in the moonlight; they looked like a sea of ruffled green water. It is very solemn, Lady Mary, to be in the woods by night, and to hear no sound but the cry of the great wood-owl, or the voice of the whip-poor-will, calling to his fellow from the tamarack swamp, or, may be, the timid bleating of a fawn that has lost its mother, or the howl of a wolf."

"Nurse, I should be so afraid; I am sure I should cry if I heard the wicked wolves howling in the dark woods by night. Did you ever know any one who was eaten by a wolf?"

"No, my lady; the Canadian wolf is a great coward. I have heard the hunters say that they never attack any one unless there is a great flock together and the man is alone and unarmed. My uncle used to go out a great deal hunting, sometimes by torchlight, and sometimes on the lake, in a canoe with the Indians; and he shot and trapped a great many wolves and foxes and rac.o.o.ns. He has a great many heads of wild animals nailed up on the stoup in front of his log-house."

"Please tell me what a stoup is, nurse?"

"A verandah, my lady, is the same thing, only the old Dutch settlers gave it the name of a stoup, and the stoup is heavier and broader, and not quite so nicely made as a verandah. One day my uncle was crossing the lake on the ice; it was a cold winter afternoon, he was in a hurry to take some food to his brothers, who were drawing pine-logs in the bush. He had, besides a bag of meal and flour, a new axe on his shoulder.

He heard steps as of a dog trotting after him; he turned his head, and there he saw, close at his heels, a big, hungry-looking gray wolf; he stopped and faced about, and the big beast stopped and showed his white sharp teeth. My uncle did not feel afraid, but looked steadily at the wolf, as much as to say, 'Follow me if you dare,' and walked on. When my uncle stopped, the wolf stopped; when he went on, the beast also went on."

"I would have run away," said Lady Mary.

"If my uncle had let the wolf see that he was afraid of him, he would have grown bolder, and have run after him and seized him. All animals are afraid of brave men, but not of cowards. When the beast came too near, my uncle faced him and showed the bright axe, and the wolf then shrank back a few paces. When my uncle got near the sh.o.r.e, he heard a long wild cry, as if from twenty wolves at once. It might have been the echoes from the islands that increased the sound; but it was very frightful and made his blood chill, for he knew that without his rifle he should stand a poor chance against a large pack of hungry wolves.

Just then a gun went off; he heard the wolf give a terrible yell, he felt the whizzing of a bullet pa.s.s him, and turning about, saw the wolf lying dead on the ice. A loud shout from the cedars in front told him from whom the shot came; it was my father, who had been on the look-out on the lake sh.o.r.e, and he had fired at and hit the wolf when he saw that he could do so without hurting his brother."

"Nurse, it would have been a sad thing if the gun had shot your uncle."

"It would; but my father was one of the best shots in the district, and could hit a white spot on the bark of a tree with a precision that was perfectly wonderful. It was an old Indian from Buckhorn Lake who taught him to shoot deer by torchlight and to trap beavers."

"Well, I am glad that horrid wolf was killed, for wolves eat sheep and lambs; and I daresay they would devour my little squirrel if they could get him. Nurse, please to tell me again the name of the lake near which you were born."

"It is called Rice Lake, my lady. It is a fine piece of water, more than twenty miles long, and from three to five miles broad. It has pretty wooded islands, and several rivers or streams empty themselves into it. The Otonabee River is a fine broad stream, which flows through the forest a long way. Many years ago, there were no clearings on the banks, and no houses, only Indian tents or wigwams; but now there are a great many houses and farms."

"What are wigwams?"

"A sort of light tent, made with poles stuck into the ground in a circle, fastened together at the top, and covered on the outside with skins of wild animals, or with birch bark. The Indians light a fire of sticks and logs on the ground, in the middle of the wigwam, and lie or sit all round it; the smoke goes up to the top and escapes. Or sometimes, in the warm summer weather, they kindle their fire without, and their squaws, or wives, attend to it; while they go hunting in the forest, or, mounted on swift horses, pursue the trail of their enemies. In the winter, they bank up the wigwam with snow, and make it very warm."

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN WIGWAMS]