SB MMD flDfl
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
U ~
Two LITTLE SAVAGES
Being t/>e ADVENTURES of'Iwo WhoLived as INDIANS Ml and ^jl^J^-What They LEARNED.
WITH 2 OVERjTWO s HUNDRED 2 DRAWINGS
li-i'-rj'- •
Written &>- illustrated
—y
ERNEST THOMPSON SEWN
AUTHOR of Wild Animals / have f(nown, lives of tfce Hunted,
Biography of a G^LY, Zw/ 0/Y/fc JANDHILL JTAG, etcetera
<y NATUI\ALIJT to tbt Government of MANITOBA.
MDCCCCMI.
Doubleday Page &• Company, New York.
-
Copyright, 1903, by Brnest Cbotnpson Scton
Preface
X haw known the torment of thirst X would dig a well where others may drinfc.
e. c. s.
In this Book the designs for Cover, Title-page
and general make-up were done by
Grace Gallatin Seton.
Two Little Savages A Book of American Woodcraft for Boys
The Chapters Part I
Page
X. Glimmerings ...... . ....... 19
It- Spring ................ 26
XXX. Ris Hd joining Brothers ......... 28
XT. Che Book ............... 32
V. Che Collarless Stranger ........ ,38
TX. Glenyan ................ 46
TXX. Che Shanty .............. 50
TXXX. Che Beginnings of <8oodlore ...... .56
XX. Crachs .............. ... 66
X. Bidd/s Contribution .......... 7 1
XX. Hung Balm ............. .76
XXX. H Crisis ............... 82
XXXI. Che Lynx ............... 88
XXV. froth ................ 95
X
The Chapters Part II
Page
X. Che ]New f>ome . . . 103
XX. Sam 111
XXX. Che Sdigwam 117
XT. Che Sanger Olitch 131
V. Caleb 141
TX. Che J^Iahing of the Ceepee 151
TXX. Che Calm evening 1 57
TXXX. Che Sacred fire 167
XX. Che Bows and Hrrows 176
X. Che Dam 188
XX. Tan and the Sditch . 199
XXX. Dinner with the Sditch 212
XXXX. Che hostile Spy 218
XXV. Che Quarrel 232
XT. Che peace of jviinnie 241
xi
The Chapters
Part III Sin tfjc
Page
I. Really in the TOoods ......... 251
XI. Che first JNight and JVIorning . .... 262
III. H Crippled Warrior and the Jviud-Hlbums . 270
XT. H"]VIassacree" of palefaces ...... 282
"V. Che Deer f)unt ........... 288
VI. Sdar Bonnet, Ceepee and Coups ..... 299
Til. Campercraft ... ......... 314
Till. Che Indian Drum ..... ..... 320
IX. €he Cat and the Skunk ........ 327
X. Che Hdventures of a Squirrel family . . 337
XI. f)ow to See the Oloodf oik ....... 344
XII. Indian Signs and Getting Lost . . . . . 355
XIII. Canning Skins and leaking JVUxcasins . . 364
XIV. Caleb's philosophy ..... .... 373
xii
Page
XT, H Visit from RaTten •«...... 3/9
XVI. fk>w Yan Knew the Ducks Hfar ...» 385
XVII, Sam's Woodcraft exploit 394
XVIII. Che Owls and the ]Vight-School 399
XIX, Che Crial of Grit . . . . * 411
XX» Che Cdhite Revolver 421
XXI. Che Criumph of Guy 429
XXII, Che Coon Runt 443
XXIII. Che Banshee's Cdail and the F)u£e JHight
prowler 456
XXIV. FJawheye Claims Hnother Grand Coup . . 470
XXV, Che Chree-fingered Cramp 478
XXVI. Spinning Bach the farm ....,., 489
XXVII, Che Rival Cribe 496
XXVIII. Sdhite ]VIanrs Woodcraft 502
XXIX. Che IU>ng Swamp 508
XXX. H ]Vew Kind of Coon 523
XXXI. On the Old Camp Ground 534
XXXII. Che New «lar Chief 537
List of Full Pages Parti
Page
1. " Gazing spellbound in that window " ..... 22
2. " f)c already knew the Downy Woodpecker ". . . 36
3. Y^n's Toilet 59
4. Tbe Coon Crack 67
5. " There in bis dear cabin were tbrcc tramps " . . 85
6. " It surely was a Lynx " 91
Part II
7. " Cbe wigwam was a failure " 1 27
8. "Gctouto'tbisnow.orX'Ubootye" .... 143
9. pattern for Ceepee 147
10. pattern of Thunder Bull's Teepee and of Black
Bull's Teepee . 153
1 1. " * Clicker-a-clicker ! ' be shrieked . . . and down like
a dart" 159
Page
12. Rubbing-sticks for fire-making ....... 174
13. Che Hrcbery Outfit 183
14. " Che dam was a great success " 193
i 5» " tlgb ! F)«ap sassy " . 223
16. " Cbere stood Raf ten, spectator of the whole affair " 239
Part III
17. "Xf ye hill any Song-birds, I'll use the rawboide
on ye" 259
18. "SClbere'stbeaje?" 266
1 9. " Re soon appeared, waving a brancb " 27 1
20. Cbe 5dar Bonnet 301
21. " Cbe old Gat raged and tore " 333
22. Xndian Signs 357
23. " Cbe Cwo Smokes " 361
24. Cbe fisb and River Ducks 387
25. Cbe Sea Ducks 391
26. Owl-stuffing plate 405
27. "6uy gave a leap of terror and fell" 433
28. " SClell, sonny, cookin' dinner ?" . 480
29. " f)e nervously fired and missed " 529
Part I
gan
Two Little Savages
Glimmerings
AN was much like other twelve-year- old boys in having a keen interest in Indians and in wild life, but he differed from most in this, that he never got over it. Indeed, as he grew older, he found a yet keener pleasure in storing up the little bits of woodcraft and Indian lore that pleased him as a boy.
His father was in poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined tastes, but indolent — a failure in business, easy with the world and stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere with the boy's education, he forbade them altogether.
There was certainly no reason to accuse Yan of neglecting school. He was the head boy of his
Two Little Savages
ciass, although there were many in it older than himself. He was fond of books in general, but those that dealt with Natural Science and Indian craft were very close to his heart. Not that he had many — there wrere very few in those days, and the Public Library had but a poor representation of these. "Lloyd's Scandinavian Sports," "Gray's Botany" and one or two Fenimore Cooper novels, these were all, and Yan was devoted to them. He was a timid, obedient boy in most things, but the unwise command to give up what was his nature merely made him a disobedient boy — turned a good boy into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey openly, but he used to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields and woods, and at each new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite thrill of mingled pleasure and pain — the pain because he had no name for it or means of learning its nature.
The intense interest in animals was his master passion, and thanks to this, his course to and from school was a very crooked one, involving many crossings of the street, because thereby he could pass first a saloon in whose window was a champagne advertising chromo that portrayed two Terriers chasing a Rat; next, directly opposite this, was a tobacconist's, in the window of which was a beautiful effigy of an Elephant, laden with tobacco. By going a little farther out of his way, there was a game store where he might see some Ducks, and was sure, at least, of a stuffed Deer's head; and beyond that w\s
20
" Gazing spellbound in that window "
Glimmerings
a furrier shop, with an astonishing stuffed Bear. At another point he could see a livery stable Dog that was said to have killed a Coon, and at yet another place on Jervie Street was a cottage with a high veranda, under which, he was told, a chained Bear had once been kept. He never saw the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found pleasure in passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand streets, according to a schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed years ago and could still be smelled on damp nights. He always stopped, if passing near on a wet night, and sniffed and enjoyed that Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a leakage of sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure he originally found in it.
Yan had no good excuse for these weaknesses, and he blushed for shame when his elder brother talked "common sense" to him about his follies. He only knew that such things fascinated him.
But the crowning glory was a taxidermist's shop kept on Main Street by a man named Sander. Yan spent, all told, many weeks gazing spellbound, with his nose flat and white against that window. It con tained some Fox and Cat heads grinning ferociously, and about fifty birds beautifully displayed. Nature might have got some valuable hints in that window on showing plumage to the very best advantage. Each bird seemed more wonderful than the last.
There were perhaps fifty of them on view, and of these, twelve had labels, as they had formed part
Two Little Savages
of an exhibit at the Annual County Fair. These labels were precious truths to him, and the birds: Osprey Partridge or Ruffed Grouse
Kingfisher Bittern
Bluejay Highholder
Rosebreasted Grosbeak Sawwhet Owl Woodthrush Oriole
Scarlet Tanager *******
were, with their names, deeply impressed on his mem ory and added to his woodlore, though not altogether without a mixture of error. For the alleged Wood- thrush was not a Woodthrush at all, but turned out to be a Hermit Thrush. The last bird of the list was a long-tailed, brownish bird with white breast. The label was placed so that Yan could not read it from outside, and one of his daily occupations was to see if the label had been turned so that he could read it. But it never was, so he never learned the bird's name.
After passing this for a year or more, he formed a desperate plan. It was nothing less than to go inside. It took him some months to screw up courage, for he was shy and timid, but oh ! he was so hungry for it. Most likely if he had gone in openly and asked leave, he would have been allowed to see everything; but he dared not. His home training was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious of the small birds in the window — a Sawwhet OwL then grit his teeth and walked in. How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang ! Then
Glimmerings
there succeeded a still more appalling silence, then a step and the great man himself came.
"How — how — how much is that Owl?"
"Two dollars."
Yan's courage broke down now. He fled. If he had been told ten cents, it would have been utterly beyond reach. He scarcely heard what the man said. He hurried out with a vague feeling that he had been in heaven but was not good enough to stay there. He saw nothing of the wonderful things around him.
II
Spring
YAN, though not strong, revelled in deeds of brawn. He would rather have been Samson than Moses — Hercules than Apollo. All his tastes inclined him to wild life. Each year when the spring came, he felt the inborn impulse to up and away. He was stirred through and through when the first Crow, in early March, came barking over head. But it fairly boiled in his blood when the Wild Geese, in long, double, arrow-headed proces sion, went clanging northward. He longed to go with them. Whenever a new bird or beast appeared, he had a singular prickling feeling up his spine and his back as though he had a mane that was standing up. This feeling strengthened with his strength.
All of his schoolmates used to say that they "liked" the spring, some of the girls would even say that they "dearly loved" the spring, but they could not understand the madness that blazed in Yan's eyes when springtime really came — the flush of cheek — the shortening breath — the restless craving for action — the chafing with flashes of rebellion at school restraints — the overflow of nervous energy — the blc^dthirst in his blood — the hankering to run — to
26
Spring
run to the north, when the springtime tokens bugled to his every sense.
Then the wind and sky and ground were full of thrill. There was clamour everywhere, but never a word. There was stirring within and without. There was incentive in the yelping of the Wild Geese ; but it was only tumult, for he could not understand why he was so stirred. There were voices that he could not hear — messages that he could not read; all was confusion of tongues. He longed only to get away.
" If only I could get away. If — if Oh, God ! " he
stammered in torment of inexpression, and then would gasp and fling himself down on some bank, and bite the twigs that chanced within reach and tremble and wonder at himself.
Only one thing kept him from some mad and suicidal move — from joining some roving Indian band up north, or gypsies nearer — and that was the strong hand at home.
27
Ill His Adjoining Brothers
YAN had many brothers, but only those next him in age were important in his life. Rad was two years older — a strong boy, who prided himself on his "common sense." Though so much older, he was Yan's inferior at school. He resented this, and delighted in showing his muscular superiority at all opportunities. He was inclined to be religious, and was strictly proper in his life and speech. He never was known to smoke a cigarette, tell a lie, or say "gosh" or "darn." He was plucky and persevering, but he was cold and hard, without a human fiber or a drop of red blood in his make-up. Even as a boy he bragged that he had no enthusiasms, that he believed in common sense, that he called a spade a spade, and would not use two words where one would do. His intelligence was above the average, but he was so anxious to be thought a person of rare sagacity and smartness, unswayed by emotion, that nothing was too heartless for him to do if it seemed in line with his assumed character. He was not especially selfish, and yet he pretended to be so, simply that people should say of him signifi cantly and admiringly: " Isn't he keen ? Doesn't he
28
His Adjoining- Brothers
know how to take care of himself?" What little human warmth there was in him died early, and he succeeded only in making himself increasingly detested as he grew up.
His relations to Yan may be seen in one incident.
Yan had been crawling about under the house in the low wide cobwebby space between the floor beams and the ground. The delightful sensation of being on an exploring expedition led him farther (and ultimately to a paternal thrashing for soiling his clothes) , till he discovered a hollow place near one side, where he could nearly stand upright. He at once formed one of his schemes — to make a secret, or at least a private, workroom here. He knew that if he were to ask permission he would be refused, but if he and Rad together were to go it might receive favourable consideration on account of Rad's self -asserted reputation for common sense. For a wonder, Rad was impressed with the scheme, but was quite sure that they had "better not go together to ask Father." He " could manage that part better alone," and he did.
Then they set to work. The first thing was to deepen the hole from three feet to six feet everywhere, and get rid of the earth by working it back under the floor of the house. There were many days of labour in this, and Yan stuck to it each day after returning from school. There were always numerous reasons why Rad could not share in the labour. When the ten by fourteen-foot hole was made, boards to line and floor
29
Two Little Savages
it were needed. Lumber was very cheap — inferior, second-hand stuff was to be had for the asking — and Yan found and carried boards enough to make the workroom. Rad was an able carpenter and now took charge of the construction. They worked together evening after evening, Yan discussing all manner of plans with warmth and enthusiasm — what they would do in their workshop when finished — how they might get a jig-saw in time and saw picture frames, so as to make some money. Rad assented with grunts or an occasional Scripture text — that was his way. Each day he told Yan what to go on with while he was absent.
The walls were finished at length; a window placed in one side ; a door made and fitted with lock and key. What joy ! Yan glowed with pleasure and pride at the triumphant completion of his scheme. He swept up the floor for the finishing ceremony and sat down on the bench for a grand gloat, when Rad said abruptly:
"Going to lock up now." That sounded gratify- ingly important. Yan stepped outside. Rad locked the door, put the key in his pocket, then turning, he said with cold, brutal emphasis:
"Now you keep out of my workshop from this on. You have nothing to do with it. It's mine. I got the permission to make it." All of which he could prove, and did.
Alner, the youngest, was eighteen months younger than Yan, and about the same size, but the resem-
30
His Adjoining Brothers
blance stopped there. His chief aim in life was to be stylish. He once startled his mother by inserting into his childish prayers the perfectly sincere request : "Please, God, make me an awful swell, for Jesus sake." Vanity was his foible, and laziness his sin.
He could be nattered into anything that did not involve effort. He fairly ached to be famous. He was consuming with desire to be pointed out for admiration as the great this, that or the other thing — it did not matter to him what, as long as he could be pointed out. But he never had the least idea of working for it. At school he was a sad dunce. He was three grades below Yan and at the bottom of his grade. They set out for school each day together, because that was a paternal ruling; but they rarely reached there together. They had nothing in common. Yan was full of warmth, enthusiasm, earnestness and energy, but had a most passionate and ungovern able temper. Little put him in a rage, but it was soon over, and then an equally violent reaction set in, and he was always anxious to beg forgiveness and make friends again. Alner was of lazy good temper and had a large sense of humour. His interests were wholly in the playground. He had no sympathy with Yan's Indian tastes — "Indians in nasty, shabby clothes. Bah! Horrid!" he would scornfully say.
These, then, were his adjoining brothers.
What wonder that Yan was daily further from them.
B
IV The Book
UT the greatest event of Yan's then early life now took place. His school readers told him about Wilson and Audubon, the first and last American naturalists. Yan wondered why no other great prophet had arisen. But one day the papers announced that at length he had appeared. A work on the Birds of Canada, by . , had come
at last, price one dollar.
Money never before seemed so precious, necessary and noble a thing. "Oh ! if I only had a dollar." He set to work to save and scrape. He won marbles j^-' ( in game, swopped marbles for tops, tops for jack- ) knives as the various games came around with
] strange and rigid periodicity. The jack-knives in
y,\_ turn were converted into rabbits, the rabbits into
|\ cash of small denominations. He carried wood for
L % strange householders; he scraped and scraped and
. | saved the scrapings; and got, after some months, as
1 . high as ninety cents. But there was a dread fatality
about that last dime. No one seemed to have any more odd jobs; his commercial luck deserted him. He was burnt up with craving for that book. None of his people took interest enough in him to advance
32
0 o
The Book
the cash even at the ruinous interest (two or three times cent per cent) that he was willing to bind him self for. Six weeks passed before he achieved that last dime, and he never felt conscience-clear about it afterward.
He and Alner had to cut the kitchen wood. Each had his daily allotment, as well as other chores. Yan's was always done faithfully, but the other evaded his work in every way. He was a notorious little fop. The paternal poverty did not permit his toilet extravagance to soar above one paper collar per week, but in his pocket he carried a piece of ink eraser with which he was careful to keep the paper collar up to standard. Yan cared nothing about dress — indeed, was inclined to be slovenly. So the eldest brother, meaning to turn Alner's weak ness to account, offered a prize of a twenty-five-cent necktie of the winner's own choice to the one who did his chores best for a month. For the first week Alner and Yan kept even, then Alner wearied, in spite of the dazzling prize. The pace was too hot. Yan kept on his usual way and was duly awarded the twenty-five cents to be spent on a necktie. But in the store a bright thought came tempting him. Fifteen cents was as much as any one should spend on a necktie — that's sure; the other ten would get the book. And thus the last dime was added to the pile. Then, bursting with joy and with the pride of a capitalist, he went to the book-shop and asked for the coveted volume.
33
Two Little Savages
He was tense with long-pent feeling. He expected to have the bookseller say that the price had gone up to one thousand dollars, and that all were sold. But he did not. He turned silently, drew the book out of a pile of them, hesitated and said, "Green or red cover?"
"Green," said Yan, not yet believing. The book man looked inside, then laid it down, saying in a cold, business tone, "Ninety cents."
"Ninety cents," gasped Yan. Oh! if only he had known the ways of booksellers or the workings of cash discounts. For six weeks had he been barred this happy land — had suffered starvation; he had misap propriated funds, he had fractured his conscience, and all to raise that ten cents — that unnecessary dime.
He read that book reverentially all the way home. It did not give him what he wanted, but that doubt less was his own fault. He pored over it, studied it, loved it, never doubting that now he had the key to all the wonders and mysteries of Nature. It was five years before he fully found out that the text was the most worthless trash ever foisted on a torpid public. Nevertheless, the book held some useful things; first, a list of the bird names; second, some thirty vile travesties of Audubon and Wilson's bird portraits.
These were the birds thus maligned : Duck Hawk Shore Lark
Sparrow Hawk Rose-breasted Grosbeak
White-headed Eagle Bobolink
34
He already knew the Downy Woodpecker "
The Book
Great Horned Owl
Snowy Owl
Red - headed Wood pecker
Golden-winged Wood pecker
Barn -swallow
Whip-poor-will
Night Hawk
Belted Kingfisher
Kingbird
Woodthrush
Catbird
White-bellied Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bohemian Chatterer
Great Northern Shrike But badly as they
were yet information,
Meadow Lark
Blue jay
Ruffed Grouse
Great Blue Heron
Bittern
Wilson's Snipe
Long-billed Curlew
Purple Gallinule
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Hooded Merganser
Double-crested Cormorant
Arctic Tern
Great Northern Diver
Stormy Petrel
Arctic Puffin
Black Guillemot were presented, the pictures , and were entered in his
memory as lasting accessions to his store of truth about the Wild Things.
Of course, he already knew some few birds whose names are familiar to every schoolboy: the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Wild Canary, Woodpecker, Barn-swallow, Wren, Chickadee, Wild Pigeon, Hum ming-bird, Pewee, so that his list was steadily increased.
<r
V The Collarless Stranger
Oh, sympathy! the noblest gift of God to man. The greatest bond there is twixt man and man.
The strongest link in any friendship chain.
The single lasting hold in kinship's claim.
The only incorrosive strand in marriage bonds.
The blazing light where genius lights her lamp.
The ten times noble base of noblest love.
More deep than love — more strong than hate — the biggest thing in all the universe — the law of laws.
Grant but this greatest gift of God to man — this single link concatenating grant, and all the rest are worthless or comprised.
EACH year the ancient springtime madness came more strongly on Yan. Each year he was less inclined to resist it, and one glorious day of late April in its twelfth return he had wandered north ward along to a little wood a couple of miles from the town. It was full of unnamed flowers and voices and mysteries. Every tree and thicket had a voice — a long ditch full of water had many that called to him. "Peep-peep-peep" they seemed to say in invitation for him to -come and see. He crawled again and again to the ditch and watched and waited. The loud whistle would sound only a few rods away, "Peep-peep-peep" but ceased at each spot when he
The Collar less Stranger
came near — sometimes before him, sometimes behind, but never where he was. He searched through a small pool with his hands, sifted out sticks and leaves, but found nothing else. A farmer going by told him it was only a "spring Peeper," whatever that was, "some kind of a critter in the water."
Under a log not far away Yan found a little Lizard that tumbled out of sight into a hole. It was the only living thing there, so he decided that the "Peeper" must be a "Whistling Lizard." But he was deter mined to see them when they were calling. How was it that the ponds all around should be full of them calling to him and playing hide and seek and yet de fying his most careful search ? The voices ceased as soon as he came near, to be gradually renewed in the pools he had left. His presence was a husher. He lay for a long time watching a pool, but none of the voices began again in range of his eye. At length, after realizing that they were avoiding him, he crawled to a very noisy pond without showing himself, and nearer and yet nearer until he was within three feet of a loud peeper in the floating grass. He located the spot within a few inches and yet could see nothing. He was utterly baffled, and lay there puzzling over it, when suddenly all the near Peepers stopped, and Yan was startled by a footfall; and looking around, he saw a man within a few feet, watching him.
Yan reddened — a stranger was always an enemy; he had a natural aversion to all such, and stared awkwardly as though caught in crime.
39
Two Little Savages
The man, a curious looking middle-aged person, was in shabby clothes and wore no collar. He had a tin box strapped on his bent shoulders, and in his hands was a long-handled net. His features, smoth ered in a grizzly beard, were very prominent and rugged. They gave evidence of intellectual force, with some severity, but his gray-blue eyes had a kindly look.
He had on a common, unbecoming, hard felt hat, and when he raised it to admit the pleasant breeze Yan saw that the wearer had hair like his own — a coarse, paleolithic mane, piled on his rugged brow, like a mass of seaweed lodged on some storm-beaten rock.
"F'what are ye fynding, my lad?" said he in tones whose gentleness was in no way obscured by a strong Scottish tang.
Still resenting somewhat the stranger's presence, Yan said:
"I'm not finding anything; I am only trying to see what that Whistling Lizard is like."
The stranger's eyes twinkled. "Forty years ago Ah was laying by a pool just as Ah seen ye this morning, looking and trying hard to read the riddle of the spring Peeper. Ah lay there all day, aye, and mony anither day, yes, it was nigh onto three years before Ah found it oot. Ah'll be glad to save ye seeking as long as Ah did, if that's yer mind. Ah'll show ye the Peeper."
Then he raked carefully among the leaves near
40
The Collarless Stranger
the ditch, and soon captured a tiny Frog, less than an inch long.
"Ther's your Whistling Lizard: he no a Lizard at all, but a Froggie. Book men call him Hyla pickeringii, an' a gude Scotchman he'd make, for ye see the St. Andrew's cross on his wee back. Ye see the whistling ones in the water put on'y their beaks oot an' is hard to see. Then they sinks to the bottom when ye come near. But you tak this'n home and treat him well and ye '11 see him blow out his throat as big as himsel' an' whistle like a steam engine."
Yan thawed out now. He told about the Lizard he had seen.
' ' That wasna a Lizard ; Ah niver see thim aboot here. It must a been a two-striped Spelerpes. A Spclcrpes is nigh kin to a Frog — a kind of dry-land tadpole, while a Lizard is only a Snake with legs."
This was light from heaven. All Yan's distrust was gone. He warmed to the stranger. He plied him with questions; he told of his getting the Bird Book. Oh, how the stranger did snort at "that driveling trash." Yan talked of his perplexities. He got a full hearing and intelligent answers. His mystery of the black ground-bird with a brown mate was resolved into the Common Towhee. The unknown wonderful voice in the spring morning, sending out its "cluck, cluck, cluck, clucker," in the distant woods ; the large gray Woodpecker that bored in some high stub and flew in a blaze of gold, and the wonderful spotted bird with red head and yellow
41
Two Little Savages
wings and tail in the taxidermist's window, were all resolved into one and the same — the Flicker or Golden-winged Woodpecker. The Hang-nest and the Oriole became one. The unknown poisonous-looking blue Hornet, that sat on the mud with palpitating body, and the strange, invisible thing that made the mud-nests inside old outbuildings and crammed them with crippled Spiders, were both identified as the Mud-wasp or Pelop&us.
A black Butterfly flew over, and Yan learned that it was a Camberwell Beauty, or, scientifically, a Vanessa antiopa, and that this one must have hibernated to be seen so early in the spring, and yet more, that this beautiful creature was the glorified spirit of the common brown and black spiney Caterpillar.
The Wild Pigeons were flying high above them in great flocks as they sat there, and Yan learned of their great nesting places in the far South, and of their wonderful but exact migrations without regard to anything but food; their northward migration to gather the winged nuts of the Slippery Elm in Canada; their August flight to the rice-fields of Carolina; their Mississippi Valley pilgrimage when the acorns and beech-mast were falling ripe
What a rich, full morning that was. Everything seemed to turn up for them. As they walked over a piney hill, two large birds sprang from the ground and whirred through the trees.
"Ruffed Grouse or 'pat ridge," as the farmers call
42
The Collarless Stranger
them. There's a pair lives nigh aboots here. They come on this bank for the Wintergreen berries."
And Yan was quick to pull and taste them. He filled his pockets with the aromatic plant — berries and all — and chewed it as he went. While they walked, a faint, far drum-thump fell on their ears. "What's that?" he exclaimed, ever on the alert. The stranger listened and said :
"That's the bird ye ha' just seen; that's the Cock Partridge drumming for his mate."
The Pewee of his early memories became the Phcebe of books. That day his brookside singer became the Song-sparrow; the brown triller, the Veery Thrush. The Trilliums, white and red, the Dogtooth Violet, the Spring-beauty, the Trailing Arbutus — all for the first time got names and became real friends, instead of elusive and beautiful, but depressing mysteries.
The stranger warmed, too, and his rugged features glowed; he saw in Yan one minded like himself, tor mented with the knowledge-hunger, as in youth he himself had been ; and now it was a priceless privilege to save the boy some of what he had suffered. His gratitude to Yan grew fervid, and Yan — he took in every word; nothing that he heard was forgotten. He was in a dream, for he had found at last the greatest thing on earth — sympathy — broad, intelli gent, comprehensive sympathy.
That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan's mind — not his memory, that was a
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Arbutus
Two Little Savages
thing of the past — but in his mind, his living present.
And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the smell of the Wintergreen.
Smell's appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than that of any other sense. The Indians know this; many of them, in time, find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it by them in the medicine bag. It is very real and dear to them — that handful of Pine needles, that lump of Rat-musk, or that piece of Spruce gum. It adds the crown of happy memory to their reveries.
And yet this belief is one of the first attacked by silly White-men, who profess to enlighten the Red man's darkness. They, in their ignorance, denounce it as absurd, while men of science know its simple truth.
Yan did not know that he had stumbled on a secret of the Indian medicine bag. But ever after ward that wonderful day was called back to him, conjured up by his "medicine," this simple, natural magic, the smell of the Wintergreen.
He appreciated that morning more than he could tell, and yet he did a characteristic foolish thing, that put him in a wrong light and left him so in the stranger's mind.
It was past noon. They had long lingered; the stranger spoke of the many things he had at home; then at length said he must be going. "Weel,
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The Cottarless Stranger
good-by, laddie; Ah hope Ah'll see you again." He held out his hand. Yan shook it warmly; but he was dazed with thinking and with reaction; his diffidence and timidity were strong; he never rose to the stranger's veiled offer. He let him go without even learning his name or address.
When it was too late, Yan awoke to his blunder. He haunted all those woods in hopes of chancing on him there again, but he never did.
45
VI Glenyan
OH ! what a song the Wild Geese sang that year ! How their trumpet clang went thrilling in his heart, to smite there new and hidden chords that stirred and sang response. Was there ever a nobler bird than that great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood of life, a song of home and of peace — of stirring deeds and hunting in far-off climes — of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet with cooling drink. A song of wind and marching, a song of bursting green and grinding ice — of Arctic secrets and of hidden ways. A song of a long black marsh, a low red sky, and a sun that never sets.
An Indian jailed for theft bore bravely through the winter, but when the springtime brought the Gander-clang in the black night sky, he started, fell, and had gone to his last, long, hunting home.
Who can tell why Jericho should fall at the trumpet blast ?
Who can read or measure the power of the Honker- song?
Oh, what a song the Wild Geese sang that year ! And yet, was it a new song? No, the old, old song,
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Glenyan
but Yan heard it with new ears. He was learn ing to read its message. He wandered on their trailless track, as often as he could, northward, ever northward, up the river from the town, and up, seeking the loneliest ways and days. The river turned to the east, but a small stream ran into it from the north : up that Yan went through thick ening woods and walls that neared each other, on and up until the walls closed to a crack, then widened out into a little dale that was still full of original forest trees. Hemlock, Pine, Birch and Elm of the largest size abounded and spread over the clear brook a continuous shade. Fox vines trailed in the open places, the rarest wild-flowers flourished, Red-squirrels chattered from the trees. In the mud along the brook-side were tracks of Coon and Mink and other strange fourfoots. And in the trees overhead, the Veery, the Hermit -thrush, or even a Woodthrush sang his sweetly solemn strain, in that golden twi light of the midday forest. Yan did not know them all by name as yet, but he felt their vague charm and mystery. It seemed such a far and lonely place, so unspoiled by man, that Yan persuaded himself that surely he was the first human being to stand there, that it was his by right of discovery, and so he claimed it and named it after its discoverer — Glenyan.
This place became the central thought in his life. He went there at all opportunities, but never dared to tell any one of his discovery. He longed for a confidant sometimes, he hankered to meet the
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Two Little Savages
stranger and take him there, and still he feared that the secret would get out. This was his little kingdom ; the Wild Geese had brought him here, as the Seagulls had brought Columbus to a new world — where he could lead, for brief spells, the woodland life that was his ideal. He was tender enough to weep over the downfall of a lot of fine Elm trees in town, when their field was sold for building purposes, and he used to suffer a sort of hungry regret when old settlers told how plentiful the Deer used to be. But now he had a relief from these sorrows, for surely there was one place where the great trees should stand and grow as in the bright bygone; where the Coon, the Mink and the Partridge should live and flourish forever. No, indeed, no one else should know of it, for if the secret got out, at least hosts of visitors would come and Glenyan be defiled. No, better that the secret should "die with him," he said. What that meant he did not really know, but he had read the phrase somewhere and he liked the sound of it. Possibly he would reveal it on his deathbed.
Yes, that was the proper thing, and he pictured a harrowing scene of weeping relatives around, himself as central figure, all ceasing their wailing and gasping with wonder as he made known the mighty secret of his life — delicious ! it was almost worth dying for.
So he kept the place to himself and loved it more and more. He would look out through the thick Hemlock tops, the blots of Basswood green or the criss-cross Butternut leafage and say: "My own, my
Glenyan
own." Or down by some pool in the limpid stream he would sit and watch the arrowy Shiners and say: "You are mine, all; you are mine. You shall never be harmed or driven away."
A spring came from the hillside by a green lawn, and here Yan would eat his sandwiches varied with nuts and berries that he did not like, but ate only because he was a wildman, and would look lovingly up the shady brookland stretches and down to the narrow entrance of the glen, and say and think and feel, "This is mine, my own, my very own."
VII The Shanty
HE had none but the poorest. of tools, but he set about building a shanty. He was not a re sourceful boy. His effort to win the book had been an unusual one for him, as his instincts were not at all commercial. When that matter came to the knowledge of the Home Government, he was rebuked for doing "work unworthy of a gentleman's son" and forbidden under frightful penalties "ever again to resort to such degrading ways of raising money."
They gave him no money, so he was penniless. Most boys would have possessed themselves somehow of a good axe and spade. He had neither. An old plane blade, fastened to a stick with nails, was all the axe and spade he had, yet with this he set to work and offset its poorness as a tool by dogged persistency. First, he selected the quietest spot near the spring — a bank hidden by a mass of foliage. He knew no special reason for hiding it, beyond the love of secrecy. He had read in some of his books "how the wily scouts led the way through a pathless jungle, pulled aside a bough and there revealed a comfortable dwelling that none without the secret could possibly have discovered," so it seemed very proper to make it
50
The Shanty
a complete mystery — a sort of secret panel in the enchanted castle — and so picture himself as the wily scout leading his wondering companions to the shanty, though, of course, he had not made up his mind to reveal his secret to any one. He often wished he could have the advantage of R'ad's strong arms and efficacious tools; but the workshop incident was only one of many that taught him to leave his brother out of all calculation.
Mother Earth is the best guardian of a secret, and Yan with his crude spade began by digging a hole in the bank. The hard blue clay made the work slow, but two holidays spent in steady labour resulted in a hole seven feet wide and about four feet into the bank.
In this he set about building the shanty. Logs seven or eight feet long must be got to the place — at least twenty-five or thirty would be needed, and how to cut and handle them with his poor axe was a question. Somehow, he never looked for a better axe. The half -formed notion that the Indians had no better was sufficient support, and he struggled away bravely, using whatever ready sized material he could find. Each piece as he brought it was put into place. Some boys would have gathered the logs first and built it all at once, but that was net Yan's way; he was too eager to see the walls rise. He had painfully and slowly gathered logs enough to raise the walls three rounds, when the question of a door occurred to him. This, of course, could not be cut through the logs in the ordinary wav; that
Two Little Savages
required the best of tools. So he lifted out all the front logs except the lowest, replacing them at the ends with stones and blocks to sustain the sides. This gave him the sudden gain of two logs, and helped the rest of the walls that much. The shanty was now about three feet high, and no two logs in it were alike: some were much too long, most were crooked and some were half rotten, for the simple reason that these were the only ones he could cut. He had exhausted the logs in the neighbourhood and was forced to go farther. Now he remembered seeing one that might do, half a mile away on the home trail (they were always "trails"; he never called them "roads" or "paths"). He went after this, and to his great surprise and delight found that it was one of a dozen old cedar posts that had been cut long before and thrown aside as culls, or worthless. He could carry only one at a time, so that to bring each one meant a journey of a mile, and the post got woe fully heavy each time before that mile was over. To get those twelve logs he had twelve miles to walk. It took several Saturdays, but he stuck doggedly to it. Twelve good logs completed his shanty, making it five feet high and leaving three logs over for rafters. These he laid flat across, dividing the spaces equally. Over them he laid plenty of small sticks and branches till it was thickly covered. Then he went down to a rank, grassy meadow and, with his knife, cut hay for a couple of hours. This was spread thickly on the roof, to be covered with strips
52
The Shanty
of Elm bark ; then on top of all he threw the clay dug from the bank, piling it well back, stamping on it, and working it down at the edges. Finally, he threw rubbish and leaves over it, so that it was confused with the general tangle.
Thus the roof was finished, but the whole of the front was open. He dreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found, first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inches through. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs of holes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle of the front ground log.
Into each of these he put a pair of upright sticks, leading up to the eave log, one inside and one outside of it, then packed the earth around them in the holes. Next, he went to the brook-side and cut a number of long green willow switches about half an inch thick at the butt. These switches he twisted around the top of each pair of stakes in a figure 8, placing them to hold the stake tight against the bottom and top logs at the front.
Down by the spring he now dug a hole and worked water and clay together into mortar, then with a trowel cut out of a shingle, and mortar carried in an old bucket, he built a wall within the stakes, using sticks laid along the outside and stones set in mud till the front was closed up, except a small hole for a window and a large hole for a door.
Now he set about finishing the inside. He gathered
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Two Little Savages
moss in the woods and stuffed all the chinks in the upper parts, and those next the ground he filled with stones and earth. Thus the shanty was finished; but it lacked a door.
The opening was four feet high and two feet wide, so in the woodshed at home he cut three boards, each eight inches wide and four feet high, but he left at each end of one a long point. Doing this at home gave him the advantage of a saw. Then with these and two shorter boards, each two feet long and six inches wide, he sneaked out to Glenyan, and there, with some nails and a stone for a hammer, he fastened them together into a door. In the ground log he pecked a hole big enough to receive one of the points and made a corresponding hole in the under side of the top log. Then, prying up the eave log, he put the door in place, let the eave log down again, and the door was hung. A string to it made an outside fastening when it was twisted around a projecting snag in the wall, and a peg thrust into a hole within made an inside fastener. Some logs, with fir boughs and dried grass, formed a bunk within. This left only the window, and for lack of better cover he fastened over it a piece of muslin brought from home. But finding its dull white a jarring note, he gathered a quart of butternuts, and watching his chance at home, he boiled the cotton in water with the nuts and so reduced it to a satisfactory yellowish brown.
His final task was to remove all appearance of disturbance and to fully hide the shanty in brush
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The Shanty
and trailing vines. Thus, after weeks of labour, his woodland home was finished. It was only five feet high inside, six feet long and six feet wide — dirty and uncomfortable — but what a happiness it was to have it.
Here for the first time in his life he began to realize something of th? pleasure of single-handed achieve ment in the line of a great ambition.
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VIII Beginnings of Woodlore
DURING this time Yan had so concentrated all his powers on the shanty that he had scarcely noticed the birds and wild things . Such was his tempera ment — one idea only, and that with all his strength.
His heart was more and more in his kingdom now; he longed to come and live here. But he only dared to dream that some day he might be allowed to pass a night in the shanty. This was where he would lead his ideal life — the life of an Indian with all that is bad and cruel left out. Here he would show men how to live without cutting down all the trees, spoiling all the streams, and killing every living thing. He would learn how to get the fullest pleasure out of the woods himself and then teach others how to do the same. Though the birds and Fourfoots fascinated him, he would not have hesitated to shoot one had he been able; but to see a tree cut down always caused him great distress. Possibly he realized that the bird might be quickly replaced, but the tree, never.
To carry out his plan he must work hard at school, for books had much that he needed. Perhaps corne day he might get a chance to see Audubon's
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Beginnings of "Woodlore
drawings, and so have all his bird worries settled by a single book.
That summer a new boy at school added to Yan's savage equipment. This boy was neither good nor bright; he was a dunce, and had been expelled from a boarding school for misconduct, but he had a number of schoolboy accomplishments that gave him a tinge of passing glory. He could tie a lot of curious knots in a string. He could make a wonderful birdy warble, and he spoke a language that he called Tutnee. Yan. was interested in all, but especially the last. He teased and bribed till he was admitted to the secret. It consisted in spelling every word, leaving the five vowels as they are, but doubling each consonant and putting a "u" between. Thus "b" became "bub," "d" "dud," "m" "mum," and so forth, except that "c" was "suk," "h" "hash," "x" "zux," and "w" "wak."
The sample given by the new boy, " sus-hash-u-tut u-pup yak-o-u-rur mum-o-u-tut-hash," was said to be a mode of enjoining silence.
This language was "awful useful," the new boy said, to keep the other fellows from knowing what you were saying, which it certainly did. Yan practised hard at it and within a few weeks was an adept. He could handle the uncouth sentences better than his teacher, and he was singularly successful in throwing in accents and guttural tones that imparted a delight fully savage flavour, and he rejoiced in jabbering away to the new boy in the presence of others so
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Two Little Savages
that he might bask in the mystified look on the faces of those wno were not skilled in the tongue of the Tutnees.
He made himself a bow and arrows. They were badly made and he could hit nothing with them, but he felt so like an Indian when he drew the arrow to its head, that it was another pleasure.
He made a number of arrows with hoop-iron heads : these he could file at home in the woodshed. The heads were jagged and barbed and double-barbed. These arrows were frightful -looking things. They seemed positively devilish in their ferocity, and were proportionately gratifying. These he called his "war arrows," and would send one into a tree and watch it shiver, then grunt "Ugh, heap good," and rejoice in the squirming of the imaginary foe he had pierced.
He found a piece of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping knife ; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, might do duty as a kill-tally. He made a sheath for the knife out of scraps of leather left off the moccasins. Some water-colours, acquired by a school swap, and a bit of broken mirror held in a split stick, were necessary parts of his Indian toilet. His face during the process of make-up was always a battle-ground between the horriblest Indian scowl
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Beginnings of Woodlore
and a grin of delight at his success in diabolizing his visage with the paints. Then with painted face and a feather in his hair he would proudly range the woods in his little kingdom and store up every scrap of woodlore he could find, invent or learn from his schoolmates.
Odd things that he found in the woods he would bring to his shanty: curled sticks, feathers, bones, skulls, fungus, shells, an old cowhorn — things that interested him, he did not know why. He made Indian necklaces of the shells, strung together alter nately with the backbone of a fish. He let his hair grow as long as possible, employing various stratagems, even the unpalatable one of combing it to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard, and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was pleasure in hearing disparaging remarks about the darkness of his com plexion. He tried to do everything as an Indian would do it, striking Indian poses, walking carefully with his toes turned in, breaking off twigs to mark a place, guessing at the time by the sun, and grunting "Ugh" or "Wagh" when anything surprised him. Disparaging remarks about White-men, delivered in supposed Indian dialect, were an important part of his pastime. "Ugh, White-men heap no good" and "Wagh, paleface — pale fool in woods," were among his favourites.
He was much influenced by phrases that caught
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Two Little Savages
his ear. "The brown sinewy arm of the Indian," was one of them. It discovered to him that his own arms were white as milk. There was, however, a simple remedy. He rolled up his sleeves to the shoulder and exposed them to the full glare of the sun. Then later, under the spell of the familiar phrase, "The warrior was naked to the waist," he went a step further — he determined to be brown to the waist — so discarded his shirt during the whole of one holiday. He always went to extremes. He remembered now that certain Indians put their young warriors through an initiation called th'3 Sun-dance, so he danced naked round the fire in the blazing sun and sat around naked all one day.
He noticed a general warmness before evening, but it was at night that he really felt the punishment of his indiscretion. He was in a burning heat. He scarcely slept all night. Next day he was worse, and his arm and shoulder were blistered. He bore it bravely, fearing only that the Home Government might find it out, in which case he would have fared worse. He had read that the Indians grease the skin for sunburn, so he went to the bathroom and there used goose grease for lack of Buffalo fat. This did give some relief, and in a few days he was better and had the satisfaction of peeling the dead skin from his shoulders and arms.
Yan made a number of vessels out of Birch bark, stitching the edges with root fibers, filling the
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Beginnings of Woodlore
bottom with a round wooden disc, and cementing the joints with pine gum so that they would hold water.
In the distant river he caught some Catfish and brought them home — that is, to his shanty. There he made a fire and broiled them — very badly — but he ate them as a great delicacy. The sharp bone in each of their side fins he saved, bored a hole through its thick end, smoothed it, and so had needles to stitch his Birch bark. He kept them in a bark box with some lumps of resin, along with some bark fiber, an Indian flint arrow-head given him by a schoolmate, and the claws of a large Owl, found in the garbage heap back of the taxidermist's shop.
One day on the ash heap in their own yard in town he saw a new, strange bird. He was always seeing new birds, but this was of unusual interest. He drew its picture as it tamely fed near him. A dull, ashy gray, with bronzy yellow spots on crown and rump, and white bars on its wings. His "Birds of Canada" gave no light; he searched through all the books he could find, but found no clew to its name. It was years afterward before he learned that this was the young male Pine Grosbeak.
Another day, under the bushes not far from his shanty, he found a small Hawk lying dead. He clutched it as a wonderful prize, spent an hour in looking at its toes, its beak, its wings, its every feather; then he set to work to make a drawing of it. A very bad drawing it proved, although it was the
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Two Little Savages
labour of days, and the bird was crawling with mag gots before he had finished. But every feather and every spot was faithfully copied, was duly set down on paper. One of his friends said it was a Chicken- hawk. That name stuck in Yan's memory. Thence forth the Chicken-hawk and its every marking were familiar to him. Even in after years, when he had learned that this must have been a young "Sharp- shin," the name "Chicken-hawk" was always readier on his lips.
But he met with another and a different Hawk soon afterward. This one was alive and flitting about in the branches of a tree over his head. It was very small — less than a foot in length. Its beak was very short, its legs, wings and tail long; its head was bluish and its back coppery red; on the tail was a broad, black crossbar. As the bird flew about and balanced on the boughs, it pumped its tail. This told him it was a Hawk, and the colours he remem bered were those of the male Sparrow-hawk, for here his bird book helped with its rude travesty of "Wil son's" drawing of this bird. Yet two other birds he saw close at hand and drew partly from memory. The drawings were like this, and from the picture on a calendar he learned that one was a Rail; from a drawing in the bird book that the other was a Bobolink. And these names he never forgot. He had his doubts about the sketching at first — it seemed an un-Indian thing to do, until he remembered that the Indians painted pictures on their shields and
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Beginnings of "Wbocttore
on their teepees. It was /eally the best of all ways for him to make reliable observation.
The bookseller of the town had some new books in his window about this time. One, a marvellous work called "Poisonous Plants," Yan was eager to see. It was exposed in the window for a time. Two of the large plates were visible from the street; one was Henbane, the other Stramonium. Yan gazed at them as often as he could. In a week they were gone; but the names and looks were forever engraved on his memory. Had he made bold to go in and ask permission to see the work, his memory would have seized most of it in an hour.
IX Tracks
IN the wet sand down by the edge of the brook he one day found some curious markings — evidently tracks. Yan pored over them, then made a life- size drawing of one. He shrewdly suspected it to be the track of a Coon — nothing was too good or wild or rare for his valley. As soon as he could, he showed the track to the stableman whose dog was said to have killed a Coon once, and hence the man must be an authority on the subject.
"Is that a Coon track?" asked Yan timidly.
"How do I know?" said the man roughly, and went on with his work. But a stranger standing near, a curious person with shabby clothes, and a new silk hat on the back of his head, said, "Let me see it." Yan showed it.
"Is it natural size?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yep, that's a Coon track, all right. You look at all the big trees near about whar you saw that; then when you find one with a hole in it, you look on the bark and you will find some Coon hars. Then you will know you've got a Coon tree."
Yan took the earliest chance. He sought and found
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Tracks
a great Basswood with some gray hairs caught in the bark. He took them home with him, not sure what kind they were. He sought the stranger, but he was gone, and no one knew him.
How to identify the hairs was a question; but he remembered a friend who had a Coon-skin carriage robe. A few hairs of these were compared with those from the tree and left no doubt that the climber was a Coon. Thus Yan got the beginning of the idea that the very hairs of each, as well as its tracks, are different. He learned, also, how wise it is to draw everything that he wished to observe or describe. It was accident, or instinct on his part, but he had fallen on a sound principle; there is nothing like a sketch to collect and convey accurate information of form — there is no better developer of true observation.
One day he noticed a common plant like an umbrella. He dug it up by the root, and at the lower end he found a long white bulb. He tasted this. It was much like a cucumber. He looked up "Gray's School Botany," and in the index saw the name, Indian Cucumber. The description seemed to tally, as far as he could follow its technical terms, though like all such, without a drawing it was far from satisfactory. So he added the Indian Cucumber to his woodlore.
On another occasion he chewed the leaves of a strange plant because he had heard that that was the first test applied by the Indians. He soon began
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to have awful pains in his stomach. He hurried home in agony. His mother gave him mustard and water till he vomited, then she boxed his ears. His father came in during the process and ably supple mented the punishment. He was then and there ordered to abstain forever from the woods. Of course, he did not. He merely became more cautious about it all, and enjoyed his shanty with the added zest of secret sin.
70
X
Biddy's Contribution
AN Irish-Canadian servant girl from Sanger now became a member of their household. Her grandmother was an herb-doctor in great re pute. She had frequently been denounced as a witch, although in good standing as a Catholic. This girl had picked up some herb-lore, and one day when all the family were visiting the cemetery she darted into various copses and produced plants which she named, together with the complaint that her grandmother used them for.
"Sassafras, that makes tea for skin disease; Ginseng, that's good to sell; Bloodroot for the blood in springtime; Goldthread, that cures sore mouths; Pipsissewa for chills and fever; White-man's Foot, that springs up wherever a White-man treads; Indian cup, that grows where an Indian dies; Dande lion roots for coffee; Catnip tea for a cold; Lavender tea for drinking at meals ; Injun Tobacco to mix with boughten tobacco; Hemlock bark to dye pink; Goldthread to dye yellow, and Butternut rinds for greenish."
All of these were passing trifles to the others, but to Yan they were the very breath of life, and he
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Two Little Savages
treasured up all of these things in his memory. Biddy's information was not unmixed with error and superstition:
"Hold Daddy Longlegs by one leg and say, 'tell me where the cows are,' and he will point just right under another leg, and onct he told me where to find my necklace when I lost it.
1 ' Shoot the Swallows and the cows give bloody milk. That's the way old Sam White ruined his milk business — shooting Swallows.
"Lightning never strikes a barn where Swallows nest. Paw never rested easy after the new barn was built till the Swallows nested in it. He had it insured for a hundred dollars till the Swallows got round to look after it.
"When a Measuring-worm crawls on you, you are going to get a new suit of clothes. My brother-in-law says they walk over him every year in summer and sure enough, he gets a new suit. But they never does it in winter, cause he don't get new clothes then.
"Split a Crow's tongue and he will talk like a girl. Granny knowed a man that had a brother back of Mara that got a young Crow and split his tongue an' he told Granny it was just like a girl talking — an' Granny told me !
"Soak a Horse-hair in rainwater and it will turn into a Snake. Ain't there lots uv Snakes around ponds where Horses drink ? Well !
"Kill a Spider an' it will rain to-morrow. Now,
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Biddy's Contribution
that's worth knowin'. I mind one year when the Orangeman's picnic was comin', i2th of July, Maw made us catch twenty Spiders and we killed them all the day before, and law, how it did rain on the picnic ! Mebbe we didn't laugh. Most of them hed to go home in boats, that's what our paper said. But next year they done the same thing on us for St. Patrick's Day, but Spiders is scarce on the i6th of March, an' it didn't rain so much as snow, so it was about a stand-off.
"Toads gives warts. You seen them McKenna twins — their hands is a sight with warts. Well, I seen them two boys playing with Toads like they was marbles. So ! An' they might a-knowed wrhat was comin'. Ain't every Toad just covered with warts as thick as he can stick ?
"That there's Injun tobacco. The Injuns always use it, and Granny does, too, sometimes." (Yan made special note of this — he must get some and smoke it, if it was Indian.)
"A Witch-hazel wand will bob over a hidden spring and show where to dig. Denny Scully is awful good at it. He gets a dollar for showing where to sink a well, an' if they don't strike water it's because they didn't dig where he said, or spiled the charm some way or nuther, and hez to try over.
"Now, that's Dandelion. Its roots makes awful good coffee. Granny allers uses it. She says that it is healthier than store coffee, but Maw says she likes boughten things best, and the more they cost the better she likes them.
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Two Little Savages
"Now, that's Ginseng. It has a terrible pretty flower in spring. There's tons and tons of it sent to China. Granny says the Chinese eats it, to make them cheerful, but they don't seem to eat enough.
"There's Slippery Elm. It's awfully good for loosening up a cold, if you drink the juice the bark's bin biled in. One spring Granny made a bucketful. She set it outside to cool, an' the pig he drunk it all up, an' he must a had a cold, for it loosened him up so he dropped his back teeth. I seen them myself lying out there in the yard. Yes, I did.
"That's Wintergreen. Lots of boys I know chew that to make the girls like them. Lots of them gits a beau that way, too. I done it myself many's a time.
"Now, that is what some folks calls Injun Turnip, an' the children calls it Jack-in-a-Pulpit, but Granny calls it 'Sorry -plant,' cos she says when any one eats it it makes them feel sorry for the last fool thing they done. I'll put some in your Paw's coffee next time he licks yer and mebbe that'll make him quit. It just makes me sick to see ye gettin' licked fur every little thing ye can't help.
"A Snake's tongue is its sting. You put your foot on a Snake and see how he tries to sting you. An' his tail don't die till sundown. I seen that myself, onct, an' Granny says so, too, an' what Granny don't know ain't knowledge — it's only book-larnin'."
These were her superstitions, most of them more or less obviously absurd to Yan; but she had also
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Biddy's Contribution
a smattering of backwoods lore and Yan gleaned all he could.
She had so much of what he wanted to know that he had almost made up his mind to tell her where he went each Saturday when he had finished his work.
A week or two longer and she would have shared the great secret, but something took place to end their comradeship.
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XI
Lung Balm
ONE day as this girl went with him through a little grove on the edge of the town, she stopped at a certain tree and said:
"If that ain't Black-cherry!"
"You mean Choke-cherry."
" No, Black-cherry. Choke-cherry ain't no good; but Black-cherry bark's awful good for lung com plaint. Grandma always keeps it. I've been feeling a bit queer meself" [she was really as strong as an ox]. "Guess I'll git some." So she and Yan planned an expedition together. The boldness of it scared the boy. The girl helped herself to a hatchet in the tool box — the sacred tool box of his father.
Yan's mother saw her with it and demanded why she had it. With ready effrontery she said it was to hammer in the hook that held the clothesline, and proceeded to carry out the lie with a smiling face. That gave Yan a new lesson and not a good one. The hatchet was at once put back in the box, to be stolen more carefully later on.
Biddy announced that she was going to the grocery shop. She met Yan around the corner and they made for the lot. Utterly regardless of property rights,
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Lung Balm
she showed Yan how to chip off the bark of the Black-cherry. "Don't chip off all around; that's bad luck — take it on'y from the sunny side." She filled a basket with the pieces and they returned home.
Here she filled a jar with bits of the inner layer, then, pouring water over it, let it stand for a week. The water was then changed to a dark brown stuff with a bitter taste and a sweet, aromatic smell. Biddy added whisky and some sugar to this and labelled it Lung Balm.
"It's terrible good," she said. "Granny always keeps it handy. It cures lots of people. Now there was Bud Ellis — the doctors just guv him up. They said he didn't have a single lung left, and he come around to Granny. He used to make fun of Granny; but now he wuz plumb scairt. At first Granny chased him away; then when she seen that he was awful sick, she got sorry and told him how to make Lung Balm. He was to make two gallons each time and bring it to her. Then she took and fixed it so it was one-half as much and give it back to him. Well, in six months if he wasn't all right."
Biddy now complained nightly of "feelin's" in her chest. These feelings could be controlled only by a glass or two of Lung Balm. Her condition must have been critical, for one night after several necessary doses of Balm her head seemed affected. She became abusive to the lady of the house and at the
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Two Little Savages
end of the month a less interesting help was in her place.
There were many lessons good and bad that Yan might have drawn from this; but the only one that he took in was that the Black-cherry bark is a wonder ful remedy. The family doctor said that it really was so, and Yan treasured up this as a new and precious fragment of woodcraft.
Having once identified the tree, he was surprised to see that it was rather common, and was delighted to find it flourishing in his own Glenyan.
This made him set down on paper all the trees he knew, and he was surprised to find how few they were and how uncertain he was about them.
Maple — hard and soft.
Beach.
Elm — swamp and slippery.
Ironwood.
Birch — white and black.
Ash — white and black.
Pine.
Cedar.
Balsam.
Hemlock and Cherry.
He had heard that the Indians knew the name and properties of every tree and plant in the woods, and that was what he wished to be able to say of himself.
One day by the bank of the river he noticed a pile of empty shells of the fresh-water Mussel, cr Clam.
Kfref,
Lung Balm
The shells were common enough, but why all together and marked in the same way? Around the pile on the mud were curious tracks and marks. There were so many that it was hard to find a perfect one, but when he did, remembering the Coon track, he drew a picture of it. It was too small to be the mark of his old acquaintance. He did not find any one to tell him what it was, but one day he saw a round, brown animal hunched up on the bank eating a clam. It dived into the water at his approach, but it reappeared swimming farther on. Then, when it dived again, Yan saw by its long thin tail that it was a Muskrat, like the stuffed one he had seen in the taxidermist's window
He soon learned that the more he studied those tracks the more different kinds he found. Many were rather mysterious, so he could only draw them and put them aside, hoping some day for light. One of the strangest and most puzzling turned out to be the trail of a Snapper, and another proved to be merely the track of a Common Crow that came to the water's edge to drink.
The curios that he gathered and stored in his shanty increased in number and in interest. The place became more and more part of himself. Its concealment bettered as the foliage grew around it again, and he gloried in its wild seclusion and mystery, and wandered through the woods with his bow and arrows, aiming harmless, deadly blows at snickering
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Red-squirrels — though doubtless he would have been as sorry as they had he really hit one.
Yan soon found out that he was not the only resident of the shanty. One day as he sat inside wondering why he had not made a fireplace, so that he could sit at an indoor fire, he saw a silent little creature flit along between two logs in the back wall. He remained still. A beautiful little Wood- mouse, for such it was, soon came out in plain view and sat up to look at Yan and wash its face. Yan reached out for his bow and arrow, but the Mouse was gone in a flash. He fitted a blunt arrow to the string, then waited, and when the Mouse returned he shot the arrow. It missed the Mouse, struck the log and bounded back into Yan's face, giving him a stinging blow on the cheek. And as Yan rolled around grunting and rubbing his cheek, he thought, "This is what I tried to do to the Woodmouse." Thenceforth, Yan made no attempt to harm the Mouse; indeed, he was willing to share his meals with it. In time they became well acquainted, and Yan found that not one, but a whole family, were sharing with him his shanty in the woods.
Biddy's remark about the Indian tobacco bore fruit. Yan was not a smoker, but now he felt he must learn. He gathered a lot of this tobacco, put it to dry, and set about making a pipe — a real Indian peace pipe. He had no red sandstone to make it of, but a soft red brick did very well. He first roughed out the general shape with his knife, and was trying to bore
Lung Balm
the bowl out with the same tool, when he remem bered that in one of the school-readers was an account of the Indian method of drilling into stone with a bow-drill and wet sand. One of his schoolmates, the son of a woodworker, had seen his father use a bow-drill. This knowledge gave him new importance in Yan's eyes. Under his guidance a bow-drill was made, and used much and on many things till it was understood, and now it did real Indian service by drilling the bowl and stem holes of the pipe.
He made a stem of an Elderberry shoot, punching out the pith at home with a long knitting-needle. Some white pigeon wing feathers trimmed small, and each tipped with a bit of pitch, were strung on a stout thread and fastened to the stem for a finishing touch; and he would sit by his campfire solemnly smoking — a few draws only, for he did not like it — then say, "Ugh, heap hungry," knock the ashes out, and proceed with whatever work he had on hand.
Thus he spent the bright Saturdays, hiding his accouterments each day in his shanty, washing the paint from his face in the brook, and replacing the hated paper collar that the pride and poverty of his family made a daily necessity, before returning home. He was a little dreamer, but oh ! what happy dreams. Whatever childish sorrow he found at home he knew he could always come out here and forget and be happy as a king — be a real King in a Kingdom wholly after his heart, and all his very own.
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XII A Crisis
AT school he was a model boy except in one respect — he had strange, uncertain outbreaks of disrespect for his teachers. One day he amused himself by covering the blackboard with ridiculous caricatures of the principal, whose favourite he undoubtedly was. They were rather clever and proportionately galling. The principal set about an elaborate plan to discover who had done them. He assembled the whole school and began cross-examining one wretched dunce, thinking him the culprit. The lad denied it in a confused and guilty way ; the princi pal was convinced of his guilt, and reached for his rawhide, while the condemned set up a howl. To the surprise of the assembly, Yan now spoke up, and in a tone of weary impatience said:
"Oh, let him alone. I did it."
His manner and the circumstances were such that every one laughed. The principal was nettled to fury. He forgot his manhood; he seized Yan by the collar. He was considered a timid boy; his face was white; his lips set. The principal beat him with the rawhide till the school cried "Shame," but he got no cry from Yan.
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A Crisis
That night, on undressing for bed, his brother Rad saw the long black wales from head to foot, and an explanation was necessary. He was incapable of lying; his parents learned of his wickedness, and new and harsh punishments were added. Next day was Saturday. He cut his usual double or Saturday's share of wood for the house, and, bruised and smarting, set out for the one happy spot he knew. The shadow lifted from his spirit as he drew near. He was already forming a plan for adding a fireplace and chimney to his house. He followed the secret path he had made with aim to magnify its secrets. He crossed the open glade, was nearly at the shanty, when he heard voices — loud, coarse voices — coming from his shanty. He crawled up close. The door was open. There in his dear cabin were three tramps playing cards and drinking out of a bottle. On the ground beside them were his shell necklaces broken up to furnish poker chips. In a smouldering fire outside were the remains of his bow and arrows.
Poor Yan ! His determination to be like an Indian under torture had sustained him in the teacher's cruel beating and in his home punishments, but this was too much. He fled to a far and quiet corner and there flung himself down and sobbed in grief and rage — he would have killed them if he could. After an hour or two he came trembling back to see the tramps finish their game and their liquor; then they defiled the shanty and left it in ruins.
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The brightest thing in his life was gone — a King discrowned, dethroned. Feeling now every wale on his back and legs, he sullenly went home.
This was late in the summer. Autumn followed fast, with shortening days and chilly winds. Yan had no chance to see his glen, even had he greatly wished it. He became more studious; books were his pleasure now. He worked harder than ever, winning honour at school, but attracting no notice at the home, where piety reigned.
The teachers and some of the boys remarked that Yan was getting very thin and pale. Never very robust, he now looked like an invalid; but at home no note was taken of the change. His mother's thoughts were all concentrated on his scapegrace younger brother. For two years she had rarely spoken to Yan peaceably. There was a hungry place in his heart as he left the house unnoticed each morning and saw his graceless brother kissed and darlinged. At school their positions were reversed. Yan was the principal's pride. He had drawn no more caricatures, and the teacher flattered himself that that beating was what had saved the pale-faced head boy.
He grew thinner and heart-hungrier till near Christmas, when the breakdown came.
"He is far gone in consumption," said the phy sician. "He cannot live over a month or two."
A Crisis
"He must live," sobbed the conscience-stricken mother. "He must live — O God, he must live."
All that suddenly awakened mother's love could do was done. The skilful physician did his best, but it was the mother that saved him. She watched over him night and day; she studied his wishes and comfort in every way. She prayed by his bedside, and often asked God to forgive her for her long neglect. It was Yan's first taste of mother-love. Why she had ignored him so long was unknown. She was simply erratic, but now she awoke to his brilliant gifts, his steady, earnest life, already pur poseful.
XIII The Lynx
AS winter waned, Yan's strength returned. He was wise enough to use his new ascendency to get books. The public librarian, a man of broad culture who had fought his own fight, became interested in him, and helped him to many works that otherwise he would have missed.
"Wilson's Ornithology" and " Schoolcraft's Indians" were the most important. And they were sparkling streams in the thirst-parched land.
In March he was fast recovering. He could now take long walks; and one bright day of snow he set off with his brother's Dog. His steps bent hillward. The air was bright and bracing, he stepped with unexpected vigour, and he made for far Glenyan, without at first meaning to go there. But, drawn by the ancient attraction, he kept on. The secret path looked not so secret, now the leaves were off; but the Glen looked dearly familiar as he reached the wider stretch.
His eye fell on a large, peculiar track quite fresh in the snow. It was five inches across, big enough for a Bear track, but there were no signs of claws or toe pads. The steps were short and the tracks
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The Lynx
had not sunken as they would for an animal as heavy as a Bear.
As one end of each showed the indications of toes, he could see what way it went, and followed up the Glen. The dog sniffed at it uneasily, but showed no disposition to go ahead. Yan tramped up past the ruins of his shanty, now painfully visible since the leaves had fallen, and his heart ached at the sight. The trail led up the valley, and crossed the brook on a log, and Yan became convinced that he was on the track of a large Lynx. Though a splendid barker, Grip, the dog, was known to be a coward, and now he slunk behind the boy, sniffing at the great track and absolutely refusing to go ahead.
Yan was fascinated by the long rows of foot prints, and when he came to a place where the creature had leaped ten or twelve feet without visible cause, he felt satisfied that he had found a Lynx, and the love of adventure prompted him to go on, although he had not even a stick in his hand or a knife in his pocket. He picked up the best club he could find — a dry branch two feet long and two inches through, and followed. The dog was now unwilling to go at all; he hung back, and had to be called at each hundred yards.
They were at last in the dense Hemlock woods at the upper end of the valley, when a peculiar sound like the call of a deep-voiced cat was heard.
Yaw! Yowl Yowl!
Yan stood still. The dog, although a large and
Two Little Savages
powerful retriever, whimpered, trembled and crawled up close.
The sound increased in volume. The yowling meouw came louder, louder and nearer, then suddenly clear and close, as though the creature had rounded a point and entered an opening. It was positively blood-curdling now. The dog could stand it no more ; he turned and went as fast as he could for home, leaving Yan to his fate. There was no longer any question that it was a Lynx. Yan had felt nervous before and the abject flight of the dog reacted on him. He realized how defenseless he was, still weak from his illness, and he turned and went after the dog. At first he walked. But having given in to his fears, they increased; and as the yowling contin ued he finally ran his fastest. The sounds were left behind, but Yan never stopped until he had left the Glen and was once more in the open valley of the river. Here he found the valiant retriever trembling all over. Yan received him with a contemptuous kick, and, boylike, as soon as he could find some stones, he used them till Grip was driven home.
Most lads have some sporting instinct, and his elder brother, though not of Yan's tastes, was not averse to going gunning when there was a prospect of sport.
Yan decided to reveal to Rad the secret of his glen. He had never been allowed to use a gun, but Rad had one, and Yan's vivid account of his
90
It surely was a Lynx "
The Lynx
adventure had the desired effect. His method was characteristic.
"Rad, would you go huntin' if there was lots to hunt?"
"Course I would."
"Well, I know a place not ten miles away where there are all kinds of wild animals — hundreds of them."
"Yes, you do, I don't think. Humph !"
"Yes, I do; and I'll tell you, if you will promise never to tell a soul."
"Ba-ah!"
"Well, I just had an adventure with a Lynx up there now, and if you wrill come with your gun wre can get him."
Then Yan related all that had passed, and it lost nothing in his telling. His brother was impressed enough to set out under Yan's guidance on the following Saturday.
Yan hated to reveal to his sneering, earthy-minded brother all the joys and sorrows he had found in the Glen, but now that it seemed compulsory he found keen pleasure in playing the part of the crafty guide. With unnecessary caution he first led in a wrong direction, then trying, but failing, to extort another promise of secrecy, he turned at an angle, pointed to a distant tree, saying with all the meaning he could put into it: "Ten paces beyond that tree is a trail that shall lead us into the secret valley." After sundry other ceremonies of the sort, they were near
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the inway, when a man came walking through the bushes. On his shoulders he carried something. When he came close, Yan saw to his deep disgust that that something was the Lynx — yes, it surely was his Lynx.
They eagerly plied the man with questions. He told them that he had killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler from up north.
This was all intensely fascinating to Yan, but in it was a jarring note. Evidently this man considered the Glen — his Glen — as an ordinary, well-known bit of bush, possibly part of his farm — not by any means the profound mystery that Yan would have had it.
The Lynx was a fine large one. The stripes on its face and the wide open yellow eyes gave a peculiarly wild, tiger-like expression that was deeply gratifying to Yan's romantic soul.
It was not so much of an adventure as a might- have-been adventure; but it left a deep impress on the boy, and it also illustrated the accuracy of his instincts in identifying creatures that he had never before seen, but knew only through the slight descrip tions of very unsatisfactory books.
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XIV Froth
FROM now on to the spring Yan was daily gaining in strength, and he and his mother came closer together. She tried to take an interest in the pursuits that were his whole nature. But she also strove hard to make him take an interest in her world. She was a morbidly religious woman. Her conversation was bristling with Scripture texts. She had a vast store of them — indeed, she had them all ; and she used them on every occasion possible and impossible, with bewildering efficiency.
If ever she saw a group of young people dancing, romping, playing any game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say, "Children, are you sure you can ask God's blessing on all this ? Do you think that beings with immortal souls to save should give rein to such frivolity ! I fear you are sinning, and be sure your sin will find you out. Remember, that for every idle word and deed we must give an account to the Great Judge of Heaven and earth."
She was perfectly sincere in all this, but she never ceased, except during the time of her son's illness, when, under orders from the doctor, she avoided the painful topic of eternal happiness and tried to simu-
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late an interest in his pursuits. This was the blessed truce that brought them together.
He found a confidante for the first time since he met the collarless stranger, and used to tell all his loves and fears among the woodfolk and things. He would talk about this or that bird or flower, and hoped to find out its name, till the mother would suddenly feel shocked that any being with an immor tal soul to save could talk so seriously about anything outside of the Bible ; then gently reprove her son and herself, too, with a number of texts.
He might reply with others, for he was well equipped. But her unanswerable answer would be: "There is but one thing needful. What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?"
These fencing bouts grew more frequent as Yan grew stronger and the doctor's inhibition was re moved.
After one of unusual warmth, Yan realized with a chill that all her interest in his pursuits had been an affected one. He was silent a long time, then said: "Mother! you like to talk about your Bible. It tells you the things that you long to know, that you love to learn. You would be unhappy if you went a day without reading a chapter or two. That is your nature; God made you so.
"I have been obliged to read the Bible all my life. Every day I read a chapter; but I do not love it. I read it because I am forced to do it. It tells me nothing I want to know. It does not
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Froth
teach me to love God, which you say is the one thing needful. But I go out into the woods, and every bird and flower I see stirs me to the heart with some thing, I -do not know what it is; only I love them: I love them with all my strength, and they make me feel like praying when your Bible does not. They are my Bible. This is my nature. God made me so."
The mother was silent after this, but Yan could see that she was praying for him as for a lost soul.
A few days later they were out walking in the early spring morning. A Shore-lark on a clod whistled prettily as it felt the growing sunshine.
Yan strained his eyes and attention to take it in. He crept up near it. It took wing, and as it went he threw after it a short stick he was carrying. The stick whirled over and struck the bird. It fell fluttering. Yan rushed wildly after it and caught it in spite of his mother's calling him back.
He came with the bird in his hand, but it did not live many minutes. His mother was grieved and disgusted. She said: "So this is the great love you have for the wild things; the very first spring bird to sing you must club to death. I do not understand your affections. Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing, and yet not one of them falls to the ground without the knowledge of your heavenly Father."
Yan was crushed. He held the dead bird in his hand and said, contradictorily, as the tears stood
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in his eyes, "I wish I hadn't; but oh, it was so beautiful."
He could not explain, because he did not under stand, and yet was no hypocrite.
Weeks later a cheap trip gave him the chance for the first time in his life to see Niagara. As he stood with his mother watching the racing flood, in the gorge below the cataract, he noticed straws, bubbles and froth, that seemed to be actually moving up stream. He said:
"Mother, you see the froth how it seems to go up-stream."
"Well!"
"Yet we know it is a trifle and means nothing. We know that just below the froth is the deep, wide, terrible, irresistible, arrowy flood, surging all the other way."
"Yes, my son."
"Well, Mother, when I killed the Shore-lark, that was froth going the wrong way. I did love the little bird. I know now why I killed it. Because it was going away from me. If I could have seen it near and could have touched it, or even have heard it every day, I should never have wished to harm it. I didn't mean to kill it, only to get it. You gather flowers because you love to keep them near you, not because you want to destroy them. They die and you are sorry. I only tried, to gather the Shore-lark as you would a flower. It died, and I was very, very sorry."
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Froth
"Nevertheless," the mother replied, "the merciful man is merciful unto his beast. He who hearkens when the young Ravens cry, surely took note of it, and in His great Book of Remembrance it is written down against you."
And from that time they surely drifted apart.
\i\\
' / • '' 1. « i
99
PART II. SANGER V SAM
I
The New Home
AN was now fourteen years old, long-legged, thin, and growing fast. The doctor marked this combi nation and said: "Send him on a farm for a year."
Thus it was that an arrange ment was made for Yan to work for his board at the farmhouse of William Raft en of Sanger.
Sanger was a settlement just emerging from the early or backwoods period.
The recognized steps are, first, the frontier or woods where all is unbroken forest and Deer abound ; next the backwoods where small clearings appear; then a settlement where the forest and clearings are about equal and the Deer gone; last an agricul tural district, with mere shreds of forest remaining.
Thirty years before, Sanger had been "taken up" by a population chiefly from Ireland, sturdy peasantry for the most part, who brought with them the ancient feud that has so long divided Ireland — the bitter quarrel between the Catholics or "Dogans" (why so called none knew) and Protestants, more usually styled "Prattisons." The colours of the Catholics were green and white; of the Protestants orange and
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Two Little Savages
blue; and hence another distinctive name of the latter was " Orangemen."
These two factions split the social structure in two, vertically. There were, in addition, several horizontal lines of cleavage which, like geological seams, ran across both segments.
In those days, the early part of the nineteenth century, the British Government used to assist desirable persons who wished to emigrate to Canada from Ireland. This aid consisted of a free ocean passage. Many who could not convince the Govern- ment of their desirability and yet could raise the money, came with them, paying their regular steerage rate of $15. These were alike to the outside world, but not to themselves. Those who paid their way were "passengers," and were, in their own opinion, many social worlds above the assisted ones, who were called "Emmy Grants." This distinction was never forgotten among the residents of Sanger.
Yet two other social grades existed. Every man and boy in Sanger was an expert with the axe; was wonderfully adroit. The familiar phrase, "He's a good man," had two accepted meanings: If obviously applied to a settler during the regular Saturday night Irish row in the little town of Downey's Dump, it meant he was an able man with his fists; but if to his home life on the farm, it implied that he was unusually dexterous with the axe. A man who fell below standard was despised. Since the houses of hewn logs were made by their
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The New Home s~
owners, they reflected the axemen's skill. There were two styles of log architecture; the shanty with corners criss-cross, called hog-pen finish, and the other, the house with the corners neatly finished, called dovetail finish. In Sanger it was a social black eye to live in a house of the first kind. The residents were considered "scrubs" or "riff-raff" by those whose superior axemanship had provided the more neatly finished dwelling. A later division crept in among the " dovetailers " themselves when a brickyard was opened. The more prosperous settlers put up neat little brick houses. To the surprise of all, one Phil O'Leary, a poor but prolific Dogan, leaped at once from a hog-pen log to a fine brick, and caused no end of perplexity to the ruling society queens, simply paralyzing the social register, since his nine fat daughters now had claims with the best. Many, however, whose brick houses were but five years old, denounced the O'Learys as upstarts and for long witheld all social recognition. William Raften, as the most prosperous man in the community, was first to appear in red bricks. His implacable enemy, Char-less (two syllables) Boyle, egged on by his wife, now also took the red brick plunge, though he dispensed with masons and laid the bricks himself, with the help of his seventeen sons. These two men, though Orangemen both, were deadly enemies, as the wives were social rivals. Raften was the stronger and richer man, but Boyle, whose father had paid his own steerage rate, knew all about Raften's
Two Little Savages
father, and always wound up any discussion uy hurling in Raften's teeth: "Don't talk to me, ye ,..M,..\ upstart. Everybody knows ye are nothing but a Emmy Grant." This was the one fly in the Raften ointment. No use denying it. His father had accepted a ^ree Passage> true, and Boyle had received a fr~ee homestead, but what of that — that counted for nothing. Old Boyle had been a "PASSENGER," old Raften an 8ST" EMMY GRANT. '"Q®«
This was the new community that Yan had entered, anc^ ^e words Dogan and Prattison, "green" and " orange and blue," began to loom large, along with the ideas and animosities they stood for.
The accent of the Sangerite was mixed. First, there was a rich Irish brogue with many Irish words; this belonged chiefly to the old folks. The Irish of such men as Raften was quite evident in their speech, but not strong enough to warrant the accepted Irish spelling of books, except when the speaker was greatly excited. The young generation had almost no Irish accent, but all had sifted down to the peculiar burring nasal whine of the backwoods Canadian.
Mr. and Mrs. Raften met Yan at the station. They had supper together at the tavern and drove him to their home, where they showed him into the big dining-room — living-room — kitchen. Over behind the stove was a tall, awkward boy with carroty hair and small, dark eyes set much aslant in the saddest of faces. Mrs. Raften said, "Come, Sam, and shake
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The New Home
hands with Yan." Sam came sheepishly forward, shook hands in a flabby way, and said, in drawling tones, "How-do," then retired behind the stove to gaze with melancholy soberness at Yan, whenever he could do so without being caught at it. Mr. and Mrs. Raften were attending to various matters elsewhere, and Yan was left alone and miserable. The idea of giving up college to go on a farm had been a hard one for him to accept, but he had sullenly bowed to his father's command and then at length learned to like the prospect of getting away from Bonnerton into the country. After all, it was but for a year, and it promised so much of joy. Sunday-school left behind. Church reduced to a minimum. All his life outdoors, among fields and woods — surely this spelled happiness; but now that he was really there, the abomination of desolation seemed sitting on all things and the evening was one of unalloyed misery. He had nothing to tell of, but a cloud of black despair seemed to have settled for good on the world. His mouth was pinching very hard and his eyes blinking to keep back the tears when Mrs. Raften came into the room. She saw at a glance what was wrong. "He's homesick," she said to her husband. "He'll be all right to-morrow," and she took Yan by the hand and led him upstairs to bed.
Twenty minutes later she came to see if he was comfortable. She tucked the clothes in around him, then, stooping down for a good-night kiss, she found his face wet with tears. She put her arms
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about him for a moment, kissed him several times, and said, "Never mind, you will feel all right to-morrow," then wisely left him alone.
Whence came that load of misery and horror, or whither it went, Yan never knew. He saw it no more, and the next morning he began to interest himself in his new world.
William Raften had a number of farms all in fine order and clear of mortgages ; and each year he added to his estates. He was sober, shrewd, even cunning, hated by most of his neighbours because he was too clever for them and kept on getting richer. His hard side was for the world and his soft side for his family. Not that he was really soft in any respect. He had had to fight his life-battle alone, beginning with nothing, and the many hard knocks had hardened him, but the few who knew him best could testify to the warm Irish heart that continued unchanged within him, albeit it was each year farther from the surface. His manners, even in the house, were abrupt and masterful. There was no mistaking his orders, and no excuse for not complying with them. To his children when infants, and to his wife only, he was always tender, and those who saw him cold and grasping, overreaching the sharpers of the grain market, would scarcely have recognized the big, warm-hearted happy-looking father at home an hour later when he was playing horse with his baby daughter or awkwardly paying post-graduate court to his smiling wife.
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He had little "eddication," could hardly read, and was therefore greatly impressed with the value of "book larnin'," and determined that his own children should have the "best that money could git in that line," which probably meant that they should read fluently. His own reading was done on Sunday mornings, when he painfully spelled out the important items in a weekly paper; "important " meant referring to the produce market or the prize ring, for he had been known and respected as a boxer, and dearly loved the exquisite details of the latest bouts. He used to go to church with his wife once a month to please her, and thought it very unfair therefore that she should take no interest in his favourite hobby — the manly art.
Although hard and even brutal in his dealings with men, he could not bear to see an animal ill used. "The men can holler when they're hurt, but the poor dumb baste has no protection." He was the only farmer in the country that would not sell or shoot a worn-out horse. " The poor brute has wurruked hard an' hez aimed his kape for the rest av his days. " So Duncan, Jerry and several others were "retired" and lived their latter days in idleness, in one case for more than ten years.
Raften had thrashed more than one neighbour for beating a horse, and once, on interfering, was himself thrashed, for he had the ill-luck to happen on a prize fighter. But that had no lasting effect on him. He continued to champion the dumb brute in his own brutal way.
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Among the neighbours the perquisites of the boys were the calfskins. The cows' milk was needed and the calves of little value, so usually they were killed when too young for food. The boys did the killing, making more or less sport of it, and the skins, worth fifty cents apiece green and twenty-five cents dry, at the tannery, were their proper pay. Raften never allowed his son to kill the calves. " Oi can't kill a poor innocent calf mesilf an' I won't hev me boy doin' it," he said. Thus Sam was done out of a perquisite, and did not forget the grievance.
Mrs. Raften was a fine woman, a splendid manager, loving her home and her family, her husband's loyal and ablest supporter, although she thought that William was sometimes a "leetle hard" on the boys. They had had a large family, but most of the children had died. Those remaining were Sam, aged fifteen, and Minnie, aged three.
Yan's duties were fixed at once. The poultry and half the pigs and cows were to be his charge. He must also help Sam with various other chores.
There was plenty to do and clear rules about doing it. But there was also time nearly every day for other things more in the line of his tastes; for even if he were hard on the boys in work hours, Raften saw to it that when they did play they should have a good time. His roughness and force made Yan afraid of him, and as it was Raf ten's way to say nothing until his mind was fully made up, and then say it "strong," Yan was left in doubt as to whether or not he was giving satisfaction.
no
II
Sam
SAM RAFTEN turned out to be more congenial than he looked. His slow, drawling speech had given a wrong impression of stupidity, and, after a formal showing of the house under Mr. Raften, a real investigation was headed by Sam. "This yer's the paaar-le-r," said he, unlocking a sort of dark cellar aboveground and groping to open what afterward proved to be a dead, buried and almost forgotten window. In Sanger settlement the farm house parlour is not a room; it is an institution. It is kept closed all the week except when the minister calls, and the one at Raften's was the pure type. Its furniture consisted of six painted chairs (fifty cents each), two rockers ($1.49), one melodeon (thirty- two bushels of wheat — the agent asked forty), aside- board made at home of the case the melodeon came in, one rag carpet woofed at home and warped and woven in exchange for wool, one center-table var nished (!) ($9.00 cash, $n.oo catalogue). On the center-table was one tintype album, a Bible, and some large books for company use. Though dusted once a week, they were never moved, and it was years later before they were found to have settled
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permanently into the varnish of the table. In extremely uncostly frames on the wall were the coffin-plates of the departed members of the family. It was the custom at Sanger to honour the dead by bringing back from the funeral the name-plate and framing it on a black background with some sup posed appropriate scripture text.
The general atmosphere of the room was fusty and religious, as it was never opened except on Sundays or when the parson called, which instituted a sort of temporary Sunday, and the two small windows were kept shut and plugged as well as muffled always, with green paper blinds and cotton hangings. It was a thing apart from the rest of the house — a sort of family ghost -room ; a chamber of horrors, seen but once a week.
But it contained one thing at least of interest — something that at once brought Sam and Yan together. This was a collection of a score of birds' eggs. They were all mixed together in an old glass-topped cravat box, half full of bran. None of them were labelled or properly blown. A collector would not have given it a second glance, but it proved an important matter. It was as though two New Yorkers, one disguised as a Chinaman and the other as a Negro, had accidently met in Greenland and by chance one had made the sign of the secret brotherhood to which they both belonged.
"Do you like these things?" said Yan, with sudden
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interest and warmth, in spite of the depressing surroundings.
"You bet," said Sam. "And I'd a-had twice as many only Da said it was doing no good and birds was good for the farm."
"Well, do you know their names?"
"Wall, I should say so. I know every Bird that flies and all about it, or putty near it," drawled Sam, with an unusual stretch for him, as he was not given to bragging.
"I wish I did. Can't I get some eggs to take home?"
"No; Da said if I wouldn't take any more he'd lend me his Injun Chief gun to shoot Rabbits with."
" What ? Are there Rabbits here ? "
"Wall, I should say so. I got three last winter."
"But I mean now," said Yan, with evident dis appointment.
"They ain't so easy to get at noiv, but we can try. Some day when all the work's done I'll ask Da for his gun."
"When all the work's done," was a favourite expression of the Raftens for indefinitely shelving a project, it sounded so reasonable and was really so final.
Sam opened up the lower door of the sideboard and got out some flint arrow-heads picked up in the ploughing, the teeth of a Beaver dating from the early days of the settlement, and an Owl very badly stuffed. The sight of these precious things set Yan
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all ablaze. "Oh!" was all he could say. Sam was gratified to see such effect produced by the family possessions and explained, "Da shot that off'n the barn an' the hired man stuffed it."
The boys were getting on well together now. They exchanged confidences all day as they met in doing chores. In spite of the long interruptions, they got on so well that Sam said after supper, "Say, Yan, I'm going to show you something, but you must promise never to tell — Swelpye!" Of course Yan promised and added the absolutely binding and ununderst andable word — ' ' S welpme . ' '
"Le's both go to the barn," said Sam.
When they were half way he said: "Now I'll let on I went back for something. You go on an' round an' I'll meet you under the 'rusty-coat' in the orchard." When they met under the big russet apple tree, Sam closed one of his melancholy eyes and said in a voice of unnecessary hush, "Follow me-" He led to the other end of the orchard where stood the old log house that had been the home before the building of the brick one. It was now used as a tool house. Sam led up a ladder to the loft (this was all wholly delightful). There at the far end, and next the little gable pane, he again cautioned secrecy, then when on invitation Yan had once more "swelped" himself, he rummaged in a dirty old box and drew out a bow, some arrows, a rusty steel trap, an old butcher knife, some fish hooks, a flint and steel, a box full of matches, and
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Sam
some dirty, greasy-looking stuff that he said was dried meat. "You see," he explained, "I always wanted to be a hunter, and Da was bound I'd be a dentist. Da said there was no money in hunting, but one day he had to go to the dentist an' it cost four dollars, an' the man wasn't half a day at the job, so he wanted me to be a dentist, but I wanted to be a hunter, an' one day he licked me and Bud (Bud, that's my brother that died a year ago. If you hear Ma talk you'll think he was an angel, but I always reckoned he was a crazy galoot, an' he was the worst boy in school by odds). Wall, Da licked us awful for not feeding the hogs, so Bud got ready to clear out, an' at first I felt just like he did an' said I'd go too, an' we'd j'ine the Injuns. Anyhow, I'd sure go if ever I was licked again, an' this was the outfit we got together. Bud wanted to steal Da's gun an' I wouldn't. I tell you I was hoppin' mad that time, an' Bud was wuss — but I cooled off an' talked to Bud. I says, 'Say now, Bud, it would take about a month of travel to get out West, an' if the Injuns didn't want nothin' but our scalps that wouldn't be no fun, an' Da ain't really so bad, coz we sho'ly did starve them pigs so one of 'em died.' I reckon we deserved all we got — anyhow, it was all dumb foolishness about skinnin' out, though I'd like mighty well to be a hunter. Well, Bud died that winter. You seen the biggest coffin plate on the wall? Well, that's him. I see Ma lookin' at it an' cryin' the other day. Da says he'll send me
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to college if I'll be a dentist or a lawyer — lawyers make lots of money : Da had a lawsuit once — an' if I don't, he says I kin go to — you know."
Here was Yan's own kind of mind, and he opened his heart. He told all about his shanty in the woods and how he had laboured at and loved it. He was full of enthusiasm as of old, boiling over with purpose and energy, and Sam, he realized, had at least two things that he had not — ability with tools and cool judgment. It was like having the best parts of his brother Rad put into a real human being. And remembering the joy of his Glen, Yan said:
"Let's build a shanty in the woods by the creek; your father won't care, will he?"
"Not he, so long as the work's done."
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Ill
The Wigwam
THE very next day they must begin. As soon as every chore was done they went to the woods to select a spot.
The brook, or "creek," as they called it, ran through a meadow, then through a fence into the woods. This was at first open and grassy, but farther down the creek it was joined by a dense cedar swamp. Through this there was no path, but Sam said that there was a nice high place beyond. The high ground seemed a long way off in the wcods, though only a hundred yards through the swamp, but it was the very place for a camp — high, dry and open hard woods, with the creek in front and the cedar swamp all around. Yan was delighted. Sam caught no little of the enthusiasm, and having brought an axe, was ready to begin the shanty. But Yan had been thinking hard all morning, and now he said: "Sam, we don't wrant to be White hunters. They're no good; we want to be Indians."
"Now, that's just where you fool yourself," said- Sam. "Da says there ain't nothin' an Injun can do that a White-man can't do better."
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"Oh, what are you talking about?" said Yan warmly. "A White hunter can't trail a moccasined foot across a hard granite rock. A White hunter can't go into the woods with nothing but a knife and make everything he needs. A White hunter can't hunt with bows and arrows, and catch game with snares, can he? And there never yet was a White man could make a Birch canoe." Then, changing his tone, Yan went on: "Say, now, Sam, we want to be the best kind of hunters, don't we, so as to be ready for going out West. Let's be Injuns and do everything like Injuns."
After all, this had the advantage of romance and picturesqueness, and Sam consented to "try it for awhile, anyhow." And now came the point of Yan's argument. "Injuns don't live in shanties; they live in teepees. Why not make a teepee instead?"
"That would be just bully," said Sam, who had seen pictures enough to need no description, "but what are we to make it of ? "
"Well," answered Yan, promptly assuming the leadership and rejoicing in his ability to speak as an authority, "the Plains Injuns make their teepees of skins, but the wood Injuns generally use Birch bark."
"Well, I bet you can't find skins or Birch bark enough in this woods to make a teepee big enough for a Chipmunk to chaw nuts in."
"We can use Elm bark."
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The Wigwam
"That's a heap easier," replied Sam, "if it'll answer, coz we cut a lot o' Elm logs last winter and the bark'll be about willin' to peel now. But first let's plan it out."
This was a good move, one Yan would have over looked. He would probably have got a lot of material together and made the plan afterward, but Sam had been taught to go about his work with method.
So Yan sketched on a smooth log his remembrance of an Indian teepee. "It seems to me it was about this shape, with the poles sticking up like that, a hole for the smoke here and another for the door there."
"Sounds like you hain't never seen one, " remarked Sam, with more point than politeness, "but we kin try it. Now 'bout how big?"
Eight feet high and eight feet across was decided to be about right. Four poles, each ten feet long, were cut in a few minutes, Yan carrying them to a smooth place above the creek as fast as Sam cut them.
"Now, what shall we tie them with?" said Yan.
"You mean for rope?"
"Yes, only we must get everything in the woods; real rope ain't allowed."
"I kin fix that, "said Sam; "when Da double-staked the orchard fence, he lashed every pair of stakes at the top with Willow withes."
"That's so — I quite forgot," said Yan. In a few minutes they were at work trying to tie the four poles together with slippery stiff Willows, but it was no
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easy matter. They had to be perfectly tight or they would slip and fall in a heap each time they were raised, and it seemed at length that the boys would be forced to the impropriety of using hay wire, when they heard a low grunt, and turning, saw William Raften standing with his hands behind him as though he had watched them for hours.
The boys were no little startled. Raften had a knack of turning up at any point when something was going on, taking in the situation fully, and then, if he disapproved, of expressing himself in a few words of blistering mockery delivered in a rich Irish brogue. Just what view he would take of. their pastime the boys had no idea, but awaited with uneasiness. If they had been wasting time when they should have been working there is no question but that they would have been sent with contumely to more profitable pursuits, but this was within their rightful play hours, and Raften, after regarding them with a searching look, said slowly: "Bhoys!" (Sam felt easier; his father would have said " Bhise" if really angry.) "Fhat's the good o' wastin' yer time" (Yan's heart sank) "wid Willow withes fur a job like that ? They can't be made to howld. Whoi don't ye git some hay woire or coord at the barrun?"
The boys were greatly relieved, but still this friendly overture might be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent. So Yan said, presently, "We ain't allowed to use anything but what the Indians had or could get in the woods."
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The Wigwam
"An' who don't allow yez?"
"The rules."
"Oh, "said William, with some amusement. "Oi see ! Hyar."
He went into the woods looking this way and that, and presently stopped at a lot of low shrubs.
"Do ye know what this is, Yan?"
"No, sir."
"Le's see if yer man enough to break it afT. "
Yan tried. The wood was brittle enough, but the bark, thin, smooth and pliant, was as tough as leather, and even a narrow strip defied his strength.
" That's Litherwood," said Raften. "That's what the Injuns used; that's what we used ourselves in the airly days of this yer settlement."
The boys had looked for a rebuke, and here was a helping hand. It all turned on the fact that this was "play hours." Raften left with a parting word: " In wan hour an' a half the pigs is fed."
" You see Da's all right when the work ain't forgot," said Sam, with a patronizing air. "I wonder why I didn't think o' that there Leatherwood meself. I've often heard that that's what was used fur tying bags in the old days when cord was scarce, an' the Injuns used it for tying their prisoners, too. Ain't it the real stuff?"
Several strips were now used for tying four poles together at the top, then these four were raised on end and spread out at the bottom to serve as the
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frame of the teepee, or more properly wigwam, since it was to be made of bark.
After consulting, they now got a long, limber Willow rod an inch thick, and bending it around like a hoop, they tied it with Leatherwood to each pole at a point four feet from the ground. Next they cut four short poles to reach from the ground to this. These were lashed at their upper ends to the Willow rod, and now they were ready for the bark slabs. The boys went to the Elm logs and again Sam's able use of the axe came in. He cut the bark open along the top of one log, and by using the edge of the axe and some wooden wedges they pried off a great roll eight feet long and four feet across. It was a pleasant surprise to see what a wide piece of bark the small log gave them.
Three logs yielded three fine large slabs and others yielded pieces of various sizes. The large ones were set up against the frame so as to make the most of them. Of course they were much too big for the top, and much too narrow for the bottom; but the little pieces would do to patch if some way could be found to make them stick.
Sam suggested nailing them to the posts, and Yan was horrified at the idea of using nails. "No Indian has any nails."
"Well, what would they use?" said Sam.
"They used thongs, an' — an' — maybe wooden pegs. I don't know, but seems to me that would be all right."
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The Wigwam
"But them poles is hard wood," objected the practical Sam. "You can drive Oak pegs into Pine, but you can't drive wooden pegs into hard wood without you make some sort of a hole first. Maybe I'd better bring a gimlet. "
"Now, Sam, you might just as well hire a carpenter — that wouldn't be Indian at all. Let's play it right. We'll find some way. I believe we can tie them up with Leatherwood."
So Sam made a sharp Oak pick with his axe, and Yan used it to pick holes in each piece of bark and then did a sort of rude sewing till the wigwam seemed beautifully covered in. But when they went inside to look they were unpleasantly surprised to find how many holes there were. It was impossible to close them all because the bark was cracking in so many places, but the boys plugged the worst of them and then prepared for the great sacred cere mony — the lighting of the fire in the middle.
They gathered a lot of dry fuel, then Yan produced a match.
"That don't look to me very Injun," drawled Sam critically. "I don't think Injuns has matches."
"Well, they don't," admitted Yan, humbly. "But I haven't a flint and steel, and don't know how to work rubbing-sticks, so we just got to use matches, if we want a fire."
"Why, of course we want a fire. I ain't kicking," said Sam. "Go ahead with your old leg-fire sulphur stick. A camp without a fire would be 'bout like
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last year's bird's nest or a house with the roof off."
Yan struck a match and put it to the wood. It went out. He struck another — same result. Yet another went out.
Sam remarked:
"'Pears to me you don't know much about lightin' a fire. Lemme show you. Let the White hunter learn the Injun somethin' about the woods," said he with a leer.
Sam took the axe and cut some sticks of a dry Pine root. Then with his knife he cut long curling shavings, which he left sticking in a fuzz at the end of each stick.
"Oh, I've seen a picture of an Indian making them. They call them 'prayer-sticks,'" said Yan.
"Well, prayer-sticks is mighty good kindlin'," replied the other. He struck a match, and in a minute he had a blazing fire in the middle of the wigwam.
"Old Granny de Neuville, she's a witch — she knows all about the woods, and cracked Jimmy turns everything into poetry what she says. He says she says when you want to make a fire in the woods you take —
44 ' First a curl of Birch bark as dry as it kin be,
Then some twigs of soft wood, dead, but on the tree,
Last o' all some Pine knots to make the kittle foam,
An* thar's a fire to make you think you're settin* right at home. "
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The "Wigwam
"Who's Granny de Neuville?"
"Oh, she's the old witch that lives down at the bend o' the creek."
"What? Has she got a granddaughter named Biddy?" said Yan, suddenly remembering that his ancient ally came from this part of Sanger.
"Oh, my! Hain't she? Ain't Biddy a peach — drinks like a fish, talks everybody to death about the time she resided in Bonnerton. Gits a letter every mail begging her to come back and 'reside' with them some more."
"Ain't this fine," said Yan, as he sat on a pile of Fir boughs in the wigwam.
"Looks like the real thing," replied Sam from his seat on the other side. "But say, Yan, don't make any more fire; it's kind o' warm here, an' there seems to be something wrong with that flue — wants sweepin', prob'ly — hain't been swep' since I kin remember."
The fire blazed up and the smoke increased. Just a little of it wandered out of the smoke-hole at the top, then it decided that this was a mistake and thereafter positively declined to use the vent. Some of it went out by chinks, and a large stream issued from the door, but by far the best part of it seemed satisfied with the interior of the wigwam, so that in a minute or less both boys scrambled out. Their eyes were streaming with smoke-tears and their discomfiture was complete.
"'Pears to me, "observed Sam, "like we got them
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holes mixed. The dooer should 'a 'been at the top, sence the smoke has a fancy for usin' it, an' then we'd had a chance."
"The Indians make it work," said Yan;"a White hunter ought to know how."
"Now's the Injun's chance," said Sam. "Maybe it wants a dooer to close, then the smoke would have to go out."
They tried this, and of course some of the smoke was crowded out, but not till long after the boys were.
"Seems like what does get out by the chinks is sucked back agin by that there double-action flue," said Sam.
It was very disappointing. The romance of sitting by the fire in one's teepee appealed to both of the boys, but the physical torture of the smoke made it unbearable. Their dream was dispelled, and Sam suggested, " Maybe we'd better try a shanty."
"No," said Yan, with his usual doggedness. "I know it can be done, because the Indians do it. We'll find out in time."
But all their efforts were in vain. The wigwam was a failure, as far as fire was concerned. It was very small and uncomfortable, too; the wind blew through a hundred crevices, which grew larger as the Elm bark dried and cracked. A heavy shower caught them once, and they were rather glad to be driven into their cheerless lodge, but the rain came abundantly into the smoke-hole as well as
126
'
'
w-
j*: *«ml
••'
The wigwam was a failure "
The Wigwam
through the walls, and they found it but little protection.
"Seems to me, if anything, a kctle wetter in here than outside," said Sam, as he led in a dash for home.
That night a heavy storm set in, and next day the boys found their flimsy wigwam blown down — nothing but a heap of ruins.
Some time after, Raften asked at the table in characteristic stern style, " Bhoys, what's doin' down to yer camp? Is yer wigwam finished?"
"No good," said Sam. "All blowed down."
" How's that ?"
"I dunno'. It smoked like everything. We couldn't stay in it."
"Couldn't a-been right made," said Raften; then with a sudden interest, which showed how eagerly he would have joined in this forty years ago, he said, "Why don't ye make a rale taypay?"
"Dunno' how, an' ain't got no stuff."
"Wall, now, yez have been pretty good an' ain't slacked on the wurruk, yez kin have the ould wagon kiver. Cousin Bert could tache ye how to make it, if he wuz here. Maybe Caleb Clark knows," he added, with a significant twinkle of his eye. "Better ask him." Then he turned to give orders to the hired men, who, of course, ate at the family table.
"Da, do you care if we go to Caleb?"
"I don't care fwhat ye do wid him, "was the reply.
Raften was no idle talker and Sam knew that, so
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as soon as "the law was off" he and Yan got out the old wagon cover. It seemed like an acre of canvas when they spread it out. Having thus taken pos session, they put it away again in the cow-house, their own domain, and Sam said: "I've a great notion to go right to Caleb; he sho'ly knows more about a teepee than any one else here, which ain't sayin' much."
"Who's Caleb?"
"Oh, he's the old Billy Goat that shot at Da oncet, just after Da beat him at a horse trade. Let on it was a mistake: 'twas, too, as he found out, coz Da bought up some old notes of his, got 'em cheap, and squeezed him hard to meet them. He's had hard luck ever since.
"He's a mortal queer old duck, that Caleb. He knows heaps about the woods, coz he was a hunter an' trapper oncet. My ! wouldn't he be down on me if he knowed who was my Da, but he don't have to know."
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IV The Sanger Witch
The Sanger Witch dwelt in the bend of the creek,
And neither could read nor write;
But she knew in a day what few knew in a week,
For hers was the second sight.
44 Read ? " said she, " I am double read;
You fools of the ink and pen
Count never the eggs, but the sticks of the nest,
See the clothes, not the souls of men,"
— Cracked Jimmy's Ballad of Sanger.
THE boys set out for Caleb's. It was up the creek away from the camp ground. As they neared the bend they saw a small log shanty, with some poultry and a pig at the door.
"That's where the witch lives," said Sam.
"Who — old Granny de Neuville?"
"Yep, and she just loves me. Oh, yes; about the same way an old hen loves a Chicken-hawk. Tears to me she sets up nights to love me. "
"Why?"
" Oh, I guess it started with the pigs. No, let's see : first about the trees. Da chopped off a lot of Elm trees that looked terrible nice from her windy. She's awful queer about a tree. She hates to see 'em cut down, an' that soured her same as if she owned 'em.
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Then there wuz the pigs. You see, one winter she was awful hard up, an' she had two pigs worth, maybe, $5. oo each — anyway, she said they was, an' she ought to know, for they lived right in the shanty with her — an' she come to Da (I guess she had tried every one else first) an' Da he squeezed her down an' got the two pigs for $7.00. He al'ays does that. Then he comes home an' says to Ma, ' Seems to me the old lady is pretty hard put. 'Bout next Saturday you take two sacks of flour and some pork an' potatoes around an' see that she is fixed up right.' Da's al'ays doin' them things, too, on the quiet. So Ma goes with about $15.00 worth o' truck. The old witch was kinder 'stand off.' She didn't say much. Ma was goin' slow, not knowin' just whether to give the stuff out an' out, or say it could be worked for next year, or some other year, when there was two moons, or some time when the work was all done. Well, the old witch said mighty little until the stuff was all put in the cellar, then she grabs up a big stick an' breaks out at Ma:
" ' Now you git out o' my house, you dhirty, sthuck- up thing. I ain't takin' no charity from the likes o' you. That thing you call your husband robbed me o' my pigs, an' we ain't any more'n square now, so git out an' don't you dar set fut in my house agin'.'
"Well, she was sore on us when Da bought her pigs, but she was five times wuss after she clinched the groceries. 'Pears like they soured on her stum- mick. "
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The Sanger Witch
"What a shame, the old wretch," said Yan, with ready sympathy for the Raftens.
"No," replied Sam; "she's only queer. There's lots o' folk takes her side. But she's awful queer. She won't have a tree cut if she can help it, an' when the flowers come in the spring she goes out in the woods and sets down beside 'em for hours an' calls 'em 'Me beauty — me little beauty,' an' she just loves the birds. When the boys want to rile her they get a sling-shot an' shoot the birds in her garden an' she just goes crazy. She pretty near starves herself every winter trying to feed all the birds that come around. She has lots of 'em to feed right out o' her hand. Da says they think its an old pine root, but she has a way o' coaxin' 'em that's awful nice. There she'll stand in freezin1 weather calling them 'Me beauties'.
"You see that little windy in the end?" he continued, as they came close to the witch's hut. "Well, that's the loft, an' it's full o' all sorts o' plants an' roots. "
"What for?"
"Oh, for medicine. She's great on hairbs. "
"Oh, yes, I remember now Biddy did say that her Granny was a herb doctor."
"Doctor? She ain't much of a doctor, but I bet she knows every plant that grows in the woods, an' they're sure strong after they've been up there for a year, with the cat sleepin' on them. "
" I wish I could go and see her. "
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"Guess we can," was the reply.
"Doesn't she know you?"
"Yes, but watch me fix her, " drawled Sam. " There ain't nothin' she likes better 'n a sick pusson. "
Sam stopped now, rolled up his sleeves and exam ined both arms, apparently without success, for he then loosed his suspenders, dropped his pants, and proceeded to examine his legs. Of course, all boys have more or less cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. Sam selected his best, just below the knee, a scratch from a nail in the fence. He had never given it a thought before, but now he "reckoned it would do." With a lead pencil borrowed from Yan he spread a hue of mortification all around it, a green butternut rind added the unpleasant yellowish-brown of human decomposition, and the result was a frightful looking plague spot. By chewing some grass he made a yellowish-green dye and expectorated this on the handkerchief which he bound on the sore. He then got a stick and proceeded to limp painfully toward the witch's abode. As they drew near, the partly open door was slammed with ominous force. Sam, quite unabashed, looked at Yan and winked, then knocked. The bark of a small dog answered. He knocked again. A sound now of some one moving within, but no answer. A third time he knocked, then a shrill voice: "Get out o' that. Get aff my place, you dirthy young riff -raff. "
Sam grinned at Yan. Then drawling a little more than usual, he said:
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The Sanger Witch
"It's a poor boy, Granny. The doctors can't do nothin' for him," which last, at least, was quite true.
There was no reply, so Sam made bold to open the door. There sat the old woman glowering with angry red eyes across the stove, a cat in her lap, a pipe in her mouth, and a dog growling toward the strangers.
"Ain't you Sam Raften?" she asked fiercely.
"Yes, marm. I got hurt on a nail in the fence. They say you kin git blood-p'isinin' that way," said Sam, groaning a little and trying to look interesting. The order to "get out" died on the witch's lips. Her good old Irish heart warmed to the sufferer. After all, it was rather pleasant to have the enemy thus humbly seek her aid, so she muttered:
"Le's see it. "
Sam was trying amid many groans to expose the disgusting mess he had made around his knee, when a step was heard outside. The door opened and in walked Biddy.
She and Yan recognized each other at once. The one had grown much longer, the other much broader since the last meeting, but the greeting was that of two warm-hearted people glad to see each other once more.
"An' how's yer father an' yer mother an' how is all the fambily? Law, do ye mind the Cherry Lung- balm we uster make ? My, but we wuz greenies then ! Ye mind, I uster tell ye about Granny? Well, here she is. Granny, this is Yan. Me an' him hed lots
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o' fun together when I 'resided' with his mamma, didn't we, Yan? Now, Granny's the one to tell ye all about the plants. "
A long groan from Sam now called all attention his way.
"Well, if it ain't Sam Raften, " said Biddy coldly.
"Yes, an' he's deathly sick," added Granny. "Their own docther guv him up an said mortal man couldn't save him nohow, so he jest hed to come to me. "%
Another long groan was ample indorsement.
"Le's see. Gimme my scissors, Biddy; I'll hev to cut the pant leg aff. "
"No, no," Sam blurted out with sudden vigour, dreading the consequences at home. "I kin roll it up. "
"Thayer, thot'll do. Now I say," said the witch. "Yes, sure enough, thayer is proud flesh. I moight cut it out," said she, fumbling in her pocket (Sam supposed for a knife, and made ready to dash for the door), "but le's see, no — that would be a fool docther trick. I kin git on without."
" Yes, sure, " said Sam, clutching at the idea, "that's just what a fool doctor would do, but you kin give me something to take that's far better. "
"Well, sure an' I kin, " and Yan and Sam breathed more freely. "Shwaller this, now," and she offered him a tin cup of water into which she spilled some powder of dry leaves. Sam did so. "An' you take this yer bundle and bile it in two gallons of wather
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The Sanger Witch
and drink a glassful ivery hour, an' hev a loive chicken sphlit with an axe an' laid hot on the place twicet ivery day, till the proud flesh goes, an' it'll be. all right wid ye — a fresh chicken iverytoime,nioindye."
"Wouldn't — turkeys — do — better?" groaned Sam, feebly. "I'm me mother's pet, Granny, an' expense ain't any objek" — a snort that may have meant mortal agony escaped him.
" Niver moind, now. Sure we won't talk of yer father an' mother; they're punished pretty bad already. Hiven forbid they don't lose the rest o' ye fur their sins. It ain't meself that 'ud bear ony ill-will. "
A long groan cut short what looked like a young sermon.
"What's the plant, Granny ?" asked Yan, carefully avoiding Sam's gaze.
" Shure, an' it grows in the woods. "
"Yes, but I want to know what it's like and what it's called."
"Shure, 'tain't like nothin' else. It's just like itself, an' it's called Witch-hazel.
444 Witch-hazel blossoms in the faat, To cure the chills and Fayvers aall/
as cracked Jimmy says.
"I'll show you some av it sometime," said Biddy.
"Can it be made into Lung-balm?" asked Yan, mischievously.
"I guess we'll have to go now," Sam feebly put in. "I'm feeling much better. Where's my stick?
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Here, Yan, you kin carry my medicine, an' be very keerful of it."
Yan took the bundle, not daring to look Sam in the face.
Granny bade them both come back again, and followed to the door with a hearty farewell. At the same moment she said:
" Howld on !" Then she went to the one bed in the room, which also was the house, turned down the clothes, and in the middle exposed a lot of rosy apples. She picked out two of the best and gave one to each of the boys.
"Shure, Oi hev to hoide them thayer fram the pig, for they're the foinest iver grew."
"I know they are," whispered Sam, as he limped out of hearing, "for her son Larry stole them out of our orchard last fall. They're the only kind that keeps over. They're the best that grow, but a trifle too warm just now."
"Good-by, and thank you much," said Yan.
"I-feel-better-already,"' drawled Sam. "That tired feeling has left me, an' sense tryin' your remedy I have took no other," but added aside, "I wish I could throw up the stuff before it pisens me," and then, with a keen eye to the picturesque effect, he wanted to fling his stick away and bound into the woods.
It was all Yan could do to make him observe some of the decencies and limp a little till out of sight. As i* was, the change was quite marked and the
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The Sanger Witch
genial old witch called loudly on Biddy to see with her own eyes how quickly she had helped young Raften "afther all the dochters in the country hed giv him up."
"Now for Caleb Clark, Esq., Q. C.," said Sam.
"Q. C. ?" inquired his friend.
"Some consider it means Queen's Counsel, an' some claims as it stands for Queer Cuss. One or other maybe is right."
"You're stepping wonderfully for a crippled boy the doctors have given up," remarked Yan.
"Yes; that's the proud flesh in me right leg that's doin' the high steppin'. The left one is jest plain laig."
"Let's hide this somewhere till we get back," and Yan held up the bundle of Witch-hazel.
"I'll hide that," said Sam, and he hurled the bundle afar into the creek.
"Oh, Sam, that's mean. Maybe she wants it herself."
"Pooh, that's all the old brush is good for. I done more'n me duty when I drank that swill. I could fairly taste the cat in it."
"What '11 you tell her next time?"
"Well, I'll tell her I put the sticks in the right place an' where they done the most good. I soaked 'em in water an' took as much as I wanted of the flooid.
" She'll see for herself I really did pull through, and will be a blamed sight happier than if I drank her
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old pisen brushwood an' had to send for a really truly doctor."
Yan was silenced, but not satisfied. It seemed discourteous to throw the sticks away— -so soon, anyway; besides, he had curiosity to know just what they were and how they acted.
140
V Caleb
A MILE farther was the shanty of Caleb Clark, a mere squatter now on a farm once his owrn. As the boys drew near, a tall, round- shouldered man with a long white beard was seen carrying in an armful of wood.
11 Ye see the Billy Goat ? " said Sam.
Yan sniffed as he gasped the "why" of the nick name.
"I guess you better do the talking; Caleb ain't so easy handled as the witch, and he's just as sour on Da."
So Yan went forward rather cautiously and knocked at the open door of the shanty. A deep-voiced Dog broke into a loud bay, the long beard appeared, and its owner said, "Wall?"
"Are you Mr. Clark?"
"Yep." Then, "Lie down, Turk," to a black- and-tan Hound that came growling out.
"I came — I — we wanted to ask some questions — if you don't mind."
"What might yer name be?"
"Yan."
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"An' who is this?"
"He's my chum, Sam."
"I'm Sam Horn," said Sam, with some truth, for he was Samuel Horn Raft en, but with sufficient deception to make Yan feel very uncomfortable.
"And where are ye from?"
"Bonnerton," said Yan.
"To-day?" was the rejoinder, with a tone of doubt.
"Well, no," Yan began; but Sam, who had tried to keep out of notice for fear of recognition, saw that his ingenuous companion was being quickly pumped and placed, and now interposed : "You see, Mr. Clark, we are camped in the woods and we want to make a teepee to live in. We have the stuff an' was told that you knew all about the making."
"Who told ye?"
"The old witch at the bend of the creek."
"Where are ye livin' now?"
"Well," said Sam, hastening again to forestall Yan, whose simple directness he feared, "to tell the truth, we made a wigwam of bark in the woods below here, but it wasn't a success."
"Whose woods?"
"Oh, about a mile below on the creek."
"Hm! That must be Raften's or Burns's woods."
"I guess it is," said Sam.
"An you look uncommon like Sam Raften. You consarned young whelp, to come here lyin' an' tryin'
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Caleb
to pull the wool over my eyes. Get out o' this now, or I'll boot ye."
Yan turned very red. He thought of the scripture text, "Be sure your sin will find you out/' and he stepped back. Sam stuck his tongue in his cheek and followed. But he was his father's son. He turned and said:
"Now see here, Mr. Clark, fair and square; we come here to ask a simple question about the woods. You are the only man that knows or we wouldn't 'a' bothered you. I knowed you had it in for Da, so I tried to fool you, and it didn't go. I wish now I had just come out square and said, 'I'm Sam Raften; will you tell me somethin' I want to know, or won't you?' I didn't know you hed anything agin me or me friend that's camping with me."
There is a strong bond of sympathy between all Woodcraft ers. The mere fact that a man wants to go his way is a claim on a Woodcrafter's notice. Old Caleb, though soured by trouble and hot-tempered, had a kind heart; he resisted for a moment the first impulse to slam the door in their faces; then as he listened he fell into the tempter's snare, for it was baited with the subtlest of flatteries. He said to Yan:
"Is your name Raften?"
"No, sir."
"Air ye owt o' kin?"
"No, sir."
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"I don't want no truck with Raften, but what do ye want to know?"
"We built a wigwam of bark, but it's no good, but now we have a big canvas cover an' want to know how to make a teepee."
"A teepee. H-m " said the old man re flectively.
"They say you've lived in them," ventured Yan.
" Hm — 'bout forty year; but it's one thing to wear a suit of clothes and another thing to make one. Seems to me it was about like this," and he took up a burnt stick and a piece of grocer's paper. "No — now hold on. Yes,, I remember now; I seen a bunch of squaws make one oncet.
"First they sewed the skins together. No, first thar was a lot o' prayin' ; ye kin suit yerselves 'bout that — then they sewed the skins together an' pegged it down flat on the prairie (B D HI, Cut No. i). Then put in a peg at the middle of one side (A). Then with a burnt stick an' a coord — yes, there must 'a' been a coord — they drawed a half circle — so (B C D). Then they cut that off, an' out o' the pieces they make two flaps like that (H L M J and K N O I), an' sews 'em on to P E and G Q. Them's smoke-flaps to make the smoke draw. Thar's a upside down pocket in the top side corner o' each smoke-flap — so — for the top of each pole, and there is rows o' holes down — so (M B and N D, Cut No. 2) — on each side fur the lacin' pins. Then at the top of that pint (A, Cut i) ye fasten a short lash-rope.
146
:Door :
V V
F R
s ; : ; : :Door
0
-.... -•• ..--•' /5moKe-flap.2 '••
'
5 ix feet K
CUT I.— PATTERN FOR A SIMPLE lo-FOOT TEEPEE
CUT II. -THE COMPLETE TEEPEE COVER -UNORNAMENTED A— Frame for door B— Door completed
Caleb
Le's see, now. I reckon thar's about ten poles for a ten-foot lodge, with two more for 'the smoke-flaps. Now, when ye set her up ye tie three poles together — so — an' set 'em up first, then lean the other poles around, except one, an' lash them by carrying the rope around a few times. Now tie the top o' the cover to the top o' the last pole by the short lash-rope, hist the pole into place — that hists the cover, too, ye see — an' ye swing it round with the smoke-poles an' fasten the two edges together with the wooden pins. The two long poles put in the smoke-flap pockets works the vent to suit the wind."
In his conversation Caleb had ignored Sam and talked to Yan, but the son of his father was not so easily abashed. He foresaw several practical diffi culties and did not hesitate to ask for light.
"What keeps it from blowin' down?" he asked.
"Wall," said Caleb, still addressing Yan, "the long rope that binds the poles is carried down under, and fastened tight to a stake that serves for anchor, 'sides the edge of the cover is pegged to the ground all around."
"How do you make the smoke draw?" was his next.
"Ye swing the flaps by changing the poles till they is quartering down the wind. That draws best."
" How do you close the door?"
"Wall, some jest lets the edges sag together, but the best teepees has a door made of the same stuff as
si* [><*"
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the cover put tight on a saplin' frame an' swung from a lacin' pin. "
This seemed to cover the ground, so carefully folding the dirty paper with the plan, Yan put it in his pocket, said ' ' Thank you ' ' and went off. To the ' ' Good-day ' ' of the boys Caleb made no reply, but turned as they left and asked, " Whar ye camped?"
" On the knoll by the creek in Raften's swamp. "
" H-m, maybe I'll come an' see ye."
"All right," Sam called out; "follow the blazed trail from the brush fence. "
"Why, Sam," said Yan, as soon as they were out of hearing, "there isn't any blazed trail; why did you say that?"
"Oh, I thought it sounded well," was the calm answer, "an' it's easy to have the blazes there as soon as we want to, an' a blame sight sooner than he's likely to use them. "
150
VI The Making of the Teepee
RAFTEN sniffed in amusement when he heard that the boys had really gone to Caleb and got what they wanted. Nothing pleased him more than to find his son a successful schemer.
"Old Caleb wasn't so dead sure about the teepee, as near as I sized him up, " observed Sam.
"I guess we've got enough to go ahead on," said Yan, "an' tain't a hanging matter if we do make a mistake. "
The cover was spread out again flat and smooth on the barn floor, and stones and a few nails put in the sides to hold it.
The first thing that struck them was that it was a rough and tattered old rag.
And Sam remarked: "I see now why Da said we could have it. I reckon we'll have to patch it before we cut out the teepee."
"No," said Yan, assuming control, as he was apt to do in matters pertaining to the woods; "we better draw our plans first so as not to patch any part that's going to be cut off afterward."
"Great head ! But I'm afraid them patches won't be awful ornamental."
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•'They're all right," was the reply. "Indians' teepees are often patched where bullets and arrows have gone through. "
"Well, I'm glad I wa'n't living inside during them hostilities," and Sam exposed a dozen or more holes.
"Oh, get off there and give me that cord."
"Look out," said Sam; "that's my festered knee. It's near as bad to-day as it was when we called on the witch. "
Yan was measuring. "Let's see. We can cut off all those rags and still make a twelve-foot teepee. Twelve foot high — that will be twenty-four feet across the bottom of the stuff. Fine ! That's just the thing. Now I'll mark her off. "
"Hold on, there," protested his friend; "you can't do that with chalk. Caleb said the Injuns used a burnt stick. You hain't got no right to use chalk. 'You might as well hire a carpenter.' "
"Oh, you go on. You hunt for a burnt stick, and if you don't find one bring me the shears instead. "
Thus, with many consultations of Caleb's draft, the cutting-out was done — really a very simple matter. Then the patching was to be considered.
Pack-thread, needles and very l-o-n-g stitches were used, but the work went slowly on. All the spare time of one day was given to patching. Sam, of course, kept up a patter of characteristic remarks to the piece he was sewing. Yan sewed in serious silence. At first Sam's were put on better, but Yan learned fast and at length did by far the better sewing.
DECORATION OF BLACK BULL'S TEEPEE: (TWO EXAMPLES OF DOORS)
THUNDER BULL'S TEEPEE
The Making of the Teepee
That night the boys were showing their handiwork to the hired hands. Si Lee, a middle-aged man with a vast waistband, after looking on with ill-concealed but good-natured scorn, said:
"Why didn't ye put the patches inside?"
"Didn't think of it," was Yan's answer.
" Coz we're goin* to live inside, an' need the room, " said Sam.
"Why did ye make ten stitches in going round that hole; ye could just as easy have done it in four, " and Si sniffed as he pointed to great, ungainly stitches an inch long. " I call that waste labour. "
"Now see here," blurted Sam, "if you don't like our work let's see you do it better. There's lots to do yet."
"Where?"
"Oh, ask Yan. He's bossin' the job. Old Caleb wouldn't let me in. It just broke my heart. I sobbed all the way home, didn't I, Yan?
"There's the smoke-flaps to stitch on and hem, and the pocket at the top of the flaps—and — I — suppose, " Yan added, as a feeler, " it— 'would-— be— better — -if — hemmed — all — around. "
"Now, I tell ye what I'll do. If you boys '11 go to the ' Corner ' to-night and get my boots that the cobbler's fixing, I'll sew on the smoke-flaps."
"I'll take that offer," said Yan; "and say, Si, it doesn't really matter which is the outside. You can turn the cover so the patches will be in. "
The boys got the money to pay for the boots, and
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Two Little Savages
after supper they set out on foot for the "Corner," two miles away.
"He's a queer duck," and Sam jerked his thumb back to show that he meant Si Lee; "sounds like a Chinese laundry. I guess that's the only thing he isn't. He can do any mortal thing but get on in life. He's been a soldier an' a undertaker an' a cook. He plays a fiddle he made himself; it's a rotten bad one, but it's away ahead of his playing. He stuffs birds — that Owl in the parlour is his doin' ; he tempers razors, kin doctor a horse or fix up a watch, an' he does it in about the same way, too; bleeds a horse no matter what ails it, an' takes another wheel out o' the watch every times he cleans it. He took Larry de Neuville's old clock apart to clean once — said he knew all about it — an' when he put it together again he had wheels enough left over for a new clock.
"He's too smart an' not smart enough. There ain't anything on earth he can't do a little, an' there ain't a blessed thing that he can do right up first-class, but thank goodness sewing canvas is his long suit. You see he was a sailor for three years — longest time he ever kept a job, fur which he really ain't to blame, since it was a whaler on a three-years' cruise.
156
VII The Calm Evening
IT was a calm June evening, the time of the second daily outburst of bird song, the day's aftermath. The singers seemed to be in unusual numbers as well. Nearly every good perch had some little bird that seemed near bursting with joy and yet trying to avert that dire catastrophe.
As the boys went down the road by the outer fence of their own orchard a Hawk came sailing over, silencing as he came the singing within a given radius. Many of the singers hid, but a Meadow Lark that had been whistling on a stake in the open was now vainly seeking shelter in the broad field. The Hawk was speeding his way. The Lark dodged and put on all power to reach the orchard, but the Hawk was after him now — was gaining — in another moment would have clutched the terrified musician, but out of the Apple trees there dashed a small black-and-white bird — the Kingbird. With a loud harsh twitter — his war- cry — repeated again and again, with his little gray head-feathers raised to show the blood-and- flame- coloured undercrest — his war colours — he darted straight at the great robber.
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Two Little Savages
"Clicker-a-clicker," he fairly screamed, and made for the huge Hawk, ten times his size.
"Clicker-a-clicker !" he shrieked, like a cateran shouting the "slogan," and down like a black-and- white dart — to strike the Hawk fairly between the shoulders just as the Meadow Lark dropped in despair to the bare ground and hid its head from the approach ing stroke of death.
"Clicker-a-clicker" — and the Hawk wheeled in sudden consternation. "Clicker-a-clicker" — and the dauntless little warrior dropped between his wings, stabbing and tearing.
The Hawk bucked like a mustang, the Kingbird was thrown, but sprung on agile pinions above again.
"Clicker-a-clicker," and he struck as before. Large brown feathers were floating away on the breeze now. The Meadow Lark was forgotten. The Hawk thought only of escape.
"Clicker-a-clicker," the slogan still was heard. The Hawk was putting on all speed to get away, but the Kingbird was riding him most of the time. Several brown feathers floated down, the Hawk dwindled in the distance to a Sparrow and the King bird to a fly dancing on his back. The Hawk made a final plunge into a thicket, and the king came home again, uttering the shrill war-cry once or twice, probably to let the queen know that he was coming back, for she flew to a high branch of the Apple tree where she could greet the returning hero. He came with an occasional " clicker-a-clicker " — then, when
IS*
Clicker-a-clicker ! ' he shrieked . . . and down like a dart
The Calm Evening
near her, he sprung fifty feet in the air and dashed down, screaming his slogan without interruption, darting zigzag with the most surprising evolutions and turns — this way, that way, sideways and down ward, dealing the deadliest blows right and left at an imaginary foe, then soared, and did it all over again two or three times, just to show how far he was from being tired, and how much better he could have done it had it been necessary. Then with a final swoop and a volley of "clickers" he dashed into the bush to receive the congratulations of the one for whom it all was meant and the only spectator for whose opinion he cared in the least.
"Now, ain't that great," said Sam, with evident sincerity and pleasure. His voice startled Yan and brought him back. He had been wholly lost in silent admiring wonder of the dauntless little Kingbird.
A Vesper Sparrow ran along the road before them, flitting a few feet ahead each time they overtook it and showing the white outer tail-feathers as it flew.
"A little Gray bird," remarked Sam.
"No, that isn't a Graybird; that's a Vesper Sparrow," exclaimed Yan, in surprise, for he knew he was right.
"Well, / dunno," said Sam, yielding the point.
" I thought you said you knew every bird that flies and all about it," replied his companion, for the memory of this first day was strong with him yet.
Sam snorted: "I didn't know you then. I was
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just loadin' you up so you'd think I was a wonderful feller, an' you did, too — for awhile. "
A Red-headed Woodpecker, carrying a yellow butterfly, flew on a fence stake ahead of them and peeped around as they drew near. The setting sun on his bright plumage, the lilac stake and the yellow butterfly, completed a most gorgeous bit of colour and gave Yan a thrill of joy. A Meadow Lark on a farther stake, a Bluebird on another, and a Vesper Bird on a stone, each added his appeal to eye and ear, till Sam exclaimed:
"Oh, ain't that awful nice?" and Yan was dumb with a sort of saddened joy.
Birds hate the wind, and this was one of those birdy days that come only with a dead calm.
They passed a barn with two hundred pairs of Swallows flying and twittering around, a cut bank of the road had a colony of 1,000 Sand Martins, a stream had its rattling Kingfishers, and a marsh was the playground of a multitude of Red-winged Blackbirds.
Yan was lifted up with the joy of the naturalist at seeing so many beautiful living things. Sam felt it, too; he grew very silent, and the last half-mile to the " Corner " was passed without a word. The boots were got. Sam swung them around his neck and the boys set out for home. The sun was gone, but not the birds, and the spell of the evening was on them still. A Song Sparrow by the brook and a Robin high in the Elm were yet pouring out their liquid notes in the gloaming.
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The Calm Evening
"I wish I could be always here," said Yan, but he started a little when he remembered how unwilling he had been to come.
There was a long silence as they lingered on the darkening road. Each was thinking hard.
A loud, startling but soft "Ohoo — O-hoo — O-hoooooo," like the coo of a giant dove, now sounded about their heads in a tree. They stopped and Sam whispered, "Owl; big Hoot Owl." Yan's heart leaped with pleasure. He had read all his life of Owls, and even had seen them alive in cages, but this was the first time he had ever heard the famous hooting of the real live wild Owl, and it was a delicious experience.
The night was quite dark now, but there were plenty of sounds that told of life. A Whippoorwill was chanting in the woods, a hundred Toads and Frogs creaked and trilled, a strange rolling, laughing cry on a marshy pond puzzled them both, then a Song Sparrow in the black night of a dense thicket poured forth its sweet little sunshine song with all the vigour and joy of its best daytime doing.
They listened attentively for a repetition of the serenade, when a high-pitched but not loud " Wa — wa — wa — wa — wa — wa — wa — ii'a!" reached their ears from a grove of heavy timbers.
"Hear that?" exclaimed Sam.
Again it came, a quavering squall, apparently much nearer. It was a rather shrill sound, quite unbirdy, and Sam whispered:
Crow
Cree
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"Coon — that's the whicker of a Coon. We can come down here some time when corn's 'in roastin' ' an' have a Coon hunt. "
"Oh, Sam, wouldn't that be glorious!" said Yan. "How I wish it was now. I never saw a Coon hunt or any kind of a hunt. Do we have to wait till 'roasting-ear' time?"
"Oh, yes; it's easier to find them then. You say to your Coons, 'Me an' me dogs will meet you to-night at the nearest roastin'-ear patch,' an' sure nuff they'll keep the appointment."
"But they're around now, for we just heard one, and there's another."
A long faint " Lil — HI — HI — HI — HI — li-looo!" now sounded from the trees. It was like the other, but much softer and sweeter.
"There's where you fool yerself, " replied Sam, " an' there's where many a hunter is fooled. That last one's the call of a Screech Owl. You see it's softer and whistlier than the Coon whicker. "
They heard it again and again from the trees. It was a sweet musical sound, and Yan remembered how squally the Coon call was in comparison, and yet many hunters never learn the difference.
As they came near the tree whence the Owl called at intervals, a gray blot went over their heads, shutting out a handful of stars for a moment as it passed over them, but making no noise. "There he goes," whispered Sam. "That's the Screech Owl. Not much of a screech, was it?" Not long afterward
The Calm Evening:
Yan came across a line of Lowell's which says, " The song of the Screech Owl is the sweetest sound in nature," and appreciated the absurdity of the name.
"I want to go on a Coon hunt," continued Yan, and the sentence was just tinged with the deep-laid doggedness that was usually lost in his courteous manner.
"That settles it," answered the other, for he was learning what that tone meant. "We'll surely go when you talk that way, for, of coorse, it kin be done. You see, I know more about animals than birds/' he continued. "I'm just as likely to be a dentist as a hunter so far as serious business is concerned, but I'd sure love to be a hunter for awhile, an' I made Da promise to go with me some time. Maybe we kin get a Deer by going back ten miles to the Long Swamp. I only wish Da and Old Caleb hadn't fought, 'cause Caleb sure knows the woods, an' that old Hound of his has treed more Coons than ye could shake a stick at in a month o' Sundays. "
"Well, if that's the only Coon dog around, I'm going to get him. You'll see, " was the reply.
"I believe you will," answered Sam, in a tone of mixed admiration and amusement.
It was ten o'clock when they got home, and every one was in bed but Mr. Raften. The boys turned in at once, but next morning, on going to the barn, they found that Si had not only sewed on and hemmed the smoke-flaps, but had resewn the worst of the patches and hemmed the whole bottom of the teepee
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cover with a small rope in the hem, so that they were ready now for the pins and poles.
The cover was taken at once to the camp ground. Yan carried the axe. When they came to the brush fence over the creek at the edge of the swamp, he said:
"Sam, I want to blaze that trail for old Caleb. How do you do it?"
"Spot the trees with the axe every few yards."
"This way?" and Yan cut a tree in three places, so as to show three white spots or blazes.
11 No; that's a trapper's blaze for a trap or a 'special blaze,' but a 'road blaze' is one on the front of the tree and one on the back — so — then ye can run the trail both ways, an' you put them thicker if it's to be followed at night.
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VIII The Sacred Fire
TEN strong poles and two long thin ones," said Yan, reading off. These were soon cut and brought to the camp ground.
"Tie them together about eighteen inches higher than the teepee cover "
" Tie them ? With what ? "
" 'Rawhide rope,' he said, but he also said 'Make the cover of skins.' I'm afraid we shall have to use common rope for the present," and Yan looked a little ashamed of the admission.
"I reckoned so," drawled Sam, "and so I put a coil of quarter-inch in the cover, but I didn't dare to tell you that up at the barn."
The tripod was firmly lashed with the rope and set up. Nine poles were duly leaned around in a twelve- foot circle, for a teepee twelve feet high usually has a twelve-foot base. A final lashing of the ropes held these, and the last pole was then put up oppo site to the door, with the teepee cover tied to it at the point between the flaps. The ends of the two smoke -poles carried the cover round. Then the lacing-pins were needed. Yan tried to make them of Hickory shoots, but the large, soft pith came just
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where the point was needed. So Sam said, "You can't beat White Oak for pins." He cut a block of White Oak, split it down the middle, then split half of it in the middle again, and so on till it was small enough to trim and finish with his knife. Meanwhile Yan took the axe to split another, but found that it ran off to one side instead of going straight down the grain.
" No good," was Sam's comment. " You must keep halving each time or it will run out toward the thin pieces. You want to split shingles all winter to larn that."
Ten pins were made eight inches long and a quarter of an inch thick. They were used just like dress makers' stickpins, only the holes had to be made first, and, of course, they looked better for being regular. Thus the cover was laced on. The lack of ground-pegs was then seen.
"You make ten Oak pins a foot long and an inch square, Sam. I've a notion how to fix them." Then Yan cut ten pieces of the rope, each two feet long, and made a hole about every three feet around the base of the cover above the rope in the outer seam. He passed one end of each short rope through this and knotted it to the other end. Thus he had ten peg-loops, and the teepee was fastened down and looked like a glorious success.
Now came the grand ceremony of all, the lighting of the first fire. The boys felt it to be a supreme and almost a religious moment. It is curious to note
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The Sacred Fire
that they felt very much as savages do under the same circumstances — that the setting up of the new teepee and lighting its first fire is an act of deep significance, and to be done only with proper regard for its future good luck.
" Better go slow and sure about that fire. It'd be awfully unlucky to have it fizzle for the first time."
"That's so," replied Yan, with the same sort of superstitious dread. "Say, Sam, if we could really light it with rubbing-sticks, wouldn't it be great?"
"Hallo!"
The boys turned, and there was Caleb close to them. He came over and nodded. "Got yer teepee, I see? Not bad, but what did ye face her to the west fur?"
"Fronting the creek," explained Yan.
"I forgot to tell ye," said Caleb, "an Injun teepee always fronts the east; first, that gives the morning sun inside; next, the most wind is from the west, so the smoke is bound to draw."
"And what if the wind is right due east?" asked Sam, "which it surely will be when it rains?"
"And when the wind's east," continued Caleb, addressing no one in particular, and not as though in answer to a question, "ye lap the flaps across each other tight in front, so," and he crossed his hands over his chest. "That leaves the east side high and shuts out the rain; if it don't draw then, ye raise the bottom of the cover under the door just
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a little — that always fetches her. An' when you change her round don't put her in under them trees. Trees is dangerous; in a storm they draw lightning, an' branches fall from them, an' after rain they keep on dripping for an hour. Ye need all the sun ye kin get on a teepee.
"Did you ever see Indians bring fire out of two sticks by rubbing, Mr. Clark?"
"Oh, yes. Most of the Injuns now carry matches, but in the early days I seen it done often enough."
"Does it take long? Is it hard?"
"Not so long, and it's easy enough, when ye know how. ' '
"My! I'd rather bring fire out of two sticks than have a ten dollar bill," said Yan, with enthusiasm that meant much, for one dollar was his high -water mark of affluence, and this he had reached but once in his life.
"Oh, I dunno'; that depends," was Sam's more guarded response.
"Can you do it?" asked Yan.
"Wall, yes, if I kin get the right stuff. Ye see, it ain't every wood that will do it. It's got to be jest right. The Plains Injuns use Cottonwood root, an' the Mountain Injuns use Sage-brush root. I've seen the Canadian Injuns use Basswood, Cedar and dry White Pine, but the Chippewas mostly use Balsam Fir. The easiest way is with a bow-drill. Have ye any buckskin?"
"No."
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The Sacred Fire
"Or a strip o' soft leather?"
"I've got a leather shoe-lace," said Yan.
"Rather slim; but we'll double it an' make it do. A cord will answer, but it frays out so soon." Caleb took the lace and the axe, then said, " Find me a stone 'bout the size of an egg, with a little hole into it — like a socket hole — 'bout a quarter inch deep."
The boys went to the creek to seek a stone and Caleb went into the woods.
They heard him chopping, and presently he came back with a flat piece of very dry Balsam Fir, a fifteen-inch pin of the same, a stick about three feet long, slightly bent, some dry Pine punk and some dry Cedar.
The pin was three-quarters of an inch thick and was roughly eight -sided, "so the lace would grip." It was pointed at both ends. He fastened the lace to the bent stick like a bow-string, but loosely, so that when it had one turn around the pin it was quite tight. The flat piece of Balsam he trimmed down to about half an inch thick. In the edge of this he now cut a notch one-quarter inch wide and half an inch deep, then on the top of this fire-board or block, just beyond the notch, he made with the point of his knife a little pit.
He next scraped and shredded a lot of dry Cedar wood like lint. Then making a hole half an inch deep in the ground, he laid in that a flat piece of Pine punk, and across this he set the fire-board. The point of the pin or drill was put in the pit of
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the fire-board, which he held down with one foot; the lace was given one turn on the pin, and its top went into the hole of the stone the boys brought. The stone was held firmly in Caleb's left hand.
" Sometimes," he remarked, "when ye . can't find a stone, a Pine knot will do — ye kin make the socket-hole with a knife-point."
Now holding the bow in his right hand, he began to draw it back and forth with long, steady strokes, causing the pin to whirl round in the socket. Within a few seconds a brown powder began to run out of the notch of the fire-board onto the punk. The pit increased in size and blackened, the powder darkened, and a slight smoke arose from the pit. Caleb increased the pressure of his left hand a little, and sawed faster with the right. The smoke steadily increased and the black powder began to fill the notch. The smoke was rolling in little clouds from under the pin, and it even seemed to come from the heap of powder. As soon as he saw that, Caleb dropped the bow and gently fanned the powder heap. It still smoked. He removed the fire-board, and lifting the punk, showed the interior of the powder to be one glowing coal. On this he laid the Cedar tinder and over that a second piece of punk. Then raising it, he waved it in the air and 'blew gently for awhile. It smouldered and then burst into a flame. The other material was handy, and in a very short time they had a blazing fire in the middle of the new teepee.
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The Sacred Fire
All three were pictures of childish delight. The old man's face fairly beamed with triumph. Had he failed in his experiment he would have gone off hating those boys, but having made a brilliant success he was ready to love every one concerned, though they had been nothing more than interested spectators of his exploit.
RUBBING-STICKS— FOR FIRE-MAKING (See plate opposite) Two tools and two sticks are needed. The tools are bow and drill-socket ; the sticks are drill and fire-board.
1. The simplest kind of bow— a bent stick with a stout leather thong fastened at each end. The stick must not spring. It is about 27 inches long and % inch thick.
2. A more elaborate bow with a hole at each end for the thong. At the handle end it goes through a disc of wood. This is to tighten the thong by pressure of the hand against the disc while using.
3. Simplest kind of drill-socket— a pine or hemlock knot with a shallow hole or pit in it. za is under view of same. It is about 4% inches long.
4. A more elaborate drill-socket— a pebble cemented with gum in a wooden holder. v* is under view of same.
5. A very elaborate drill-socket ; it is made of tulip wood, carved to represent the Thunderbird. It has eyes of green felspar cemented in with resin. On the under side ($a) is seen, in the middle, a soapstone socket let into the wood and fastened with pine gum, and on the head a hole kept filled with grease, to grease the top of the drill before use.
6. The drill, 12 to 18 inches long and about H of an inch thick ; it is roughly 8-sided so the thong will not slip, and pointed at each end. The best wood for the drill is old, dry, brash, but not punky balsam fir or cotton-wood roots ; but basswood, white cedar, red cedar, tamarack, and sometimes even white pine, will do.
7. Fire-board or block, about M of an inch thick and any length handy ; a is notch with pit just begun, b shows the pit after once using and in good trim for a second time ; c shows the pit bored through and now useless ; the notch is ^ inch wide and % inch deep.
8. Shows the way of using the sticks. The block (a) is held down with one foot, the end of the drill (b) is put in the pit, the drill-socket (c) is held on top in left hand, one end of the bow (d) is held in the right hand, while the bow is drawn back and forth.
g. Is a little wooden fire-pan, not essential but convenient; its thin edge is put under the notch to catch the powder that falls.
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IX The Bows and Arrows
I DON'T think much of your artillery," said Yan one day as they were shooting in the orchard with Sam's "Western outfit." "It's about like the first one I made when I was young."
"Well, grandpa, let's see your up-to-date make ?"
"It'd be about five times as strong, for one thing."
"You couldn't pull it."
1 ' Not the way you hold the arrow ! But last winter I got a book about archery from the library and learned something worth while. You pinch the arrow that way and you can draw six or eight pounds, maybe, but you hook your fingers in the string — so — and you can draw five times as much, and that's the right way to shoot."
"Feels mighty clumsy," said Sam, trying it.
"Of course it does at first, and you have to have a deep notch in the arrow or you can't do it at all."
"You don't seem to manage any better than I do."
"First time I ever had a chance to try since I read about it. But I want to make a first-class bow and a lot of arrows. It's not much good going with one."
The Bows and Arrows
"Well, go ahead an' make an outfit if you know how. What's the best wood? Did the book tell you that?"
"The best wood is Spanish Yew."
"Don't know it."
"An' the next is Oregon Yew."
"Nope."
"Then Lancewood and Osage Orange."
"Try again."
"Well, Red Cedar, Apple tree, Hickory and Elm seem to be the only ones that grow around here. "
" Hain't seen any Red Cedar, but the rest is easy. "
" It has to be thoroughly seasoned winter-cut wood, and cut so as to have heart on one side and sap wood on the other. "
"How's that?" and Sam pointed to a lot of half- round Hickory sticks on the rafters of the log house. "Those have been there a couple of years."
A good one of five feet long was selected and split and hewn with the axe till the boys had the two bow staves, five and one-half feet long and two inches square, with the line of the heart and sap wood down the middle of each.
Guided by his memory of that precious book and some English long bows that he had seen in a shop in town, Yan superintended the manufacture. Sam was apt with tools, and in time they finished two bows, five feet long and drawing possibly twenty-five pounds each. In the middle they were one and one-half inches wide and an inch thick (see page 183). This
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size they kept for nine inches each way, making an eighteen-inch middle part that did not bend, but their two limbs were shaved down and scraped with glass till they bent evenly and were well within the boys' strength.
The string was the next difficulty. All the ordinary string they could get around the house proved too weak, never lasting more than two or three shots, till Si Lee, seeing their trouble, sent them to the cobbler's for a hank of unbleached linen thread and some shoe maker's wax. Of this thread he reeled enough for a strong cord tight around two pegs seven feet apart, then cutting it loose at one end he divided it equally in three parts, and, after slight waxing, he loosely plaited them together. At Yan's suggestion he then spliced a loop at one end, and with a fine waxed thread lashed six inches of the middle where the arrow fitted, as well as the splice of the loop. This last enabled them to unstring the bow when not in use (see page 183). "There," said he, "you won't break that." The finishing touch was thinly coating the bows with some varnish found among the paint supplies.
"Makes my old bow look purty sick," remarked Sam, as he held up the really fine new weapon in contrast with the wretched little hoop that had embodied his early ideas. "Now what do you know about arrers, mister?" as he tried his old arrow in the new bow.
" I know that that's no good," was the reply; "an'
The Bows and Arrows
I can tell you that it's a deal harder to make an arrow than a bow — that is, a good one. "
"That's encouraging, considering the trouble we've had already."
" 'Tisn't meant to be, but we ought to have a dozen arrows each."
" How do the Injuns make them ? "
" Mostly they get straight sticks of the Arrow- wood; but I haven't seen any Arrow-wood here, and they're not so awfully straight. You see, an arrow must be straight or it'll fly crooked. 'Straight as an arrow' means the thing itself. We can do better than the Indians 'cause we have better tools. We can split them out of the solid wood."
" What wood ? Some bloomin' foreign kind that no White-man never saw nor heard of before ? "
"No sir-ree. There ain't anything better 'n White Pine for target and Ash or Hickory for hunting arrows. Which are we making?"
"I'm a hunter. Give me huntin' arrows every time. What's needed next ?"
"Seasoned Ash twenty-five inches long, split to three-eighths of an inch thick, hot glue, and turkey- wing feathers."
"I'll get the feathers and let you do the rest, " said Sam, producing a bundle of turkey-wings, laid away as stove-dusters, and then belied his own statement by getting a block of Ash and splitting it up, halving it each time till he had a pile of two dozen straight sticks about three-quarters of an inch thick.
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Yan took one and began with his knife to whittle it down to proper size and shape, but Sam said, " I can do better than that," then took the lot to the work bench and set to work with a smoothing plane. Yan looked worried and finally said:
"Injuns didn't have planes."
"Nor jack-knives neither," was 'the retort.
That was true, and yet somehow Yan's ideal that he hankered after was the pre-Columbian Indian, the one who had no White-man's help or tools.
" It seems to me it'd be more Injun to make these with just what we get in the woods. The Injuns didn't have jack-knives, but they had sharp flints in the old days."
"Yan, you go ahead with a sharp stone. You'll find lots on the road if you take off your shoes and walk barefoot — awful sharp; an' I'll go ahead with the smoothing plane an' see who wins."
Yan was not satisfied, but he contented himself with promising that he would some day make some arrows of Arrow-wood shoots and now he would finish at least one with his knife. He did so, but Sam, in the meantime, made six much better ones with the smoothing plane.
" What about heads ? " said he.
"I've -been thinking," was the reply. "Of course the Indians used stone heads fastened on with sinew, but we haven't got the stuff to do that. Bought heads of iron with a ferrule for the end of the arrow are best, but we can't get them. Bone heads and
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SIX SAMPLE ARROWS, SHOWING DIFFERENT FEATHERS
The Bows and Arrows
horn heads will do. I made some fine ones once filing bones into the shape, but they were awfully brittle; and I made some more of big nails cut off and set in with a lashing of fine wire around the end to stop the wood splitting. Some Indian arrows have no point but the stick sharpened after it's scorched to harden it."
"That sounds easy enough for me," said Sam; "let's make some of them that way. "
So the arrows were made, six each with nail points filed sharp and lashed with broom wire. These were called "War arrows, " and six each with fire-hardened wood points for hunting arrows.
"Now for the feathering," and Yan showed Sam how to split the midrib of a turkey feather and separate the vane.
"Le's see, you want twice twenty-four — that's forty-eight feathers."
"No," said Yan, "that's a poor feathering, two on each. We want three on each arrow — seventy- two strips in all, and mind you, we want all three that are on one arrow from the same side of the bird."
"I know. I'll bet it's bad luck to mix sides; arrows doesn't know which way to turn. "
At this moment Si Lee came in. "How are ye gettin' on with the bows?"
"Waitin' for arrows now."
"How do ye put on the feathers?"
"White-men glue them on, and Injuns lash them
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DESCRIPTION OF SIX SAMPLE ARROWS SHOWING DIFFERENT FEATHERS
A is a far-flying steel-pointed bobtail, very good in wind. B is another very good arrow, with a horn point. This went even better than A if there were no wind. C is an Omaha war and deer arrow. Both heads and feathers are lashed on with sinew. The long tufts of down left on the feathers are to help in finding it again, as they are snow-white and wave in the breeze. The grooves on the shaft are to make the victim bleed more freely and be more easily tracked. D is another Omaha arrow with a peculiar owner's mark of rings carved in the middle. E is a bone-headed bird shaft made by the Indians of the Mackenzie River. F is a war arrow made by Geronimo the famous Apache chief . Its shaft is three joints of a straight cane. The tip is of hard wood, and on that is a' fine quartz point; all being lashed together with sinew.
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on," replied Yan, quoting from memory from "that book. "
"Which is best?"
"Glued on flies better, but lashed on stands the weather better. "
"Why not both?"
"Have no sinew."
"Let me show ye a trick. Where's yer glue an' linen thread ? ' '
These were brought, whereupon Si added: "'Pears to me ye oughter put the feathers on last. Better cut the notch first."
" That's so; we nearly forgot. "
" You nearly forgot, you mean. Don't drag me in the mud," said Sam, with owlish dignity. A small saw cut, cleaned up and widened with a penknife, proved the best; a notch one-fourth inch deep was quickly made in each arrow, and Si set about both glueing and lashing on the feathers, but using wax-end instead of sinew.
Yan had marked the place for each feather so that none would strike the bow in passing (see Cut page 183). He first glued them on, then made a lashing for half an inch on the projecting ends of the feather-rib, and another behind, carrying this second lashing back to the beginning of the notch to guard against the wood splitting. When he had trimmed all loose ends and rolled the waxed thread well on the bench with a flat stick, the threads seemed to disappear and leave simply a smooth black ring.
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o
The Bows and Arrows
Thus the arrows were made and set away for the glue to dry.
Next day Yan painted Sam's red and blue, his own red and white, to distinguish them as well as guard them from the damp. There was now one more thing, and that was a quiver.
"Do the Injuns have them?" asked Sam, with a keen eye to orthodoxy when it promised to cut short the hard work.
"Well, I should say so ; couldn't live without them. "
"All right; hurry up. I'm spoiling for a hunt. What are they made of?"
"Oh, 'most anything."
"Haven't got it."
"You're too fast. But some use Birch bark, some use the skin of an animal, and some use canvas now when other stuff is scarce. "
"That's us. You mind the stuff left off the teepee ?"
"Do till we get better." So each made a sort of canvas bag shorter than the arrows. Yan painted an Indian device on each, and they were ready.
" Now bring on your Bears, " said the older boy, and feeling a sense of complete armament, they went out.
"See who can hit that tree." Both fired together and missed, but Sam's arrow struck another tree and split open.
" Guess we'd better get a soft target, " he remarked. Then after discussion they got a large old corn sack full of hay, painted on it some rings around a bull's
OMAHA BOW-CASE AND QUIVER OF BUCKSKIN AND QUILLWORK
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eye (a Buffalo's eye, Sam called it) and set it up at twenty yards.
They were woefully disappointed at first in their shooting. It did seem a very easy mark, and it was disappointing to have the arrows fly some feet away to the left.
" Le's get in the barn and shoot at that, " suggested Sam.
"We might hit it if we shut the door tight," was the optimistic reply. As well as needing practice, the boys had to learn several little rules about Archery. But Yan had some pencil notes from "that book" and some more in his brain that with much practice gradually taught him: To stand with his heel centres in line with the target; his right elbow in line with the arrow; his left hand fixed till the arrow struck; his right thumb always on the same place on his cheek when he fired, and the bow plumb.
They soon found that they needed guards for the left arm where the bow strings struck, and these they made out of the leg of an old boot (see Cut page 183), and an old glove to protect the fingers of the right hand when they practised very much. After they learned to obey the rules without thinking about them, the boys improved quickly and soon they were able to put all the arrows into the hay sack at twenty yards, increasing the distance later till they could make fair shooting at forty yards.
They were not a little surprised to find how much
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The Bows and Arrows
individuality the arrows had, although meant to be exactly alike.
Sam had one that continued to warp until it was much bent, and the result was some of the most surprising curves in its flight. This he called the "Boomerang." Another, with a very small feather, travelled farther than any of the rest. This was the "Far-killer." His best arrow, one that he called "Sure-death," was a long-feathered Turkey shaft with a light head. It was very reliable on a calm day, but apt to swerve in the wind. Yet another, with a small feather, was correspondingly reliable on a windy day. This was "Wind-splitter."
The one Yan whittled with the knife was called the "Whittler," and sometimes the "Joker." It was a perpetual mystery; they never knew just what it would do next. His particular pet was one with a hollow around the point, which made a whistling sound when it flew, and was sometimes called the "Whistler " and sometimes the"Jabberwock," "which whiffled through the tulgy wood and burbled as it came."
CORRECT FORM IN SHOOTING The diagram at bottom is to show the centres of heels in line with target
X
The Dam
ONE hot day early in July they were enjoying themselves in the shallow bathing-hole of the creek, when Sam observed: "It's getting low. It goes dry every summer."
This was not pleasing to foresee, and Yan said, "Why can't we make a dam?"
"A little too much like work."
"Oh, pshaw! That'd be fun and we'd have a swimming-place for all summer, then. Come on; let's start now."
"Never heard of Injuns doing so much work."
"Well, we'll play Beaver while we do it. Come on, now; here's for a starter," and Yan carried a big stone to what seemed to him the narrowest place. Then he brought more, and worked with enthusiasm till he had a line of stones right across the creek bed.
Sam still sat naked on the bank, his knees to his chin and his arms around them. The war-paint was running down his chest in blue and red streaks.
"Come on, here, you