Stories of the good green wood

Front matter

THE GOOD GREEN WOOD

CLARENCE HAWKES

Copyright Is 1

Chapter I

No day that I have spent roaming the woods with old Ben Wilson will ever be quite forgotten. Although, as he flourished nearly twenty years ago, some of those memories are rather dim. He was never known as Mr. Benjamin Wilson, for his full name did not fit him, so he was simply Old Ben to all the boys whom he fancied, for ten miles around.

He was not an important personage, either, so you may wonder just what his hold upon your affections was. If I remember rightly, he was not in favor with the elders in the prim little New England town where we lived, for many of them called him "a lazy good-for-nothing," but never anything w T orse than that.

His great sin seemed to be that he loved nature and the wonders of the fields and woods, more than most of his prosaic neighbors, and so took more time to admire them.

It was a very common sight to see Old Ben walking home with one arm full of hickory saplings and the other filled with springy hemlock boughs. The hickories he would carefully peel, some rainy day, and then he would hang them up in the barn, with a weight on the end of each. There in the course of time they became the choicest kind of trout poles. It was considered as much of an honor, by us boys, to be the possessor of one of Old Ben's hickory rods, as it was in after years to own one of Spalding's best fly rods. The hemlock boughs were made into bows, strips of woodchuck hide being used for the strings. One of these bows made a boy of ten as near the counterpart of an Apache Indian as he was likely to ever get.

Then there was always an assortment of popguns made from the hollow elder, for boys who were too small to use the bows ; so was it any wonder that we all loved Old Ben ?

He did not like to take small boys with him into the woods. "They air alius hollerin' and skeerin' things," he would say. "A boy has gut ter be old enough ter hold his tongue before he can go with me." I was about ten years old when, one May afternoon, I made my first pilgrimage with Old Ben to the shrine of nature, and I saw more in that brief afternoon than I had ever seen before in my life.

" Eyes ain't good for nothin' in the woods, without you know how to use um," my guide would say. "Most folks go thunderin' through the woods, like it was Washington street, an' don't see nothin', while the rabbit sits under a bush a laughin' behind his paw, an' winkin' at the squirrel above him in the tree. There ain't one person in ten that can see anything in the woods, while really one can see more there than anywhere else. "

On this particular afternoon we took the cow-path leading down through the lane to the pasture, after which we struck off into the deep woods.

We had scarcely turned from the path into the alder bushes that skirted the woods when a small brown bird fluttered out of the grass at our feet, and flew into a bush near by, where she fluttered about, twittering in an excited manner.

"Now, Harry," said Old Ben seriously, " what do you think of that ? "

"What ? " I asked, for I had seen nothing unusual.

" Why is that 'ere brown bird floppin' up out of the grass in that way and then perchin' on that bush an' not flyin' off ? Put your wits to work, boy, an' tell me what you think on it."

"I don't think anything of it," I said after a moment's thought. "'Tain't anything but just a brown bird, and they are always flying around in the bushes."

" Eyes, yet they see not, ears, yet they hear not," repeated Old Ben mournfully, " But I don't blame you, boy ; it's our first trip together, an' I'll teach you to see things, in time.

"Wal, that there brown bird came out from under that bit of a bush by the path an' ten ter one there is where her nest is."

" Why, what makes you think so?" I asked in astonishment .

"Wal," replied Old Ben, thoughtfully, "she warn't there for nuthin', birds and squirrels don't do things for nuthin'. She wouldn't be feedin' there this time o' day, for 'tain't neither breakfast time nor supper time, besides, don't you see she don't want to go away ? She's waitin' to see what you an' I are goin' to do about her nest. Uv course I may be mistaken, for a feller ain't never quite sure in the woods, but let's see."

We knelt down by the bush and poked away the grass, and there, sure enough, was the nest with five speckled eggs in it. It was a very cosy house, lined with hair and sheltered from the wind and rain by the bush.

" Ain't it a pretty home for Mr. and Mrs. Browny ? " asked Old Ben, poking the grass back as it had been before.

" Let me take one of the eggs home to keep," I said, reaching for it. But to my astonishment my companion caught me by the wrist. " No, you don't," he said decidedly. "This ain't no nest robbin' expedition, not ef I know it. If you hev come with me ter rob birds' nests, I am goin' home. Ef you take that egg home it means one less bird to sing to us and hop about an' look pretty. Think uv that."

I had never thought of it before in just that light, and the more I considered, the more I became sure that I had no right to take this little unhatched bird's life in that way.

" Come on," said my companion," we hev disturbed Mrs. Browny long enough ; she is gettin' nervous, let's be movin'." So we parted the alder bushes and walked on, leaving the little house undisturbed and the heart of the brown bird glad that we had not taken any of her eggs.

Old Ben glided along as easily in the cover as I could go in the open, and he rarely made any noise. "Light-foot," we boys called him, but with me the case was quite different. Every dry twig that I stepped on, snapped like a parlor match, and I was always stepping on one end of a long stick and having the other end fly up with a big noise.

"Harry," said my companion severely, after one of these missteps, "you make as much racket in the woods as a rhinoceros would in a tin shop. Ennybody'd think your feet were pile drivers ; why don't you let them down easy, like the earth was eggs, an' you wuz afraid uv breakin' on urn."

Presently a brown streak shot across the path and was lost to sight in the weeds and underbrush.

" What's that ? " I asked excitedly.

"Babbit," replied my guide in an undertone. " Alius when you see a brown streak an' can't quite make it out, it's a rabbit, that is, ef it is on the ground ; but in winter it would be a white streak."

" What, the same rabbit ? " I asked.

" Yes," said old Ben seriously. " He has got two coats. A brown one that he wears in the summer and a white one in winter."

" Where did he go to ? " I asked.

" Are you a bat, that you can't see in the daytime ? " Ben asked, looking scornfully down at me. "He is in just as plain sight at this very minute as I be. Use your eyes, boy."

I looked along the path where I had last seen the cottontail, while Ben grinned broadly.

" I can't see him," I said at last in a whisper. " I don't believe he is in sight."

" See that old log about twenty feet ahead ? Wal, just let your eye run along it to where it runs into the bush." I did as I was told, and there, squatting under the bush, in plain sight, but as still as though he had been made of brown marble instead of quivering nerves and muscles, was the cottontail. His color blended perfectly with that of some last year's dead leaves, and the gray brown of the rotten log. He kept so still that I almost thought he had turned to stone, but if you looked carefully, you could see his nose and ears twitch slightly.

"What makes him keep so still ? " I asked. " That is the way he hides," said Ben. " He knows better than we do that he is just the color of the ground, and if he does not catch your eye by some movement that ten to one you will not see him at all. There he goes."

I looked, but was too late, for he had already disappeared.

" Did you ever hear how 'twas the rabbit lost his tail ? " said my companion as we proceeded on our walk.

" No," I replied. " How was it ? "

" Wal," said Ben in his queer drawl, "it was this 'ere way.

w Once, many years ago, a rabbit and a turtle lived in the same swamp. The rabbit was terrible proud an' put on airs. He had a fine long tail in them days, an' he carried it over his back like a squirrel. It used to make the turtle awful jealous to see him an' so he thought he'd fix him. One mornin' when he met the rabbit he says, ' Hallo ! I wonder if you want to run a race with me to-day ? ' At this the rabbit snickered and leaped over a bush, just to show what he could do.

" ' I run a race with you ? ' he said, scornfully, i why, if I didn't have but one leg I could beat you, you old snail.'

"'I dare you to try it,' said the turtle hotly.

" l Name the distance, the starting place, and the forfeit,' returned the rabbit, proudly, 'and we will see about your fine boasting.'

"'Well,' said the turtle, 'we will run through the pasture to the mowing, through the farmer's turnip patch, twice and back again.'

" ' Agreed,' said the rabbit.

" ' And this will be the forfeit/ said the turtle. ' If you win, you may bite my tail off, and if I win I shall bite your tail off. 5

" The rabbit laughed loudly at this. ' Why, friend Turtle,' he cried, 'you can't steer yourself in the water without a tail. How queer you will look,' and without more ado, he was off, running like the wind.

" The turtle waddled after him, smiling broadly, for he well knew if he lost the race that he could draw his tail into his shell and the rabbit could not bite it off, although he tried a week. But this was not the whole of his plan. It took him a long time to go through the pasture to the mowing and when he got there he saw the rabbit busily eating turnips in the farmer's lot. This was what he had expected, so he went quietly on his way, taking care not to disturb the cotton-tail.

" Well, Mr. Turtle just made his short legs wiggle, and before the rabbit knew it he had lost the race. He came flying back through the pasture as though the dogs were after him, but it warn't no use, for there was the turtle waitin' for him at the brook.

' ' The rabbit teased terrible not to have his tail nipped off, but he had plagued the Turtle so much in the past that it warn't no use, so the Turtle nipped off his tail at one bite. And rabbits hain't ever had tails since."

" Is that a real true story ? " I asked when Old Ben had finished, for I had never heard anything of the kind, and was suspicious that Ben had made it up for the occasion.

"Mebbe it is, an' mebbe it ain't," answered the old man. " There's lots uv lies that air true in this world, an' vicy verse. Mebbe it war an allergory, or mebbe more properly speaking, it wuz a tail. "

While Ben had been telling me the story of how the rabbit lost his tail, we had been sitting on an old moss-covered log, just such as abound in the forest, he whittling and I chewing gum, that he had previously dug for me with the large pocketknife that he always carried.

"Wal," he said, when the story was finished, "I've got this cane done an' I guess we had better be moving, for I have gut several things to show you."

The cane which Ben had made for me was cut from a maple sapling. He had cut rings about it on the lower end and peeled off the bark between the cuts so it gave it a striped effect, while at the top he had made a whistle.

" That cane ain't good for much ter walk with, but it looks sort uv pretty, an' you can blow the whistle when we git out of the woods.

" Now, if I can, I am a goin' to show you one of the sights uv these here woods, an' that is a cock partridge, drummin'. But it is mighty hard to get near um, an' you are such a heavy stepper maybe we can't do it. I heared one a drummin' a long ways off when we wuz a sittin' on the log. I guess I know where his log is. Now you follow me. We can go along fast enough until we get within ten or fifteen rods uv the log, an' then we will have to be careful."

We trudged along for several moments before we heard anything that sounded to me like a cock partridge drumming, but finally I heard it: slow at first but soon growing faster and faster, until it was one long roll like thunder.

"I spose even you could hear that," whispered Old Ben when it had ceased. " Now we'll stop and stand perfectly still until he begins again, and then we will go as far as we can while he is drummin'. You see he is making so much noise then that he can't hear us ; but he will listen between times, so be careful."

We waited some time for the old cock to drum and I was afraid he had stopped, when he began again. The moment he started to drum we began to creep up on him, and had made twenty or thirty feet by the time he had ceased.

This we did several times, each time drawing nearer and nearer to the log, until the drumming sounded almost like thunder. Each time when the partridge stopped we

HE STOOD ERECT, LIKE A SOLDIER ON DRESS PARADE, would crouch behind a tree trunk, and wait patiently for him to begin again.

As we got nearer to him, Old Ben kept motioning me to be quiet and not to step on dry twigs or rolling stones.

" You see he is almost the same as on the ground, an' gets the sound easy," he whispered.

By this time I was all excitement, and my heart was beating like a trip-hammer.

When he began again, we hurried a few steps forward to the top of a little rise, and lay flat upon the ground, and hardly dared to draw breath until he began again.

At the first beat of the partridge's wings Ben clutched me by the shoulder, and we both stood up and peered between two trees into a little ravine that the rising ground had hidden from us before.

There upon an old log in a little opening was Mr. Partridge, looking as proud as though he owned the whole woods. He stood erect, like a soldier on dress parade and his ruffs were distended. Slowly his wings rose, until they were as high as his back, and then they descended like lightning, but faster and faster they fell until the eye could no longer see them and he looked like a great round bunch of feathers about the size of a halfbushel basket.

As the martial roll of the cock neared the close we dropped to the ground and lay still, not daring to move or breathe. It was a long time before he drummed again, and I began to fear that he had got tired of it and gone off. But presently there came the first loud thump of his wings.

We stood up again and had a splendid sight of this wary bird, sounding his drum call, — a sight which few people ever see.

As he neared the finish we again dropped to the ground.

" My," I exclaimed, drawing a deep breath and speaking aloud in the excitement of the moment, " ain't he a bouncer when he is drumming." The words had scarcely died upon my lips, when there was a roar of wings beyond the old log, and we caught a glimpse of the cock, speeding away like an express train.

" There, you hev done it," said Ben in disgust. " You will hev ter learn not to go a shoutin' around when you are in the woods with me or I'll leave you to home," and the old man looked grimly down at me.

" I didn't mean ter," I said, this time speaking in a whisper.

Ben laughed. " It won't do no good ter be a whispering now, an' you might as well talk out loud. He's more'n a mile away by this time."

" Won't he come back ? " I asked, greatly disappointed with the news.

" Come back? I guess not," said Ben scornfully. " He is the shyest bird there is, an' when he knows there are two great lubbers like us a snookin' round his log he won't come back until he knows the coast is clear. He won't drum any more here to-day, an' mebbe not to-morrow, for they are terrible suspicious."

" What makes him ? " I asked.

IS STORIES OF THE GOOD GREENWOOD

" Wal," said Ben, " lots of things, includin' you an' me. Besides men, there are hawks, owls, weasels, cats, foxes, wildcats ; them air a few of the things that make him wary.

" Now I hey gut just one thing more to show you air then we will go home. Mebbe I can't find what I want. I discovered urn the other day, an' mebbe their ma has moved them."

" Moved what V % I asked.

"Wait an' you will see,'' said Ben, and he led the way through the woods, going at his long lope that I could scarcely follow.

" We hain't gut to be careful now, for we will hev ter skeer the ma away eff ore we can see am. See that old black stump ahead ! w asked Ben when we had gone some distance.

" Yes,'' I replied.

u W T al," said my guide, " you keep your eyes on that an' let me know if you see anything."

I stumbled along, not looking where I was stepping, for my eyes were riveted on the stump.

Presently a rabbit hopped out from under the stump and along the path a few steps, and then stood still, just as the other had done. But as we came nearer the rabbit sprang into the bushes and was gone.

" That's their ma," said Ben ; " ef she hain't moved them they are under this stump."

Ben put his arm in a hole near the ground, and after feeling about for a moment, brought out the cutest little white pink -nosed chap you ever saw. The only thing that would tell you it was a rabbit was its long ears. Its eyes were not open yet, and its little pink nose twitched as I held it, while it made a tiny noise, half way between a grunt and a squeak.

" My, ain't he pretty," I said, devouring the baby rabbit with my eyes ; " let's take him home."

" Not much," said Ben, giving me one of his severe looks. "How do you think you would like it when we get home to find that a big animal from one of the planets had been at the house and carried off the baby ? It's bad enough for us to be poking about scarein' um without stealing the babies into the bargain. The mother will probably move um, now they have been disturbed the second time. I found um the other day and thought you would like to see um. But it won't do you any good to come here again, for the ma will move um to-night."

We fished out two more baby rabbits, and after admiring them to our hearts' content, put them back and started for home.

" I guess that is sights enough for one day," said Ben. " We hev been pretty fortunate. We might hev tried a whole season before we saw that partridge drum. I was more than forty years old before I ever saw one drumming. And that is only the second or third litter of rabbits that I have ever discovered, so you see you are lucky to-day."

I thanked Old Ben the best I knew how to, but he only said, "Tut, tut, I don't want no thanks, but I wanted you to know that these things aren't hangin' on every bush in the woods. You hev to be patient and careful and love all the little animals and at last you may find out something of urn and how they live. Some day we will go again an' mebbe see more strange things, who knows."

By this time we had got out into the pasture again, and we soon turned into a cow-path that led to the bars.

" Always makes me feel rested and goodnatured to be out in the woods," continued Ben. "I think it is because we get nearer to God in the woods than anywhere-else. God is strength and rest for us all."

Chapter II

When Old Ben first brought Ringtail to me, he was a fuzzy bit of a coon kitten about the size of a chipmunk, or perhaps a little larger. He was of a dirty gray color, rotund in shape, and as near as we could estimate, about three weeks old. He probably had his eyes open to the bright light and the strange world some three or four days when I got him.

Ben said that coon kittens were slower in getting their eyes open than any other kind of kittens, as some of them were blind for nearly three weeks, while domestic kittens and puppies got their sight in about ten days. My new pet was not shapely, but resembled a ball of fuzz more than a would-be coon.

He did not make any sound when he was small except to grunt contentedly when he was full, and to cry when hungry, very much as kittens or puppies would.

We had a hard time teaching him to drink milk, and in fact he nearly starved before he learned.

Several times we despaired of getting him to drink, and he might have gone the way of many a wild thing that man undertakes to domesticate, had we not hit upon the plan of giving him his milk from a small oil can, squirting it into his mouth.

Ben took me to the woods one day, and showed me where he had found the burrow of the coons. It was under the roots of a big birch that overhung a brook. The bank had shelved off into the water, leaving a small cave under the roots of the tree, and here the coons had made themselves a fine burrow, lining it with dry grass and leaves. It was sheltered, warm and dry, and near to the water, of which a coon is fond. He is a clumsy sort of a fisherman also, and this is one reason why he likes to be near a brook.

He is no match for the otter in this sport, and he does not live in the water as the otter does, but he likes to paddle in it and occasionally knock a sleepy sucker out of the water with his paw. This was to be seen from the fishbones that were scattered around the burrow. The burrow must have been an old one, for there were last year's corncobs and other evidences of long occupancy. But this snug home was now quite vacant, and had been for some time. " It was because I took one of the babies," explained Ben. " These wild critters will rarely stay in a burrow after it has been robbed, and birds do not like to build in a tree where they have had bad luck the year before. If they do they will change the position of the nest."

When Ringtail got large enough to enjoy the outside world, I made a wire-netting fence around the big maple in the yard, about twenty feet from the trunk, and let him play in the tree or run in his little yard, as best pleased him.

He soon made a burrow of his own under the root of the tree, and was very much at home.

Even while small he would climb to great heights in the tree, and I fully expected to see him come tumbling down and dash his brains out on a root, for the coon is a clumsy fellow compared with a squirrel, and, while a good climber, he is not built for that exclusively, as the squirrel is. But I do not know that my new pet would have been hurt had he fallen, for he was very fat, and his fur would have acted as a cushion.

We did not call him Ringtail at first, as the rings about his tail and eyes were not plain enough then to suggest the name, but they came out early in the summer, and by the fall were very marked.

This history may, like ancient Gaul, be divided into three parts, that of Little Ringtail, the baby coon, Young Ringtail the mischief-maker, and old Ringtail, the renegade and thief.

It was on sweet corn that Ringtail first made his start towards being the monster coon that he finally became. He would eat several ears in a day, gnawing the kernels off, and sucking out all the sweetness in the cob. He did not like the corn as well boiled as raw, so we threw his into the yard, when it came from the garden, usually with the husk on, for it was fun to see him husk it. He would hold the ear down with his paw, and starting the husk at the top would strip it off with a sudden jerk of his head.

Eingtail was also fond of fish. In fact fish was one of his passions, and we got a head for him as regularly as we bought fish.

I do not know whether he could distinguish between mackerel and shad heads, and trout, or whether he preferred trout as coming from his native brook, but I took it very hard of him, when one day he fished a fine string of brook trout out of a pail where I had left them in some water and carried them under the house. They were still on the string, and he held the end of the willow switch in his mouth, and of course the fish came along. No amount of coaxing would prevail upon him to bring out the trout, but he did return the stringer after he had eaten them. Perhaps it was an invitation to go to the brook and get more for him. But this was when he got to be Ringtail the mischief-maker, and had the full run of the premises.

He was on good terms with most of the domestic animals. A dog, a cat, some kittens, some chickens, and a coon frequently took their breakfast from the same dish, without quarreling more than one would expect.

Eingtail always took pains to eat on the opposite side of the plate from the dog, and they occasionally exchanged snarls, and showed teeth, and once I rescued the coon, when he was still young, from a premature grave ; but these things always happen, and on the whole he took very good care of himself. He was very jealous, though, of an old woodchuck that we had partly tamed, who used to come to the door for a crust of bread. If the coon was about when Chucky appeared he usually sent him back into his hole at the top of his speed. The woodchuck always gave a whistle of defiance as he dove into his burrow, and once underground he wheeled about and invited Mr. Coon to come and see what a good set of teeth he had, but the coon always refused the invitation.

Early in August I cut a large hole in the wire netting that framed the coon's yard, and let him run where he pleased, at the same time leaving his yard and burrow to flee to in time of peril.