The boy woodcrafter

Front matter

Ibe

BoyWoodcrafier f^

-.;4;.,

Contents

CHAPTEE PAGE

Introductory: Why Every Boy Should

Be a Naturalist 15

Chapter I One's Own Bach Door-yard

It was about ten o'clock of as dismal a Saturday morning as ever spoiled a boy's fun by raining.

Old Ben and I had planned a fishing trip that would have been memorable among all the good times we had enjoyed together, but it had rained so hard that my mother had vetoed our going.

The lunch basket was packed, the bait dug, and everything was in readiness except the weather.

But how it did rain! Great gusts of wind drove the rain before it in blinding sheets, and small rivulets ran in the road, and in the walk.

If it had only been just a drizzle we would not have minded. The fishing would have been all the better, but this deluge put all thoughts of our long planned trip out of mind.

I sat on the back porch bewailing my hard luck and watching the downpour. There was some satisfaction in that, even if the storm had spoiled my fun.

It was a regular duck's day, and no mistake. No creature that was not oiled from head to foot could stand such a drenching as this.

If I had been a girl, I might have had the consolation of crying, but as I was a boy and expected to celebrate my eleventh birthday soon, even that comfort was denied me.

Presently a tall, dark figure loomed up through the mist, coming down the pathway leading across the mowing at the back of the house. At first I thought I was mistaken, for sometimes I could see it, and then a violent gust of wind and rain would blot it out, but soon it drew nearer, and I made out old Ben, coming at his accustomed long stride. In another minute he was hurrying up the steps of the back porch the rain fairly streaming down his long rubber coat.

He was laughing and chuckling and looked the very picture of merriment.

"Isn't it an awful shame, Ben," I began. "This nasty old rain has spoiled all our fun, and now we can't take the trip to the pond."

"Fiddlesticks, boy. Yes, we can. Why, I expect to go next Saturday. You needn't go along unless you want to, but I propose to go."

"I almost know it will rain and be another horrid day just like this one," I said. "Isn't it an awful shame that it rains to-day, Ben?"

"Well, no, Harry, I can't positively say that it is, if you want me to tell the 'honest-Injun- truth.' You see there are a great many people in the world and it is awful hard for God to suit them all at the same time. The poor farmers, who raise all the good things for us to eat, have been wishing for rain for weeks. Everything was gettin' shriveled up; crops were all spilin'. If this state of affairs had kept up much longer why we wouldn't had any crops at all. All the trees and flowers looked pathetic and droopin', just ^^ though they had lost their best friend, and really they had.

'^So you see there are lots of people and things to consider. Maybe, this morning, when the sun came up, God saw how shriveled things were, and how discouraged the farmers all looked, and He said to Himself T guess I had better have a rain to-day; a good hard one, and see if it won't freshen things up a bit.' Then maybe He said, 'There are old Ben and Harry, they want to go to the pond fishing to-day. Now, if it rains, they can't go. What shall I do?'

''Don't you see, Harry, that there were hundreds and hundreds of farmers who wanted it to rain and only you and I who didn't, so God would have to suit the greater number."

Ben's queer picture of God trying to suit all the people at once made me smile, even though I was greatly disappointed. He always had such a bright way of looking at things. No matter how bad a thing was, old Ben could always find some good way of explaining it, and of getting sunshine out of it.

" Well, you are a funny fellow to always make things look good when they are really bad," I said. ''How do you think all these queer thoughts?"

"Well, boy," said the old man, patting me aiFectionately on the head, "it is this way. I have lived a long time compared with you, and a man can't spend seventy years in this beautiful old world without doing a pile of thinking.

*Tt seems to me the more I consider how wonderfully the world is made, how all the plants and animals are fed, and protected, and how even the smallest things are made as carefully as though they had been mountains, when I get to thinking about these things it makes me feel that there is a wise and wonderful power behind all. So I know that all rainy days must be good and the very best thing in their place. Now, I will take off my coat and we will set right down here on the old back porch and have the finest kind of a time seeing things."

''Seeing things!" I gasped in astonishment. Then the funny side of the proposition came over me and I laughed till I cried.

"I know you are a great fellow to see things, Ben," I said at last, "but this is the greatest joke you ever made."

''It is no joke at all, Harry," replied my friend seriously, "I mean every word of it. We will have a fine time seeing things. I never yet got tucked into any corner in the world where I could not see something mighty interesting.

''Nearest I ever came to seeing absolutely nothing was down in New York. I got cooped up there a day once, and I'll admit that I was almost stumped. New York comes the nearest to being a howling wilderness of any place I was ever in. But put me out in the country and I can always see something.

"Now, Harry," he continued, seating himself in an old wooden-bottomed chair, and tilting it back against the wall for comfort, "our field of observation is the back porch and just a few feet outside. Now, what do you make of it?"

''A wet slippery floor, some morningglorj^ vines, and, that's all, just a horrid place," I answered, "but it isn't quite as bad as it was before you came, Ben."

"Guess your woodsman's specks are rather dim this morning," replied Ben with a merry twinkle in his eye. ^Terhaps it has rained on them. Guess you will have to rub them up, boy. Try again; I can see lots of interesting things besides those you have mentioned. All you have seen is just the frame to the picture. What a sorry world this would be if people looked only at the frames, and let all its beautiful pictures go unnoticed!"

I looked carefully up and down the floor boards, peering into all the cracks, while old Ben tried to look away and keep from laughing.

Finally I gave it up, and returned to my first assertion that it was a dull.

stupid place with nothing interesting in it.

Ben laughed. "Well, Harry, suppose I just set the ball to rolling. I can see a little creature that can make a morsel for you that will fairly make your mouth water. One of the most wonderful little things that God ever made. It and its kind know all the secrets of the flowers, and the blossoms yield up their very sweetest nectar for them. Many of the flowers and trees could not bear fruit at all if it was not for them. They live in a kingdom and have a wonderful queen who lays over half a million eggs in her short life of a few years. Look at the honey bee, Harry, just crawling out of that morning glory trumpet. Now, there is a study for you; something that you might read about a whole lifetime and then not find out all there is to learn."

I looked at the particular trumpet indicated and saw a very ordinary honeybee, with three golden bands running across her abdomen. She was just coming out of the trumpet and was shaking the wet from her wings.

"Probably got caught in there when the rain came up and so thought she would wait inside until it was over," said Ben. "A very wise decision. When it lets up a httle, I presume she will go home."

"Where is her home?" I asked, for I had already become interested in this three-bended rogue who made so free with the flowers.

"Perhaps it is a little white house, that stands in a row of little white houses, on bee street," replied my friend, "or maybe it is a bee tree two or three miles from here. But, in either case, she will not waste any time in getting home once she has started.

"When she fairly gets her bearings she will fly home as straight as an old crow will make for the rookery, and that has come to be a proverb."

''How can she tell which way to go if she cannot see her home?" I asked. "She has no road to travel."

"No, she does not do it that way," replied Ben. "Many of the animals and birds, and even the small insects that some people despise, have a sense of direction, a kind of compass in their heads that will always tell them which is the way home. No matter how dark it is or how rough the way, this instinct never fails.

"If a man is lost in the woods or on the prairies, his horse knows the way home a great deal better than he does, and if he is a wise man he will give his faithful steed the rein and let him take his master home.

"A dog never gets lost in the woods, and a cat can always find her way back to the old home when she has been moved.

We humans don't know it all, Harry, and in some ways we are inferior in wisdom to God's lesser creatures."

''What has the bee been doing in the morning-glory blossom?" I asked.

"She's been after honey," replied the old man. "The flowers all know her and love her too, I reckon, although she takes their very heart's secret from them.

"This is the way she does it. She crawls away down into the trumpet until she gets where the honey is, then she licks it out with her httle tongue, and puts it away in her honey stomach. That is a small stomach just in front of her real stomach. The sweet will stay in there until it is partly digested, and then it will be ready to put in the comb, that perhaps she made yesterday to hold the honey. So all the honey that we get is partly digested, and that is why sick people can eat it."

''How many are there in the little white house?" I asked.

''That depends," replied Ben. "Perhaps there are fifty or seventy-five thousand, if it is a very large swarm, or maybe there are only ten or fifteen thousand. But there are as many bees in a hive as there are people in a good-sized city, so you see it is quite a family."

"What do they aU do?" I asked.

"Different things," replied Ben. "The queen lays eggs and her duty is to keep laying eggs so that the hive shall keep up its numbers. You see, Harry, an ordinary bee lives only sixty or ninety days, so the queen must be diligent to keep their numbers good. In the autumn there are no bees left in the hive that were there in the spring, except the queen. They are all dead and new ones have taken their places.

"So the queen lays eggs. The workers who are her daughters gather honey, and make comb in which to store it.

''The drones are the queen's sons, and they do nothing but live on the honey that the daughters gather. After the queen has made love to one of them and they have been married, the drones are all killed, then the hive contains only the queen and her daughters. And it is a busy place."

''But what becomes of the queen's husband?" I asked.

"He dies the same morning that he is married," replied Ben. "His wedding day is also his funeral day. His honeymoon is short and sweet.

"But all the honey-bees do not live in the little white house. Many of them live in bee-trees in the deep woods, where they store up hundreds of pounds of honey. It is great fun to hunt for a bee-tree."

"Let's go some day, Ben," I cried, all excitement.

''All right, boy, I intended to take you some time ; but I guess we will not go to-day.

''Now that was pretty good for one morning-glory trumpet, Harry. Let's see what else there is here on the old back porch."

"This rotten plank is full of ants," I said, rather indifferently.

"Good, boy, good," cried Ben slapping me on the shoulder. "Now you are getting your woodsman's specks rubbed up a bit. Perhaps I shall make a woodsman of you after all.

"Well, ants are just about as wonderful as bees, only I don't love 'em as I do the bees, because they are not as useful, but they are mighty smart just the same.

"Did you ever imagine when you see a large ant-hill in the pasture that in that mound is a great republic like the United States?"

"No," I gasped in astonishment, ''tell me about it."

''Well, long before God made man, lie made bees and ants. Long before He set Adam and Eve in the garden and told them to be good, ants and bees were running kingdoms and republics.

"The ants not only have a government with a president, but they also have a standing army, like the Emperor of Germany, and they fight battles with other ajit-hills — have spies and scouts and real battles. They build roads and bridges, and move heavy obstacles that are in their way. They do things that, considering their size, would make the building of Brooklyn bridge by men seem like child's play.

"They are mighty funny little creatures. They can bite too. If you don't believe it just step on an ant-hill some time and let about a thousand of them run up your leg.

* 'Don't see anything else about the old porch, do you, Harry?" continued Ben.

I peeked into all the cracks and crannies, but could see nothing.

"I can see a mighty interesting old chap in the dirt just underneath the piazza," said Ben pointing almost under my bare feet. "If he had been a bear he might have bitten you."

I strained my eyes almost to the bursting point but could see nothing.

"It is just one of nature's little tricks, boy," said Ben. "He is what is called protectively colored. That is, his clothes just match his surroundings."

He was lying partly buried in the dirt, and even when Ben pointed him out to me, I could not see him until we poked him with a stick, and made him disclose himself.

"He is a great hider, is Bufo, the hoptoad," continued Ben, "and a most useful little creature. I do not know whether he really has a precious jewel in his head or not, but he is a precious jewel himself to the farmer, for he catches many injurious worms and bugs and helps to save the farmer's crops from destruction. We could not get along without him, for all he is an ugly looking fellow.

"His tongue is fastened at the other end from what yours is, Harry, so all he has to do when he sees a fly is to flick it out, and as his tongue is sticky, like fly paper, Mr. Fly is caught before he knows it.

''Bufo is quite a musician too. In the spring when the bullfrogs and the hylas are singing, you will hear him down by the pool. He puff*s out his throat until you would think it must burst, and then sends forth a shrill tremulous note, that can be heard for a long distance.

''A family of toads under the front door-step is as good as a circus any evening."

''Where in the world did you learn all these things, Ben?" I asked in astonishment, for it seemed to me that Ben could make a story of almost anything that crawled, crept, ran, or flew.

"Well, Harry," he replied, ''most of it I picked up. I have always kept my eyes open, which is a very necessary thing to do if one wants to see all that is going on in God's busy world. I see things and then I think about them, that is necessary too. If a man or a boy will do this he can have a first-rate time even in his own back door-yard."

Chapter II

It was fence-mending time in the country, and Ben and I were on our way to the pasture land to look after a half-mile of brush fence that ran through the deep pine and hemlock woods.

It was always a red letter day for me when old Ben came to the farm to work for my father.

Fence mending time in New England is about the first of May, or perhaps a little earlier, if the farmer is forehanded; so, you see it was just the time of year to see things in the deep woods, if one had the eyes to see them.

All the world seemed joyous this glorious May morning, and it made me glad just to hear the pleasant sounds about me.

The young stock were lowing, and the httle lambs were frisking and bleating. The pigeons were cooing, and the rooster was crowing as though he would split his throat, but his real object was to crow so loud that his rival could hear him a quarter of a mile away.

The birds were all busy flying to and fro with the most important air, as it was nest building time.

Really there was some excuse for their seeming importance. Most of the human family build a new house once in a lifetime, but many of the birds build a new one each spring.

Just as old Ben and I got over the stone wall in the pasture, we heard a cock partridge drumming, which is always an interesting sound in the spring, for then it means something.

"I know that old fellow," said Ben. *'His drumming log isn't very far from the fence; perhaps we will get a glimpse of him. He is a very old cock and I have seen him drumming several times. I know he is old because the feathers on his legs grow down very low. In fact, he almost looks as though he had on pantalets and you never see any but an old bird with feathers like that."

When we got within about ten rods of the drumming log we crept forward carefully, Ben leading the way and only going forward while the cock was drumming and keeping perfectly still when he stopped.

This is the only way in which one can get very close to a drumming cock, as they seem to stop and listen between acts, to see that all is well.

Finally, we got up very close to the log, within fifty feet perhaps, when Ben suddenly motioned to me to come forward. We always spoke in signs in the woods, just as the Indians do; this does not disturb the creature watched.

6o The Boy Woodcrafter

I crept forward as lightly as a cat and peered down between two tree trunks in the direction that Ben indicated with his finger.

The log was in a rather open spot and to my great surprise I saw two cock partridges standing upon it, one at either end, with their heads down and facing each other in the most belligerent attitude.

Their feathers were all bristled up and they looked about twice their ordinary size.

Presently the old cock, with the feathers low down on his legs, sprang at his antagonist and buffeted him off the log. The quarrel was evidently over the log; or, rather, the female partridge whose admiration and love was won by the cock who drummed here, so there was really a good deal at stake.

The younger cock did not take the buffet that sent him to the ground kindly, for he at once sprang back and dealt the

A Wary Mother 6i

old cock such a blow with beak and wings, that the real owner of the log was dislodged from his perch.

This was the signal for a battle royal. Such a battle as makes the fighting of the ordinary barnyard fowl seem tame enough. The partridge is much quicker and stronger for its size than any domestic fowl. Where the slower domestic fowl would strike once these lightning-like birds struck twice and the buffet of their wings sounded like the Whipping of a carpet.

Up and down they went, sometimes fighting on the log and sometimes on the ground. Sometimes meeting on the ground and sometimes in mid-air, as towards the latter part of the battle each tried to pull feathers from his rival's breast.

Flash, flash, slap, slap, went their wings.

All through the fight the older cock seemed to have the better of it. Once he bowled his rival over and we thought he was vanquished, but the youngster was game and he soon went back to the fight.

The female partridge, sitting somewhere near the log, was evidently to his liking. Perhaps the old cock had gotten his sweetheart away from him, certainly he battled bravely.

At last his powerful rival dealt him a terrible blow that left him motionless under the bushes and the old cock ran to him and began pecking at his head.

^'Here, stop, you'll kill him,'' shouted Ben, starting to the assistance of the vanquished cock.

At the sound of his voice the victorious cock rose in air with a roar of wings and went sailing down the aisles of the May woods with the speed of an express train.

We went to where the apparently lifeless partridge lay, and Ben picked him up. He did not even flutter and to my untutored mind he was stone dead,

"Guess he won't fight any more, Ben," I said, feeHng bad for the poor bird.

"His heart still flutters," replied Ben. "We'll take him down to the brook and sprinkle a little water on him, and I guess he will be as good as new, but it will rather astonish him when he comes to, to see what company he is keeping."

So we took the apparently lifeless bird to the spring and Ben sprinkled his head with water and then laid him on the grass to see what would happen.

After a few minutes he fluttered feebly and then stood up. His eyes looked dazed and he did not seem really to know just where he was; then a furtive look came into them and he squatted low on the ground and watched us intently.

Suddenly there was a roar of wings just over my head that made me duck and clutch the top of my head with both hands. I looked on the ground and my cock partridge was gone.

"Where is he, Ben?" I asked.

''There," replied Ben with a grin, ''and pretty lively for a dead bird, too."

I looked where Ben indicated, and saw the cock sailing away, already nearly out of sight in the distant cover.

"I guess he has had all he will want of old feather-legs," said Ben, with a chuckle. "He ought to have known better. Did you notice his markings, Harry? He was a beautiful bird, with copper-colored markings and a reddish ruff. We don't see partridges marked like him often in these parts."

"There'll be a nest somewhere near that drumming log. We'll keep our eyes open and see if we can find it. The partridge's drumming is a part of his courtship and early married life. One can usually find the nest within five or ten rods of the log. The partridge drums for his mate, just as the woodpecker does, hut the female partridge does not answer as does the female woodpecker. Mrs. Partridge is more modest than that. Now I guess we had better attend to our fence mending."

The following day we searched for the nest, but at first were unsuccessful in finding it.

"You see/' said Ben, when we had about given up the search, "the female partridge will lie very close when she is on the nest, and you have nearly to run over her before she flies; she hates to disclose the precious spot.

''Sometimes it is in a brush heap, and sometimes under the edge of an old log, but it is always hidden wonderfully well. Mrs. Partridge does not want the red squirrel to find it and eat her eggs. It would be still worse to have the weasel find the nest. Now the top of that old fallen spruce would be a likely place ; try it, Harry."

I went to the spruce top and peered in but could see nothing ; then I struck with my axe helve, and the female partridge ran quickly from the underbrush, and flew away into the deep woods.

"There, what did I tell you?" exclaimed Ben exultantly. "Now let's see what we can find."

We poked away the thick branches and found the nest, with eight eggs in it.

"She hasn't got done laying yet/' said Ben. "She will have anywhere from ten to fifteen eggs when she has finished."

"Ben," I said, all excitement, "I have got a plan; let's wait until she has set upon the eggs for a while and when they are almost ready to hatch let's put my bantam on the eggs and let her finish hatching them, and see if the partridge chicks won't claim her for their mother and we will have a brood of young partridges to raise."

"How shall we keep Mrs. Partridge from pounding the hfe out of Seebright when we are gone?" asked Ben. ''It won't do to move the eggs."

''We can stake down some wire netting over the nest and make it tight enough so not even a weasel could get in."

"Quite a plan, Harry, quite a plan,^' rephed Ben. "I believe I will try it. I'd be curious to see how it would work myself/'

About three weeks later one evening at dusk old Ben and I might have been seen hurrying to the woods. I had Seebright under my coat and she was clucking and scolding away vigorously. Ben was carrying a large roll of fine wire netting and some stakes that he had made for the purpose.

"It's a mean trick," he said as we climbed over the wall, "but I am mighty curious to see how it will come out."

Mrs. Partridge was very loath to leave her nest, for she knew as well as we did that it was nearly time for her eggs to hatch. So she quitted and fluttered about for a time, trying every stratagem known to mother partridges to get us to chase her away from the vicinity of her precious nest. Finally she flew away and we showed Seebright the nest with twelve warm eggs in it.

The little bantam seemed delighted with our discovery, and she settled down upon the eggs just as though it had been her own nest and not that of her wild kindred.

Ben and I then staked the netting down carefully about her, making a fine netting coup ; not even a weasel could have gotten her when we had finished.

We then put in some corn and a dish of water and left her to finish hatching the young partridges.

The following afternoon we went to the woods to see how Seebright was getting along. We had barely entered the forest and were still quite a distance from the nest when we heard the quick clucking and cries of ''quit, quit," that the mother partridge always uses when she is trying to hide her young.

''Quick, Harry, quick," cried Ben, and we hurried forward. We were just in time to see a bevy of tiny partridges scurrying in every direction, while the mother was fluttering about upon the ground in great agony. I sprang forward to catch her, but she slipped from my grasp. Then I remembered something that had happened once before when Ben and I discovered a brood of partridge chicks, and did not try further to catch her. Presently she flew away and I turned to see what Ben was doing.

He was sitting on a log laughing and I could see that he was immensely pleased about something.

I did not think that he was laughing at my trying to catch the lame mother partridge, for I had only been fooled for a minute.

"Well, well, Harry, that old partridge has completely whipped us at our own game. Never heard of anything quite so slick in my whole life."

"I know she has hidden all her chicks and gotten away herself," I answered, ''but what of that; let's go and see how Seebright and the eggs are coming on."