The Silent Readers Part 33

It is cold work racing through the chill air, which is frequently thick with an icy mist; but Mekolka is clad from head to foot in fur.

His _militza_ of reindeer-skin with fur inside often has a hood and mittens attached to it and covers him like a smock from head to knees.

On his feet he wears _pimmies_, which reach up to the _militza_, and are generally made of sealskin with the fur cut into strips to form an attractive pattern. Over the _militza_ he sometimes puts a _soveek_, the Samoyad overcoat. Here the fur is worn outside, and the garment is big and roomy.

After a long journey the reindeer must be unharnessed for feeding.

They find their own food, of course, and Mekolka seizes the chance to go to sleep. He always goes to sleep in the same queer way; he sits down on the ground, pulls his arms out of the sleeves, and then lies flat on his back. The empty sleeves stretch out stiffly by his side, and look, of course, as though the arms are in them, though the hands have found a warmer spot inside on his chest.

The air on the Tundra, and, indeed, in all the Arctic region has a curious way of deceiving the traveler. It makes things look like something else. Take a day when the suns.h.i.+ne lights up the scene and the grey, lichen-covered mounds take wonderful colors in the distance from the blue sky and the haze. Though lakes of water appear to grow and fill the far-off hollows, Mekolka knows they are not lakes, but little snowdrifts. It is the mirage that plays these little tricks. So when he sees mighty s.h.i.+ps sailing over the sea, he knows it is nothing more than blocks of ice, while what looks like a great headland on the coast is nothing but a little mound thirty or forty feet high. And if, when alone, he sees half a dozen other Samoyads come to the river-bank within a couple of hundred yards and then stop while one sits on a stone, he doesn't call out or walk toward them; he knows quite well that in a minute or two they will form themselves into a group of bernacle geese, or a family of snow buntings; in fact, he is quite prepared to hear one suddenly burst into song (for the snow bunting is the gayest warbler of the Arctic), and to find a cleft in the peat where there will be a nest, lined with dead gra.s.ses and the white feathers of the willow-grouse, and holding half a dozen eggs.

He knows every bird that flies overhead, and can name them, too, though his names are very different from ours. He knows that the snow bunting arrives about the middle of April, and he begins to watch for its appearance as soon as the days are getting long. He has no calendar of months and days to look at, but he makes notches on a stick--one for each day, with an extra cut at the seventh--and he is just as quick in glancing at his stick and telling you the date as an American boy would be with his printed calendar. He will watch for the purple sandpiper in May, and find its eggs in June, though they are very hard to find for anyone with eyes less trained than Mekolka's.

The nest is always built in some hollow among the Arctic willow or lichen, and the eggs are difficult enough to see, as is the bird itself when sitting on them--they all look so exactly like the ground.

And the bird will let you come ever so close to her--in fact, almost tread on her--before she will leave her cherished eggs.

Mekolka can tell you about the behavior of the little stint when he came upon her nest one day. It had four precious eggs in it. When the old bird found she was really discovered, she jigged about like an acrobat, squeaked like a mouse, and did everything she could to take off Mekolka's attention from the nest. As that did not work, the little bird twittered and pretended to be lame, running about as though asking to be caught; but all she wanted was that no one should notice that deep hole in the ground half full of dried birch-leaves where her four cherished eggs were laid. The little stint had been into a creek in Scotland early in June, and wanted to get back there with four chicks before the end of July. She did not want to lose those eggs and go back all that long journey without any little ones. Not that she is very kind to them after they begin to grow, for on the very earliest opportunity she kicks them out of the nest to teach them self-reliance!

--_From "Finn and Samoyad"._

Imagine that you have been for a long visit to Mekolka. Your teacher will call on some one to come to the front of the cla.s.s to tell about each of the following experiences:

1. Helping Mekolka make a horn knife-handle.

2. A ride with Mekolka.

3. Being fooled by a mirage.

4. Some birds I saw with Mekolka.

THE BEAR'S NIGHT

You should all begin reading at the same moment. When you have finished, close your book and raise your hand. Your teacher will divide the cla.s.s into three equal groups according to speed. She will ask you to write answers to the questions given at the end of the story and will appoint a committee of one pupil from each group to look the answers over and report which of the three groups has given the best answers.

Have you seen the brown bears at the Zoo? Do you remember how restlessly they walk up and down, or stand on their hind legs and wave their noses in the air? You will not wonder at it, when you read how independent a bear is at home, and how cozily he spends the long, dark winter.

It would seem that within or near the Arctic Circle Nature gives a big yawn at the end of her energetic summer, and settles down to her long winter sleep. Certainly some of her children prepare for sleep with plenty of care, especially Bruin, the big brown bear of Finland.

Even in the summer he goes sniffing round in the strong marshlands of the north or in the forests to the east. "That will make a good couch for me," he thinks, as he spies a cosy nook among some big boulders.

He makes a note of the place, and goes on to look at other possible sites. He decides nothing then, but waits till the snow comes. Then the house-hunting must be undertaken seriously, and he tramps through the soft white carpet, leaving a well-marked "spoor" to tell the tale of his journeys. He is very fat after his summer feast of berries and roots, and his heavy body ploughs a deep furrow along the snow.

When once he has fixed on his boulders or tree trunks, he becomes very suspicious, and spends several days walking round and round his lodgings, on the watch for an enemy. He wants to be quite sure that no one can see him go to rest, and by going all round in a ring he catches the wind whichever way it may be blowing. If he scents danger he is off, and so fleet of foot is he that no hunter can catch him. In short, Master Bruin is so much on the alert that it takes a very wary hunter to catch him before he goes to rest.

Bruin is a good weather-prophet, and can sniff the signs of a coming snow-storm better than most; so when at last he has chosen his couch he arranges to nestle down in it just as a heavy fall of snow is coming which will, he knows, cover up both his trail and himself, and so conceal all his traces from the curious. Sometimes he is a little out in his calculations, for his furrows are so deep that nothing short of a gale, with its heavy drifts of snow, will quite obliterate them.

The hunter Finn, however, has been watching, and has marked Bruin in his quest. He finds the "spoor" before it is lost, and travels along it till it enters some wood or hiding place. Then on his skis, or snowshoes, he starts across it and describes a big circle. If he cuts the spoor again farther on, he knows that Bruin has not yet halted, so another circle must be described. But if the ski-er comes back to the first line of spoor without having crossed it again, then "honey paws"

must be within his circuit.

The hunter keeps his secret to himself and tells no one, because he will get the money for the skin, and also a reward from the Government for killing the animal.

There is no hurry, for the bear, when once settled in his snug quarters, will doze away quite comfortably through the winter. His ears and nose, however, seem to keep awake, even though his eyes are shut, and a scent of danger will cause him to move quickly and silently away to a new couch.

As spring approaches, the Finn tells a few of his chosen friends about the matter, and together they go off to hunt "Flatnose", as they often call him, before he wakes up, thin and hungry, after his six months'

fast. Warily they search, till they see a ma.s.s of snow covering a heap of rocks or a pile of fallen pine-trees. Then they whisper:

"The bear is sleeping under that heap of snow." They fire a few guns, the dogs bark, the men shout; altogether the bear receives a very effective morning call. He is very easily awakened, but he is in no haste to show himself, and waits while he thinks over matters, and prepares for a strategic and rapid retreat, for he has met danger before, and found his fleetness his greatest defence. In the meantime the hunters have fired a few shots into his retreat in the hope of stinging him into action, but they probably hit only his protective stones. Then they gather twigs and branches together and light a bonfire at his very door, or what they guess to be his door, trusting that the wind will carry the smoke to his nostrils. Some of their efforts succeed in their object; there is an upheaving of the snow; Flatnose pushes out his head. Then follow the shoulders and front paws, and soon the huge brown body rises as he sits upright on his haunches. He gives a terrific growl, which shows he is not to be trifled with; and, indeed, this is his most dangerous time, for he is very hungry after his long foodless sleep, and ready to attack anything--cow, reindeer, or man.

The dogs are much too frightened to go near him. They bark at a distance. One man fires a shot and hits. The bear shows his teeth and hisses as he makes a rush forwards. Another shot makes him look round, and the dogs grow bolder. A shot in the muzzle makes him quite furious, and he springs at one of the dogs. He catches one dog by the back and flings it howling over the snow. Then he springs at the other, and tears his ear or paw. Wild with fury, he rushes toward his attackers, but between them he is soon laid low, and carried off in a sleigh. His skin alone will be worth many dollars, and the flesh more, so that with the Government grant, the men will have a comfortable little sum each as a result of their hunting.

It is not without danger, this bear-hunt, neither is it certain of success; for if the bear once dodges the early shots, he will manage to get through the trees and disappear in a way that is almost uncanny. So when a man has once been on a bear-hunt and brought his prey safely home, he becomes a hero in his village.

--_From "Finn and Samoyad"._

Draw a diagram, showing:

1. A hollow tree.

2. A pile of rocks.

3. A fallen pine-tree.

4. The track made by the bear in seeking a winter bed.

5. The bear's stopping place.

6. The track made by the hunter in a circle.

You will have to indicate the two tracks by two different kinds of lines.

What is a _spoor_?

IS IT THE SAME BEAR?

In Longfellow's "Hiawatha," the poet describes a bear asleep, as follows:

"He had stolen the Belt of Wampum, From the Great Bear of the mountains, From the terror of the nations, As he lay asleep and c.u.mbrous On the summit of the mountains, Like a rock with mosses on it, Spotted brown and gray with mosses."

THE CHINESE NEW YEAR'S DAY