Children of the Wild Part 14

CHAPTER X

WHAT HE SAW WHEN HE KEPT STILL

The Child was beginning to feel that if he could not move very soon he'd burst.

Of course, under Uncle Andy's precise instructions he had settled himself in the most comfortable position possible before starting upon the tremendous undertaking of keeping perfectly still for a long time.

To hold oneself perfectly still and to keep the position as tirelessly as the most patient of the wild creatures themselves--this, he had been taught by Uncle Andy, was one of the first essentials to the acquirement of true woodcraft, as only such stillness and such patience could admit one to anything like a real view of the secrets of the wild. Even the least shy of the wilderness folk are averse to going about their private and personal affairs under the eyes of strangers, and what the Child aspired to was the knowledge of how to catch them off their guard. He would learn to see for himself how the rabbits and the partridges, the woodchucks and the weasels, the red deer, the porcupines, and all the other furtive folk who had their habitations around the tranquil sh.o.r.es of Silverwater, were really accustomed to behave themselves when they felt quite sure no one was looking.

Before consenting to the Child's initiation, Uncle Andy had impressed upon him with the greatest care the enormity of breaking the spell of stillness by even the slightest and most innocent-seeming movement.

"You see," had said Uncle Andy, "it's this way! When we get to the place where we are going to hide and watch, you may think that we're quite alone. But not so. From almost every bush, from surely every thicket, there'll be at least one pair of bright eyes staring at us--maybe several pairs. They'll be wondering what we've come for; they'll be disliking us for being so clumsy and making such a racket, and they'll be keeping just as still as so many stones in the hope that we won't see them--except, of course, certain of the birds, which fly in the open and are used to being seen, and don't care a hang for us because they think us such poor creatures in not being able to fly--"

At this point the Child had interrupted:

"Wouldn't they be surprised," he murmured, "if we did?"

"I expect they've got some surprises coming to them that way one of these days!" agreed Uncle Andy. "But, as I was saying, we'll be well watched ourselves for a while. But it's a curious thing about the wild creatures, or at least about a great many of them, that for all their keenness their eyes don't seem to _distinguish_ things as sharply as we do. The very slightest movement they detect, sometimes at an astonis.h.i.+ng distance. But when a person is perfectly motionless for a long time, they seem to confuse him with the stumps and stones and bushes in a most amazing fas.h.i.+on. Perhaps it is that the eyes of some of them have not as high a power of differentiation as ours. Perhaps it is that when a fellow is a long time still they think he's dead.

We'll have to let the scientists work that out for us. But if you go on the way you're beginning (and I'm bound to say you're doing very well indeed, considering that you're not _very_ big), you'll often have occasion to observe that some of the wild creatures, otherwise no fools, are more afraid of a bit of colored rag fluttering in the wind than of an able-bodied man who sits staring right at them, if only he doesn't stir a finger. But only let him wiggle that finger, his very littlest one, and off they'll be."

The Child put his hand behind his back and wiggled his little finger gently, smiling to think what sharp eyes it would take to see _that_ motion. But his Uncle, as if divining his thoughts, went on to say:

"It's not as if those sly, shy watchers were all in front of you, you know. The suspicious eyes will be all around you. Perhaps it may be a tiny wood-mouse peering from under a root two or three steps behind you. You have been perfectly still, say, for ten minutes, and the mouse is just beginning to think that you may be something quite harmless. She rubs her whiskers, and is just about to come out when, as likely as not, you move your fingers a little, behind your back"--here the Child blushed guiltily, and thrust both his grimy little fists well to the front--"feeling quite safe because you don't see the movement yourself.

"Well, the mouse sees it. She realizes at once that you aren't dead, after all--in fact, that you're a dangerous deceiver. She wisks indignantly back into her hole. Somebody else sees her alarm, and follows her example, and in two seconds it's gone all about the place that you're not a stump or a stone or a harmless dead thing waiting to be nibbled at, but a terrible enemy lying in wait for them all. So you see how important it is to keep still, with the real stillness of dead things."

The Child winked his eyes rapidly. "But I can't keep from _winking_, Uncle Andy," he protested. "I'll promise not to wiggle my fingers or wrinkle my nose. But if I don't wink my eyes sometimes they'll begin to smart and get full of tears, and then I won't be able to see anything--and then all the keeping still will be just wasted."

"Of course, you won't be able to keep from winking," agreed Uncle Andy.

"And, of course, you won't be able to keep from _breathing_. But you mustn't make a noise about either process."

"How can I make a noise winking?" demanded the Child in a voice of eager surprise. If such a thing were possible he wanted to learn how at once.

"Oh, nonsense!" returned Uncle Andy. "Now, listen to me! We're nearly there, and I don't want to have to do any more talking, because the quieter we are now the sooner the wild folk will get over their first suspiciousness. Now, after we once get fixed, you won't move a muscle, not even if two or three mosquitoes alight on you at once and begin to help themselves?"

"No!" agreed the Child confidently. He was accustomed to letting mosquitoes bite him, just for the fun of seeing their gray, scrawny bodies swell up and redden till they looked like rubies.

"Well, we'll hope there won't be any mosquitoes!" said Uncle Andy rea.s.suringly. "And if a yellow-jacket lights on your sock and starts to crawl up under the leg of your knickers, you won't stir?"

"N-no!" agreed the Child, with somewhat less confidence. He had had such an experience before, and remembered it with a pang. Then he remembered that he had enough string in his pockets to tie up both legs so securely that not the most enterprising of wasps could get under.

His confidence returned. "No, Uncle Andy!" he repeated, with earnest resolution.

"Umph! We'll see," grunted Uncle Andy doubtfully, not guessing what the Child had in mind. But when he saw him, with serious face, fish two bits of string from the miscellaneous museum of his pocket and proceed to frustrate the problematical yellow-jacket he grinned appreciatively.

The place for the watching had been well chosen by Uncle Andy--a big log to lean their backs against, a cus.h.i.+on of deep, dry moss to sit upon, and a tiny, leafy sapling of silver poplar twinkling its light-hung leaves just before their faces, to screen them a little without interfering with their view. Their legs, to be sure, stuck out beyond the screen of the poplar sapling, in plain sight of every forest wayfarer. But legs were of little consequence so long as they were not allowed to kick.

For just about a minute the Child found it easy to keep still. In the second minute his nose itched, and he began to wonder how long they had been there. In the third minute he realized that there was a hard little stick in the moss that he was sitting on. In the fourth minute it became a big stick, and terribly sharp, so that he began to wonder if it would pierce right through him and make him a cripple for life.

He feared that perhaps Uncle Andy had never thought of a danger like this, and he felt that he ought to call attention to it. But before he had quite made up his mind to such a desperate measure the fifth minute came--and with it the yellow-and-black wasp, which made the Child forget all about the stick in the moss. The wasp alighted on the red, mosquito-bitten, naked skin above the top of the Child's sock, and then, sure enough, started to go exploring up under the leg of his knickers. The Child felt nervous for a moment--and then triumphant.

He just saved himself from laughing out loud at the thought of how he had fooled the inquisitive insect.

And so pa.s.sed the fifth and sixth minutes. The seventh and eighth were absorbed in bitter doubts of Uncle Andy. The Child felt quite sure that he had been quite still for at least an hour. If nothing interesting had happened in all that time, then nothing interesting was going to happen, nothing interesting could happen. An awful distrust a.s.sailed him. Was it possible that Uncle Andy had merely adopted this base means of teaching him to keep still? Was it possible that even now Uncle Andy (whose face was turned the other way) was either laughing deeply in his sleeve or sleeping the undeservedly peaceful sleep of the successful deceiver?

To do the Child justice, he felt ashamed of such doubts as soon as he had fairly confronted himself with them. Then, in the ninth minute, both legs began to fill up with pins and needles. This occupied his attention. It was an axiom with him that under such painful conditions one should at once get up and move around. Placed thus between two directly conflicting duties, his conscience was torn. Then he remembered his promise. His grit was good, and he determined to keep his promise at all costs, no matter at what fatal consequence to his legs. And he derived considerable comfort from the thought that, if his leg should never be any use any more, his Uncle Andy would at least be stricken with remorse.

Then, as the tenth minute dragged its enormous, trailing length along, came that terrible feeling already alluded to--that he must either move or burst. With poignant self-pity he argued the two desperate alternatives within his soul. But, fortunately for him, before he felt himself obliged to come to any final decision, something happened, and his pain and doubts were forgotten.

Two big yellow-gray snowshoe rabbits came hopping lazily past, one just ahead of the other. One jumped clean over Uncle Andy's out-stretched feet, as if they were of no account or interest whatever to a rabbit.

The other stopped and thumped vigorously on the ground with his strong hind foot. At this signal the first one also stopped. They both sat up on their haunches, ears thrust forward in intense interrogation, and gazed at the two moveless figures behind the poplar sapling.

The one immediately in front of him absorbed all the Child's attention.

Its great, bulging eyes surveyed him from head to foot, at first with some alarm, then with half-contemptuous curiosity. Its immensely long ears see-sawed meditatively, and its queer three-cornered mouth twinkled incessantly as if it were talking to itself. At last, apparently having decided that the Child was nothing worth taking further notice of, it dropped on all fours, nibbled at a leaf, discarded it, and hopped off to find more tasty provender. Its companion, having "sized up" Uncle Andy in the same way, presently followed. But being of the more suspicious disposition, it stopped from time to time to glance back and a.s.sure itself that the strange, motionless things behind the poplar sapling were not attempting to follow it.

The Child was immensely interested. He thought of a lot of questions to ask as soon as he should be allowed to speak, and he resolved to remember every one of them. But just as he was getting them arranged a small, low, long-bodied, snaky-slim, yellowish beast came gliding by and drove them all clean out of his head. It was a weasel. It almost b.u.mped into the Child's feet before it noticed them. Then it jumped back, showing its keen teeth in a soundless snarl of its narrow, pointed muzzle, and surveyed the Child with the cruellest little eyes that he had ever even imagined. The savage eyes stared him full in the face, a red light like a deep-buried spark coming into them, till he thought the creature was going to spring at his throat. Then gradually the spark died out, as the little furry rea.s.sured itself. The triangular face turned aside. The working, restless nose sniffed sharply, catching the fresh scent of the two rabbits, and in the next instant the creature was off, in long, noiseless bounds, upon the hot trail. The Child knew enough of woodcraft to realize at once the meaning of its sudden departure, and he murmured sympathetically in his heart, "Oh, I do hope he won't catch them!"

All thoughts of the weasel and the rabbits, however, were speedily driven from his mind, for at this moment he noticed a fat, yellowish grub, with a chestnut-colored head, crawling up his sleeve. He hated grubs, and wondered anxiously if it had any unpleasant design of crawling down his neck. He squirmed inwardly at the idea. But just as he was coming to the conclusion that _that_ was something he'd _never_ be able to stand, a most unexpected ally came to his rescue. With a blow that _almost_ made him jump out of his jacket, something lit on the fat grub. It was a big black hornet, with white bands across its s.h.i.+ning body. She gave the grub a tiny p.r.i.c.k with the tip of her envenomed sting, which caused it to roll up into a tight ball and lie still. Then straddling it, and holding it in place with her front pair of legs, she cut into it with her powerful mandibles and began to suck its juices. The Child's nose wrinkled in spite of himself at sight of this unalluring banquet, but he stared with all eyes. There was something terrifying to him in the swiftness and efficiency of the great hornet. Presently the grub, not having received quite a big enough dose of its captor's anaesthetic, came to under the devouring jaws and began to lash out convulsively. Another touch of the medicine in the hornet's tail, however, promptly put a stop to that, and once more it tightened up into an unresisting ball. Then straddling it again firmly, and handling it cleverly with its front legs as a racc.o.o.n might handle a big apple, she bit into it here and there, sucking eagerly with a quick, pumping motion of her body. The fat ball got smaller and smaller, till soon it was very little bigger than an ordinary sweet pea. The hornet turned it over and over impatiently, to see if anything more was to be got out of it; then she spurned it aside, and bounced into the air with a deep hum. She had certainly been very amusing, but the Child drew a breath of relief when she was gone. He had caught the copper-red flicker of her sting, as it barely touched the victim, and it seemed to him like a jet of live flame.

When the hornet was gone the Child began once more to remember that little stick in the soft moss beneath him. How had he ever forgotten it? He decided that he must have been sitting on it for hours and hours. But just as it was beginning fairly to burn its way into his flesh, a queer little rus.h.i.+ng sound close at his side brought his heart into his throat. It was such a vicious, menacing little sound.

Glancing down, he saw that a tiny wood-mouse had darted upon a big brown-winged b.u.t.terfly and captured it. The big wings flapped pathetically for a few seconds; but the mouse bit them off, to save herself the bother of lagging useless material home to her burrow. She was so near that the Child could have touched her by reaching out his hand. But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a rotten stump. Less, in fact, for she might have tried to gnaw into him if he had been a rotten stump, in the hope of finding some wood-grubs.

The mouse dragged away the velvety body of the b.u.t.terfly to her hole under the roots. She was no more than just in time, for no sooner was she out of sight than along came a fierce-eyed little shrew-mouse, the most audacious and pugnacious of the mouse tribe, who would undoubtedly have robbed her of her prey, and perhaps made a meal of her at the same time. He nosed at the wings of the b.u.t.terfly, nibbled at them, decided they were no good, and then came ambling over to the Child's feet.

Shoe-leather! That was something quite new to him. He nibbled at it, didn't seem to think much of it, crept along up to the top of the shoe, sniffed at the sock, and came at last plump upon the Child's bare leg.

"Was he going to try a nibble at that, too?" wondered the Child anxiously, his blue eyes getting very big and round. But no. This live, human flesh--_unmistakably_ alive--and the startling Man smell of it, were too much for the nerves of his shrews.h.i.+p. With a squeak of indignation and alarm he sprang backward and scurried off among the weed-stalks.

"_There_, now!" thought the Child, in intense vexation. "He's gone and given the alarm!" But, as good luck would have it, he had done nothing of the kind. For a red fox, trotting past just then at a distance of not more than ten or a dozen feet, served to all observers as a more than ample explanation of the shrew's abrupt departure. The fox turned his head at the sound of the scurry and squeak, and very naturally attributed it to his own appearance on the scene. But at the same time he caught sight of those two motionless human shapes sitting rigid behind the poplar sapling. They were so near that his nerves received a shock. He jumped about ten feet; and then, recovering himself with immense self-possession, he sat up on his haunches to investigate. Of course, he was quite familiar with human beings and their ways, and he knew that they never kept still in that unnatural fas.h.i.+on unless they were either asleep or dead. After a searching scrutiny--head sagely to one side and mouth engagingly half open--he decided that they might be either dead or asleep, whichever they chose, for all he cared. He rose to his feet and trotted off with great deliberation, leaving on the still air a faint, half-musky odor which the Child's nostrils were keen enough to detect. As he went a bluejay which had been sitting on the top of a near-by tree caught sight of him, darted down, and flew along after him, uttering harsh screeches of warning to the rest of the small folk of the wilderness. It is not pleasant even in the wilderness to have "Stop thief! Stop thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!" screeched after you by a bluejay. And the fox glanced up at the noisy bird as if he would have been ready to give two fat geese and a whole litter of rabbits for the pleasure of crunching her impudent neck.

All this while there had been other birds in view besides the bluejay--chick-a-dees and nut-hatches hunting their tiny prey among the dark branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodp.e.c.k.e.r running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and _rat-tat-tat-tatting_ in a most businesslike and determined manner.

But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the four-footed kindreds. Just now, however, a bird came on the scene which interested him extremely. It was a birch-partridge (or ruffled grouse) hen, accompanied by a big brood of her tiny, nimble chicks.

They looked no bigger than chestnuts as they swarmed about her, crowding to s.n.a.t.c.h the dainties which she kept turning up for them.

The Child watched them with fascinated eyes, not understanding how things so tiny and so frail as these chicks could be so amazingly quick and strong in their movements. Suddenly, at a little distance through the bushes, he caught sight of the red fox coming back, with an air of having forgotten something. The Child longed to warn the little partridge mother, but, realizing that he must not, he waited with thumping heart for a tragedy to be enacted before him.

He had no need to worry, however. The little mother saw the fox before he caught sight of her. The Child saw her stiffen herself suddenly, with a low _chit_ of warning which sounded as if it might have come from anywhere. On the instant every chick had vanished. The Child realized that it was impossible for even such active creatures as they were to have run away so quickly as all that. So he knew that they had just made themselves invisible by squatting absolutely motionless among the twigs and moss which they so exactly resembled in coloring.

The fox, meanwhile, had been gazing around in every direction but the right one, to try and see where that partridge cry had come from. He liked partridge, and it was some time since he had had any. All at once he was surprised and pleased to see a hen partridge, apparently badly wounded, drop fluttering on the moss almost under his nose. He sprang forward to seize her, but she managed to flutter feebly out of his reach. It was obviously her last effort, and he was not in the least discouraged. She proved, however, to have many such last efforts, and the last the Child saw of the fox he was still hopefully jumping at her, as he disappeared from view among the underbrush.

About three minutes later there was a hard whirr of wings, and the triumphant little mother reappeared. She alighted on the very spot whence she had first caught sight of the fox, stood for a moment stiffly erect, while she stared about her with keen, bright eyes, and then she gave a soft little call. Instantly the chicks were all about her, apparently springing up out of the ground as at the utterance of a spell. And proudly she led them away to another feeding ground.

What more the Child might have seen had time been allowed him will never be known, for now the session was interrupted. He was hoping for a porcupine to come by, or a deer, or a moose. He was half-hoping, half-fearing that it might be a bear, or a big Canadian lynx with dreadful eyes and tufted ears. But before any of these more formidable wonders arrived he heard a sound of rus.h.i.+ng--of eager, desperate flight. Then a rabbit came into view--he felt sure it was one of the two who appeared at the beginning of his watch. The poor beast was plainly in an ecstasy of terror, running violently, but as it were aimlessly, and every now and then stopping short, all of a-tremble, as if despair were robbing it of its powers. It ran straight past the poplar sapling, swerved off to the right, and disappeared; but the Child could hear the sound of its going and perceived that it was making a circle. A couple of seconds later came the weasel, running with its nose in the air, as if catching the scent from the air rather than from the fugitive's tracks.

The weasel did not seem to be in any hurry at all. It was the picture of cool, deadly, implacable determination. And the Child hated it savagely. Just opposite the poplar sapling it paused, seeming to listen. Then it bounded into the bushes on a short circle, saving itself unnecessary effort, as if it had accurately estimated the tactics of its panic-stricken quarry. A few moments later the rabbit reappeared, running frantically. Just as it came once more before the poplar sapling--not more than a couple of yards from the Child's feet, out from under a neighboring bush sprang the weasel, confronting it fairly. With a scream the rabbit stopped short and crouched in its tracks, quivering, to receive its doom.

The weasel leaped straight at its victim's throat. But it never arrived. For at that moment the Child gave vent to a shrill yell of indignation and jumped at the slayer with hands, eyes and mouth wide open. He made such a picture that Uncle Andy exploded. The astonished weasel vanished. The rabbit, shocked back into its senses, vanished also, but in another direction. And the Child, pulling himself together, turned to his uncle with a very red face.

"I'm sorry!" he said sheepishly. "I'm so sorry, Uncle Andy. But I just _couldn't_ help it. I didn't think."

"Oh, well!" said Uncle Andy, getting up and stretching, and rubbing his stiffened legs tenderly. "I can't say that I blame you I came mighty near doing the same thing myself when that fool of a rabbit squealed."

CHAPTER XI