The Ranche on the Oxhide Part 14

CHAPTER XV

HOW THE ROBIN CAME TO KANSAS--MOCKING-BIRDS--EATEN BY SNAKES--JOE LOSES HIS TAME ELK--THE LAST OF THE WOLVES--FINDING THE QUAIL'S NEST--JOE BUILDS A CAGE FOR THEM--RAISING CHICKENS

THE winter was short, and soon came April, with its sunny skies. The robins, wrens, blue jays, and the mocking-birds made the woods melodious with their sweet notes. The violets by the brook side under the shade of the great trees were the first harbingers of the beautiful season, and the dining-table was made odorous with their blue blossoms at every meal. Both Kate and Gertrude loved flowers, and never failed to gather three times a day, a large bowl full of these poems of springtime.

Mr. Tucker surprised them one evening by paying them a visit after a solitary hunting expedition up the creek. The boys soon persuaded him to stay the night, and tell them a story until bedtime.

"What shall it be, hunting or fighting?" said Mr. Tucker, turning to Joe.

Before her brother could speak, Gertrude answered for him. "Tell us that legend about the robin, that you have promised us so often."

"Yes, the robin," said Joe. So they all settled into comfortable positions, and Mr. Tucker told them the following story:--

"The Delaware Indians claim that the robin followed them to Kansas. He has been in the eastern part of the state only since the establishment of their reservation within its limits, according to the legend of the tribe.

"The Delawares, you know, were those Indians with whom William Penn made a treaty, the provisions of which were religiously kept for many years.

"Among the Delawares the robin is sacred. From the gray-headed chiefs to the papoose just freed from the thongs of his hard cradle, they all listen with superst.i.tious love and reverence to his warbling. The bird was once the favorite son of a great sachem of that powerful tribe, changed by the Manitou, but still loving man, and evincing it always by building his nest and singing near his abode.

"Once there was, ages ago, a great chief among the Delawares, who then lived in the far East. He was distinguished for his wisdom in the council, and his success in war. He had many wives, but they brought him daughters only, and he, as well as his nation, was dissatisfied, for he desired a son who should succeed to the honorable position of his father.

"One day when the chief was walking through the village, a dove lit on his shoulder, and then flew and nestled in the bosom of a young Indian maiden to whom it belonged. She was the daughter of the medicine-man of the tribe, and her father declared that the dove was a messenger from the Great Spirit, who had thus shown by that sign that the two should be one.

"The news imparted by the medicine-man was agreeable to the chief, for the girl was beautiful and virtuous. He married her, and she became the favorite wife, who, in due time, greatly to his and the joy of his people, presented him with a son. The boy was called Is-a-dill-a, and he grew up different from all the youth of his age; for he was fond of peace, would not mingle with the crowd who tortured prisoners doomed to death, and his father thought him a coward. One day the father upbraided his son for his peaceful inclinations, and Is-a-dill-a answered:--

"'Great chief of the mighty Delawares, my liver is not white, nor would my blood chill like snow before the enemy, but Is-a-dill-a prefers to gather the wild blossoms which grow upon the prairie, and chase the deer among the cliffs, to lying in ambush for the red man, and sending an arrow into his heart; the Great Spirit, who is father of all the red men, has told me in my dreams to love them all.'

"His father was about to respond angrily to the utterance of a homily so unbecoming a great warrior's son, and the future chief of a powerful tribe, when he saw a huge black bear approaching him with angry demonstrations. The chief was armed, as usual, with bow and arrows, and a stone axe. Is-a-dill-a, without any weapons, was ordered by his father to climb a tree, that he might escape the danger of the impending conflict. The chief, then resting upon one knee, and fixing a selected arrow to his bow, aimed at the eye of the bear, when only a few feet distant. The oscillating motion of the beast's head prevented it from taking fatal effect, and the arrow struck the skull, which was too thick and hard to be penetrated. The now infuriated animal, with a savage growl, sprang upon the chief who dealt it a fearful blow with his stone axe, but was seized in the ponderous paws of the bear, and a mortal struggle ensued. In a moment the chief was bleeding from a hundred wounds, and the animal's mouth was already at his throat, when Is-a-dill-a picked up his father's axe, dealt the beast a powerful blow over the eye, which completely destroyed it, and continued the work until the exhausted animal fell to the earth. But in his death agonies the bear succeeded in embracing Is-a-dill-a and tearing him dreadfully, so that he lay insensible by the side of the dead brute.

"The chief was the first to recover from the swoon in which he had fallen from loss of blood, and as he saw the body of his son lying beside that of the immense bear, it was some time before he could connect the circ.u.mstances, for it appeared impossible for a boy of his age to perform such an exploit. He was bitterly grieved, when he thought how pure was the filial affection of his son, and bitterly regretted the reproaches he had often heaped upon him who was so worthy of honor and affection. He crawled to his son's body,--for he believed him dead,--but feeling that the heart was still beating, with much effort and great pain he succeeded in getting some water from a little spring near by, and applied it to the forehead and lips of the insensible Is-a-dill-a; in a few moments he gave a deep sigh, looked at his father with a glow of recognition, then again became unconscious.

"Fortunately at this moment, three squaws who had been gathering berries, approached, and seeing the condition of the chief and his son, hastened to the village for a.s.sistance. By careful nursing, both recovered, and the boy became the object of admiration and reverence; for since his exploit with the bear, none dare dispute his courage, which is the greatest virtue among the Indians.

"As I have already told you, it is necessary for all promising youths to retire into some solitary place, and submit to a long fast, that they may propitiate the Great Spirit. In a few years, Is-a-dill-a expressed his desire to attempt the ordeal. The chief made everything in readiness, and soon Is-a-dill-a was alone in his little lodge in the wilderness, upon his bed of skin. He looked up with great confidence to the Great Spirit, and felt that the light of his countenance would rest upon him. Every morning his father visited him, and encouraged him to persevere, by appealing to his pride, his ambition, and his n.o.ble instincts. The ninth day came and pa.s.sed, and also the tenth; on the morning of the eleventh Is-a-dill-a was dying with weakness, and his full, rounded muscles had shrunk and withered from the prostrating effects of the terrible ordeal.

"'Father,' said the almost expiring youth, 'I have fasted eleven days, a longer time than man ever fasted before; the Great Spirit is satisfied; give me something to eat that I may not die.'

"'To-morrow, my son, before the bright sun rises, I will bring you venison cooked by your mother; fast until then that your name may become mighty among the great chiefs of the Delawares.'

"The old man departed, proud of the fame his son would acquire; and the next morning, before the sun had risen, he was at the lodge of Is-a-dill-a, with a supply of the most tempting food, but he stood motionless before a strange sight within the lodge. There was a youth with golden wings and most beautiful features, having a halo of light around his head, painting the breast of Is-a-dill-a with vermilion, and his body brown. Then, in a moment, the winged youth was changed to a dove, and Is-a-dill-a to a strange and beautiful bird, and they both flew through the door of the lodge to a tree, and the strange bird thus addressed the chief of the Delawares:

"'Father, farewell. The Great Spirit, when he saw that I was dying from hunger, sent a messenger for me, and I am changed to this bird. I will always preserve my love for man, and will build and carol near his dwelling.'

"The two birds then flew away, but every morning the robin, during the lifetime of the chief, sang from the large oak tree that overshadowed his lodge.

"When the Delawares moved west of the Missouri, the faithful descendants of the strange bird followed them, and that is how the robins came to Kansas."

The mocking-bird, that sweetest of our feathered songsters, is indigenous to the central region of the great plains, and his notes are heard when the day breaks. He seeks the highest points upon the dwellings, the ridge of the house, the barn, or the top of the windmill, if there be one, where, like the Aztecs of old, or their lineal descendants, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico to-day, he greets the coming G.o.d in the east.

Like the robin, the mocking-bird loves the companions.h.i.+p of man. He builds his nest near their dwellings, in the garden, the orchard, or the trees close by. Kate and Gertrude had made several attempts to get hold of some little ones in their nests, but there was always something that seemed to thwart their plans. Last year they found a nest in a grapevine in the garden, and they watched it zealously day by day, from the laying of the last twig by the parent birds, to the hatching of the two white eggs. They saw the fledglings develop from week to week, until they were nearly large enough to be taken from the nest, when one morning, on going as usual to watch the progress of the little birds, what was their horror to see a snake swallowing the last one. The other they knew, by the swelled body of the reptile, was hopelessly gone! Their disgust and sorrow may be imagined, and as it was too late in the season to think of finding another nest with young ones in it, they were forced to abandon their quest until another spring.

This April they were successful. A pair had built their nest in the vine-covered summer-house, a rustic little place that Mr. Thompson had erected out of the wild grape, for a retreat in which his wife and daughters might sit in the afternoons when they did not care to go as far as the deep woods. No harm came to the fledglings this time, and they were placed in a handsome cage bought by the girls from the proceeds of the eggs laid by their own brown Leghorn hens.

The birds soon became very tame, and made the house resonant all day long with their brilliant notes. They knew the girls the moment they came near the cage, and would stretch their wings and gently pick at their fingers when they put them between the wires. They were a constant source of pleasure, for the girls loved pets of all kinds, and taught them to return their affection by means of gentleness and constant kindness.

Joe lost his elk this spring, and he was greatly disturbed by it. He had made arrangements with an old hunter, living near Fort Harker, to go out to the Saline Valley and capture another young one. He intended to break them both to harness, and expected to have a unique team to drive. The elk was so tame that he permitted it to roam at will through the woods on the margin of the Oxhide, where it browsed on the small bushes or grazed on the luxurious gra.s.s which grew in such profusion on the creek bottom. It always returned to the corral at night for its feed of corn, but one evening it failed to come up as usual. He wandered through the woods, looking for it, when, happening to come upon a camp near the mouth of the Oxhide on the trail westward, he saw to his indignation, that the emigrants, a very ignorant set from Missouri, had butchered his elk. He gave them a talking-to that was more emphatic than choice in its language. They told him they thought it was a wild one, but he became disgusted at their falsehood, and asked them if wild elks had blue ribbons on their necks as his had, and he pulled it from the hide which was lying near their wagons. The girls had sewed it on the elk for him not a week ago. He saw that the party was such a miserable set that he could do nothing with them, so he had to leave the place, as mad as a wet hen, and abandon his idea of ever having an elk team.

It was a relief for the family to feel that they could now go where they pleased without fear of marauding bands of Indians. The winter campaign had most effectually settled their propensities for murdering and scalping the settlers, so both the girls and boys made trips to the neighbors, and went on fis.h.i.+ng excursions, or hunted whenever they cared to. Even the wolves, which had been such a terror to the whole neighborhood, had been so successfully thinned out in several "surrounds" by the men living on the various creeks, that the raspberry patch was no longer infested by them.

Kate and her sister went up there one morning, not expecting, of course, that the berries would be ripe as early as April. As neither of them had visited the place since Kate's capture, and everything was now perfectly safe, they thought they would like to go there again.

When they arrived at the well-remembered ledge of rocks, Kate pointed out to Gertrude the exact spot where she was standing when the savages swooped down on her; and they climbed to the top where they were attacked by the wolf.

They found the vines full of blossoms, promising a beautiful crop in June, and while strolling along the bank of the stream they suddenly came upon a quail's nest in which twenty-five eggs were just hatching out. As the quail runs the moment it breaks from the sh.e.l.l, the girls determined to take the little ones home and bring them up as they did their chickens. The old birds made a terrible fuss. They would run a short distance from the nest, and pretend to be very lame; apparently being hardly able to move. They thus tried to induce the girls to catch them--a ruse adopted by many other birds when their young ones are in danger. But Kate and Gertrude, who were well posted in the tricks of animals and birds, paid no attention to the antics of the old quails, but were intent on catching all of the little ones they could. Even then it was a hard job, for the baby quails run almost as fast as the parents, and hide in the gra.s.s where they lie quiet until all danger is past. They succeeded, however, in getting all but four of them, and walked hurriedly back to Errolstrath with the tender things in their ap.r.o.ns.

"If I didn't know they were quails," said Kate, "I should think that they were young brown Leghorn chickens. Did you ever see such a resemblance, Gert?"

"They do look exactly like the brown Leghorns, and do you know, Kate, that when I first saw a brood of Leghorns, I thought they were young quails."

"I expect we shall have little trouble in raising them, for Jenny Campbell had as many as a dozen of them in her cellar all last summer.

Her brother caught them as we did these, in the spring, just as they were coming out of their sh.e.l.ls. They will eat small grain like chickens."

"Well, we won't keep them in our cellar," said Gertrude; "we'll get Joe or Rob to build us a big cage out of lath, and then we can make them as tame as the mocking-birds."

"Do you purpose to eat them?" inquired Kate.

"Certainly; why not? Mamma and papa love them broiled on toast, and so do I. I don't expect to make such pets of them that when the time comes to eat them, I shall think so much of them that I can't do it; and you must not either, Kate."

The girls arrived safely at the ranche with their charge, and Joe being begged to make a cage, set about it at once, and had it ready in less than an hour. The birds were put in it, and it was set on the veranda, where the little things could get plenty of air and sunlight. They picked up millet seed as readily as an old chicken, when Gertrude threw in a handful to them. In a few days they were contented in their confinement and became very tame.

Kate and her sister intended to raise a great many chickens this spring, and they set as many as forty hens; for their eggs and young broilers brought a good price at the fort and in the village. They had excellent luck at hatching time, but as the little ones began to grow, when the girls counted them every morning they found their number decreasing day by day. They could not divine the cause at first, so Rob was set to watch, and discover, if he could, what caused their disappearance. Some hens that had fifteen or sixteen would come around the yard next morning with only six or seven.

They had three cats: one named Dame Trot, a pure tabby; one called Mischief, a white and gray; and Tortoise, because of her color. Tortoise had a litter of kittens which she kept under the front porch. Joe had suspected that the cats knew something of the disappearance of the little birds, and told Rob to keep his eyes on them. As he sat one evening on the veranda he saw Tortoise suddenly spring from behind a cherry tree and catch one of the young Leghorns in her mouth and carry it to her nest under the porch. Rob immediately crawled there, and to his surprise found the heads of more than twenty chickens. He ran into the house and told of his discovery. His father said that the cat must be killed at once; for when a cat gets a taste for chickens, it is impossible to break it of the habit, and Joe was commissioned to put the guilty Tortoise out of the way.

Kate cried and was in great distress, for Tortoise was her cat, and she begged her father to put off its death until to-morrow morning, when she would go and spend the day with Jenny Campbell. She could not bear to stay and see her favorite cat killed. Her request was granted, and Tortoise had a respite until morning, but she was shut up in a box so that she could not get any more of the chickens.

When morning came, Kate got Rob to saddle Ginger, but before she started she begged Joe to bury Tortoise in some out of the way place where she would never find her grave. Joe promised he would, and when his sister was out of sight down the trail, he took the cat out of her prison and went to the woodpile, and with one stroke of the axe cut off her head.

Then he took her down into the woods and buried her under a bunch of wild plum bushes, where no one would ever see the grave.

After the death of Tortoise the chickens throve admirably, and no more were ever missed by reason of the cats having caught them.