Sigurd Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road Part 15

The haunts of men are not wholly eschewed by our little brothers of the air. The peewee loves to place his nest under the eaves of a sheltering porch, and the phoebe is no less sociable. The presence of human beings does not at all disconcert their housekeeping arrangements. I have seen a young brood fed and fondled, and finally piloted forth for their first journey in the world, within ten feet of a hammock full of children.

To see the water birds at home one should take a boat in the early morning or toward nightfall, and float silently on the open bosom of the lake. Then you may watch the black terns wheeling and turning in the blue sky, like beautiful great swallows. They are easily distinguished even at a considerable height by their white wing bars. A loon paddles slowly across the bay with tantalizing unconcern. It is of no use to follow him, however, even with m.u.f.fled oars. He knows a trick worth any two of yours. Huge fellow as he is, he dives beneath the surface, leaving not a ripple behind him. After five minutes of puzzled waiting you may see him--or is it his double?--pop up from the water many rods away, as serene and still as if he had not just executed a submarine maneuver hardly to be excelled by the latest torpedo boat.

Quite as expert a performer is the pied-billed grebe, who swims long distances with body submerged and only the tip of the bill out of the water. Un.o.bserving gunners conclude that he has gone to the bottom of the lake, and call him the h.e.l.l-diver. The grebe spends half of his life in or on the water. His nest is a raft buoyed upon a clump of decaying vegetation, and looks like a floating island moored to a reed.

Birds of the lake, too, seem the swallows--tree swallows, rough-winged and barn swallows. They skim the water hither and yon in mad pursuit of prey. No degree of familiarity with their mud nests avails to deprive these winged atoms of their halo of spring and romance.

Birds of high degree occasionally visit our humble lakelet. A bald eagle has been seen on the lightning-scarred branch of its tallest oak.

Blue herons flap their majestic way from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. If you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth you may even be so lucky as to see a snowy heron pa.s.sing through to some heronry in the wilds of Canada. The night herons come every spring to their ancient rookery in a swamp hard by. As the shadows fall the birds may be heard calling, "squawk, squawk," while they make their way down the creek to their fishing grounds in the lake.

For the better part of our bird neighbors the summer sojourn is no _dolce far niente_. They come north that their babies may have wholesome air and suitable food. A gay young husband, like the ruby-throated humming bird, shirks domestic responsibilities, but he expects only two wee nestlings. A brood of five or six requires the a.s.siduous attention of both parents. Baby blue jays, for example, seem to have an unlimited appet.i.te. Their scolding, snarling cries begin with the early dawn and only cease with nightfall. Even after the rascals are flown one may find an anxious mother vainly striving to satisfy her clamoring darlings, as she hurries from one to another with some choice tidbit. A great hulking fellow, as big as his parents and as gayly feathered, will stand crying like an infant, with wings a-tremble and mouth a-gape, waiting for the food to be thrust down his throat. Young robins are hardly less rapacious but far more tractable.

I was one day watching the debut of a family that lived in a neighboring cedar tree. The mother bird was having an anxious time, for each young one, as he spread his wings, made but a flap or two and fell sprawling into the network of branches beneath the nest. One young hopeful essayed a more ambitious flight and came down to the ground. He had no thought of fear and, being of an inquiring turn of mind, came hopping through the gra.s.s to see what I was like. Such a dear little man, in polka dot pinafore and white ruffles! But "chuck, chuck,"

mother robin called a warning note, and like a flash he turned tail and bolted into the bushes. I found him later perched on a branch within easy grasp of my hand. He gazed at me for some minutes with eyes full of baby wonder; then, remembering the maternal admonitions, he fled to a higher branch. Of all feathered mothers the catbird is the noisiest.

She flits restlessly about, eying from every point of vantage the intruder who dares to show an interest in her housekeeping. I determined to sit it out one morning, pitting my patience against her sympathy for the hungry young ones. After two hours of flutter and meow the mother heart could no longer resist the appeal of the gaping yellow mouths. With sudden resolution she dashed straight to Farmer Black's gooseberry patch, seized a berry and returned in a flash. The luscious morsel once divided among the small fry, however, she flew back to her post of observation.

The turtledoves seem a sentimental lot. During the courting season an enamored swain will sit for hours in silent contemplation of his own graceful pose, or chanting softly, "I am alone--alone--alone." The nest once built and the young ones hatched, he hovers about in tender constancy, bringing food to the mother as well as to the babies, and perching alongside of the nest as close as circ.u.mstances will allow.

The little people are carefully tended until they are well-nigh grown, though they look most uninteresting objects. A young dove will sit silent and motionless for hours at a stretch, the only sign of life the glitter in his bright, bead-like eyes. Decide that he has gone daft, however, and venture a step too near,--presto! With flutter and whirr he takes to wings, and is off as if flying was as simple a feat as the traditional "falling off a log." The jaunty kingfisher, too, makes a devoted parent. One day we saw a fledgling fly straight out over the lake. The mother bird followed close, uttering cries of alarm. But, alas! she could not lend him wings. His young muscles were unequal to his ambition, and the little body dropped into the water. Both parents dashed madly back and forth over the still, shining surface, and then wandered disconsolately from tree to tree along the sh.o.r.e, voicing their grief in wild, rattling cries.

Bird families hold together long after the nest is abandoned. They may be seen toward nightfall making their way by twos and threes to the tamarack swamp across the lake. The close-set, symmetrical branches provide the best of perches for inexperienced feet. "Birds of a feather flock together" when it comes to a question of lodging houses. One evening I counted one hundred and fifteen kingbirds roosting in the tapering spires of the tamarack trees.

September days are heralded by the return of the birds who have summered in Canada. Fox sparrows stop with us a week or so on their southward journey. The evening grosbeaks have come down from far Saskatchewan, and are thinking of spending the winter here. Wild geese wake one o' nights, with their hoa.r.s.e "honk, honk." They have stopped for a taste of our tender frogs, but will soon re-form their triangular caravans and push on to the South. Ducks, mallards and canvasbacks, feed and fatten in the shallow water among the reeds. The gunners arrive as soon as they, however, and will soon frighten them away.

Everybody is getting ready for the great migration. Troops of young birds flutter through the trees, like autumn leaves blown by a gust of wind. They are taking their first lessons in migration and in food supply.

The natives look on at these preparations with cynical unconcern. Blue jays chatter and scream with a daily extension of their marvelous vocabulary. Crows come proudly out from the deep woods, leading black, ungainly broods, and direct their flight to the ripening cornfields.

Nuthatches, the white-bellied and the Canadian, bustle about the tree trunks, bent on making the most of their time while Jack Frost spares the insect life. The chickadees, nature's acrobats, turn somersaults among the branches in sheer defiance of the law of gravitation. The cares of summer are over and done with. The woes of winter do not terrify this morsel of india rubber and compressed air. The English sparrow pursues his ubiquitous search for food with insular disdain of everything he does not understand. He has penetrated our sylvan retreats and secured a foothold here by the most impudent of squatter claims. He lives and multiplies by dint of a systematic disregard of everybody's rights. The manners and the morals of the great city cling to him. He will have nothing in common with our country ways. He brings with him the blight of civilization.

THE JESTER

Myths from earth's childhood tell Of G.o.dhood visible,-- Indra, the azure-skied, Four-handed, thousand-eyed; Far-wandering Isis, chief Lady of Love and Grief; Zeus, on each rash revolt Hurling the thunderbolt; Woden of warrior form Gray-mantled with the storm; Lir of the foam-white hair, Mad with the sea's despair.

But of those Splendors who Conceived the kangaroo, With gesture humorous Shaped hippopotamus, Intoned the donkey's bray And, in an hour of play, Taught peac.o.c.ks how to strut?

Holy is Allah, but Is holiness expressed In hedgehogs? Whence the jest?

Even in creation's dawn Was Puck with Oberon?

EMILIUS

"O, I could beat my infinite blockhead."

--Jonson's _The Devil is an a.s.s_.

Professor Emily has the kindest heart in the world and is always doing good. Her charities would make a rosary more fragrant than sandal-buds.

And yet, perhaps, one time out of a thousand, her intention and her action trip each other up.

One day in early June she met on our village sidewalk, half a mile from the nearest pond or brook, a snapping turtle of formidable proportions, easily weighing his twenty or twenty-five pounds. In characteristic fashion she stopped to consider what she could do for him. Though he was, for his own part, neither cordial nor communicative, she decided that he must have lost his way, since the water, his natural habitat, lay behind him, and by a dexterous application of boot and stick she turned him about, quite against his will, so that his snout pointed toward home. But the turtle, a surly, obstinate fellow, with no respect whatever for academic authority, refused to progress in the appointed path, and for some five minutes they argued it out together, with no manifest result except a distinct access of temper, rather evenly divided.

Your true philanthropist is not easily balked, and Professor Emily, returning the scrutiny of those small, keen, sinister eyes that watched her every movement, skillfully dodged that dark, vicious head which kept lurching forward from the olive-mottled sh.e.l.l in lightning-swift motions, seeking to strike this determined benefactor whom only muddled wits could mistake for an enemy.

"No, you don't," she answered him sternly, retreating before a sudden forward scramble of the broad webbed feet. Regardless of the terrified protests of a group of freshmen, who had gathered on the outskirts of the fray, she executed a rapid rear movement and seized the reptile firmly toward the end of its long, rough tail. Swinging this furious Caliban clear of the ground and holding it well out from her body, she considered what to do next.

The noon had suddenly turned hot. She found herself panting a little.

That turtle was surprisingly heavy. He was awkward to handle, too, twisting his neck back over his sh.e.l.l and darting it out left and right to a disconcerting distance. Soothing tones had no effect whatever and there seemed to be no suitable surface to pat. Even if he could and would have told her the exact location of his native creek, it might prove an irksome task to carry him so far, with those powerful jaws snapping most suggestively, only biding their time to get in an effective argument. Our house was close at hand. Why not accomplish two good deeds in one and give this self-willed waif to us for a pet? He would have a happy home and we another of G.o.d's creatures to love.

Dear Emily!

A shriek from Mary brought us to the kitchen. There was our household staff and stay mounted on a chair, clasping her skirts tight about her and apparently addressing the ceiling. There was our generous-hearted friend, flushed and weary, but, by a miracle, unbitten. There was our neighbor, Young Audubon, a budding naturalist, who had come to her aid _en route_ and shared the honors of the delivery. And there was an indignant snapping turtle, lying on its back in the middle of the kitchen floor. Notwithstanding the pale yellows of its under-side, sh.e.l.l and legs and tail, its expression was profane.

Joy-of-Life told Mary to be quiet. I poured the philanthropist a gla.s.s of water. Then, exchanging eloquent glances, we learned of the new pleasure in store for us.

"They make very nice pets," declared the donor, beaming with benevolence. "Large specimens live for hundreds of years. They are not at all exacting about their food and can be trained to eat from the hand."

"Not from mine," screamed Mary, bouncing up and down on her chair.

"Wasn't it Pierre Loti who had a pet tortoise?" continued Emily. "Its name was Suleima and it used to play with his white kitten. You might name the turtle Suleima, after its literary cousin."

"No. We'll name it Emilius, after you, if it must be named at all."

"But we haven't even a black kitten," protested Joy-of-Life, "and so little time for playing ourselves, that I am really afraid----"

"The dear might be dull. Wouldn't you better take him back to where you found him?"

"And leave him on the road? Lost? For motors to run over? How could he get out of their way? What does he know about motors?"

We admitted that he did not look modern.

"Besides, I must run to catch that next train. I've just remembered that I am due at the Melting Pot conference in town."

"Isn't there room for Emilius in the pot?" I called after her, but she was gone without waiting to be thanked.

"If ye'll put the baste in a suitcase," proposed Mary, "it's mesilf will take it over to her rooms an' lave it there."

But Young Audubon, who had been lying on the floor, examining Emilius from the tip of his tail to the snub of his snout, was enraptured,--so enraptured that the chelonian, as he called it, was pressed upon him as a free gift, regretfully declined because of certain prejudices on the part of a devoted but unscientific mother.

"I can study him almost as well over here," cheerily said Young Audubon. "Now the first thing to do is to drill a hole in his carapace."

"Carry what?"

"Upper sh.e.l.l, you know."

The boy, a blond, blushed pink at our ignorance and managed, in an offhand way, to touch the lower sh.e.l.l when he lightly referred to it as the plastron.

"The drilling won't hurt him. He won't even know it's happening."

Whatever the darkened spirit, inaccessible in its armor, thought of the subsequent proceedings, it registered no objection. Defenseless in his undignified position, Emilius suffered our well-meant attentions in bitter silence. The hole was drilled, the turtle tipped over, grasped again by his peculiarly unattractive tail and borne triumphantly to the gra.s.sy bank behind the house, where, like any domestic animal, he was tethered to a tree.