The Log School-House on the Columbia Part 7

The cub saw its mother and rolled over several times, and then stood up on its haunches and looked at her, as much as to say, "Where did you come from, and what brought you here?" In the midst of this interesting interview Mrs. Woods appeared at the door of the cabin.

She saw the mother-bear. True to her New England instincts, she shook her homespun ap.r.o.n and said: "Shoo!"

She also saw that the little bear was greatly excited, and under the stress of temptation.

"Here," said she, "roll over."

The cub did so, but in the direction of its mother.

Mrs. Woods hurried out toward it to prevent this ungrateful gravitation.

The mother-bear seemed much to wonder that the cub should be found in such forbidden a.s.sociations, and began to make signs by dipping her fore paws.

The cub evidently understood these signs, and desired to renew its old-time family relations.

"Here," said Mrs. Woods, "you--you--you mind now; roll over--roll over."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _In the midst of this interview Mrs. Woods appeared at the door of the cabin._]

The cub did so, true to its education in one respect, but it did not roll in the direction of its foster-mother, but rolled toward its own mother.

It turned over some five or more times, then bounded up and ran toward the she-bear. The latter dropped her fore feet on the earth again, and the two bears, evidently greatly delighted to find each other, quickly disappeared in the woods. As the cub was about to enter the bushes it turned and gave a final glance at Mrs. Woods and rolled over.

This was too much for Mrs. Woods's heart. She said:

"After all I have done for ye, too! Oh, Little Roll Over, Little Roll Over, I wouldn't have thought it of you!"

She surveyed the empty yard, threw her ap.r.o.n over her head, as stricken people used to do in Lynn in the hour of misfortune, and sat down on the log at the door and cried.

"I never have had any confidence in Injuns," she said, "since my saw walked off. But I did have some respect for bears. I wonder if I shall ever meet that little cre'tur' again, and, if I do, if it will roll over.

This world is all full of disappointments, and I have had my share. Maybe I'll get it back to me yet. Nevertheless--"

Mrs. Woods often talked of Little Roll Over and its cunning ways; she hoped she would some time meet it again, and wondered how it would act if she should find it.

CHAPTER V.

THE NEST OF THE FISHING EAGLE.

Benjamin continued to attend the school, but it was evident that he did so with an injured heart, and chiefly out of love for the old chief, his father. He had a high regard for his teacher, whose kindness was unfailing, and he showed a certain partiality for Gretchen; but he was as a rule silent, and there were dark lines on his forehead that showed that he was unhappy. He would not be treated as an inferior, and he seemed to feel that he was so regarded by the scholars.

He began to show a peculiar kind of contempt for all of the pupils except Gretchen. He pretended not to see them, hear them, or to be aware of their presence or existence. He would pa.s.s through a group of boys as though the place was vacant, not so much as moving his eye from the direct path. He came and went, solitary and self-contained, proud, cold, and revengeful.

But this indifference was caused by sensitiveness and the feeling that he had been slighted. The dark lines relaxed, and his face wore a kindly glow whenever his teacher went to his desk--if the split-log bench for a book-rest might be so called. "I would give my life for Gretchen and you,"

he said one day to Mr. Mann; and added: "I would save them all for you."

There was a cl.u.s.ter of gigantic trees close by the school-house, nearly two hundred feet high. The trees, which were fir, had only dry stumps of limbs for a distance of nearly one hundred feet from the ground. At the top, or near the top, the green leaves or needles and dead boughs had matted together and formed a kind of shelf or eyrie, and on this a pair of fishing eagles had made their nest.

The nest had been there many years, and the eagles had come back to it during the breeding season and reared their young.

For a time after the opening of the school none of the pupils seemed to give any special attention to this high nest. It was a cheerful sight at noon to see the eagles wheel in the air, or the male eagle come from the glimmering hills and alight beside his mate.

One afternoon a sudden shadow like a falling cloud pa.s.sed by the half-open shutter of the log school-house and caused the pupils to start. There was a sharp cry of distress in the air, and the master looked out and said:

"Attend to your books, children; it is only the eagle."

But again and again the same swift shadow, like the fragment of a storm-cloud, pa.s.sed across the light, and the wild scream of the bird caused the scholars to watch and to listen. The cry was that of agony and affright, and it was so recognized by Benjamin, whose ear and eye were open to Nature, and who understood the voices and cries of the wild and winged inhabitants of the trees and air.

He raised his hand.

"May I go see?"

The master bowed silently. The boy glided out of the door, and was heard to exclaim:

"Look! look! the nest--the nest!"

The master granted the school a recess, and all in a few moments were standing without the door peering into the tall trees.

The long dry weather and withering sun had caused the dead boughs to shrink and to break beneath the great weight of the nest that rested upon them. The eagle's nest was in ruins. It had fallen upon the lower boughs, and two young half-fledged eaglets were to be seen hanging helplessly on a few sticks in mid-air and in danger of falling to the ground.

It was a bright afternoon. The distress of the two birds was pathetic, and their cries called about them other birds, as if in sympathy.

The eagles seldom descended to any point near the plain in their flight, but mounted, as it were, to the sun, or floated high in the air; but in their distress this afternoon they darted downward almost to the ground, as though appealing for help for their young.

While the school was watching this curious scene the old chief of the Umatillas came up the cool highway or trail, to go home with Benjamin after school.

The eagles seemed to know him. As he joined the pitying group, the female eagle descended as in a spasm of grief, and her wing swept his plume. She uttered a long, tremulous cry as she pa.s.sed and ascended to her young.

"She call," said the old chief. "She call me."

"I go," said Benjamin, with a look at his father.

"Yes, go--she call. She call--the G.o.d overhead he call. Go!"

A slender young pine ran up beside one of the giant trees, tall and green.

In a moment Benjamin was seen ascending this pine to a point where he could throw himself upon the smallest of the great trees and grasp the ladder of the lower dead branches. Up and up he went in the view of all, until he had reached a height of some hundred and fifty feet.

The eagles wheeled around him, describing higher circles as he ascended.

He reached the young eagles at last, but pa.s.sed by them. What was he going to do?

There was a shelf of green boughs above him, which would bear the weight of a nest. He went up to them at a distance of nearly two hundred feet. He then began to gather up the fallen sticks of the old nest, and to break off new sticks and to construct a new nest. The old chief watched him with pride, and, turning to the master, said:

"Ah-a--that is my boy. He be me. I was he once--it is gone now--what I was."

When Benjamin had made a nest he descended, and at the peril of his own life, on the decayed limbs, he rescued the two young eagles that were hanging with heads downward and open beaks. He carried them up to the new nest and placed them in it, and began to descend.

But a withered bough that he grasped was too slender for his weight, and broke. He grasped another, but that too gave way. He tried to drop into the top of the tall young pine below him, but, in his effort to get into position to do so, limb after limb of dead wood broke, and he came falling to the earth, amid the startled looks of the chief and the cries of the children.