Wood Folk at School Part 1

Wood Folk at School.

by William J. Long.

PREFACE

It may surprise many, whose knowledge of wild animals is gained from rare, fleeting glimpses of frightened hoof or wing in the woods, to consider that there can be such a thing as a school for the Wood Folk; or that instruction has any place in the life of the wild things.

Nevertheless it is probably true that education among the higher order of animals has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, however simple, is still the result of three factors: instinct, training, and experience. Instinct only begins the work; the mother's training develops and supplements the instinct; and contact with the world, with its sudden dangers and unknown forces, finishes the process.

For many years the writer has been watching animals and recording his observations with the idea of determining, if possible, which of these three is the governing factor in the animal's life. Some of the results of this study were published last year in a book called "School of the Woods," which consisted of certain studies of animals from life, and certain theories in the form of essays to account for what the writer's eyes had seen and his own ears heard in the great wilderness among the animals.

A school reader is no place for theories; therefore that part of the book is not given here. The animal studies alone are reproduced in answer to the requests from many teachers that these be added to the Wood Folk books. From these the reader can form his own conclusions as to the relative importance of instinct and training, if he will. But there is another and a better way open: watch the purple martins for a few days when the young birds first leave the house; find a crow's nest, and watch secretly while the old birds are teaching their little ones to fly; follow a fox, or any other wild mother-animal, patiently as she leaves the den and leads the cubs out into the world of unknown sights and sounds and smells,--and you will learn more in a week of what education means to the animals than anybody's theories can ever teach you.

These are largely studies of individual animals and birds. They do not attempt to give the habits of a cla.s.s or species, for the animals of the same cla.s.s are alike only in a general way; they differ in interest and intelligence quite as widely as men and women of the same cla.s.s, if you but watch them closely enough. The names here given are those of the Milicete Indians, as nearly as I can remember them; and the incidents have all pa.s.sed under my own-eyes and were recorded in the woods, from my tent or canoe, just as I saw them.

WILLIAM J. LONG.

STAMFORD, CONN., March, 1903.

What the Fawns Must Know

[Ill.u.s.tration]

To this day it is hard to understand how any eyes could have found them, they were so perfectly hidden. I was following a little brook, which led me by its singing to a deep dingle in the very heart of the big woods. A great fallen tree lay across my path and made a bridge over the stream.

Now, bridges are for crossing; that is plain to even the least of the wood folk; so I sat down on the mossy trunk to see who my neighbors might be, and what little feet were pa.s.sing on the King's highway.

Here, beside me, are claw marks in the moldy bark. Only a bear could leave that deep, strong imprint. And see! there is where the moss slipped and broke beneath his weight. A restless tramp is Mooween, who scatters his records over forty miles of hillside on a summer day, when his lazy mood happens to leave him for a season. Here, on the other side, are the bronze-green petals of a spruce cone, chips from a squirrel's workshop, scattered as if Meeko had brushed them hastily from his yellow ap.r.o.n when he rushed out to see Mooween as he pa.s.sed. There, beyond, is a mink sign, plain as daylight, where Cheokhes sat down a little while after his breakfast of frogs. And here, clinging to a stub, touching my elbow as I sit with heels dangling idly over the lazy brook, is a crinkly yellow hair, which tells me that Eleemos the Sly One, as Simmo calls him, hates to wet his feet and so uses a fallen tree or a stone in the brook for a bridge, like his brother fox of the settlements.

Just in front of me was another fallen tree, lying alongside the stream in such a way that no animal more dangerous than a roving mink would ever think of using it. Under its roots, away from the brook, was a hidden and roomy little house with hemlock tips drooping over its doorway for a curtain. "A pretty place for a den," I thought; "for no one could ever find you there." Then, as if to contradict me, a stray sunbeam found the spot and sent curious bright glintings of sheen and shadow dancing and playing under the fallen roots and trunk.

"Beautiful!" I cried, as the light fell on the brown mold and flecked it with white and yellow. The sunbeam went away again, but seemed to leave its brightness behind it; for there were still the gold-brown mold under the roots and the flecks of white and yellow. I stooped down to see it better; I reached in my hand--then the brown mold changed suddenly to softest fur; the glintings of white and yellow were the dappled sides of two little fawns, lying there very still and frightened, just where their mother had hidden them when she went away.

They were but a few days old when I found them. Each had on his little Joseph's coat; and each, I think, must have had also a magic cloak somewhere about him; for he had only to lie down anywhere to become invisible. The curious markings, like the play of light and shadow through the leaves, hid the little owners perfectly so long as they held themselves still and let the sunbeams dance over them. Their beautiful heads were a study for an artist,--delicate, graceful, exquisitely colored. And their great soft eyes had a questioning innocence, as they met yours, which went straight to your heart and made you claim the beautiful creatures for your own instantly. Indeed, there is nothing in all the woods that so takes your heart by storm as the face of a little fawn.

They were timid at first, lying close without motion of any kind. The instinct of obedience--the first and strongest instinct of every creature born into this world--kept them loyal to the mother's command to stay where they were and be still till she came back. So even after the hemlock curtain was brushed aside, and my eyes saw and my hand touched them, they kept their heads flat to the ground and pretended that they were only parts of the brown forest floor, and that the spots on their bright coats were but flecks of summer sunshine.

I felt then that I was an intruder; that I ought to go straight away and leave them; but the little things were too beautiful, lying there in their wonderful old den, with fear and wonder and questionings dancing in their soft eyes as they turned them back at me like a mischievous child playing peekaboo. It is a tribute to our higher nature that one cannot see a beautiful thing anywhere without wanting to draw near, to see, to touch, to possess it. And here was beauty such as one rarely finds, and, though I was an intruder, I could not go away.

The hand that touched the little wild things brought no sense of danger with it. It searched out the spots behind their velvet ears where they love to be rubbed; it wandered down over their backs with a little wavy caress in its motion; it curled its palm up softly under their moist muzzles and brought their tongues out instantly for the faint suggestion of salt that was in it. Suddenly their heads came up. All deception was over now. They had forgotten their hiding, their first lesson; they turned and looked at me full with their great, innocent, questioning eyes. It was wonderful; I was undone. One must give his life, if need be, to defend the little things after they had looked at him just once like that.

When I rose at last, after petting them to my heart's content, they staggered up to their feet and came out of their house. Their mother had told them to stay; but here was another big, kind animal, evidently, whom they might safely trust. "Take the gifts the G.o.ds provide thee" was the thought in their little heads; and the salty taste in their tongues'

ends, when they licked my hand, was the nicest thing they had ever known. As I turned away they ran after me, with a plaintive little cry to bring me back. When I stopped they came close, nestling against me, one on either side, and lifted their heads to be petted and rubbed again.

Standing so, all eagerness and wonder, they were a perfect study in first impressions of the world. Their ears had already caught the deer trick of twitching nervously and making trumpets at every sound. A leaf rustled, a twig broke, the brook's song swelled as a floating stick jammed in the current, and instantly the fawns were all alert. Eyes, ears, noses questioned the phenomenon. Then they would raise their eyes slowly to mine. "This is a wonderful world. This big wood is full of music. We know so little; please tell us all about it,"--that is what the beautiful eyes were saying as they lifted up to mine, full of innocence and delight at the joy of living. Then the hands that rested fondly, one on either soft neck, moved down from their ears with a caressing sweep and brought up under their moist muzzles. Instantly the wood and its music vanished; the questions ran away out of their eyes.

Their eager tongues were out, and all the unknown sounds were forgotten in the new sensation of lapping a man's palm, which had a wonderful taste hidden somewhere under its friendly roughnesses. They were still licking my hands, nestling close against me, when a twig snapped faintly far behind us.

Now, twig snapping is the great index to all that pa.s.ses in the wilderness. Curiously enough, no two animals can break even a twig under their feet and give the same warning. The _crack_ under a bear's foot, except when he is stalking his game, is heavy and heedless. The hoof of a moose crushes a twig, and chokes the sound of it before it can tell its message fairly. When a twig speaks under a deer in his pa.s.sage through the woods, the sound is sharp, dainty, alert. It suggests the _plop_ of a raindrop into the lake. And the sound behind us now could not be mistaken. The mother of my little innocents was coming.

I hated to frighten her, and through her to destroy their new confidence; so I hurried back to the den, the little ones running close by my side. Ere I was halfway, a twig snapped sharply again; there was a swift rustle in the underbrush, and a doe sprang out with a low bleat as she saw the home log.

At sight of me she stopped short, trembling violently, her ears pointing forward like two accusing fingers, an awful fear in her soft eyes as she saw her little ones with her archenemy between them, his hands resting on their innocent necks. Her body swayed away, every muscle tense for the jump; but her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Slowly she swayed back to her balance, her eyes holding mine; then away again as the danger scent poured into her nose. But still the feet stayed. She could not move; could not believe. Then, as I waited quietly and tried to make my eyes say all sorts of friendly things, the harsh, throaty _K-a-a-a-h!

k-a-a-a-h!_ the danger cry of the deer, burst like a trumpet blast through the woods, and she leaped back to cover.

At the sound the little ones jumped as if stung, and plunged into the brush in the opposite direction. But the strange place frightened them; the hoa.r.s.e cry that went crashing through the startled woods filled them with nameless dread. In a moment they were back again, nestling close against me, growing quiet as the hands stroked their sides without tremor or hurry.

Around us, out of sight, ran the fear-haunted mother, calling, calling; now showing her head, with the terror deep in her eyes; now dashing away, with her white flag up, to show her little ones the way they must take. But the fawns gave no heed after the first alarm. They felt the change; their ears were twitching nervously, and their eyes, which had not yet grown quick enough to measure distances and find their mother in her hiding, were full of strange terror as they questioned mine. Still, under the alarm, they felt the kindness which the poor mother, dog-driven and waylaid by guns, had never known. Therefore they stayed, with a deep wisdom beyond all her cunning, where they knew they were safe.

I led them slowly back to their hiding place, gave them a last lick at my hands, and pushed them gently under the hemlock curtain. When they tried to come out I pushed them back again. "Stay there, and mind your mother; stay there, and follow your mother," I kept whispering. And to this day I have a half belief that they understood, not the word but the feeling behind it; for they grew quiet after a time and looked out with wide-open, wondering eyes. Then I dodged out of sight, jumped the fallen log to throw them off the scent should they come out, crossed the brook, and glided out of sight into the underbrush. Once safely out of hearing I headed straight for the open, a few yards away, where the blasted stems of the burned hillside showed faintly through the green of the big woods, and climbed, and looked, and changed my position, till at last I could see the fallen tree under whose roots my little innocents were hiding.

The hoa.r.s.e danger cry had ceased; the woods were all still again. A movement in the underbrush, and I saw the doe glide out beyond the brook and stand looking, listening. She bleated softly; the hemlock curtain was thrust aside, and the little ones came out. At sight of them she leaped forward, a great gladness showing eloquently in every line of her graceful body, rushed up to them, dropped her head and ran her keen nose over them, ears to tail and down their sides and back again, to be sure that they were her own little ones and were not harmed. All the while the fawns nestled close to her, as they had done a moment before to me, and lifted their heads to touch her sides with their noses, and ask in their own dumb way what it was all about, and why she had run away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON LIGHT AS SHE JUMPED AWAY"]

Then, as the smell of the man came to her from the tainted underbrush, the absolute necessity of teaching them their neglected second lesson before another danger should find them swept over her in a flood. She sprang aside with a great bound, and the hoa.r.s.e _K-a-a-a-h! k-a-a-a-h!_ crashed through the woods again. Her tail was straight up, the white flag showing like a beacon light as she jumped away. Behind her the fawns stood startled a moment, trembling with a new wonder. Then their flags went up too, and they wabbled away on slender legs through the tangles and over the rough places of the wood, bravely following their leader. And I, watching from my hiding, with a vague regret that they could never again be mine, not even for a moment, saw only the crinkling lines of underbrush and here and there the flash of a little white flag.

So they went up the hill and out of sight.

First, lie still; and second, follow the white flag. When I saw them again it needed no danger cry of the mother to remind them of these two things that every fawn must know who would live to grow up in the big woods.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A Cry in the Night

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This is the rest of the story, just as I saw it, of the little fawns that I found under the mossy log by the brook. There were two of them, you remember; and though they looked alike at first glance, I soon found out that there is just as much difference in fawns as there is in folks.

Eyes, faces, dispositions, characters,--in all things they were as unlike as the virgins of the parable. One of them was wise, and the other was very foolish. The one was a follower, a learner; he never forgot his second lesson, to follow the white flag. The other followed from the first only his own willful head and feet, and discovered too late that obedience is life. Until the bear found him, I have no doubt he was thinking, in his own dumb, foolish way, that obedience is only for the weak and ignorant, and that government is only an unfair advantage which all the wilderness mothers take to keep little wild things from doing as they please.

The wise old mother took them both away when she knew I had found them, and hid them in a deeper solitude of the big woods, nearer the lake, where she could the sooner reach them from her feeding grounds. For days after the wonderful discovery I used to go in the early morning or the late afternoon, while mother deer are away feeding along the watercourses, and search the dingle from one end to the other, hoping to find the little ones again and win their confidence. But they were not there; and I took to watching instead a family of mink that lived in a den under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the same hemlock.

Then, one day when a flock of partridges led me out of the wild berry bushes into a cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump upon the deer and her fawns lying all together under a fallen treetop, dozing away the heat of the day.

They did not see me, but were only scared into action as a branch, upon which I stood looking for my partridges, gave way beneath my feet and let me down with a great crash under the fallen tree. There, looking out, I could see them perfectly, while Kookooskoos himself could hardly have seen me. At the first crack they all jumped like Jack-in-a-box when you touch his spring. The mother put up her white flag--which is the snowy underside of her useful tail, and shows like a beacon by day or night--and bounded away with a hoa.r.s.e _Ka-a-a-a-h!_ of warning. One of the little ones followed her on the instant, jumping squarely in his mother's tracks, his own little white flag flying to guide any that might come after him. But the second fawn ran off at a tangent, and stopped in a moment to stare and whistle and stamp his tiny foot in an odd mixture of curiosity and defiance. The mother had to circle back twice before he followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole back each time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously--which is the sure sign, when you see it, that some scent of you is floating off through the woods and telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. But when she jumped away the white flag was straight up, flashing in the very face of her foolish fawn, telling him as plain as any language what sign he must follow if he would escape danger and avoid breaking his legs in the tangled underbrush.

I did not understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,--finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the same reckless speed, over a tangled blow-down, perhaps, through which you can barely force your way by daylight, then you realize suddenly that the most wonderful part of a deer's education shows itself, not in keen eyes or trumpet ears, or in his finely trained nose, more sensitive a hundred times than any barometer, but in his forgotten feet, which seem to have eyes and nerves and brains packed into their hard sh.e.l.ls instead of the senseless matter you see there.

Watch the doe yonder as she bounds away, wigwagging her heedless little one to follow. She is thinking only of him; and now you see her feet free to take care of themselves. As she rises over the big windfall, they hang from the ankle joints, limp as a glove out of which the hand has been drawn, yet seeming to wait and watch. One hoof touches a twig; like lightning it spreads and drops, after running for the smallest fraction of a second along the obstacle to know whether to relax or stiffen, or rise or fall to meet it. Just before she strikes the ground on the down plunge, see the wonderful hind hoofs sweep themselves forward, surveying the ground by touch, and bracing themselves, in a fraction of time so small that the eye cannot follow, for the shock of what lies beneath them, whether rock or rotten wood or yielding moss.

The fore feet have followed the quick eyes above, and shoot straight and sure to their landing; but the hind hoofs must find the spot for themselves as they come down and, almost ere they find it, brace themselves again for the push of the mighty muscles above.

Once only I found where a fawn with untrained feet had broken its leg; and once I heard of a wounded buck, driven to death by dogs, that had fallen in the same way never to rise again. Those were rare cases. The marvel is that it does not happen to every deer that fear drives through the wilderness.

And that is another reason why the fawns must learn to obey a wiser head than their own. Till their little feet are educated, the mother must choose the way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in her tracks. That explains also why deer, even after they are full grown, will often walk in single file, a half-dozen of them sometimes following a wise leader, stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. It is partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, and their new enemy, the man, by hiding the weakling's trail in the stride and hoof mark of a big buck; but it shows also the old habit, and the training which begins when the fawns first learn to follow the flag.