squirrels reunited
Back at the home tree at last, nearly seven suns had come and gone since the family had seen him.
The first impulse of the little motherwas hostility. A stranger is always a hostile in the woods. But he flicked the white flag on his tail tip, and slowly climbed the tree. The youngsters in alarm had hidden in the nest at mother's "Chik, chik." She came cautiously forward. His looks were familiar yet strange. Here now was the time to use caution. He swung up nearly to the door. She stood almost at bay, uttered a little warning "Ggrrrfffhh." He crawled up closer. She spread her legs, clutched firmly on the bark above him. He wigwagged his silver tail-tip and, slowly drawing nearer, reached out. Their whiskers met; she sniffed, smell-tested him. No question now. A little changed, a little strange, but this was surely her mate. She wheeled and went into the nest. He came more slowly after, put in his head, gave a low, soft "Er." There was no reply and no hostile move.He crawled right in, his silver plume was laid about them all, and the reunited family slept till the hour arrived for evening meal.
THE UNWRITTEN LAW
THIS is the law of the All-Mother, the more immovable because unwritten; this is the law of surfeit.
Many foods there are which are wholesome, except that they have in them a measure of poison.
For these the All-Mother has endowed the wild things' bodies with a subtle antidote, which continues self-replenishing so long as the containing flask is never wholly emptied. But if it so chance that in some time of fearful stress the flask is emptied, turned upside down, drained dry, it never more will fill. The smallalembic that distils it breaks, as a boiler bursts if it be fired while dry. Thenceforth the toxin that it overcame has virulence and power; that food, once wholesome, is a poison now.
squirrel eating
A "surfeit" men call this breaking of the flask; all too well is it known. By this, unnumbered healthful foods—strawberries, ice-cream, jam, delicate meat, eggs, yes, even simple breads can by the devastating drain of one rash surfeit be turned into very foods of death. The poison always was there, but the secret, neutralizing chemical is gone, the elixir is destroyed, and by the working of the law its deadly power is loosed. As poor second now to this lost and subtle protection, the All-Mother endows the body with another, one of a lower kind. She makes that food so repellent to the unwise, punished creature that he never more desires it. She fills him with afierce repulsion, the bodily rejection that men call "nausea."
This is the law of surfeit. Bannertail had fallen foul of it, and Mother Carey, loving him as she ever loves her strong ones, had meted out the fullest measure of punishment that he, with all his strength, could bear and yet come through alive.
dumped basket
The Red Moon of harvest was at hand. The Graycoat family was grown, and happy in the fulness of their lives, and Bannertail was hale and filled with the joy of being alive, leading his family beyond old bounds, teaching them the ways of the farther woods, showing them new foods that the season brings. He, wise leader now, who once had been so unwise. Then Mother Carey put him to the proof. She led, he led them farther than they had ever gone before, to the remotest edge of the hickory woods. Ona bank half sunlit as they scampered over the leaves and down the logs, he found a blushing, shining gnome-cap, an earth-born madcap. Yes, the very same, for in this woods they came, though they were rare. One whiff, one identifying sniff of that Satanic exhalation, and Bannertail felt a horrid clutching at his throat, his lips were quickly dripping, his belly heaved, he gave a sort of spewing, gasping sound, and shrank back from that shining cap with eyes that bulged in hate, as though he saw a Snake. There is no way of fully telling his bodily revulsion. The thing that once was so alluring, was so loathsome that he could not stand its fetid odor on the wind. And the young ones were caught by the unspoken horror of the moment, they took it in; they got the hate sense. They tied up that horror in their memories with that rank and sickly smell. They turned away, Bannertailto drink in the running brook, to partly forget in a little while, yet never quite to forget. He was saved, the great All-Mother had saved him, which was a good thing, but not in itself a great thing. This was the great thing, that in that moment happened—the loathing of the earth-born fiend was implanted in his race, and through them would go on to bless his generations yet to be.
Mother Carey
SQUIRREL GAMES
GAMES are used among wild animals for the training of the young. King of the castle, tag, hide-and-seek, follow-my-leader, catch-as-catch-can, wrestling, coasting, high-dive, and, in rare cases, even ball games are enjoyed. Most of them were in some sort played by the young Squirrels. But these are world-wide, they had one or two that were peculiarly their own, and of these the most exciting was the dangerous game of "teasing the Hawk."
playing catch
Three kinds of big Hawks there are in the Squirrel woods in summertime: theHen-hawk that commonly sails high in the air, screaming or whistling, and that at other times swoops low and silent through the woods, and always is known by his ample wings and bright red tail; the gray Chicken-hawk that rarely soars, but that skims among the trees or even runs on the ground, whose feathers are gray-brown, and whose voice is a fiercecrek, crek, creek; and the Song-hawk or Singer, who is the size of the Chicken-hawk, but a harmless hunter of mice and frogs, and known at all seasons by the stirring song that he pours out as he wheels like a Skylark high in the blue.
hawk on branch
The inner guide had warned the boisterous Bannertail to beware of all of them. Experience taught him that they will attack, and yet are easily baffled, if one does but slip into a hole or thicket, or even around the bole of a tree.
Many times that summer did Bannertailavoid the charge of Redtail or Chicken-hawk by the simple expedient of going through a fork or a maze of branches. There was no great danger in it, as long as he kept his head; and it did not disturb him, or cause his heart a single extra beat. It became a regular incident in his tree-top life, just as a stock man is accustomed to the daily danger of a savage Bull, but easily eludes any onset by slipping through a fence. It does not cause him a tremor, he is used to it; and men there are who make a sport of it, who love to tease the Bull, who enjoy his helpless rage as he vainly tries to follow. His mighty strength is offset by their cunning and agility. It is a pretty match, a very ancient game, and never quite loses zest, because the Bull does sometimes win; and then there is one less Bull-teaser on the stock-range.
This was the game that Bannertailevolved. Sure of himself, delighting in his own wonderful agility, he would often go out to meet the foe, if he saw the Hen-hawk or the Chicken-hawk approaching. He would flash his silver tail, and shrill "Grrrff, grrrff," by way of challenge.
flying hawk
The Hen-hawk always saw. "Keen-eyed as a hawk" is not without a reason. And, sailing faster than a driving leaf, he would swish through the hickory woods to swoop at the challenging Squirrel. But just as quick was Bannertail, and round the rough trunk he would whisk, the Hawk, rebounding in the air to save himself from dashing out his brains or being impaled, would now be greeted on the other side by the head and flashing tail of the Squirrel, and another with loud, defiant "Ggrrrffhh, grggrrrffhh."
Down again would swoop the air bandit, quicker than a flash, huge black claws advanced, and Bannertail would wait tillthe very final instant, rejoicing in his every nerve at tension, and just as those deadly grappling-irons of the Hawk were almost at his throat, he would duck, the elusive, baffling tail would flash in the Hawk's very face, and the place the Graycoat had occupied on the trunk was empty. The grapnels of the Hawk clutched only bark; and an instant later, just above, the teasing head and the flaunting tail of Bannertail would reappear, with loudly voiced defiance.
The Hawk, like the Bull, is not of gentle humor. He is a fierce and angry creature, out to destroy; his anger grows to fury after such defeat, he is driven wild by the mockery of it, and oftentimes he begets such a recklessness that he injures himself by accident, as he charges against one of the many sharp snags that seem ever ready for the Squirrel-kind's defense.
Yes, a good old game it is, with the zest of danger strong. But there is another side to it all.
bull bellowing at squirrel
WHEN BANNERTAIL WAS SCARRED FOR LIFE
IT makes indeed merry play, with just enough of excitement when you bait the Bull, and dodge back to the fence to laugh at his impotent raging. But it makes a very different chapter when a second Bull comes on the other side of the fence. Then the game is over, the Bull-baiter must find some far refuge or scramble up the nearest sheltering tree, or pay the price.
landscape
Bannertail had an ancient feud with the big Hen-hawk, whose stick nest was only a mile away, high in a rugged beech. There were a dozen farmyards that paidunwilling tribute to that Hawk, a hundred little meadows with their Mice and Meadowlarks, and one open stretch of marsh with its Muskrats and its Ducks. But the hardwood ridges, too, he counted on for dues. The Squirrels all were his, if only he could catch them. Many a game had he and Bannertail, a game of life and death.
squirrel in long wrap like a cloak
They played again that morning in July. It was the same old swooping of the whistling pinions, and the grasping of strong yellow feet with hard black claws, grasping at nothing, where was a Graycoat half a heartbeat back, the same flaunting silver flag, the mocking "Grrrff, grrrff," the teasing and daring of the Hawk to make another swoop. Then did that big Hen-hawk what he should have done before. He filled the air with his war-cry, the long screaming "Yek-yek-yeeeek!" Coursing low and swiftcame another, his mate, the lady bandit, even fiercer than himself. Swift and with little noise she came. And when savage old Yellow-eyes swooped and Bannertail whisked around the tree, he whisked right into the clutches of the deadlier she-one. He barely escaped by a marvellous side rush around the trunk. Here again was Yellow-eyes, but right in his face Bannertail dashed his big silvery tail. The Hawk in his haste clutched at its nothingness, or he would have got the Graycoat. But luck was with Bannertail, and again he dodged around the trunk. Alas, the she Hawk was there, and struck; her mighty talons grazed his haunch, three rips they made in his glossy, supple coat. In an instant more the Redtail would have trussed him, for there was no cover, only the big, outstanding trunk, with the Hen-hawks above and below. A moment more andBannertail's mate, helpless in the distant nest, would have seen him borne away. But as they closed, he leaped—leaped with all his strength, far from them into open air, and faster than they could fly in such a place, down, down, his silver plume in function just behind him, down a hundred feet to fall and land in a thicket of laurel, wounded and bleeding, but safe. He scrambled into a thicker maze, and gazed with new and tenser feelings at the baffled Hen-hawks, circling, screaming high above him.
Soon the bandits gave up. Clearly the Graycoat had won, and they flew to levy their robber-baron tribute on some others that they held to be their vassals.
teasing a hawk againA DANGEROUS GAME
Yes, Bannertail had won, by a narrow lead. He had taken a mighty hazard and had learned new wisdom—Never play the game with death till you have to, for if you win one hundred times and lose once you have lost your whole stake. On his haunch he carried, carries yet, the three long scars, where the fur is a little paler—the brand of the robber baroness, the slash of the claws that nearly got him.
taking a flying leap
Have you noted that in the high Alleghenies, where the Graycoats seldom see hunters of any kind, they scamper while the enemy is far away; but they peer from upper limbs and call out little challenges? In Jersey woods, where a wiser race has come, they never challenge a near foe; they make no bravado rushes. They signal if they see an enemy near, then hide away in perfect stillness till that enemy, be it Hawk in air or Hound on earth, is far away, or in some sort ceases to be a menace.
And menfolk hunters, who tell of their feats around the glowing stove in the winter-time, say there is a new race of Graycoatscome. Any gunner could kill one of the old sort, but it takes a great hunter such as themselves to get one of the new. This latter-day Graycoat has gotten much wisdom into his little brain, and one of the things he knows: "It never pays to gamble with destruction."
The new race, they say, began in a certain hickory wood. We know that wood, and we have seen a little how the wisdom came, and can easily reason why it spread.
men sitting around
THE FIGHT WITH THE BLACK DEMON
NEXT in importance to the Squirrels, after the towering trees with their lavish bounty, was the brook that carried down scraps of the blue sky to inlay them with green moss, purple logs, and gold-brown stones, that sang its low, sweet song both day and night, and that furnished to the family their daily drink.
"Do not drink at the pond" is a Squirrel maxim, for in it lurks the fearful Snapping Turtle and the grinning Pike. Its banks are muddy, too, and the water warm. It is better to drink from some low log, along the brook itself.
pike
And do not drink in the blinding sunlight, which makes it hard to see if danger is near; then, too, it is that the Blacksnake crawls out to seek some basking place in the hottest sun.
blacksnake
Yes, this is Squirrel wisdom; the morning drink is at sunrise, the evening at sunset, when the cool shade is on the woods but darkness not begun.
The Graycoat family held together still, though the Harvest-moon was red in the low eastern sky. Some Squirrel families break up as soon as the young are nearly grown. But some there are that are held together longer, very long, by unseen bonds of sympathy with which they have been gifted in a little larger measure than is common. Brownhead was much away, living his own life. Still, he came home. Nyek-nyek, gentle, graceful Nyek-nyek, clung to her mother and the old nest, like a very weanling; and rest assured that inSquirrel-land, as in others, love is begotten and intensified by love.
The morning drink and the morning meal were the established daily routine. Then came a time of exercise and play. But all Squirrels that are hale and wise take a noonday nap.
Each was stretched on one or other of the sleeping platforms, lying lazily at ease one noontime. The day was very hot, and the sun swung round so it glared on Nyek-nyek's sleeping-porch. Panting soon with the heat, she decided to drink, swung to the gangway of their huge trunk and started down the tree. The little mother, ever alert, watched the young one go. There was in her heart just a shadow of doubt, of distrust, much as a human mother might feel if she saw her toddler venture forth alone into the night.
Nyek-nyek swung to the ground,coursed in billowy ripples of silver-gray along a log, stopped on a stump to look around and religiously fluff her tail, while mother dreamily watched through half-closed eyes. Then out into the brilliant sunlight she went. Some creatures are dazed and made lazy by the hot, bright glare, some find in it a stimulant, a multiplier of their life force; it sets their senses on a keener edge; it gifts them with new speed, intensifies their every power.
The Graycoats are of the first kind, and of the second was Coluber, the long, black, shiny, blue-black Snake that was lying like a limp and myriad-linked chain flung across a big, low log—a log that sucked the sun heat as it lay, just where the brook expanded to the pond. Never a blink was there in those gray-green eyes, never a quiver in that long, lithe tongue. One not knowing would have said he is dead; one knowing him well would havesaid he is filling up his storage-batteries to the full. Never a wriggle was there in even the nervous tail tip, that nearly always switches to and fro; yet not a move of the Squirrel since she left her sleeping porch was lost on him.
What was it gave a new pathway to the young Graycoat? Was it Mother Carey who led her with a purpose? Not to the familiar log she went, where the family had always found an ideal footing when they took the morning drink, but down-stream, toward the pond and on to the little muddy shore.
snake with wide open mouth
The mother Squirrel saw that, and her feeling of doubt grew stronger. She rose up to follow, but gazed a moment to see a sudden horror. Just as the little Nyek-nyek stooped and sank her face deep to her eyes in the cooling flood, the Blacksnake sprang, sprang from his coil as a Blacksnake springs, when the victim iswithin the measured length. Sprang with his rows of teeth agape, clinched on her neck, and in a trice the heavy coils, tense with energy, ridged with muscle, flash-lapped around her neck and loins, gripped in an awful grip, while the lithe, live scaly tail wrapped round a branch to anchor both killer and victim to the place. One shriek of "Qua," another fainter, and a final gasp, and no more sound from Nyek-nyek. But she struggled, a hopeless, helpless struggle. The mother saw it all. Fear of that terrible Snake was forgotten. Not one moment did she pause. She did not clamber down that tree. She leaped to the next and a lower yet, and along a log; five heart-beats put her on the spot; and with all her force she drove her teeth into the hard, scaly coil of the beast that she held in mortal fear. With a jerk the monster quit his neck hold on the young one. She was helpless, bound in his coil,and the Snake's dread jaws with the rows of pointed teeth clamped on the mother's neck, and another fold of that long, hellish length was hitched around her throat. Scratch she could and struggle, but bite she could not, for the coil held her as in a vise. For a moment only could she make a sound, the long, long, screaming "Queeee," the Squirrel call for help; and Bannertail, lazily dozing on his sunning perch, sprang up and set his ears acock.
Squirrel looking down
It was not repeated, but the sound of struggle was there, and the keen-eyed father Squirrel saw the flash of a silver tail, the signal of his kind. And from that perch high in the air he leaped in one long, parachuting leap; he landed on the ground, and in three mighty bounds he was at the place. The horror of the Snake was on him. It set his coat a-bristling; but it did not hold him back. It only added desperation to his onset.Clutching that devilish scaly neck with both his arms, he drove in his chisel teeth and ground them in, down to the very bone, as Silvergray could not have done. He worked and tugged and stabbed again, and the Snake, sensing a new and stronger foe, relaxed on Silvergray, snapped with his hateful jaws, seized Bannertail's strong shoulder just where he best could stand it—where the skin is thick and strong the Blacksnake drove in and gripped. And Bannertail, as quick, quit his first hold on the coil that was strangling Nyek-nyek, and by good luck, or maybe by better wisdom than his own, drove, fighting fierce, into the demon's throat, the weak spot in that scaly armor. Deep sank the Squirrel's teeth, and pangs of mortal agony went thrilling through the reptile's length. But he was strong, and a desperate fighter, too. The coils unloosed on the senseless form of Nyek-nyekand lapped in a trice on Bannertail, three times round, straining, crushing, while his rows of cruel fangs were sunk in the Squirrel's silvery side.
three squirrels fighting a blacksnakeTHE BATTLE WITH THE BLACKSNAKE
knight killing dragon
But in throwing all his force against Bannertail he released the little Gray mother. She flung herself again on the black horror, and bit with all her power the head that was gripped on the shoulder of her mate. Very narrow is the demon reptile's head, and only one place was open, offered to her grip. She bit with all her force across the eyes, her long, sharp chisels entered in. His eyes were pierced, his brain was stung. With an agonizing last convulsion he wrenched on Bannertail, then, quivering with a palsy that changed to a springing open of the coils, he dashed his head from side to side, lashed his tail, heaved this way and that, coiled up, then straightened out. The Squirrels leaped back, the monsterlashed in writhing convolutions, felt the cool water that he could no longer see, went squirming out upon it, working his frothy jaws, lashing, thrashing with his tail. Then up from the darkest depths came a hideous goggle-eyed head, a monstrous head, as big as a Squirrel's whole body, and on it a horny beak, which, opening, showed a huge red maw, and the squirming Blacksnake was seized by the bigger brute. Crushed and broken in those mighty jaws was the Black One's supple spine; torn open by those great claws was his belly, ended was his life. The Snapper sank, taking the Blacksnake with him. It was the finish of an ancient feud between them, and down in the dark depths of the pond the Water Demon feasted on the body of his foe.
snapper attacking snake
And Bannertail, the brave fighter, with the heroic little Mother and Nyek-nyek now revived, drew quickly back to safety.A little cut they were, but mostly breathless, their very wind squeezed out by those dread coils. The ripples on the pool had scarcely died before they were all three again in the dear old nest, with Brownhead back anew from a far journey. Without words, were they to tell of their thrills and fears, or their joy; but this reaction came: They cuddled up in the nest, a little closer than before, a little more at one, a little less to feel the scatteration craze that comes in most wild families when the young are grown; which meant these young will have for a little longer the good offices of their parents, and are thereby fitted a little better for the life-battle, a little more likely to win.
Is it not by such accumulating little things that brain and brawn and the world success of every dominating race of creatures has been built?
little family
THE PROPERTY LAW AMONG ANIMALS
THAT was the year of the wonderful nut crop. It is commonly so; the year of famine is followed by one of plenty. Red oaks and white were laden, as well as the sweet shag hickories. And the Bannertail family in their grove watched with a sort of owner pride the thick green hanging clusters of their favorite food.
boy looking in oven
Like small boys too eager to await the baking of their cake, nibbling at the unsatisfactory half-done dough, they cut and opened many a growing nut. Its kernel, very small as yet, was good; butthe rind, oozing its green-brown juices, stained their jaws and faces, yes,—their arms and breasts, till it was hard to recognize each other in these dark-brown masks. For the disfigurement they cared nothing. Only when the thick sap, half drying, gummed his silvery plume, did Bannertail abandon other pursuits to lick and clear and thoroughly comb that priceless tail; and what he did, the others, by force of his energetic example, were soon compelled to do.
The Hunting-moon, September, came. The nuts were fully grown but very green. "Who owns the nuts?" is an old question in the woods. Usually they are owned by the one who can possess them effectively, although there are some restraining, unwritten laws.
squirrels carrying baskets on their heads
Squirrels have three well-marked ideas of property. First, of the nesting-place which they have possessed, and the nestwhich they have built; second, the food which they have found or stored; third, the range which is their homeland—the boundaries of which are not well-defined—but most jealously held against those of their own kind. The Homeland is also held against all who eat their foods so that it is part of the food-property sense. All three were strong in Bannertail; and his growing pride in the coming nut yield was much like that of a farmer who, by the luck of good weather, is blessed with a bumper crop of corn.
It seemed as though word of the coming feast had spread to other and far-off places, for many other nut-eaters kept drifting that way, turning up in the hickory woods that the Graycoats thought their own.
woodpecker on three trunk
The Bluejay and the Redheaded Woodpecker came. They pecked long and hard at the soggy husks to get at the soft,sweet, milk-white meat. They did little damage, for their beaks were not strong enough to twist off the nuts and carry them away, but the Graycoats felt that these were poachers and drove them off. Of course it was easy for the birds to keep out of reach, but they hovered about, stealing—yes, that was what the Squirrels thought about it—stealing the hickory harvest when they could.
bird flying with berry in beak
Then came other poachers, the Redsquirrel with his mate, cheeky, brazen-fronted, aggressive as usual; they would come quietly, when the Graycoats were asleep or elsewhere, and proceed to cut the nut bunches. Many times the only notice of their presence was the sudden "thump, thump" of the nut bunch striking the ground after the Red One had cut it loose. His intention had been to go down quietly after it, split the husks, and carry off the luscious, half-ripe nuts tohis storehouse. But the racket called the Graycoats' attention. Bannertail and Brownhead would rush forth like settlers to fight off an Indian raid, or like householders to save their stuff from burglars.
There was little actual fighting to do with the Red Ones, for they had learned to fear and fly from the Graycoats, but they did not fly far. Their safest refuge was a hole underground, where Graycoats could not or would not follow, and after waiting for quiet the Red Robber would come out again, and sometimes, at least, get away with a load of the prized nuts.
New enemies approached one day, nothing less than other Graycoats, some Squirrels of their own kind, travelling from some other land, travelling, maybe, like Joseph and his brethren, away from a place of famine, till now they found an Egypt, a land of plenty.
Against them Bannertail went vigorouslyto war. It is well known that the lawful owner fights more valiantly, with more heart, with indomitable courage indeed, while the invader is in doubt. He lacks the backing of a righteous cause. He half expects to be put to flight, even as he goes forth to battle. And the Bannertails were able to make good their claims to the hickory grove. Yet it kept them ever alert, ever watchful, ever ready to fight.
Partly because the nuts were already good food, and partly because it kept others from stealing them, the Graycoats cut some of the crop in September.
GATHERING THE GREAT NUT HARVEST
crescent moon behind tree losing its leaves
IN the Leaf-falling-moon, October, the husks began to dry and split, and the nuts to fall of themselves. Then was seen a wild, exciting time, the stirring of habits and impulses laid in the foundations of the race.
No longer wabbly or vague, as in that first autumn, but fully aroused and dominating was the instinct to gather and bury every precious, separate nut. Bannertail had had to learn slowly and partly by seeing the Redsquirrels making off with the prizes. But he had learned, and his brood had the immediate stimulusof seeing him and their mother at work; and because he was of unusual force, it drove him hard, with an urge that acted like a craze. He worked like mad, seizing, stripping, smelling, appraising, marking, weighing every nut he found.
Mrs. Squirrel inspecing a nut
What, weighing it? Yes, every nut was weighed by the wise harvester. How? By delicate muscular sense. It was held for a moment between the paws, and if it seemed far under weight it was cast aside as worm-eaten, empty, worthless; if big, but merely light in weight, that meant probably a fat worm was within. Then that nut was split open and the worm devoured. A wormy nut was never stored. If the nut was heavy, round, and perfect, the fine balance in the paws and the subtle sense of smell asserted the fact, and then it was owner-marked. How? By turning it round three times in the mouth, in touch with the tongue. Thisleft the personal touch of that Squirrel on it, and would protect it in a measure from being carried off by other Graysquirrels, especially when food abounded. Then, rushing off several hops from the place where the last nut was buried, Bannertail would dig deep in the ground, his full arm's length, ram down the nut held in his teeth; then, pushing back the earth with snout and paws, would tamp that down, replacing the twigs and dry leaves so the nut was safely hidden. Then to the next, varying the exercise by dashing, not after the visiting Graysquirrels—they kept their distance—but after some thieving Chipmunk or those pestiferous Redsquirrels who sought sometimes to unearth his buried treasure. Or, he would dart noisily up the tree, to chase the Bluejays who were trying to rob them of the nuts not yet fallen; then back to earth again, where was his family—Silvergray,Brownhead, and Nyek-nyek—inspired by his example, all doing as he did, working like beavers, seizing, husking, weighing, marking, digging, dig-dig-digging and burying nuts all day long. Hundreds of these little graves they dug, till the ground under every parent tree was a living, crowded burying-ground of the tree's own children. Morning, noon, and evening they worked, as long as there was light enough to see.
bunny reading a warning sign
A cool night and another drying day brought down another hickory shower. And the Graycoats worked without ceasing. They were tired out that night. They had driven off a score of robbers, they had buried at least a thousand nuts, each in a separate hole. The next day was an even more strenuous time. For seven full days they worked, and then the precious nut harvest was over. Acorns—red and white and yellow—might comelater, and some be buried and some not. The Bluejays, Woodpeckers, and the Redsquirrels would get a handsome share, and pile them up in storehouses, a day's gathering in one place, for such is their way, but the hickory-nuts were the precious things that counted for the Bannertail brood. Ten thousand at least had the Graycoats buried, each an arm's length down, and deftly hidden, with the trash of the forest floor replaced.
oak leaves and acorns
This undoubtedly was their only impulse, to bury the rich nuts for future use as food. But Nature's plan was larger. There were other foods in the woods at this season. The Squirrels would not need the precious hickories for weeks or months; all sign that might mark the burial-place would be gone. When really driven by need the Squirrels would come and dig up these caches. Memory of the locality first, then their exquisite noseswould be their guides. They would find most of the nuts again. But not all. Some would escape the diggers, and what would happen to these?They would grow.Yes, that was Nature's plan. The acorns falling and lying on the ground can burst their thin coats, send down a root and up a shoot at once, but the hickory must be buried or it will dry up before it grows. This is the hickory's age-old compact with the Graysquirrel: You bury my nuts for me, plant my children, and you may have ninety-five per cent of the proceeds for your trouble, so long only as you save the other five per cent and give them a chance to grow up into hickory-trees.
This is the unwritten but binding bargain that is observed each year. And this is the reason why there are hickory-trees wherever there are Graysquirrels. Where the Graycoats have died out thehickory's days are numbered. And foolish man, who slays the Graysquirrel in his reckless lust for killing, is also destroying the precious hickory-trees, whose timber is a mainstay of the nation-feeding agriculture of the world. He is like the fool on a tree o'erhanging the abyss, who saws the very limb on which depends his life.
AND TO-DAY
long line of squirrels
HIS race still lives in Jersey woods; they have come back into their own. Go forth, O wise woodman, if you would become yet wiser. Go in the dew-time after rain, when the down, dry leaves have lost their tongues. Go softly as you may, you will see none of the Squirrel-kind, for they are better woodmen than you. But sit in silence for half an hour, so the discord of your coming may be forgotten.
Then a little signal, "Qua," like the quack of a Wild-duck, will be answered by the countersign, "Quaire"; then there will be wigwag signal flashes with silver tail-tips."All's well!" is the word they are passing, and if you continue very discreet and kind, they will take up their lives again. The silent trees will give up dryad forms, not many, not hundreds, not even scores, but a dozen or more, and they will play and live their greenwood lives about you, unafraid. They will come near, if you still emanate unenmity, so you may see clearly the liquid eyes, the vibrant feelers on their legs and lips. And if these be tree-top wood-folk, very big and strong of their kind, with silvery coats and brownie caps, and tails that are of marvellous length and fluff, like puffs of yellow smoke with silver frills or flashes of a white light about them, then be sure of this, by virtue of the sleek, lithe beauty of their outer forms and the quick wood-wisdom of their little brains—you are watching a clan of Bannertail's own brood.
And, further, rest assured that when the hard nuts fall next autumn-time, Mother Carey has at hand a chosen band of planters for her trees, and a noble forest for another age will be planted on these hills, timber for all time.
branch and nuts
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious punctuation errors repaired.Page 27, "growthth at" changed to "growth that" (growth that are marked)Page 46, "off" changed to "of" (of basswood buds)
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 27, "growthth at" changed to "growth that" (growth that are marked)
Page 46, "off" changed to "of" (of basswood buds)