Ernest Thompson Seton

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
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. ”

“ Bannertail quartered the surface of the snow among the silent bare-limbed trees, sniffing, sniffing, alert for the faintest whiff.
A hound would not have found it—his nose is trained for other game. Bannertail stopped, swung his keen "divining-rod," advanced a few hops, moved this way and that, then at the point of the most alluring whiff, he began to dig down, down through the snow. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It made life harder for the Squirrel-Folk by hiding good Mother Earth from their hungry eyes; but in one way the wind served them, for it swept the snow from all the limbs that served the tree-folk as an over-way.
For two days the blizzard hissed. The third day it was very cold; on the fourth day Bannertail peeped forth on the changed white world. The wind, the pest of wild life in the trees, had ceased, the sky was clear, and the sun was shining in a weak, uncertain way. ”

“ 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 a [209] fierce 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. ”

“ CURIOSITY may be the trail to knowledge, but it skirts a dangerous cliff. The Rose moon, June, was on the hills, its thrill joy set the whole wood world joy-thrilling. The Bannertail family had frolicked in a game of tag-and-catch all around the old Hawk nest, and up the long smooth pole went Cray to show that he could do it. ”

“ Food was ever scarcer, but Bannertail had enough, and was filled with the vigor of young life. The sun came up in a cloudless sky that day, and blazed through the branches of still, tense woodland, the air was crisp and exhilarating, and Bannertail, tingling with the elation of life, leaped up for the lust of leaping, and sang out his loudest song:
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"Qua, qua, qua, quaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" from a high perch. Ringing across the woodland it went, and the Woodwales drummed on hardwood drums, in keen responsiveness, to the same fair, vernal influence of the time. ”

“ 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 stimulus [254] of 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nyek-nyek swung to the ground, [234] 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. ”

“ But there is such soothing magic in cold water, such [81] quenching of all fires, be they of smoke or love or war, that the Echo Singer crawled forth in quite a different mood, and Bannertail, flashing up the great tree trunk, went now alone.
To have conquered a rival is a long step toward victory, but it is not yet victory complete. When he swung from limb to limb, ever nearer the Silvergray, he was stirred with the wildest hankering of love. ”

“ It was well he did so, for a flash of brown and white appeared on a near log. It made toward him, and Bannertail got an instinctive sense of fear. Small though it was, smaller than himself, the diabolic fire in its close-set [60] eyes gave him a thrill of terror. He felt that his only safety lay in flight.
Now it was a race for the tall timber, and a close one, but Bannertail's hops were six feet long; his legs went faster than the eye could see. The deep snow was harder on him than on his ferocious enemy, but he reached the great rugged trunk of an oak, and up that, gaining a little. ”

“ Yes, and he fell, too; but the ample silver plume behind was there to land him softly on the earth. He made a long, far, racing journey, saw hills and woods that were new to him. He came to a big farmhouse like the one his youth had known, but passed it by, and galloped to another hillside. From the top of a pine he vented his wild spirits in a boisterous song—the song of spring and fine weather, and the song of autumn time and vigor. ”

“ If the family is outstretched in the sun, and keen-eyed mother sees a Hawk, she says, "Chik, chik," and the wise little ones come home. They obey and live. The rebellious one stays out, and the Hawk picks him up, a pleasant meal.
If the family is scrambling about the tree trunk and one attempts to climb a long, smooth stretch, from which the bark has fallen, mother cries "Chik, chik," warning that he is going into danger. The obedient one comes back and lives. The unruly one goes on. There is no clawhold on such trunks. He falls far to the ground and pays the price. ”

“ Every wise Squirrel knows all the leaps in his woods, those which he can easily make, and those which will call for every ounce of power in his legs. The devilish pertinacity of the Weasel, still hard after him, compelled him to adopt a scheme. He made for a wide leap, the very limit of his powers, where the take-off was the end of a big broken branch, and racing six hops behind was the Brown Terror. Without a moment's pause went Bannertail easily across the six-foot gap, to land on a sturdy limb in the other tree. ”

“ There are always enemies alert for such a chance. Or if he swings to drink at the familiar spring and sees not what mother sees, a Blacksnake lurking on a log, or heeds not her sharp "Keep back," he goes, and maybe takes a single sip, but it is his last.
If one, misled by their bright color, persists in eating fruit of the deadly nightshade, ignoring mother's warning, "Quare, quare!" he eats, he has willed to eat; and there is a little Squirrel body tumbled from the nest next day, to claim the kindly care of growing plants and drifting leaves that will hide it from the view. ”

“ Not counting the remnant of the nuts still unearthed, the swelling buds of every sweet-sapped tree were wholesome, delicious food, the inner bark of sweet birch twigs was good, there were grubs and borers under flakes of bark, the pucker berries or red chokeberries that grow in the lowlands still hung in clusters. ”

“ Just a little pause made he, when the sick smell of the nearest toadstool was felt and measured by his nose. The lust for that strong foody taste was overdominating. He seized and crunched and revelled in the flowing juices and the rank nut taste, the pepper tang, the toothsome mouthiness, and gobbled with growing unreined greed, not one, but two or three—he gorged on them; and though stuffed and full, still filled with lust that is to hunger what wounding is to soft caress. ”

“ 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 have [235] said 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 ”

“ Redhead scoffed and shook his flaming tail. He shrieked his "skit, skit" and stood prepared to fight. Did Bannertail hold back—he, Bannertail, that formerly had declined the combat with this very rogue? Not for an instant. There was new-engendered power within compelling him. He sprang on the Red bandit with all his vigor and drove his teeth in deep. The Redhead was a fighter, too. He clinched and bit. They clung, wrestled and stabbed, then, losing hold of the tree, went hurling to the earth below. ”

“ They are the only certain answer to the Red-eyed Fury that lives on Mice, but that can kill Squirrels, too, if he catches them; that climbs and jumps, but cannot jump so far as the Graycoats, and dare not fall from high, for he has no plumy tail, nothing but a useless little tag.
Drink twice a day from the running stream, never from the big pond in which the grinning Pike and mighty Snapper lie in wait. Go not in the heat of the day, for then the Blacksnake is lurking near, and quicker is he even than a Squirrel, on the ground. ”

“ If you find a nut when you are not hungry, bury it for future use. Nevertheless this lesson counted for but little now, as all last year's nuts were gone, and this year's far ahead.
If you must travel on the ground, stop every little while at some high place to look around, and fail not then each time to fluff and jerk your tail.
When in the distant limbs you see something that may be friend or foe, keep out of sight, but flirt your white tail tip in his view. If it be a Graycoat, it will answer with the same, the wigwag: "I'm a Squirrel, too." ”

“ On the bank, when they are rooted in the earth, their juices from the underworld are full of diabolic subtlety, are tempting in the mouth as they are deadly in the blood and sure destruction at the last. They must be uprooted, carried far from the ground and the underground, and high hung in the blessed purifying pine tops, where Father Sun can burn away their evil. ”

“ The third and smallest was a little girl-Squirrel, very shy and gentle. She loved to be petted and would commonly snuggle up to mother, whining softly, "Nyek, nyek," even when her brothers were playing, as well as at feeding-time. So in this sort they named themselves, Brownhead, Cray, and Nyek-nyek.
The first lesson in all young wild life is this, "Do as you are told"; the penalty of disobedience is death, not always immediate, not clearly consequent, but soon or late it comes. This indeed is the law, driven home and clinched by ages of experience: "Obey or die." ”

“ 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. ”

“ And Bannertail went too. Ever he led to the cosey home in his old red oak. But there is a right that is deeply rooted in custom, in logic, and in female instinct, that it is the she-one's privilege to select, prepare, and own the home. Every suggestion that he made by offered lead or actual entry, was scorned and the one who made it, snubbed. She did her own selecting, and, strangest thing of all, she chose the rude stick nest [120] of a big-winged Hawk, abandoned now, for the Hawk himself, with his long-clawed mate, was nailed to the end of the barn. ”

“ So high as the peak is above the plain, so far is the plain below the peak. A crushed and broken Bannertail it was that lay enfeebled in the nest next day when the family went forth to feed and frolic. ”

“ With a jerk the monster quit his neck hold on the young one. She was helpless, bound in his coil, [237] 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. ”