Ernest Thompson Seton

“ Hemlock, Pine, Birch and Elm of the largest size abounded and spread over the clear brook a continuous shade. Fox vines trailed in the open places, the rarest wild-flowers flourished, Red-squirrels chattered from the trees. In the mud along the brook-side were tracks of Coon and Mink and other strange fourfoots. And in the trees overhead, the Veery, the Hermit-thrush, or even a Woodthrush sang his sweetly solemn strain, in that golden twilight of the midday forest. Yan did not know them all by name as yet, but he felt their vague charm and mystery. ”

“ Tooth and claw and deadly grip—the old Cat raged and tore, the black fur flew in every direction, and the Skunk for once lost her head and fired random shots of choking spray that drenched herself as well as the Cat. The Skunk's head and neck were terribly torn. The air was suffocating with the poisonous musk. The Skunk was desperately wounded and threw herself backward into the water. Blinded and choking, though scarcely bleeding, the old Cat would have followed even there, but the Kitten, wedged under the log, mewed piteously and stayed the mother's fury. ”

“ Yan was here one day sketching the trunk of a Hemlock to pass the watching time, but also because he had learned to love that old tree. He never sketched because he loved sketching; he did not; the motive always was love of the thing he was drawing.
A Black-and-white Creeper had crawled like a Lizard over all the trunks in sight. A Downy Woodpecker had digged a worm out of a log by labour that most birds would have thought ill-paid by a dozen such worms. A Chipmunk had come nearer and nearer till it had actually run over his foot and then scurried away chattering in dismay at its own rashness ”

“ There, not twenty yards away, stood William Raften, spectator of the whole affair—an expression not of anger but of infinite sorrow and disappointment on his face—not because they had quarrelled—no—he knew boy nature well enough not to give that a thought—but that his son, older and stronger than the other and backed by another boy, should be licked in fair fight by a thin, half-invalid. ”

“ Each step was bringing him nearer to Bunny as it slept or seemed asleep in the tussock. Yan wondered whether he ought not to shout out and end the stalk before the Rabbit was caught, but as a naturalist he was eager to see the whole thing out and learn how the Fox would make the capture. The red-furred gentleman was now within fifteen feet of the tussock and still the gray one moved not. Now he was within twelve feet—and no move; ten feet—and Bunny seemed in tranquil sleep; eight feet—and now the Fox for the first time seemed to actually see his victim. ”

“ More deep than love—more strong than hate—the biggest thing
in all the universe—the law of laws.
Grant but this greatest gift of God to man—this single link
concatenating grant, and all the rest are worthless or comprised.
Each year the ancient springtime madness came more strongly on Yan. Each year he was less inclined to resist it, and one glorious day of late April in its twelfth return he had wandered northward along to a little wood a couple of miles from the town. It was full of unnamed flowers and voices and mysteries. ”

“ Paint was his hobby and his pride, but alas! how often it happens one's deepest sorrow is in the midst of one's greatest joy—the deepest lake is the old crater on top of the highest mountain. Sappy's eyes were not the sinister black beads of the wily Red-man, but a washed-out blue. His ragged, tow-coloured 231 locks he could hide under wisps of horsehair, the paint itself redeemed his freckled skin, but there was no remedy for the white eyelashes and the pale, piggy, blue eyes. ”

“ Yan, though not strong, revelled in deeds of brawn. He would rather have been Samson than Moses—Hercules than Apollo. All his tastes inclined him to wild life. Each year when the spring came, he felt the inborn impulse to up and away. He was stirred through and through when the first Crow, in early March, came barking over-head. But it fairly boiled in his blood when the Wild Geese, in long, double, arrow-headed procession, went clanging northward. ”

“ The romance of sitting by the fire in one's teepee appealed to both of the boys, but the physical torture of the smoke made it unbearable. Their dream was dispelled, and Sam suggested, "Maybe we'd better try a shanty."
"No," said Yan, with his usual doggedness. "I know it can be done, because the Indians do it. We'll find out in time."
But all their efforts were in vain. The wigwam was a failure, as far as fire was concerned. It was very small and uncomfortable, too; the wind blew through a hundred crevices, which grew larger as the Elm bark dried and cracked. ”

“ Almost immediately a Kingfisher that had been shooting past stopped in air, hovered, and darting downward, came up with a Minnow in his beak, flew to a branch to swallow its prey, but no sooner got there when a Chicken-hawk flashed out of a thick tree, struck the Kingfisher with both feet and bore him downward to the bank—in a moment would have killed him, but a long, brown creature rushed from a hole in the bank and sprang on the struggling pair, to change the scene in a twinkling. ”

“ Was there ever a nobler bird than that great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood of life, a song of home and of peace—of stirring deeds and hunting in far-off climes—of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet with cooling drink. ”

“ The tramp, strong, heavy-built, and just drunk enough to be dangerous, was too much for him, and after a couple of rounds the Trapper fell writhing with a foul blow. The tramp felt again for his knife, swore savagely, looked around for a club, found only a big stone, and would have done no one knows what, when there was a yell from behind, another big man crashed down the trail, and the tramp faced William Raften, puffing and panting, with Guy close behind. The stone meant for Caleb he hurled at William, who dodged it, and now there was an even fight. ”

“ There is nothing more supple and elegant than a fine Cat, and men of science the world over have taken the Cat as the standard of perfection in animal make-up. Pussy glanced about for danger. She had brought no bird or Mouse, for the Kittens were yet too young for such training. The boys watched her with intensest interest. She glided along the log to the hole—the Skunk-smelling hole—uttered her low "purrow, purrow," that always sets the hungry Kittens agog, and was curling in around them, when she discovered the pink Squirrel-babies among her own. ”

“ That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan's mind—not his memory, that was a thing of the past—but in his mind, his living 44 present.
And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the smell of the Wintergreen.
Smell's appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than that of any other sense. The Indians know this; many of them, in time, find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it by them in the medicine bag. ”

“ Of course, all boys have more or less cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. Sam selected his best, just below the knee, a scratch from a nail in the fence. He had never given it a thought before, but now he "reckoned it would do." With a lead pencil borrowed from Yan he spread a hue of mortification all around it, a green butternut rind added the unpleasant yellowish-brown of human decomposition, and the result was a frightful looking plague spot. ”

“ The more prosperous settlers put up neat little brick houses. To the surprise of all, one Phil O'Leary, a poor but prolific Dogan, leaped at once from a hog-pen log to a fine brick, and caused no end of perplexity to the ruling society queens, simply paralyzing the social register, since his nine fat daughters now had claims with the best. Many, however, whose brick houses were but five years old, denounced the O'Learys as upstarts and for long witheld all social recognition. William Raften, as the most prosperous man in the community, was first to appear in red bricks. ”

“ A few hairs of these were compared with those from the tree and left no doubt that the climber was a Coon. Thus Yan got the beginning of the idea that the very hairs of each, as well as its tracks, are different. He learned, also, how wise it is to draw everything that he wished to observe or describe. It was accident, or instinct on his part, but he had fallen on a sound principle; there is nothing like a sketch to collect and convey accurate information of form—there is no better developer of true observation. ”

“ Later a short-legged brown animal, as big as a Rabbit, came nosing up the dry but shady bed of the brook, and as it went beneath them Yan recognized by its little Beaver-like head and scaly oar-shaped tail that it was a Muskrat, apparently seeking for water.
There was plenty in the swimming-pond yet, and the boys realized that this had become a gathering place for those wild things that were "drowned out by the drought," as Sam put it.
The Muskrat had not gone more than twenty minutes before another deep-brown animal appeared. "Another Muskrat; must be a meeting," whispered the Woodpecker. ”

“ His valiant son, a somewhat smaller boy than either Yan or Sam, came near enough to the boundary to hurl opprobrious epithets.
"Red-head—red-head! You red-headed thief! Hol' on till my paw gits hol' o' you—Raften, the Baften, the rick-strick Straften," and others equally galling and even more exquisitely refined.
"War party escaped and saved their scalps," and Sam placidly laid the axe in its usual place.
"Nothing lost but honour," added Yan. "Who's the kid?"
"Oh, that's Guy Burns. I know him. He's a mean little cuss, always sneaking and peeking. Lies like sixty. ”

“ Yan merely chuckled in answer to this.
"Don't you laugh," said the Woodpecker, solemnly, "You'd be more apt to cry if you seen one walk into the teepee blowing the whistle at the end of his tail. Then it'd be, 'Oh, Sam, where's the axe?'"
"Tell you what I do believe it is," said Yan, not noticing this terrifying description; "it's a Skunk."
"Little Beaver, my son! I thought I would tell you, then I sez to meself, 'No; it's better for him to find out by his lone. Nothing like a struggle in early life to develop the stuff in a man. It don't do to help him too much,' sez I, an' so I didn't." ”

“ They soon left the high ground and came to the bog—flat and seemingly endless and with a few tall Tamaracks. There were some Cedar-birds catching Flies on the tall tree-tops, and a single Flycatcher was calling out: "Whoit—whoit—whoit!" Yan did not know until long after that it was the Olive-side. A Sparrow-hawk sailed over, and later a Bald Eagle with a Sparrow-hawk in hot and noisy pursuit. But the most curious thing was the surface of the bog. ”

“ The Chiefs talked of fire and torture and of ducking him in the pond without getting much response. Then they began to cross-examine the prisoner. He gave no answer. Why did he come to the camp? What was he doing—stealing? etc. He only looked sullen.
"Let's blindfold him and drive a Gyascutus down his back," said Yan in a hollow voice.
"Good idee," agreed Sam, not knowing any more than the prisoner what a Gyascutus was. Then he added, "just as well be merciful. It'll put him out o' pain."
It is the unknown that terrifies. The prisoner's soul was touched again. ”

“ Great masses of orange Jewelweed on one side were variegated with some wonderful Cardinal flowers. Yan viewed all this with placid content. He knew their names now, and thus they were transferred from the list of tantalizing mysteries to that of engaging and wonderful friends. As he lay there on his breast his thoughts wandered back to the days when he did not know the names of any flowers or birds—when all was strange and he alone in his hunger to know them, and Bonnerton came back to him with new, strange force of reminder. His father and mother, 329 his brother and schoolmates were there. ”

“ A White hunter can't hunt with bows and arrows, and catch game with snares, can he? And there never yet was a White man could make a Birch canoe." Then, changing his tone, Yan went on: "Say, now, Sam, we want to be the best kind of hunters, don't we, so as to be ready for going out West. Let's be Injuns and do everything like Injuns."
After all, this had the advantage of romance and picturesqueness, and Sam consented to "try it for awhile, anyhow." And now came the point of Yan's argument. "Injuns don't live in shanties; they live in teepees. Why not make a teepee instead?" ”