William J. Long

“ Or again, when you enter the wilderness remote from men, here is a deer slipping shadow-like through the shadowy twilight, daintily tasting twenty varieties of food in as many minutes, and keeping tabs on every living or moving or growing thing while she eats; or a fox, which seems to float along like thistle-down in the wind, halting, listening, testing the air-smells as one would appreciate a varied landscape, playing Columbus to every nook or brush-pile and finding in it something that no explorer ever found before. ”

“ But when you hide with ready rifle near some venison which the same wolves have killed; when you see them break out of the woods upon the ice, running free and confident to the food which they know is awaiting them; when you see them stop suddenly, as if struck, though they cannot possibly see or smell you, and then scatter and run by separate trails to a meeting-point on another lake—well, then you may conclude, as I do, that part of a wolf’s cunning lies deeper than his five senses. ”

“ It suggested at once the right way to study birds or beasts, as living creatures; it has since led to many a fascinating glimpse of the wood-folk comedy, and to a lifelong pleasure which is too elusive to be set down in words. At the bottom of it, I suppose, is the fact that in every wild or natural creature is something, at once mysterious and familiar, which appeals powerfully to your interest or sympathy, as if you saw a faint shadow of your other self, or caught a fleeting memory of that vanished time when you lived in a child’s world of wonder and delight. ”

“ The earth beneath your feet, the restful earth which the lumbermen left torn by iron tools or rent by dynamite, has again put on her soft-colored garments. Feathery beds of fern push boldly into the road from shadowy places; wild grasses fill all its sunny openings with their bloom and fragrance; and winding down through shade or sunshine comes a trail made by the feet of deer and moose. Already these timid animals have adopted the forgotten road as a runway; you may meet them here when you return in the evening twilight.
Everywhere beside the trail are old marks of the destroyer. ”

“ The glassy water reflected every form, color, motion of these untroubled ducks as in a glass, doubling the graceful effect. Around them stretched the gloriously colored bog; and beyond the bog were the nebulous-green larches, the somber black growth and the lifting hills, on which autumn had laid its golden touch. Truly a beautiful sight, a sight to make the heart of hunter or naturalist tremble with expectancy as he fingered his gun. I have known that trembling, that expectancy; but there was greater pleasure, perhaps greater freedom also, in leaving the happy comedy undisturbed. ”

“ Soon the moss grows deeper underfoot, with a coolness that speaks of perpetual moisture. The forest becomes dense, almost bewildering; here a “black growth” of spruce or fir, there a tangle of moosewood, yonder a swale [241] where impenetrable alder-thickets make it impossible to hold a straight course. Because all this growth is useless to the lumberman, there is no cutting to be seen; but because I have passed this way before, instinctively following the same course like an animal, a faint winding trail begins to appear, with a bent twig or a blazed tree at every turn to give direction. ”

“ Until late midsummer the family had the pond all to themselves. Never a stranger-duck appeared to share or challenge their heritage; while day after day the mother watched over the little brood as they fed or played or learned the wild-duck signals. Like our dogs, every manner of beast or bird has its own tribal ways or customs, some of which do not appear in the young until they begin to roam abroad or to mingle with their kind. ”

“ It grows a better crop than trout, attracts a finer game than deer or water-fowl, and you can seldom visit it without learning something new about your natural self or the wood folk or the friendly universe.
Thus, it happens on a day when you are waiting beside your pond, or wending your way to it, that a moose or a fox or a dainty grouse appears unexpectedly near you; and instantly, without thought or motive, you “freeze” in your tracks or, if you are not seen, shrink deeper into the shadow for concealment. ”

“ Simmo is one of these rare men. At one moment he is a mere child, so guileless, so natural, so innocent of worldly wisdom, that he is forever surprising you. Once when his pipe was lost I saw him fill an imaginary bowl, scratch an imaginary match, and puff away with a look of heavenly content on his weathered face. So you treat him as an unspoiled creature, humoring him, till there is difficulty or danger ahead, or a man’s work to be done, when he steps quietly to the front as if he belonged there. ”

“ As the little pond seems to awaken, to be alive and sentient, so also does that noble tree yonder when you view it for the first time, or that delicate orchid wafting its fragrance over the lonely bog. Each reflects something greater than itself, and it is that greater “something” which appeals to you when you enter the solitude. Your impressions here are those of the first man, a man who found many beautiful things in a garden, and God walking among them in the cool of the day. ”

“ The little ones, trailing out behind, were hard put to it to keep up the pace. She was fairly under me before she noticed a new scent in the air, which made her halt to look about for the meaning of it. Her neck [285] was lifted, weasel-fashion, to thrice its ordinary length; at the end of it her pointed head swung like a vane to the bank, to the pond, to the bank again; while her busy nose wiggled out its sharp questions. Probably she had no notion of man, never having met the creature; neither did she associate the motionless figure above her with life or danger. ”

“ Occasionally, it is true, I have found nothing on looking around, either because no animal was there or because he was too well hidden to be seen; but much more often the feeling proved true to fact—so often, indeed, that I soon came to trust it without doubt or question, as Simmo my Indian still does, and a few other woodsmen I have known. It is possible that one’s ears or nose may account for the feeling; that some faint sound or odor may make itself felt so faintly that one has the impression of life without knowing through what channel the impression is received. ”

“ Such a power seems mysterious, incredible, in a civilized world of sense and noise; but I fancy that every man and woman speaks silently to the brute without being conscious of the fact. “If you want to see game, leave your gun at home,” is an accepted saying among hunters; but the reason for the excellent admonition has not been forthcoming. When you have hunted six days in vain, and then on a quiet Sunday stroll come plump upon noble game that seems to have no fear, you are apt to think of the curiosities of luck, but even here also are you under the sway of psychological law and order. ”

“ Only by some such method can you learn anything worth knowing about a wild animal: books describe, naturalists classify and sportsmen kill him; but to understand him you must be a sharer of his quiet ways.
Comes another day, a day when you are in love with solitude itself, when you learn with surprise that a man is never lonely when alone in the woods; that ideals may be quite as companionable as folks; and that around you in a goodly company are beauty, peace, spacious freedom and harmonious thoughts, with a hint also, to some minds, of angels and ministers of grace. ”

“ I am sometimes asked, “What is the most interesting thing you find in the woods?” the question calling, no doubt, for the name of some bird or beast or animal habit that may challenge our ignorance or stir our wonder. The answer is, that whether you search the wood or the city or the universe, the only interesting thing you will ever find anywhere is the thrill and mystery of awakening life. ”

“ Then, when you are thinking you will never see that flock again, a cloud of wings shoot up from the plain against the horizon; they fall, wheel, rise again in marvelous flight, not as a thousand individuals but as a unit, and the lines grow larger, clearer, as the plover come sweeping back to your decoys once more. ”

“ It is noteworthy that the most companionable people in the world are silent people, especially a silent friend, and that the silence of any man is invariably more eloquent than his speech. The silence of one man rests you like a melody; the silence of another bores you to yawning, perhaps because it is a “dead” silence; the quietude of a third excites your curiosity to such an extent that, for once in your life, you behave like a perfectly natural animal ”

“ For unless our ears are keen enough to distinguish between the food and hunting calls of an animal, or between bob-white’s love note and the yodel that brings his scattered flock together, it will be idle for us to ask what message or impulse a mother wolf sends after a running cub when she lifts her head to look at him steadily, and he checks his rush to return to her side as if she had made the murky woods echo to her assembly clamor. ”

“ But when you are well asleep the same animals will pass boldly through your camp-yard; or they will awaken you, as they have many times awakened me, when you are tenting or sleeping under the stars by some outlying pond. If you lie quiet, content to listen, the invading animal will move freely here or there without concern; but no sooner do you begin to stir, however quietly, than he catches the warning scent, and a thudding of earth or a smashing of brush tells the rest of the story. ”

“ Then comes an hour when flocks of starlings appear on all sides, heading to a common center. They gather in trees here or there about the edges of a great field or a strip of open beach, all jabbering like the blackbirds, which they imitate in their cries, flitting about in ceaseless commotion, but apparently keeping their family or tribal organization intact. Suddenly, as at a signal, they all launch themselves toward the center of the field; the hundred companies unite in one immense flock, and presto! ”

“ Now if you value animal lore above stuffed skins, or experience above the babble of hunting naturalists, forget the big bull and his greed-stirring antlers; scramble quickly to the highest outlook at hand, and use your eyes. No alarm has been sounded; the vast silence is unbroken; yet for some mysterious reason the whole herd is suddenly on the move. To your right, to your left, near at hand or far away, bushes quiver or jump ”

“ To look upon such trees, dead and shorn of their beauty, is to feel pity or indignation; but Nature does not share your feeling, being too abundant of life and resource to waste any moment in regret. Already she is upbuilding what man [239] has torn down. Glaring ax-wounds have all disappeared under bandages of living moss; every fallen log has hidden its loss under a mantle of lichen, soft and gray, which speaks not of death but of life renewed.
Where the sun touches these prostrate giants a blush of delicate color spreads over them. ”

“ This whole matter of silent communication may appear less strange if we remember that most wild creatures are all their lives accustomed to matters which sense-blinded mortals find mysterious or incredible. Why a caterpillar, which lives but a few hours when all the leaves are green, should make a cocoon of a single leaf and with a thread of silk bind that leaf to its stem before he wraps himself up in it, as if he knew that every leaf must fall ”

“ Or a woman, the wife of a sea-captain, sitting on the veranda at home in the bright moonlight, sees the familiar earth vanish in a world of water, and looks suddenly upon her husband’s ship as it reels to the gale, turns over to the very edge of destruction, and then rights itself with half its crew swept overboard—and all this while the precise event befell a thousand miles away. ”

“ Panic is more infectious than any fever, and knows no barriers between brute and human. Indeed, in a frightened crowd in the Subway, in a theater where smoke appears, or in any other scene of emotional excitement, you may in a few minutes observe actions more panicky, more suggestive of a herd impulse (if there be such a fantastic thing in orderly nature) , than can be seen in a whole lifetime of watching wild animals. ”