Knout

“ Every jump now took him upon higher ground, where the sand failed, and the grass grew thicker and began to bend under the wind.
In the teeth of the nipping gale Jones slipped close upon the herd without alarming even a cow. More than a hundred little reddish-black calves leisurely loped in the rear. Kentuck, keen to his work, crept on like a wolf, and the hunter's great fist clenched the coiled lasso. Before him expanded a boundless plain. A situation long cherished and dreamed of had become a reality. Kentuck, fresh and strong, was good for all day. ”

“ Kincton Knox, whether gracious or repellent, was nearly equally insupportable.
Every time he walked out, and, pausing on the upland, looked long and mournfully in the direction in which he fancied lay Gilroyd, with its sunset blush of old red brick, its roses, deep green-sward and chestnut shadows, a sort of home sickness overcame him. Beyond that horizon there was affection, and in old times the never-failing welcome, the smile, the cordial sympathy, and the liberty that knew not Kincton. ”

“ Knox, or whether she herself was picked up by Johnny while Mrs. Knox picked up the donkey. From my knowledge of Mrs. Knox I should say she picked up herself and no one else. At all events, the next salient point is the palpitating moment when Mrs. Knox, Johnny, and Philippa successively applying an eye to the opening of the culvert by which the stream trickled under the viaduct, while five dripping hounds bayed and leaped around them, discovered by more senses than that of sight that the fox was in it, and furthermore that one of the hounds was in it too. ”

“ They never took dead gophers up there, or snakes; only the rabbits. Once a mule was so frightened that he plunged till he broke his halter, got free, and ran off down the hill; and the men had a big chase before they overtook him.
But the queerest thing of all that happened, was that the cats adopted a skunk; or else it was the skunk that adopted the cats; I don't know which [Pg 102] would be the proper way of stating it; but at any rate the skunk joined the family, lived with them in the woodpile, came with them every morning to be fed, and went off with them hunting gophers every day. ”

“ The nest was shallow and broad. The base was about eighteen inches in diameter, and was about eight feet from the ground. It was in a small spruce in a thick wood and on high ground. When disturbed, the female flew off a short distance; but on Mr. Kennicott’s hiding himself returned and flew near the nest, continually uttering a harsh rapid note. Near the nest were marks indicating the place where the male passed the nights perched on a dry stick near the ground.
Mr. B. R. Ross observed these birds nesting thickly along the cliffs of the Upper Slave River. ”

“ I sat down in the snow and thought; for I could not think at once. Cnut had not wished to murder, or else he had flung the Englishman from the narrow ledge with one blow of his strong arm. He had waited until they had stood on the Devil’s Seat, and then he had thrown off his pack and faced him, man to man. The Englishman was strong and active, taller and heavier than Cnut. He had Harald’s name, but he had not Harald’s heart nor blood, and Cnut had carried him in his arms over the cliff, with his false heart like water in his body. ”

“ Also I brought these crooked Knooks, whom I love. My dears, the Knooks are much nicer than they look, for their duty is to water and care for the young trees of the forest, and they do their work faithfully and well. It's hard work, though, and it makes my Knooks crooked and gnarled, like the trees themselves; but their hearts are big and kind, as are the hearts of all who do good in our beautiful world."
"I've read of the Ryls and Knooks," said Dorothy, looking upon these little workers with interest. ”

“ It has feathers, therefore it is a bird. Birds of a feather flock together. That settles it, I think! Come along, boys. To work!"
At his command the two duck apprentices, who were standing one on either side of Ann, made feeble dashes at the two long curls nearest them. Rudolf stepped forward but the Hare was before him. He only needed to stare at the two ducks through a single eye-glass he had screwed into one of his eyes to make them turn pale and drop their claws to their sides.
"Now once more," said the Hare to Ann. "What did you say you call those unpleasantly long whiskers of yours?" ”

“ We made him welcome and we loved him. He knew the world and could tell us many-things. He knew the story of Norway and the Vikings, and the Sagas were on his tongue. Cnut loved him and followed him, and she (the pause which always indicated her who filled his thoughts) —she, then but a girl, laughed and sang for him, and he sang for her, and his voice was rich and sweet. And she went with him to fish and to climb, and often, when Cnut and I were in the field, we would hear her laugh, clear and fresh from the rocks beside the streams, as he told her some fine story of his England. ”

“ Cutten and Marshall were out in the racy roadster, so, pinning a note on the dining-room table, instructing them to report at the hennery to view a strange sight, Mr. Cutten returned to enjoy to the fullest the scientific delight of watching a gopher snake dispose of a hen's egg without even cracking the shell. By the time Mrs. Cutten and Marshall had arrived, the egg had almost passed the snake's lips, and the creature's head resembled the thumb of a boxing glove. ”

“ Knös had his sword of fifteen hundredweights at his side, and with it he cut off all the troll's heads. But the fifteen hundredweights were half-an-ounce short, and the heads grew on again, and the troll took the princess, and carried her off with him.
One day as Knös was going along, he met a man carrying a church on his back. "You are a strong man, you are!" said Knös. "No, I am not strong," said he, "but Knös at the king's court, he is strong; for he can take steel and iron, and weld them together with his hands as though they were clay." ”

“ Cnut alone seemed downcast, but I knew not why; and then the snow came. One morning we awoke and the farm was as white as the mountains. I said to him, ‘Now you are here for the winter,’ and he laughed and said, ‘No, I will stay till the new-year. I have business then in England, and I must go.’ And I turned, and her face was like sunshine, for she knew that none but Cnut and I had ever passed the Devil’s Ledge in the snow, and the other way by which I took the Doctor home was worse then, though easier in the summer, only longer. But Cnut looked gloomy, at which I chid him ”

“ The skunk preys upon mice, salamanders, frogs and the eggs of birds that nest on or within reach from the ground. At times he eats carrion, and if he chances to stumble upon a hen’s nest the eggs are liable to suffer; and once in a while he acquires the evil habit of robbing the hen-roost, but as a rule skunks are not addicted to this vice. Of all our native mammals perhaps no one is so universally abused and has so many unpleasant things said about it as the innocent subject of the present biography; and yet no other species is half so valuable to the farmer. ”

“ How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part of the plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is upon this alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt there is relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer, "Hold on," and to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the tortuous, zigzag course of those slow-flying moths for but to make it difficult for the birds to snap them up? The skunk is a slow, witless creature, and the fox and lynx love its meat; yet it carries a bloodless weapon that neither likes to face. ”

“ The proportions of the various parts of the body to one another vary exceedingly in one and the same species. Beside the usual changes from the young to the sexually mature form observed in all fishes, the snout undergoes an extraordinary amount of alteration of shape. In the mature male the intermaxillaries and the mandible are produced in various degrees, and the latter is frequently more or less bent upwards. Hence the males have the snout much more pointed and produced, and the entire head longer, than the females ”

“ In a trice the black and white spotted cats, who seemed to be common sailors, had tied the False Hare's paws behind him with his own string, lowered him into the mice's little boat from which they had already removed the oars, gave it a push, and sent him cruelly adrift!
"Oh, Rudolf," cried tender-hearted Ann, "what will become of him? Poor old Hare!" ”

“ It appears to me you don't know skunks very well!"
"Huh!" said the Babe. "I've smelt 'em. But smells can't hurt anybody."
"With your notions of skunks," answered Uncle Andy, "you're going to get yourself into a heap of trouble one of these days. I'd better tell you about what happened once when a small young skunk, out walking all by himself in the dewy twilight, happened to meet a large young bear." ”

“ When closely cornered, the skunk will turn its tail toward the enemy and with a quiver and a flip of his tail it can guide the openings of two little tubes that come out along the root of the tail in such fashion as to eject the fluid in a fine and foul-smelling stream against the animal from which the skunk would escape. Once fairly hit by this fluid, I imagine most animals will drop the skunk. A dog surely will, and will hate himself for having made [Pg 118] the attempt to capture anything which must be so ignominiously allowed to escape. ”

“ Knox, thumping the donkey on the back with her umbrella; "here! Jeremiah Regan! Come down out of that with that pitchfork! Do you want to kill the fox, you fool?"
"I do not, your honour, ma'am," responded Jeremiah Regan, a tall young countryman, emerging from a bramble brake.
"Did you see him?" said Mrs. Knox eagerly.
"I seen himself and his ten pups drinking below at the lake ere yestherday, your honour, ma'am, and he as big as a chestnut horse!" said Jeremiah.
"Faugh! Yesterday!" snorted Mrs. Knox; "go on to the rhododendrons, Johnny!" ”

“ It is our experience that the female at rutting time will cohabit with more than one male like a dog or rather like a cat which it more generally resembles.
The predominating color of the fur of all species is black and white with the exception of the Texas skunk, which due to a peculiar soil, is of reddish cast. Some of the animals have a clear coat of fur, others are all black excepting a small white star, but the majority have two stripes, some terminating at the center of body, on others the stripe continuing from the forehead over the body, terminating at the tail. ”

“ Kincton Knox had been some twenty years before bereft of her brilliant intellect and shut up in a remote madhouse, or consigned under an unexceptionable epitaph to the family vault in Smolderton Church, the afflicted family might have prospered; for Miss Clara was really pretty, and could draw and sing better than most well-married young ladies of her rank in life. And, though he was not very bright, no man was more inoffensive and genial than portly old Kincton Knox, if only she had permitted his popularity to grow, and had left him and his belongings a little to nature. ”

“ Including this little creature in my wild animal series is somewhat contrary to the advice of my publishers who naturally believe in “best sellers” rather than in “best smellers,” but I have a fond hope that Striped Coat will win his way with readers to a place beside Bun, Red Ben, Gray Squirrel and those to follow. I might add that a young skunk readily becomes a very tame, unusually interesting and beautiful pet, a safe one however only if accidents are provided against by “disarming,” that is, by the removal of the two scent sacs. ”

“ But then as the creature continued its walk, to be soon upon the boy’s chest, it seemed to get into a violent passion, setting up its quills at all angles and rattling them together till it seemed about to dash at him. But instead of doing anything obnoxious it suddenly disappeared before the advance of a skunk, which came trotting up his body from his feet, just after the same fashion as the porcupine, but looking fiercely aggressive, in spite of the beauty of its clean, glossy, black and white fur. ”

“ Never to have stood face to face in a narrow path at night with a full-grown, leisurely skunk is to have missed excitement and suspense second only to the staring out of countenance of a green-eyed wildcat. It is surely worth while, in these days of parks and chipmunks, when all stir and adventure has fled the woods, to sally out at night for the mere sake of meeting a skunk, for the shock of standing before a beast that will not give you the path. ”

“ On our way home we killed one of the flat toad-like lizards which the Indians regard- 203 - as devilish; we also caught a young skunk, which Casimiro wished to keep as a pet for the children, but at my instance let it go and enjoy the delights of freedom. ‘Fancy a tame skunk!’ some may exclaim; but in Hinchel’s toldo there were two skunks which, perfectly tame and as playful as kittens, ran about everywhere, never using their offensive powers, and sometimes getting lost for an hour or two caused a dreadful outcry to be raised by the children until they were found. ”