Secret of the Woods
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William J. Long >> Secret of the Woods
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SECRETS OF THE WOODS
BY
WILLIAM J. LONG
Wood Folk Series Book Three
1901
TO CH'GEEGEE-LOKH-SIS, "Little
Friend Ch'geegee," whose
coming makes the winter glad.
PREFACE
This little book is but another chapter in the shy 'wild life of
the fields and woods' of which "Ways of Wood Folk" and
"Wilderness Ways " were the beginning. It is given gladly in
answer to the call for more from those who have read the previous
volumes, and whose letters are full of the spirit of kindness
and appreciation.
Many questions have come of late with these same letters;
chief of which is this: How shall one discover such things for
himself? how shall we, too, read the secrets of the Wood Folk?
There is no space here to answer, to describe the long
training, even if one could explain perfectly what is more or
less unconscious. I would only suggest that perhaps the real
reason why we see so little in the woods is the way we go through
them--talking, laughing, rustling, smashing twigs, disturbing the
peace of the solitudes by what must seem strange and uncouth
noises to the little wild creatures. They, on the other hand,
slip with noiseless feet through their native coverts, shy,
silent, listening, more concerned to hear than to be heard,
loving the silence, hating noise and fearing it, as they fear and
hate their natural enemies.
We would not feel comfortable if a big barbarian came into
our quiet home, broke the door down, whacked his war-club on the
furniture, and whooped his battle yell. We could hardly be
natural under the circumstances. Our true dispositions would hide
themselves. We might even vacate the house bodily. Just so Wood
Folk. Only as you copy their ways can you expect to share their
life and their secrets. And it is astonishing how little the
shyest of them fears you, if you but keep silence and avoid all
excitement, even of feeling; for they understand your feeling
quite as much as your action.
A dog knows when you are afraid of him; when you are hostile;
when friendly. So does a bear. Lose your nerve, and the horse you
are riding goes to pieces instantly. Bubble over with suppressed
excitement, and the deer yonder, stepping daintily down the bank
to your canoe in the water grasses, will stamp and snort and
bound away without ever knowing what startled him. But be quiet,
friendly, peace-possessed in the same place, and the deer, even
after discovering you, will draw near and show his curiosity in
twenty pretty ways ere he trots away, looking back over his
shoulder for your last message. Then be generous--show him the
flash of a looking-glass, the flutter of a bright handkerchief, a
tin whistle, or any other little kickshaw that the remembrance of
a boy's pocket may suggest--and the chances are that he will come
back again, finding curiosity so richly rewarded.
That is another point to remember: all the Wood Folk are more
curious about you than you are about them. Sit down quietly in
the woods anywhere, and your coming will occasion the same stir
that a stranger makes in a New England hill town. Control your
curiosity, and soon their curiosity gets beyond control; they
must come to find out who you are and what you are doing. Then
you have the advantage; for, while their curiosity is being
satisfied, they forget fear and show you many curious bits of
their life that you will never discover otherwise.
As to the source of these sketches, it is the same as that of the
others years of quiet observation in the woods and fields, and
some old notebooks which hold the records of summer and winter
camps in the great wilderness.
My kind publishers announced, some time ago, a table of contents,
which included chapters on jay and fish-hawk, panther, and
musquash, and a certain savage old bull moose that once took up
his abode too near my camp for comfort. My only excuse for their
non-appearance is that my little book was full before their turn
came. They will find their place, I trust, in another volume
presently.
STAMFORD, CONN., June, 1901. Wm. J. LONG.
CONTENTS
TOOKHEES THE 'FRAID ONE
A WILDERNESS BYWAY
KEEONEKH THE FISHERMAN
KOSKOMENOS THE OUTCAST
MEEKO THE MISCHIEF-MAKER
THE OL' BEECH PA'TRIDGE
FOLLOWING THE DEER
SUMMER WOODS
STILL HUNTING
WINTER TRAILS
SNOW BOUND
GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES
SECRETS OF THE WOODS
TOOKHEES THE 'FRAID ONE
Little Tookhees the wood mouse, the 'Fraid One, as Simmo calls
him, always makes two appearances when you squeak to bring him
out. First, after much peeking, he runs out of his tunnel; sits
up once on his hind legs; rubs his eyes with his paws; looks up
for the owl, and behind him for the fox, and straight ahead at
the tent where the man lives; then he dives back headlong into
his tunnel with a rustle of leaves and a frightened whistle, as
if Kupkawis the little owl had seen him. That is to reassure
himself. In a moment he comes back softly to see what kind of
crumbs you have given him.
No wonder Tookhees is so timid, for there is no place in earth or
air or water, outside his own little doorway under the mossy
stone, where he is safe. Above him the owls watch by night and
the hawks by day; around him not a prowler of the wilderness,
from Mooween the bear down through a score of gradations, to
Kagax the bloodthirsty little weasel, but will sniff under every
old log in the hope of finding a wood mouse; and if he takes a
swim, as he is fond of doing, not a big trout in the river but
leaves his eddy to rush at the tiny ripple holding bravely across
the current. So, with all these enemies waiting to catch him the
moment he ventures out, Tookhees must needs make one or two false
starts in order to find out where the coast is clear.
That is why he always dodges back after his first appearance; why
he gives you two or three swift glimpses of himself, now here,
now there, before coming out into the light. He knows his enemies
are so hungry, so afraid he will get away or that somebody else
will catch him, that they jump for him the moment he shows a
whisker. So eager are they for his flesh, and so sure, after
missing him, that the swoop of wings or the snap of red jaws has
scared him into permanent hiding, that they pass on to other
trails. And when a prowler, watching from behind a stump, sees
Tookhees flash out of sight and hears his startled squeak, he
thinks naturally that the keen little eyes have seen the tail,
which he forgot to curl close enough, and so sneaks away as if
ashamed of himself. Not even the fox, whose patience is without
end, has learned the wisdom of waiting for Tookhees' second
appearance. And that is the salvation of the little 'Fraid One.
From all these enemies Tookhees has one refuge, the little arched
nest beyond the pretty doorway under the mossy stone. Most of
his enemies can dig, to be sure, but his tunnel winds about in
such a way that they never can tell from the looks of his doorway
where it leads to; and there are no snakes in the wilderness to
follow and find out. Occasionally I have seen where Mooween the
bear has turned the stone over and clawed the earth beneath; but
there is generally a tough root in the way, and Mooween concludes
that he is taking too much trouble for so small a mouthful, and
shuffles off to the log where the red ants live.
On his journeys through the woods Tookhees never forgets the
dangerous possibilities. His progress is a series of jerks, and
whisks, and jumps, and hidings. He leaves his doorway, after much
watching, and shoots like a minnow across the moss to an
upturned root. There he sits up and listens, rubbing his whiskers
nervously. Then he glides along the root for a couple of feet,
drops to the ground and disappears. He is hiding there under a
dead leaf. A moment of stillness and he jumps like a
jack-in-abox. Now he is sitting on the leaf that covered him,
rubbing his whiskers again, looking back over his trail as if he
heard footsteps behind him. Then another nervous dash, a squeak
which proclaims at once his escape. and his arrival, and he
vanishes under the old moss-grown log where his fellows live, a
whole colony of them.
All these things, and many more, I discovered the first season
that I began to study the wild things that lived within sight of
my tent. I had been making long excursions after bear and beaver,
following on wild-goose chases after Old Whitehead the eagle and
Kakagos the wild woods raven that always escaped me, only to
find that within the warm circle of my camp-fire little wild folk
were hiding whose lives were more unknown and quite as
interesting as the greater creatures I had been following.
One day, as I returned quietly to camp, I saw Simmo quite lost in
watching something near my tent. He stood beside a great birch
tree, one hand resting against the bark that he would claim next
winter for his new canoe; the other hand still grasped his axe,
which he had picked up a moment before to quicken the tempo of
the bean kettle's song. His dark face peered behind the tree with
a kind of childlike intensity written all over it.
I stole nearer without his hearing me; but I could see nothing.
The woods were all still. Killooleet was dozing by his nest; the
chickadees had vanished, knowing that it was not meal time; and
Meeko the red squirrel had been made to jump from the fir top to
the ground so often that now he kept sullenly to his own hemlock
across the island, nursing his sore feet and scolding like a fury
whenever I approached. Still Simmo watched, as if a bear were
approaching his bait, till I whispered, "Quiee, Simmo, what is
it?"
"Nodwar k'chee Toquis, I see little 'Fraid One'" he said,
unconsciously dropping into his own dialect, which is the softest
speech in the world, so soft that wild things are not disturbed
when they hear it, thinking it only a louder sough of the pines
or a softer tunking of ripples on the rocks.--"O bah cosh, see!
He wash-um face in yo lil cup." And when I tiptoed to his side,
there was Tookhees sitting on the rim of my drinking cup, in
which I had left a new leader to soak for the evening's fishing,
scrubbing his face diligently, like a boy who is watched from
behind to see that he slights not his ears or his neck.
Remembering my own boyhood on cold mornings, I looked behind him
to see if he also were under compulsion, but there was no other
mouse in sight. He would scoop up a double handful of water in
his paws, rub it rapidly up over nose and eyes, and then behind
his ears, on the spots that wake you up quickest when you are
sleepy. Then another scoop of water, and another vigorous rub,
ending behind his ears as before.
Simmo was full of wonder, for an Indian notices few things in the
woods beside those that pertain to his trapping and hunting; and
to see a mouse wash his face was as incomprehensible to him as to
see me read a book. But all wood mice are very cleanly; they have
none of the strong odors of our house mice. Afterwards, while
getting acquainted, I saw him wash many times in the plate of
water that I kept filled near his den; but he never washed more
than his face and the sensitive spot behind his ears. Sometimes,
however, when I have seen him swimming in the lake or river, I
have wondered whether he were going on a journey, or just bathing
for the love of it, as he washed his face in my cup.
I left the cup where it was and spread a feast for the little
guest, cracker crumbs and a bit of candle end. In the morning
they were gone, the signs of several mice telling plainly who had
been called in from the wilderness byways. That was the
introduction of man to beast. Soon they came regularly. I had
only to scatter crumbs and squeak a few times like a mouse, when
little streaks and flashes would appear on the moss or among the
faded gold tapestries of old birch leaves, and the little wild
things would come to my table, their eyes shining like jet, their
tiny paws lifted to rub their whiskers or to shield themselves
from the fear under which they lived continually.
They were not all alike--quite the contrary. One, the same who
had washed in my cup, was gray and old, and wise from much
dodging of enemies. His left ear was split from a fight, or an
owl's claw, probably, that just missed him as he dodged under a
root. He was at once the shyest and boldest of the lot. For a day
or two he came with marvelous stealth, making use of every dead
leaf and root tangle to hide his approach, and shooting across
the open spaces so quickly that one knew not what had happened-
-just a dun streak which ended in nothing. And the brown leaf
gave no sign of what it sheltered. But once assured of his
ground, he came boldly. This great man-creature, with his face
close to the table, perfectly still but for his eyes, with a
hand that moved gently if it moved at all, was not to be
feared--that Tookhees felt instinctively. And this strange fire
with hungry odors, and the white tent, and the comings and goings
of men who were masters of the woods kept fox and lynx and owl
far away--that he learned after a day or two. Only the mink, who
crept in at night to steal the man's fish, was to be feared. So
Tookhees presently gave up his nocturnal habits and came out
boldly into the sunlight. Ordinarily the little creatures come
out in the dusk, when their quick movements are hidden among the
shadows that creep and quiver. But with fear gone, they are only
too glad to run about in the daylight, especially when good
things to eat are calling them.
Besides the veteran there was a little mother-mouse, whose tiny
gray jacket was still big enough to cover a wonderful mother
love, as I afterwards found out. She never ate at my table, but
carried her fare away into hiding, not to feed her little
ones-they were, too small as yet--but thinking in some dumb way,
behind the bright little eyes, that they needed her and that her
life must be spared with greater precaution for their sakes. She
would steal timidly to my table, always appearing from under a
gray shred of bark on a fallen birch log, following the same
path, first to a mossy stone, then to a dark hole under a root,
then to a low brake, and along the underside of a billet of wood
to the mouse table. There she would stuff both cheeks hurriedly,
till they bulged as if she had toothache, and steal away by the
same path, disappearing at last under the shred of gray bark.
For a long time it puzzled me to find her nest, which I knew
could not be far away. It was not in the birch log where she
disappeared--that was hollow the whole length--nor was it
anywhere beneath it. Some distance away was a large stone, half
covered by the green moss which reached up from every side. The
most careful search here had failed to discover any trace of
Tookhees' doorway; so one day when the wind blew half a gale and
I was going out on the lake alone, I picked up this stone to put
in the bow of my canoe. That was to steady the little craft by
bringing her nose down to grip the water. Then the secret was
out, and there it was in a little dome of dried grass among some
spruce roots under the stone.
The mother was away foraging, but a faint sibilant squeaking
within the dome told me that the little ones were there, and
hungry as usual. As I watched there was a swift movement in a
tunnel among the roots, and the mother-mouse came rushing back.
She paused a moment, lifting her forepaws against a root to sniff
what danger threatened. Then she saw my face bending over the
opening--Et tu Brute! and she darted into the nest. In a moment
she was out again and disappeared into her tunnel, running
swiftly with her little ones hanging to her sides by a grip that
could not be shaken,--all but one, a delicate pink creature that
one could hide in a thimble, and that snuggled down in the
darkest corner of my hand confidently.
It was ten minutes before the little mother came back, looking
anxiously for the lost baby. When she found him safe in his own
nest, with the man's face still watching, she was half reassured;
but when she threw herself down and the little one began to
drink, she grew fearful again and ran away into the tunnel, the
little one clinging to her side, this time securely.
I put the stone back and gathered the moss carefully about it. In
a few days Mother Mouse was again at my table. I stole away to
the stone, put my ear close to it, and heard with immense
satisfaction tiny squeaks, which told me that the house was again
occupied. Then I watched to find the path by which Mother Mouse
came to her own. When her cheeks were full, she disappeared under
the shred of bark by her usual route. That led into the hollow
center of the birch log, which she followed to the end, where she
paused a moment, eyes, ears, and nostrils busy; then she jumped
to a tangle of roots and dead leaves, beneath which was a tunnel
that led, deep down under the moss, straight to her nest beneath
the stone.
Besides these older mice, there were five or six smaller ones,
all shy save one, who from the first showed not the slightest
fear but came straight to my hand, ate his crumbs, and went up my
sleeve, and proceeded to make himself a warm nest there by
nibbling wool from my flannel shirt.
In strong contrast to this little fellow was another who knew
too well what fear meant. He belonged to another tribe that had
not yet grown accustomed to man's ways. I learned too late how
careful one must be in handling the little creatures that live
continually in the land where fear reigns.
A little way behind my tent was a great fallen log, mouldy and
moss-grown, with twin-flowers shaking their bells along its
length, under which lived a whole colony of wood mice. They ate
the crumbs that I placed by the log; but they could never be
tolled to my table, whether because they had no split-eared old
veteran to spy out the man's ways, or because my own colony drove
them away, I could never find out. One day I saw Tookhees dive
under the big log as I approached, and having nothing more
important to do, I placed one big crumb near his entrance,
stretched out in the moss, hid my hand in a dead brake near the
tempting morsel, and squeaked the call. In a moment Tookhees'
nose and eyes appeared in his doorway, his whiskers twitching
nervously as he smelled the candle grease. But he was suspicious
of the big object, or perhaps he smelled the man too and was
afraid, for after much dodging in and out he disappeared
altogether.
I was wondering how long his hunger would battle with his
caution, when I saw the moss near my bait stir from beneath. A
little waving of the moss blossoms, and Tookhees' nose and eyes
appeared out of the ground for an instant, sniffing in all
directions. His little scheme was evident enough now; he was
tunneling for the morsel that he dared not take openly. I watched
with breathless interest as a faint quiver nearer my bait showed
where he was pushing his works. Then the moss stirred cautiously
close beside his objective; a hole opened; the morsel tumbled in,
and Tookhees was gone with his prize.
I placed more crumbs from my pocket in the same place, and
presently three or four mice were nibbling them. One sat up close
by the dead brake, holding a bit of bread in his forepaws like a
squirrel. The brake stirred suddenly; before he could jump my
hand closed over him, and slipping the other hand beneath him I
held him up to my face to watch him between my fingers. He made
no movement to escape, but only trembled violently. His legs
seemed too weak to support his weight now; he lay down; his eyes
closed. One convulsive twitch and he was dead--dead of fright in
a hand which had not harmed him.
It was at this colony, whose members were all strangers to me,
that I learned in a peculiar way of the visiting habits of wood
mice, and at the same time another lesson that I shall not soon
forget. For several days I had been trying every legitimate way
in vain to catch a big trout, a monster of his kind, that lived
in an eddy behind a rock up at the inlet. Trout were scarce in
that lake, and in summer the big fish are always lazy and hard to
catch. I was trout hungry most of the time, for the fish that I
caught were small, and few and far between. Several times,
however, when casting from the shore at the inlet for small
fish, I had seen swirls in a great eddy near the farther shore,
which told me plainly of big fish beneath; and one day, when a
huge trout rolled half his length out of water behind my fly,
small fry lost all their interest and I promised myself the joy
of feeling my rod bend and tingle beneath the rush of that big
trout if it took all summer.
Flies were no use. I offered him a bookful, every variety of
shape and color, at dawn and dusk, without tempting him. I tried
grubs, which bass like, and a frog's leg, which no pickerel can
resist, and little frogs, such as big trout hunt among the lily
pads in the twilight,--all without pleasing him. And then
waterbeetles, and a red squirrel's tail-tip, which makes the best
hackle in the world, and kicking grasshoppers, and a silver spoon
with a wicked "gang" of hooks, which I detest and which, I am
thankful to remember, the trout detested also. They lay there in
their big cool eddy, lazily taking what food the stream brought
down to them, giving no heed to frauds of any kind.
Then I caught a red-fin in the stream above, hooked it securely,
laid it on a big chip, coiled my line upon it, and set it
floating down stream, the line uncoiling gently behind it as it
went. When it reached the eddy I raised my rod tip; the line
straightened; the red-fin plunged overboard, and a two-pound
trout, thinking, no doubt, that the little fellow had been hiding
under the chip, rose for him and took him in. That was the only
one I caught. His struggle disturbed the pool, and the other
trout gave no heed to more red-fins.
Then, one morning at daybreak, as I sat on a big rock pondering
new baits and devices, a stir on an alder bush across the stream
caught my eye. Tookhees the wood mouse was there, running over
the bush, evidently for the black catkins which still clung to
the tips. As I watched him he fell, or jumped from his branch
into the quiet water below and, after circling about for a
moment, headed bravely across the current. I could just see his
nose as he swam, a rippling wedge against the black water with a
widening letter V trailing out behind him. The current swept him
downward; he touched the edge of the big eddy; there was a swirl,
a mighty plunge beneath, and Tookhees was gone, leaving no trace
but a swift circle of ripples that were swallowed up in the rings
and dimples behind the rock.--I had found what bait the big trout
wanted.
Hurrying back to camp, I loaded a cartridge lightly with a pinch
of dust shot, spread some crumbs near the big log behind my tent,
squeaked the call a few times, and sat down to wait. "These mice
are strangers to me," I told Conscience, who was protesting a
little, "and the woods are full of them, and I want that trout."
In a moment there was a rustle in the mossy doorway and Tookhees
appeared. He darted across the open, seized a crumb in his mouth,
sat up on his hind legs, took the crumb in his paws, and began to
eat. I had raised the gun, thinking he would dodge back a few
times before giving me a shot; his boldness surprised me, but I
did not recognize him. Still my eye followed along the barrels
and over the sight to where Tookhees sat eating his crumb. My
finger was pressing the trigger--"O you big butcher," said
Conscience, "think how little he is, and what a big roar your gun
will make! Aren't you ashamed?"
"But I want the trout," I protested.
"Catch him then, without killing this little harmless thing,"
said Conscience sternly.
"But he is a stranger to me; I never--"
"He is eating your bread and salt," said Conscience. That settled
it; but even as I looked at him over the gun sight, Tookhees
finished his crumb, came to my foot, ran along my leg into my
lap, and looked into my face expectantly. The grizzled coat and
the split ear showed the welcome guest at my table for a week
past. He was visiting the stranger colony, as wood mice are fond
of doing, and persuading them by his example that they might
trust me, as he did. More ashamed than if I had been caught
potting quail, I threw away the hateful shell that had almost
slain my friend. and went back to camp.
There I made a mouse of a bit of muskrat fur, with a piece of my
leather shoestring sewed on for a tail. It served the purpose
perfectly, for within the hour I was gloating over the size and
beauty of the big trout as he stretched his length on the rock
beside me. But I lost the fraud at the next cast, leaving it,
with a foot of my leader, in the mouth of a second trout that
rolled up at it the instant it touched his eddy behind the rock.
After that the wood mice were safe so far as I was concerned. Not
a trout, though he were big as a salmon, would ever taste them,
unless they chose to go swimming of their own accord; and I kept
their table better supplied than before. I saw much of their
visiting back and forth, and have understood better what those
tunnels mean that one finds in the spring when the last snows are
melting. In a corner of the woods, where the drifts lay, you will
often find a score of tunnels coming in from all directions to a
central chamber. They speak of Tookhees' sociable nature, of his
long visits with his fellows, undisturbed by swoop or snap, when
the packed snow above has swept the summer fear away and made him
safe from hawk and owl and fox and wildcat, and when no open
water tempts him to go swimming where Skooktum the big trout lies
waiting, mouse hungry, under his eddy.
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