Part 18

Once the den is ready, with living quarters, dry nest for sleeping, and a storeroom filled with the seeds he likes best, Chick’weesep faces the winter with a merry heart. He can commiserate the deer or the moose birds, who must be abroad in all weather and ofttimes hungry; or can chuckle at the sleepyhead bears, who must spend all winter days in oblivion, having a den but no store of food, and who miss the enjoyment of eating and of roaming abroad when the weather is fine. From the secret entrance to his den a tunnel pushes outward under the snowdrifts, a cunning runway that hides beneath twisted roots before it ventures up to the surface. On every pleasant day Chick’weesep makes use of that outlet to enjoy the world from the sunny side of a ledge. There he can safely watch all that passes in the woods; while rock ferns that are always green serve to hide him or to rest his eyes from the blinding glare of sunlight on the snow. When storms are loosed and the great trees bend to the driving sleet, he bides snug in his den underground, and there eats till he grows sleepy or sleeps till he grows hungry, or until something calls him with information that the sun is shining and wood folk are passing in the upper world once more.

A chipmunk’s eating, therefore, however enjoyable it may be on stormy days, is not by any means his sole winter occupation. It is merely one element in a season that has many pleasures, and it brings out this curious habit: Chick’weesep eats the softest of his grains first, as a farmer begins with the mellowest of his apples, reserving the hardest till the end. To judge from dens I have examined, his storehouse has two or more compartments, one near the frost line, another below; and in the colder room, chilled by glittering ice crystals, he seems to keep such of his foods as are most easily spoiled. Meanwhile his living quarters are beyond the line of frost, where, thanks to his dry nest and his fur jacket, he is always comfortably warm. Should worst come to worst, and his store prove too small for a long winter, even then he has this quieting assurance: like the gray squirrel, who has alternate periods of winter activity and retirement, he can curl up in his nest and sleep for a week or a month, if need be, until spring returns to melt the snows, and he can once more find a living in the awakening woods.

Altogether a happy kind of a life, one must think, and Chick’weesep gives the impression of making endless comedy of it. He is a most entertaining actor, especially when he shows his curiosity, which is so great that he will stop his work or rush out of his den to see any large animal or small bird that is making commotion in the quiet woods. Of all smaller animals and larger birds he is wary, since the one may turn out a weasel and the other an owl or a goshawk; and all such freebooters are dangerous to chipmunks. From a distance, as you roam the solitude, your eye happens to catch him sitting motionless on his favorite stump, where his coat blends with the sunshine and the wonderful forest colors. Heading in his direction, you aim to pass close by, but not too close, as if seeking something far ahead.

Chick’weesep watches you keenly as you draw near, and he is so pleased or excited that he cannot keep still. You see his eye sparkle, his feet dance, his body quiver, as he wavers between the lifelong habit of concealment and his evident desire to be noticed by this bold passing animal, who is surely a stranger in the woods, since his foot is noisy. On you come steadily, paying no heed to the tiny atom of life that watches you expectantly, like a child at a window who hopes to be saluted; and Chick’weesep follows you with questioning eyes till you have passed him and are going away. Up to this moment he has been half afraid you might see him; now, fearful that you will not see, he blows a sharp whistle or cries his full Indian name, _Chick-chick-koo-wee-sep!_ to tell you that you are in his woods, and that you have passed him without a sign of recognition.

A hundred times I have had a heart-warming over that little comedy, which always follows the same course. There is the first start of surprise when the little fellow sees you, the eager look, the quivering feet, the timid expectancy; then the sharp cry as you pass with apparent indifference. And when you turn quickly, as if surprised, Chick’weesep dodges out of sight with a different cry, a cry with mingled pleasure and alarm in it; but the next moment he is peeking at you with dancing eyes from a crevice. Then, if you bide quietly where you are, he may come nearer, talking as he comes; and within the hour, should you have food that he likes, he will be sitting with entire confidence on your knee, stuffing all you offer him into his cheek pockets till they bulge as if he had the mumps, or pulling with all his might at a choice bit which you hold tightly to tease him.

A red squirrel would nip you if you teased him like that; but Chick’weesep braces himself with soft paws against the tips of your fingers, and tugs till he gets his morsel. This is the deep wilderness, where he has not been made to know the fear of man, and where he is the most lovable of all his merry tribe, excepting only Molepsis the flying squirrel.

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As with the little, so also with the larger wood folk, even those whom we ignorantly call savage; when you meet without frightening them in their native woods, they all seem to be playing at comedy for the greater part of their days. I suppose there are no animals that have given rise to more fearsome stories than the wolves and bears, one a symbol of ravin, the other of ferocity; but when you meet the real wolf he turns out to be a very shy beast, one that has a doglike interest in man, but is afraid to show it openly; and Mooween the bear, far from being the terrible creature of literary imagination, is in reality a harmless vagabond whose waking life is one long succession of whims and drolleries.

The trouble is, on first meeting a bear, that one is so frightened by the brute, or so eager to kill, that one never opens his eyes frankly to see what kind of fellow blunderer is before him. Several times, when I have had the luck to find bears among the blueberries of the burnt lands, I have crept near to watch them (it is quite safe so long as you do not blunder between an old she-bear and her cubs), and their droll attitudes, their greed, their lively interest in something to eat, their comical ways of stripping a berry bush or robbing an ant’s nest, their watchfulness lest one of their number discover something good and eat it all by himself, their surprises and alarms, their piglike fits of excitement, their whimsical and ever-changing expression,--all this is so unexpected, so entertaining, that a few minutes of it will change your whole opinion of the bear’s character. You meet him as a dangerous beast; you leave him, or he leaves you, with the notion that he is the best of all natural comedians.

Here, for example, is an illuminating show of bear nature, one of a score which you uncover with surprise as you follow Mooween’s trail. When a cub finds a toothsome morsel he sweeps it instantly into his mouth, if it be small enough to swallow; but if it offers several mouthfuls, the first thing he does is to look alertly about to see where the other cubs are. If they are near or watching him, he sits on his morsel and pretends to be surveying the world, wagging his head from side to side; but if they are busy with their own affairs, he comes between them and his find, turning his back on them while he eats.

One might think this little deception a mere accident until it is repeated, or until this supplemental bit of bear psychology bubbles up to the surface. When a cub sees another cub with back turned, holding still in one place, he first stares hard, his face an exclamation point, as if he could not believe his eyes. Then he cries, _ur-rump-umph!_ and comes on the jump to have a share of whatever the fortunate one has uncovered. Knowing what it means when he turns his own back, I suppose, he jumps to the conclusion that he is like all other greedy cubs, or that other cubs are just like him. To a spectator the most amusing part of the comedy is that, when a cub is discovered in his greediness, he seems to treat it as a joke, gobbling as much as possible of his find, but showing no ill temper if another cub arrives in time to have a bite of it. “Get away with it if you can, but don’t squeal if you are caught” seems to be the sporting rule of a young bear family. As they grow older they become unsociable, even morose; and occasionally one meets a bear that seems to be a regular sorehead.

Once when I was near a family of black bears, my position on a high rock preventing them from getting my scent, I saw one of the cubs unearth a morsel and gobble it greedily. It was a bee’s nest, I think, and it was certainly delicious; the little fellow ate with gusto, making a smacking sound as he opened his mouth wide or licked his chops again and again, as if he could never have enough of the taste. Twenty yards away another cub suddenly threw up his head, smelling the sweets, undoubtedly, for they can wind a disturbed bee’s nest at an incredible distance. Rolling his fur in anticipation, he scampered up and nosed all over the spot, sniffing and whining. Finding nothing but a smell, he sat down, crossed both paws over the top of his head, and howled a falsetto _oooo-wow-ow-ow-ow!_ twisting and shaking his body like a petulant child. The other cub looked cunningly at the howling one; now and then he would run out a slender red tongue and lap it around his lips, as if to say, “Yum-yum, it _was_ good!”

When their stomachs are filled the cubs take to playing; and one who watches them at their play has no more heart to kill them. They are too droll, and the big woods seem to need them. They hide, and the mother, after vain calling, must go smell them out; but as the end of that game is commonly a cuffing, it is not repeated. Then, mindful of their ears, the cubs begin to wrestle; or they face each other and box, striking and fending till one gets more than he wants, when they clinch and go rolling about in a rough-and-tumble. The most fascinating play is when two cubs climb a tree on opposite sides, a tree so big that they are hidden one from the other. The one in your sight goes humping aloft, clasping the tree with his paws and hurling himself upward by digs of his hind claws, till he thinks he is well above his rival. In the excitement, what with flying chips and the loud scratching of bark, he hears nothing but the sound of his own going. Then he peeks cautiously around the tree, and very likely finds a black nose coming to meet him. He hits it quickly, and dodges away to the other side, only to get his own nose rapped. So they play hide and peek, and hit and dodge and peek again, till they scramble into the high branches. And there they whimper awhile, afraid to come down. Not till they are sharply called will they try the descent, sagging down backward, looking first over one shoulder, then over the other. But if they are in a hurry and the branches are not too high, they turn all loose, like a coon; they tumble down in a heap, hit the ground, and bound away like rubber balls.

Meanwhile the old she-bear is watching over the family in an odd mixture of fondness and discipline, with temper enough to give variety to both. Sometimes she mothers the cubs with a gruff, bearish kind of tenderness. When they bother her, or when they are heedless of some warning or message, she cuffs them impatiently; and a bear’s cuff is no love pat, but a thud from a heavy paw which sends a cub spinning end over end. If you are near enough to read her expression, you will hear her at one moment saying, “That’s my little cubs! Oh, that’s my little cubs!” A few minutes later she may be sitting with humped back, her paws between her outstretched hind legs, and in her piggy, disapproving eye the question, “Can these greedy little unfillable things be my offspring?” So they move across the berry field, a day-long comedy. What they do at night nobody has ever seen.

[Illustration: “_Then he peeks cautiously around the tree, and very likely finds a black nose coming to meet him._”]

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The fox is another comedian whose cunning has been overemphasized ever since Æsop invented certain animal fables, but whose amusing side had not yet found a worthy chronicler. Young foxes play by the hour outside their den with a variety of games, mock fights and rough-and-tumble capers, which make the antics of a kitten almost dull by comparison. That they are glad little beasts, without fear and with only a saving measure of caution, is plain to anyone who has ever watched them with the understanding of sympathy. Unlike the bears, they keep the spirit of play to the end. A grown fox will chase his tail in sheer exuberance of animal spirits; or he will forget his mousing, even his hunger, in the pleasure of pestering a tortoise when he finds one of the awkward creatures loafing about the woods.

One summer day I watched a fox-and-woodchuck drama in which keen wits were pitted against dull wits, a drama to which only the genius of Uncle Remus could do justice. The time was late afternoon, the place a cleared hillside, the first actor an old woodchuck that ventured from his den to a clover field for a last sweet mouthful before he slept. On the hill above, a fox came out of the woods, leaped to the top of a stone wall, and stood looking keenly over the clover. Such was the pretty scene; from some filbert bushes behind a lower wall a solitary spectator watched it expectantly.

Eleemos the sly one, as Simmo calls the fox, does not lightly enter a cleared field by daylight, though he is often mousing along the edge of it just before dawn. I think he knew that this particular field had a den, and that he was planning to catch one of the young woodchucks. Hence his elevated station on the wall, with bushes bending over to shadow him, and the expectant look in his bright eyes. He gave a quick start as he caught a waving of grass, the motion of a grizzled head; then, having located his prize, he dropped back into the woods, ran down behind the wall, slipped over it under cover of a bush, crept flat on his belly to a rock, and peeked around it to measure his chance. Oh yes, he could catch that slow fellow yonder; surely, without half trying! Inch by inch he pushed clear of the rock, waited with feet under him till the chuck dropped out of sight to feed, then launched himself like a bolt.

Now a woodchuck is also cunning in his own way, far too cunning to be caught napping in the open. Like the beaver, he often sits up for a wary look all around; after which he drops as if to feed, but immediately bobs up a second time. A young chuck may be foolishly content with a single survey; but a veteran is apt to make at least two false starts at feeding, with the evident purpose of fooling any enemy that may be watching him.

So it befell that, just as the fox leaped from cover, the woodchuck’s head bobbed up over the clover. He saw the enemy instantly, and scuttled away for his burrow, his fat body shaking like a jelly bag as he ran. After him came the fox with swift jumps; into the hole dived the woodchuck, sending back a whistle of defiance; and the fox, grabbing at the vanishing tail, fetched up _bump!_ against the earth with a shock that might have dislocated a less limber neck. He had the tail, firmly gripped between his teeth; and with a do-or-die expression he proceeded to drag his game out bodily,--a hard job, as anyone knows who has ever tested a woodchuck’s holding power.

Eleemos pulled steadily at first, turning his head first one side, then the other; but he might as well have tried to pull up a young hickory as to move that anchored creature with hind feet braced against opposite sides of the hole, and forepaws gripped about a rock or root. Then the fox began to tug, bracing his forefeet, jerking his body to the rear, like a terrier on a rope. In the midst of a mighty effort something gave way; the fox went over backward, turning end over end down the pitch of the hill. He picked himself up in a shamefaced way, sniffed a moment at the hole, and trotted off to the woods with a small piece of scrubby tail in his mouth.

Another time I was in an opening of the big woods at dusk of a winter day when a red fox appeared, carrying a rabbit. Evidently he had eaten as much as he wanted of the sweet meat, and was seeking a place to bury the remainder against a time of need. How cautious he was! How mindful of hungry noses that would be questing the woods before daybreak! He went hither and yon in a most aimless way, apparently; but one who watched him might know that he was leaving a merry tangle of tracks for any nose that should attempt to follow them. After hesitating over many spots he dropped the rabbit beside a rock, threw some snow over it, and went away with such confidence that he never once turned round. As he disappeared in the dusky woods the top of a stub under which he passed seemed to move, to bend forward as if alive. And it was alive; for a horned owl was sitting up there on his watchtower, making himself so inconspicuous that no one noticed him. No sooner was the fox gone than the owl swooped to the cache, drove his claws into it, and glided away like a shadow, taking the rabbit with him.

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Such little comedies are not uncommon; they go on at all hours, in all unspoiled places, the only uncommon thing being that now and then some man is quiet or lucky enough to see them. The few squirrels, bears, foxes and other creatures which I have pictured are typical of all natural birds and beasts; gladness and comedy prevail among them until some sportsman appears with his needless killing, or a scientist invents an absurd theory of natural struggle to account for unnatural human depravity, or a literary artist with imaginative eye creates a world-embracing tragedy out of a passing incident, like this, for example:

While trout fishing one day I climbed the bank to a beautiful spot in the budding woods, which invited me to linger and fill my heart instead of my creel. The spring sun shone warmly; birds sang welcome to their arriving mates; violets and marigolds were distilling sunshine into bright color, and leaf mold into sweet fragrance. Meanwhile the brook prattled of the mountains whence it came, or murmured of the sea to which it hastened, or lisped and tinkled of other matters which one has tried in vain since childhood to interpret. Truly a lovely place, a perfect hour; but even as I picked the cushion of dry leaves on which to rest and attune my soul to a harmonious universe, there came a heart-stopping whir, a writhing of horrible coils, and a rattlesnake lifted its ugly head, fangs bared, tail buzzing forth a deadly warning.

It was a shock, I confess. The instant backward leap was slow beside the chills that ran like flood over me; but as I think of it now, impersonally, the element of comedy is still uppermost. For the snake, too, had answered the call of the sun, perhaps thinking in his unemotional way that a frog would come out of the brook to enjoy such weather, a frog of which he had greater need than I of the trout I had been catching. Instead of a frog, the brook produced an unexpected biped, and the snake acted pretty decently in sounding a warning rattle before he struck--on the whole, more decently than I acted when I grabbed a stick and, without warning, proceeded to break his neck. But even had he struck home, to defend himself as he thought, the result would have been a mere incident and no tragedy from Nature’s viewpoint. Had she not bred in me, as a son of Adam, an instinct against all creeping serpents? Had she not, as if to supplement that instinct, furnished me with nimble legs, quick eyes and plentiful timidity wherewith to take care of myself? Had she not even added the supererogatory gift of medicinal plants and minerals, in order that I might heal me of the painful result of my own carelessness?

Surely, then, it were most illogical as well as ungrateful on my part, a truly lunatic conclusion, to misjudge Nature’s motives, to forget my mercies, to overlook the beauty of the world and the evident gladness of ten-thousand other creatures, all because of one reptile that had come forth with no other purpose than to enjoy the sunshine, the frogs and the general comedy of life in his own way.