But Mux had no conscience, unless it was one that troubled him only when he was out of mischief. His face was never so long and so solemn as when I had caught him in some questionable act or spoiled some wayward plan.

Mux, however, was possessed by a much stubborner spirit than this interesting mischief-devil. Upon one point he was positively demented—the only four-footed maniac I ever knew. He had gone crazy on the subject of dirt, mad to wash things, especially his victuals.

He was not particular about what he ate; almost anything that could be swallowed would do, provided that it could be washed, and washed by himself, after his own approved fashion.

If I gave him half of my apple, he would squat down by his wash-tub and begin to hunt for dirt. He would look the apple over and over, pick around the blossom end, inspect carefully, then pull out the stem, if there happened to be a stem, dig out the seeds and peek into the core, then douse it into the water and begin to wash. He would rub with might and main for a second or two, then rinse it, take a bite, and douse it back again for more scrubbing, until it was scrubbed and chewed away.

Even when the water was thick with mud, this crazy coon persisted in washing his clean cake and cabbage therein. Indeed, the muddier the water, the more vigorously would he wash. The habit was a part of him, as real a thing in his constitution as the black ring in his fur. It was a very dirty habit, here in captivity, even if it went by the name of washing. Of course Mux could not be blamed for his soiled wash-water. That was my fault; only I couldn't be changing it every time he soaked up a fistful of earth in his endeavor to wash something to eat out of it. No; he was not at fault, altogether, for the mud in his tub. Out in the Bear Swamp, the streams that wandered about under the great high-spreading gums, and lost their way in the shadows, were crystal-clear and pure; and out there it was intended that he should dwell, and in those sweet streams that he should wash. But what a modicum of wit, of originality the little beast had, that, because he was born a washer, wash he must, though he washed in mud, nay, though he washed upon the upturned bottom of his empty tub!—for this is what Mux did sometimes.

I never blamed Aunt Milly for insisting upon this rather ill-sounding name of "Mux" for the little coon. She was standing by his cage, shortly after his arrival, watching him eat cabbage. He washed every clean white piece of it in his oozy tub before tasting it, coating the bits over with mud as you do the lumps of fondant with chocolate in making "chocolate creams." Aunt Milly looked at him for some time with scornful face and finally exclaimed:

"Umph! Dat animile am a dumb beast shu'! Rubbin' dirt right inter clean cabbage! Sich muxin'! mux, mux, mux! Dat a coon? Dat ain't no coon. Dat's a mux!" And she scuffed off to the house, mumbling, "De muxinest thing I done evah seen." Hence his name.

If there is one sweetmeat sweeter than all others to a coon, it is a frog. It was not mere chance that Mux was born in the edge of the Bear Swamp, close to the wide marshes that ran out to the river. This was the great country of the frogs—the milk-and-honey country to the ring-tailed family in the hollow gum. But Mux had never tasted frog. He had not been weaned when I kidnapped him. One day, wishing to see if he knew what a frog was, I carelessly offered him a big spotted fellow that I had caught in the meadow.

Did he know a frog? He fairly snatched the poor thing from me, killed it, and started around the cage with it in his mouth, dancing like a cannibal. His long, serious face was more thoughtful and solemn, however, than usual. I was puzzled. I had heard of dancing at funerals. Either this was such a dance, or else some wild orgy to propitiate the spirits that preside over the destiny of coons.

Throughout this gruesome rite Mux held the frog in his mouth, and I watched, expecting, hoping every moment that he would swallow it. Suddenly he stopped, sat down by his tub, pulled some dead grass out of it, plunged the frog in, and began to scrub it—began to scrub the frog in the oozy contents of that tub, when the poor amphibian had been soaking in spring-water ever since it was a tadpole!

No matter. The frog must be washed. And washed it was. It was scoured first with all his might, then placed in the bottom of the tub, under water, held down by one fore paw, until the maniac could get in with his hind feet upon it, and then danced upon; from here it was laid upon the floor of the cage and kneaded until as limp as a lump of dough; then lifted daintily, it was shaken round and round in the water, rinsed and wrung, and minutely inspected, and—swallowed.

I felt justified in keeping this animal caged. He was not fit to run loose even in the Bear Swamp. Perhaps I have done him wrong in this story of the frog. Frogs may need washing, after all, despite the fact that they are never out of the bath-tub long enough to dry off once in their whole lives. Mux knew more about frogs than I, doubtless. But Mux insisted upon washing oysters.

Now there are few people clothed in sane minds who do not like raw oysters. Mark this, however: when you see a person wash raw oysters, keep out of his way; he has lost either his wits or his morals. The only two creatures I ever knew to wash raw oysters were Mux and an oyster-dealer in Cambridge Street, Boston. I saw this dealer take up a two-gallon can that had just arrived at his store, and dump the dark salty shell-fish into a great colander, stick the end of a piece of rubber hose in among them, turn the water on? and stir and soak them. How white they got! How fat they got! How their ghastly corpses swelled!

Mux did not wash his to see them swell, but simply that he might take no chances with dirt—or poison, for I used to think sometimes that he thought I was trying to poison him. He was desperately fond of oysters. But who could cast his pearls, or, to be scientifically and literally correct, his mothers of pearls, before such a swine? Mux had just one plateful of oysters while I was his keeper. They were nice plump fellows, and when I saw the maniac soak one all stringy and tasteless I poured his wash-water out. Was he to be balked that way! No, no. He took oyster number two, flopped it into the empty tub, scoured it around on the muddy bottom, looked it over as carefully as he had done stringy number one, and swallowed sandy, muddy number two with just as much relish.

This was too much. I cuffed him and took away the tub. This I suppose was wrong, for I understand you must never oppose crazy persons. Well, Mux helped himself to oyster number three. There was no water, no tub. But what were oysters for if not to be washed? And who was he but Procyon lotor—Procyon "the washer"? Can the leopard change his spots or the racoon his habits? Can he? Shall he? I could almost hear him muttering under his breath, "To be, or not to be: that is the question." Then he darted a triumphantly malicious glance at me, retreated to the back of his cage, thrust his oyster out of sight beneath the straw of his bed, and washed it—washed the oyster in the straw, washed it into a fistful of sticks and chaff, and gloated as he swallowed it.



RACOON CREEK



RACOON CREEK

Into the wode to her the briddes sing.

I

Over the creek, and clearing it by a little, hung a snow-white, stirless mist, its under surface even and parallel with the face of the water, its upper surface peaked and billowed half-way to the tops of the shore-skirting trees.

As I dipped along, my head was enveloped in the cloud; but bending over the skiff, I could see far up the stream between a mist-ceiling and a water-floor, as through a long, low room. How deep and dark seemed the water! And the trees how remote, aerial, and floating! as if growing in the skies, with no roots' fast hold of the earth. Filling the valley, conforming to every bend and stretch of the creek, lay the breath of the water, motionless and sheeted, a spirit stream, hovering over the sluggish current a moment, before it should float upward and melt away. It was cold, too, as a wraith might be, colder than the water, for the June sun had not yet risen over the swamp.

At the bridge where the road crossed was a dam which backed the creek out into an acre or more of pond. Not a particle of mud discolored the water; but it was dark, and as it came tumbling, foaming over the moss-edged gates it lighted up a rich amber color, the color of strong tea. In the half chill of the dawn the old bridge lay veiled in smoking spray, in a thin, rising vapor of spicy odors, clean, medicinal odors, as of the brewing of many roots, the fragrance of shores of sedges, ferns, and aromatic herbs steeped in the slow, soft tide. And faint across the creek, the road, and the fields lay the pondy smell of spatter-docks.

I pushed out from the sandy cove and lay with a reach of the lusty docks between me and either shore. It was early morning. The yellow, dew-laid road down which I came still slumbered undisturbed; the village cows had not been milked, and the pasture slope, rounding with a feminine grace of curve and form, lay asleep, with its sedgy fingers trailing in the water; even the locomotive in the little terminal round-house over the hill was not awake and wheezing. But the creek people were stirring—except the frogs. They were growing sleepy. The long June night they had improved, soberly, philosophically; and now, seeing nothing worth while in the dawn of this wonder day, they had begun to doze. But the birds were alive, full of the crisp June morning, of its overflow of gladness, and were telling their joy in chorus up and down both banks of the creek.

Hearkneth thise blisful briddes how they singe.

Do you mean out in Finsbury Moor, Father Chaucer? They were sweet along the banks of the Walbrook, I know, for among them "maken melodye" were the skylark, ethereal minstrel! and the nightingale. But, Father Chaucer, you should have heard the wood-thrushes, the orchard-orioles—this whole morning chorus singing along the creek! No one may know how blissful, how wide, how thrilling the singing of birds can be unless he has listened when the summer mists are rising over Racoon Creek.

There is no song-hour after sun rise to compare with this for spirit and volume of sound. The difference between the singing in the dusk and in the dawn is the difference between the slow, sweet melody of a dirge and the triumphant, full-voiced peal of a wedding march. Even one who has always lived in the country can scarcely believe his ears the first time he is afield in June at the birds' awaking-hour.

Robins led the singing along the creek. They always do. In New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan,—everywhere it is the same,—they out-number all rivals three to one. It is necessary to listen closely in order to distinguish the other voices. This particular morning, however, the wood-thrushes were all arranged up the copsy hillside at my back, and so reinforced each other that their part was not overborne by robin song. One of the thrushes was perched upon a willow stub along the edge of the water, so near that I could see every flirt of his wings, could almost count the big spots in his sides. Softly, calmly, with the purest joy he sang, pausing at the end of every few bars to preen and call. His song was the soul of serenity, of all that is spiritual. Accompanied by the lower, more continuous notes from among the trees, it rose, a clear, pure, wonderful soprano, lifting the whole wide chorus nearer heaven.

Farther along the creek, on the border of the swamp, the red-shouldered blackbirds were massed; chiming in everywhere sang the catbirds, white-eyed vireos, yellow warblers, orchard-orioles, and Maryland yellowthroats; and at short intervals, soaring for a moment high over the other voices, sounded the thrilling, throbbing notes of the cardinal, broken suddenly and drowned by the roll of the flicker, the wild, weird cry of the great-crested flycatcher, or the rapid, hay-rake rattle of the belted kingfisher.

All at once a narrow breeze cut a swath through the mist just across my bows, turned, spread, caught the severed cloud in which I was drifting, and whirled it up and away. The head of the pond and the upper creek were still shrouded, while around me only breaths of the white flecked the water and the spatter-docks. The breeze had not stirred a ripple; the current here in the broad of the pond was imperceptible; and I lay becalmed on the edge of the open channel, among the rank leaves and golden knobs of the docks.

A crowd of chimney-swallows gathered over the pond for a morning bath. Half a hundred of them were wheeling, looping, and cutting about me in a perfect maze of orbits, as if so many little black shuttles had borrowed wings and gone crazy with freedom. They had come to wash—a very proper thing to do, for there are few birds or beasts that need it more. It was highly fitting for sooty little Tom, seeing he had to turn into something, to become a Water Baby. And if these smaller, winged sweeps of our American chimneys are contemplating a metamorphosis, it ought to be toward a similar life of soaking.

They must have been particularly sooty this morning. One plunge apiece, so far from sufficing, seemed hardly a beginning. They kept diving in over and over, continuing so long that finally I grew curious to know how many dips they were taking, and so, in order to count his dives, I singled one out, after most of the flock had done and gone off to hawk. How many he had taken before I marked him, and how many more he took after I lost him among the other birds, I cannot say; but, standing up in the skiff, I followed him around and around until he made his nineteenth splash,—in less than half as many minutes,—when I got so groggy that his twentieth splash I came near taking with him.

The pond narrows toward the head, and just before it becomes a creek again the channel turns abruptly through the docks in against the right shore, where the current curls and dimples darkly under the drooping branches of great red maple; then it horseshoes into the middle, coming down through small bush-islands and tangled brush which deepen into an extensive swamp.

June seemed a little tardy here, but the elder, the rose, and the panicled cornel were almost ready, the button-bushes were showing ivory, while the arrow-wood, fully open, was glistening snowily everywhere, its tiny flower crowns falling and floating in patches down-stream, its over-sweet breath hanging heavy in the morning mist. My nose was in the air all the way for magnolias and water-lilies, yet never a whiff from either shore, so particular, so unaccountably notional are some of the high-caste flowers with regard to their homes.

The skiff edged slowly past the first of the islands, a mere hummock about a yard square, and was turning a sharp bend farther up, when I thought I had a glimpse of yellowish wings, a mere guess of a bird shadow, dropping among the dense maple saplings and elder of the islet.

Had I seen or simply imagined something? If I had seen wings, then they were not those of the thrasher,—the first bird that came to mind,—for they slipped, sank, dropped through the bushes, with just a hint of dodging in their movement, not exactly as a thrasher would have moved.

Drifting noiselessly back, I searched the tangle and must have been looking directly at the bird several seconds before cutting it out from the stalks and branches. It was a least bittern, a female. She was clinging to a perpendicular stem of elder, hand over hand, wren fashion, her long neck thrust straight into the air, absolutely stiff and statuesque.

We were less than a skiff's length apart, each trying to outpose and outstare the other. I won. Human eyes are none the strongest, neither is human patience, yet I have rarely seen a creature that could outwait a man. The only steady, straightforward eye in the Jungle was Mowgli's—because it was the only one with a steady mind behind it. As soon as the bird let herself look me squarely in the eye, she knew she was discovered, that her little trick of turning into a stub was seen through; and immediately, ruffling her feathers, she lowered her head, poked out her neck at me, and swaying from side to side like a caged bear, tried to scare me, glaring and softly growling.

Off she flopped as I landed. The nest might be upon the ground or lodged among the bushes; but the only ground space large enough was covered layer over layer with pearly clam-shells, the kitchen-midden of some muskrat; and the bushes were empty. I went to the other islets, searched bog and tangle, and finally pulled away disappointed, giving the least bittern credit for considerable mother-wit and woodcraft. How little wit she really had appeared on my return down-creek that afternoon.

I had now entered the high, overhanging swamp, where the shaggy trees, the looping vines, and the rank, pulpous undergrowth grew thick on both sides, reaching far back, a wet, heavy wilderness without a path, except for the silent feet of the mink and the otter, and the more silent feet of the creek, here a narrow stream winding darkly down through the shadows.

Every little while along the rooty, hummocky banks of the creek I would pass a muskrat's slide. Here was one at the butt of a tulip-poplar, its platform wet and freshly trodden, its "dive" shooting sheer over a root into the stream. Farther on stood a large tussock whose top was trampled flat and covered with sedge-roots. I could not resist putting my nose down for a sniff, so good is the smell of a fresh trail, so close are we to the rest of the pack. In the thick of the swamp I stopped a moment to examine the footprints of an otter at a shallow, shelving place along the bank, where, opening through the skunk-cabbage and Indian turnip, and covered almost ankle-deep with water, was the creature's runway.

I had moved leisurely along, yet not aimlessly. The whole June day was mine to waste; but it would not be well wasted if nothing more purposeful than wasting were in mind.

One does not often drift to a port. Going into the woods to see anything is a very sure way of seeing little or nothing; and taking the path to anywhere is certain to lead one nowhere in particular. Many interested, nature-loving people fail to enjoy the out-of-doors simply because they have no definite spot to reach, no flower, bird, or bug to find when they enter the fields and woods. Going forth "to commune with nature" sounds very fine, but it is much more difficult work than conversing with the Sphinx. In order to draw near to nature I require a pole with a hook and line on the end of it. While I watch the float and wait, if there is any communion, it is nature who holds it with me through the medium of the pole. I need to have an errand to do; some berries to pick, a patch of potatoes to hoe (a very small patch); an engagement to keep, like Thoreau, with a tree, if I hope to squander with profit even the laziest summer day.

I was heading up-stream toward a deep sandy-sided pool that was bottomed, or rather unbottomed, by the shadows of overhanging beeches. The pool was alive with racoon-perch. A few mornings before this, a boy from a neighboring farm had come to fish here and had found a fisher ahead of him. He was just about to cast, when back under the limbs of the beeches the water broke, and a mink rose to the surface with a fine perch twisting in her jaws. Straight toward the boy she swam till within reach of his rod, when she recognized the human in him, turned a back-dive somersault, and vanished.

Would she be fishing again this morning? I hoped so. It was her hour—the hour of the rising mist; visitors rarely found their way to the pool; and I knew the appearance of the boy had given her no lasting alarm.

Floating around the bend, I pulled in among the shore bushes by a bit of grape-vine, and sitting down upon it, made my boat fast. I had planned the trip with the hope of seeing this mink; so I waited, quite hidden, though having the pool in full view. An hour passed, but no mink appeared. Another hour, and the sun was breaking upon the beeches, and the mist was gone; yet no mink came to fish. And what mink would? Of course you must have it in mind to see a mink fish if you wish to see anything; but the day you really catch the mink fishing will likely be the day you went out to watch for muskrats.

So an hour's waiting is rarely fruitless. The mink did not come, but another and quite as expert a fisher did. All the way up the creek I had been hearing the throaty ghouw-bhouw of a great blue heron off in the swamp. It was he that came for perch.

The flapping of the great blue heron is a sight good for the soul—an unheard-of motion these days, so moderate, unhurried, and time-contemning! The wing-beats of this one, as he came dangling down upon the meadow opposite me, have often given me pause since. If I could have the wings of the great blue heron and flap to my fishing now and again!

On alighting, however, he was instantly all nerve and tension. With the utmost caution he came over the high sedges on his stilt-like legs to the brink of the creek and posed. I doubt if a frog or a minnow could have told he was a thing of life. Stiff as a stub, every muscle taut, all alert, he stood, till—flash! and the long pointed bill pinned a perch, a foot and a half beneath the water. He had quite made out a breakfast, when, stepping upon a tall tussock, he stood face to face with me—a human spectator! It was only for a moment that I could keep motionless enough to puzzle him. Some muscle must have twitched, for he understood and leaped into the air with a croak of mortal fright.

II

The creek was roped off by the sagging fox grape-vines, and barred, from this point on, by the alders, so that I gave up all attempt at farther ascent. I had already given up the mink; yet I waited under the beeches.

It was blazing overhead, growing hotter and closer all the time, with hardly breeze enough to disturb the sleep of the leaf shadows on the sleepy stream. A rusty, red-bellied water-snake, in a mat of briers near by, relaxed and straightened slowly out,—and softly, that I might not be attracted,—stretching himself to the warmth. I could have broken his back with my paddle, and perhaps, by so doing, saved the nestlings of a pair of Maryland yellowthroats fidgeting about near him. He had eaten many a young bird of these bushes, I was sure—yet only circumstantially sure. Catching him in the act of robbing a nest would have been different; I should have felt justified then in despatching him. But to strike him asleep in the sun simply because he was a snake would have robbed the spot of part of its life and spirit and robbed me of serenity for the rest of the day. I should not have been, able to enjoy the quiet again until I had said my prayers and slept.

And as between the hawks and other wild birds, we need not interfere. While the water-snake was spreading himself, a small hawk, a sharp-shinned, I think, came beating over the meadow and was met by a vigilance committee of red-shouldered blackbirds. He did not stop to eat any of them, but darted up, and they after him. On up he went, round and round in a rapid, mounting spiral, till only one of the daring redwings followed. I watched. Up they went, higher than I had ever seen a blackbird venture before. And against such unequal odds! But the hawk was scared and had not stopped to look back. He circled; the blackbird cut across inside and caught him on almost every round. And still higher in pure bravado the redwing forced him. I began to tremble for the plucky bird, when I saw him turn, half fold his shining wings, and shoot straight down—a meteor of jet with fire flying from its opposite sides—down, down, while I held my breath. Suddenly the wings flashed, and he was scaling a steep incline; another flash, a turn, and he was upon a slower plane—had thrown himself against the air and settled upon the swaying top of a brown cattail.

A quiet had been creeping over the swamp and meadow. The dry rasp of a dragon-fly's wings was loud in the grass. The stream beneath the beeches darkened and grew moody as the light neared its noon intensity; the beech-leaves hung limp and silent; a catbird settled near me with dropped tail and head drawn in between her shoulders, as mute as the leaves; the Maryland yellowthroat broke into a sharp gallop of song at intervals,—he would have to clatter a little on doomsday, if that day fell in June,—but the intervals were far apart. The meadow shimmered. No part of the horizon was in sight—only the sky overhanging the little open of grass, and this was cloudless, though far from blue.

Perhaps there was not a real sign of uneasiness anywhere except in my boat; yet I felt something ominous in this silent, stifled noon. After all, I ought to have scotched the rusty, red-bellied water-snake leering at me now. The croak of the great blue heron sounded again; then far away, mysterious and spirit-like, floated a soft qua, qua, qua—the cry of the least bittern out of the heart of the swamp.

I loosed the grape-vine, put in my paddle, and turned down-stream, with an urgent desire to get out of the swamp, out where I could see about me. I made no haste, lest the stream, the swamp, the something that made me uneasy, should know. Not that I am superstitious, though I should have been had I lived when the land was all swamp and wood and prairie; and I should be now were I a sailor. My boat slipped swiftly along under the thick-shadowing trees, and rounding a sharp bend, brought me to the open pond, to the sky, and to a sight that explained my disquietude. The west, half-way to the zenith, was green—the black-and-blue green of bruised flesh. Out of it shot a fork of lightning, and behind it rumbled muffled thunder.

There was no time to descend the pond. I could already hear the wind across the silence and suspense. It was one of the supreme moments of the summer. The very trees seemed breathless and awe-struck. Pushing quickly to the wooded shore, I drew out the boat, turned it over, and crawled under it just as the leaves stirred with the first cool, wet breath.

There was an instant's lull, a tremor through the ground; then the rending and crunching of the wind monster in the oaks, the shriek of the forest victim—and the wind was gone. The rain followed with fearful violence, the lightning sizzled and cracked among the trees, and the thunder burst just above the boat—all holding on to finish the wind's work.

It was soon over. The leaves were dripping when I crept out of my shell; the afternoon sun was blinking through a million gleaming tears, and the storm was rumbling far away, behind the swamp. A robin lighted upon a branch over me, and set off its load of drops, which rattled down on my boat's bottom like a charge of shot. I glided into the stream. Down the pond where I had seen the sullen clouds was now an indescribable freshness and glory of shining hills and shining sky. The air had been washed and was still hanging across the heavens undried. The maple-leaves showed silver; the flock of chimney-swifts had returned, and among them, twinkling white and blue and brown, were tree-swallows and barn-swallows squeaking in their flight like new harness; a pair of night-hawks played back and forth across the water, too, awakened, probably, by the thunder, or else mistaken in the green darkness of the storm, thinking it the twilight; and the creek up and down as far as I could hear was ringing with bird-calls.

There had been a perceptible rise and quickening of the current. It was slightly roiled and carried a floatage of broken twigs, torn leaves, with here and there a golden-green tulip-petal, like the broken wings of butterflies.

I was in no hurry now, in no disquietude. The swamp and the storm were at my back. Before me lay the pond, the pastures, and the roofs of a human village—all bathed in the splendor of the year's divinest hour. It had not been a perfect day, but these closing hours were perfect, so perfect that they redeemed the whole, and not that day only: they were perfect enough to have redeemed the whole of creation travailing till then in pain.

Because I turned from all this sunset glory to find out what little bird was making the very big fuss near by, and because, parting the foliage of an arrow-wood bush, I looked with exquisite pleasure into the nest of a white-eyed vireo, does it mean that I am still unborn as to soul? For some reason it was a relief to look away from that west of vast and burning color to the delicately dotted eggs in the tiny cradle—the same relief felt in descending from a mountain-top to the valley; in turning from the sweep of the sea to watch beach-fleas hopping over the sand; in giving over the wisdom of men for the gabble of my little boys.

How the vireo scolded! and her mate! He half sang his threat and defiance. "Come, get out of this! Come; do you hear?" he cried over and over, as I peeked into the nest. It was a thick-walled, exquisite bit of a basket, rimmed round with green, growing moss, worked over with shredded bark and fragments of yellow wood from a punky stump across the stream, and suspended by spider-webs upon two parallel twigs about three feet above the water. It was not consciously worked out by the birds, of course, but the patch of yellow-wood fragments on the side of the nest exactly matched the size and color of the fading cymes of arrow-wood blossoms all over the bush, so that I mistook the little domicile utterly on first parting the leaves. A crow or a snake would never have discovered it from that side.

Paddling down, I was soon out of earshot of the scolding vireos, but the little cock's vigorous, ringing song followed me to the head of the pond. Flying heavily over from the meadows with folded neck and dangling legs came a little green heron—the "poke." I spun round behind a big clump of elder to watch him; but he saw me, veered, gulped aloud, and pulled off with a rapid stroke up the creek.

As I turned, my eye fell upon a soft, yellowish something in the rose-bushes across the docks. I was slow to believe. It was too good to be credited all at once. Within three paddle-lengths of my boat, in a patch of dark that must be a nest, stood my least bittern.

I sat still for several seconds, tasting the joy of my discovery and anticipating the look into the nest. Then, upon my knees in the bow of the skiff, I pulled up by means of the stout dock-leaves until almost able to touch the bird, when she walked off down a dead stalk to the ground, clucking and growling at me.

It wasn't a nest to boast of; but she might boast of her eggs, for there was more of eggs than of nest—a great deal more. A few sticks had been laid upon the ends of the bending rose-bushes, and this flimsy, inadequate platform was literally covered by the five dirty-white eggs. The hen had to stand on the bushes straddling the nest in order to brood. How she ever got as close to the nest as that without spilling its contents was hard to see; for I took an egg out and had the greatest difficulty in putting it back, so little room was there, so near to nothing for it to rest upon.

Working back into the channel, I gave the skiff to the easy current and drew slowly along toward the foot of the pond.

The sun had gone down behind the hill; the flame had faded from the sky, and over the rim of the circling slopes poured the soft, cool twilight, with a breeze as soft and cool, and a spirit that was prayer. Drifting across the pond as gently as the gray half-light fell a shower of lint from the willow catkins. The swallows had left; but from the leafy darkness of the copse in front of me, piercing the dreamy, foamy roar of the distant dam, came the notes of a wood-thrush, pure, sweet, and peaceful, speaking the soul of the quiet time. My boat grated softly on the sandy bottom of the cove and swung in. Out from the deep shadow of the wooded shore, out over the pond, a thin white veil was creeping—the mist, the breath of the sleeping water, the spirit of the stream. And away up the creek a distorted, inarticulate sound—the hoarse, guttural croak of the great blue heron, the weird, uncanny cry of the night, the mock, the menace of the tangled, untamed swamp!



THE DRAGON OF THE SWALE



THE DRAGON OF THE SWALE

My path to Cubby Hollow ran along a tumbling worm-fence, down a gravelly slope, and across a strip of swale, through which flowed the stream that farther on widened into the Hollow. A small jungle of dog-roses, elder, and blackberry tangled the banks of the stream, spreading into flanks of cinnamon-fern that crept well up the hillsides.

As I descended the gravelly slope, my path led through the ferns into a tunnel of vines, to a rail over the water, and on up to the woods. By the middle of June the tangle, except by the half-broken path, was almost rabbit-proof. The rank ferns waved to my chin, and were so thick that they left little trace of my passing until late in the summer.

This bit of the swale from the lower edge of the gravelly slope to the edge of the woods on the opposite slope was the lair of a dragon. My path cut directly across it.

Perhaps the dragon had been there ever since I had known the swale, and summer after summer had allowed me to cross unchallenged. I do not know. I only know that one day he rose out of the ferns before me—the longest, ugliest, boldest beast that ever withstood me in the quiet walks about home.

It was a day in early July, hot and very close. I was wading the sunken trail, much as one "treads water," my head not always above the surface of the fronds, when, suddenly, close to my side the ferns in a single spot were violently shaken. Instantly ahead of me they whirled again' and before I could think, off across the path was another rush and whirl—then stirless silence.

I knew what it meant. These were not the sudden, startled leaps of three animals, but the lightning movements of one. I had crossed the path of a swamp black-snake, and judging from the speed and whirl, it was a snake of uncommon size.

The path, a few paces farther on, opened into a small patch of low grass. Just as I was getting through the brake to this spot I stopped short with a chill. In the ferns near me shrilled a hissing whistle, a weird, creepy whistle that made me cold—a fierce, menacing sound, all edge, and so thin that it slivered every nerve in me. And then, without a stir in the brake, up out of the low grass in front of me rose a blue-black, glittering head.

I have little faith in the spell of a snake's eye, yet for a moment I was held by the subtle, masterful face that had risen so unexpectedly, so coolly before me. It was lifted a foot out of the grass. The head upon its lithe, round neck was poised motionless, but set as with a hair-spring. The flat, pointed face was turned upon me, so that I could see a patch of white upon the throat. Evidently the snake had just sloughed an old skin, for the sunlight gleamed iridescent on the shining jet scales. It was not a large head; it lacked the shovel-nose and the heavy, horrid jaws of the rattle-snake. But it was clean-cut, with power in every line of jaw and neck; with power and speed and certainty in the pose, so easy, ready, and erect. There was no fear in the creature's eye, something rather of aggressiveness, and of such evil cunning that I stood on guard.

Afraid of a snake? of a black-snake! No. I think, indeed, there are few persons who really do fear snakes. It is not fear, but nerves. I have tamed more black-snakes than I have killed. I should not care a straw if one bit me. Yet, for all of that, the meeting with any black-snake is so unlocked for as always to be unnerving. But let a huge one whip about you in the brake, chill you with an unearthly hissing whistle, then suddenly rise in front of you, glittering, challenging, sinister! You will be abashed. I was; and I shall never outgrow the weakness.

It was a big snake. I had not been mistaken in its size. There is nothing on earth that shrinks as a dead snake; and this one, so far as I know, is still alive; yet, allowing generously for my imagination, I am sure the creature measured six feet. His neck, just behind the jaws, was nearly the size of a broom-handle, which meant a long, hard length curved out in the ferns behind. It was a male; I could tell by the peculiar musk on the air, an odor like cut cucumbers.

Fully a minute we eyed each other. Then I took a step forward. The glittering head rose higher. Off in the ferns there beat a warning tattoo—the loud whir of the snake's tail against a skunk-cabbage leaf.

In my hand was a slender dogwood switch that I had been poking into the holes of the digger-wasps up the hillside. If one thing more than another will turn a snake tail to in a hurry it is the song of a switch. Expecting to see this overbold fellow jump out of his new skin and lunge off into the swale, I leaned forward and made the stick sing under his nose. But he did not jump or budge. He only bent back out of range, swayed from side to side, and drew more of his black length out into the low grass to better his position.

The lidless eyes and scale-cased face of a snake might seem incapable of more than one set expression. Can hate and fear show there? They certainly can, at least to my imagination. If ever hate and fear mantled a face, they did this one in the grass. The sound of the switch only maddened the creature. He had too long dictated terms in this part of the swale to crawl aside for me.

Nor would I give way to him. But I ceased switching, drew back a step, and looked at him with more respect than I ever before showed a snake.

The curved neck straightened at that, the glinting head swayed forward, and shivering through me as the swish of a stick never shivered through a snake, sounded that unearthly hissing whistle. For a second—for just the fraction of a second that it takes to jump—I was, not scared, but shocked; and I slipped on something underfoot. In three directions I wallowed the ferns before I got to my feet to watch the snake again, and by that time the snake was gone.

I found myself somewhat muddy and breathing a little hard; but I was not wholly chagrined. I had heard and seen a black-snake whistle. I had never even known of the habit before.

Since then I have seen one other snake do it, and I think I have heard the sound three or four times. It is almost indescribable. The jaws were closed as it was made, not even the throat moving, that I could see. The air seemed to be blown violently through the nostrils, though sounding as if driven through the teeth—a shrilling hiss, fine and piercing, which one not so much hears as feels, crisping cold along his nerves.

It may seem strange, but I believe this whistle is a mating-call. Even the forked tongue (or maybe the nose) of a snake grows vocal with love. If only the Sphinx had not possessed a heart of stone! No matter about its lips; with a heart to know the "spring running" we should have heard its story long ago. Perhaps, after all, the college sophomore was not mixing his observations and Sunday-school memories when he wrote, describing the dawn of a spring morning (I quote from his essay): "Beneath in the water the little fishes darted about the boat; above the little birds twittered in the branches; while off on a sunny log in the pond the soft, sibilant croak of the mud-turtle was heard on the shore." If we could happen upon the mud-turtle mad with love, I am sure we should find that he had a voice—a "soft, sibilant croak," who knows?

I had long known the tradition among the farmers of the black-snake's trailing its mate, following her by scent through grass and brush, persistent and sure as a sleuth-hound, until at last she is won. I had been told of this by eyewitnesses over and over, but I had always put it down as a snake story, for these same witnesses would also tell me the hoop-snake story, only it was their grandfathers, always, who had seen this creature take its tail in its mouth and roll, and hit and kill a fifty-dollar apple-tree (the tree was invariably worth fifty dollars). I had small faith in the trailing tale.

One day, the summer after my encounter in the ferns, I was sitting upon a harrow at the edge of the gravelly field that slopes to the swale, when a large black-snake glided swiftly across the lane and disappeared in the grass beyond. It had been gone perhaps a minute, when I heard another stir behind me, and turning, saw high above the weeds and dewberry-vines the neck and head of a second black-snake.

He was coming swiftly, evenly, carrying his gleaming head over a foot from the ground, and following hard upon the trail of the first snake. He hit very near the smooth, flowing mark in the dust of the lane. Here she had crossed. Here he was about to cross when he caught sight of me.

For a startled instant he stiffened, threw himself on the defensive, and showed a white patch under his chin, an ugly, blazing light in his eye, and a peculiarly aggressive attitude that there was no mistaking. I had seen this snake before. I knew him. He was the dragon of the swale.

Only pausing, he whirled, struck the track, and sped on, his round black body stretching from rut to rut of the lane. A hundred feet beyond in the grass I saw his glittering head rise and sway with a swimming motion as he trailed the long, lithe beauty that was leading him this lightning race across the fields.

This was not the last time he crossed my path. He never withstood me again; but he thwarted me several times. Once as I was descending the slope I saw him gliding down from a low cedar. The distressing cries of two chippies told me what he had been doing in the tree; I did not need to look at the half-dislodged nest. Then and there I vowed to kill him, but from that moment I never set eyes on him again. His evil work, however, went on. In a clump of briers across the stream was the nest of a pair of redbirds that I was watching. One day just before the young could fly they were carried off. I knew who did it. On the same side, up under the fence by the woods, a litter of rabbits was destroyed. The snake killed them. It was he, too, who ate the eggs of the bluebirds in the old apple-tree along the fence in the adjoining field.

There must be a dragon in the way, I suppose—in the way even of nature study. There are unpleasant, perhaps unnecessary, and evil creatures—snakes!—in the fields and woods, which we must be willing to meet and tolerate for the love within us. Tick-seeds, beggar-needles, mud, mosquitos, rain, heat, hawks, and snakes haunt all our paths, hindering us sometimes, though never really blocking the way.

But the dragon in the swale—ought I to tolerate him? No. There are moments when I should be glad to kill him, yet I doubt if the swale would be quite so wild and thrilling a spot if I knew there was no dragon to meet me as I crossed. But the redbirds, bluebirds, rabbits? I see no shrinking in their numbers because of the snake. A few of them breed as they always have along the swale. There are worse enemies than the dragon, though he is bad enough.

THE END