CHAPTER XV.
Venison Styles again.—Sermon on Nature.—Funeral Songs of the Birds.—Their Flight and Return.—His Theory of Government.—Sakoset.—The Indians.
Venison Styles, rough and rugged as he was, had acquired much knowledge in a wild way, and could, in that way, stagger a philosopher. No man had a nicer insight into nature. Birds and brooks, hills and valleys, trees and flowers, were all his study. He had no faith in science, except just so far as it came within his own experience. "Book larnin'," he said, "was all very well; but lookin' natur' in the face, and listening to what she said, was a deal better." I remember one of his sermons, which he delivered to me one bright October afternoon, when the woods were all russet and gold, the squirrels chattering in the trees, the nuts dropping, the partridges whirring and drumming, and the soft autumnal light was faintly struggling along the aisles of the forest. "You see," said Venison, "how all natur' is talkin', and if you will only listen, can tell enymost what she says. There," he continued, "just hear that robin pecking away on that ere coke bush. Hear him pipe away so melancholy-like—'All goin'! all goin'!' he says. How low and fine that yaller-bird sings—a kinder fun'ral song. The jay is sad-like, and acts just as though he felt winter comin'. That crow, sailin' through the air, croaks awful gloomy-like and holler—and all these ere crickets and insects jine in so sad and downcast. 'Tain't their spring song. They are down onter another key now. They begin to feel frost inter their bones. They know what's comin'."
"Know!" said I; "what do birds know about winter, till it comes." I wanted to draw the old philosopher out.
"Know! know!" continued Venison. "Birds think and talk—yes, they do—they know. I've heerd 'em talk to one another, from tree-top to tree-top, across these woods many a time—lay plans many a day. What makes 'em flockin' around us to-day, and soarin' around in companies, if they don't understand each other? They go round and round for a week or two, visit this wood and that, jabber, and fret, and fume, pick up a straggler here, 'nother there, and when they get a good ready, and are flock'd, off they go, travellin' south. Hain't they got col'nels, captins, and laws?—they are jest as much of a body as our school de-strict is, and every bird knows what he is about, what he is going to do, and how, too."
"Why don't all the blackbirds go into one flock, Venison?" said I.
"There 'tis! there 'tis!" replied Venison; "if 'twas all chance, they would. But it jest ain't chance. Natur' has 'lowed them to fix it. There," he continued, "goes a flock now—they've got a captin among 'em, leading 'em on—he knows every one under him—and they are jest around visitin' their friends before goin' off—that's all."
"Do you think they will come back again, Venison?" I inquired.
"Back again! back again!" he exclaimed, looking up to me with surprise. "Why, man, this is their home—they were born 'here. This is their ground, hereabouts. They know every tree, and mash, and river for miles 'round. You'll hear 'em chatterin' and gabblin' by next April 'gain."
"Doubtful," I replied.
"Well, now," said Venison, "I've tried that. Down to where I live, the blackbirds and robins are thick as spatter. They make it all ring round me. I caught a dozen or more of each in a net one fall, cut off one toe all round, and let 'em go. Jim Spikes bet they wouldn't come back; I bet they would. I wanted to try it, you see. When spring came on again there the fellers were, sure enough, or most on 'em, on hand, ready for summer's business again. Jim gin in—he did."
"I should think they would stray away, Venison," said I.
"Don't you believe in a God!" broke out Venison, in an animated tone. "When He made 'em, He put a compass inter their heads that can't get out of fix, and they run jest as straight by it as my dog does by his nose—and a dog's nose is his compass, you know."
This was a quaint, but a very pointed way, of illustrating a law of nature. Venison was a quaint man, and drove at a conclusion frequently cross lots, by some startling figure of speech.
"And I've got an idee," continued Venison, "an idee—I don't put it down as fact—that birds know one another, jest as we do—remember each other from y'ar to y'ar—how they sang together last y'ar and every y'ar in the shadows and sunshine of this old wood, and nested and raised their young 'uns together—and they kinder bid good by to one 'nother when they go off in the fall, and say How are you? when spring comes on—and may be they have their likes and dislikes, and old grudges to bring up agin—for there is a world of human natur' in 'em—a world on't—it is only an idee—can't say—but I believe it—but,"—and the old hunter turned round with a sad look,—"they won't roam round here much longer; the big trees are tumblin'; the old seventy-sixers are enymost gone; morn'er twenty y'ars ago they were mighty noisy up in that ar oak (he pointed to an enormous oak stump), but the varmints heeved it down, and made it inter lumber—the old tree that liv'd and rock'd in the storms five hundred years, I reckon; the bees and birds all knew it, and jest hung around it 'cause they lov'd it. I have had many a good shot from it. I heerd it crash when it came down—felt it, I did—feel it yet—the varmints."
"But," said I, with an effort to turn the current of the old man's thoughts, "you really believe that birds have their captains and colonels, and all that, do you?"
"Yes, sir! and mor'n that; kings and queens, for aught I know. It's a king that leads the ducks in their flight, ain't it? Hain't you heer'd him blow his horn, away in the sky, as he led 'em on up the rivers and takes? Don't the bees have their queen?"
Venison launched forth in his peculiar style on the theory of government, despotic and republican—maintained that God "hadn't any republics" in his kingdom—"all on 'em kings and queens—nobody was 'lected there—all on 'em were made from the beginning to rule and reign over their subjects." He maintained that as God was almighty, so he put almighty power in the rulers of the kingdoms under him. Therefore—such was his argument—"man orter be governed by man"—not by the voice of the people, but by a sovereign higher than himself. His arguments and language were home-made, but his ideas were brought out with great point and force.
I had long known that Venison was well posted on the trees and shrubs, flowers, and even the weeds. Nothing that he had ever observed had failed him. Probably he never read a book on the subject in his life, that is, if he could read. The familiar names of all creation were understood by him, and he had his own theories about everything animate and inanimate. I started him off on this subject. I called his attention to the oak over which he shed a tear, and by degrees drew him along to the time when the axe and the plough would change the whole face of the country around us into hamlets, green pastures, and waving fields of grain. The old man looked solemn. The subject was not pleasant to him—he heaved a sigh, and said, finally, "'Tis all the same! 'tis all the same with me! I shall be under the ground then! I don't wanter live to see it."
He rallied, and went on—"They've enymost spilt it now. When I was young, I could see a deer a mile away—no underbrush to shade my rifle. The deer, too, look'd grander like, somehow, than they do now. They had a freedom in 'em. They seemed to know the woods was theirs. They kinder go sneakin' round now, as though some critter was arter 'em. This stream was filled with ducks, flappin' their wings, and washin' themselves; and many a time I've heer'd 'em, jest as the sun was a-settin', talkin' to themselves, and gettin' ready to go to bed. But the settlers came in, dammed the river, and down came the sawdust, and it roar'd and rattled 'em all away. The partridges used to drum and drum in the still afternoon, and whirr about—and they are gone, too. I don't believe natur' likes to be disturbed. She sorter rebels agin the plough at first. She allers sends up coke and bramble when the furrows are first made—fights it as well as she can, till they get her under, and put her inter what they call crops. The Lord made the airth well enough to begin with. He knew what we wanted. He gave us airth and sky, woods and water—birds and fish to eat—and it all rais'd itself, and enough on't, too. This thing they call civ'lation is right agin natur'. It makes poor young men and wim'in'. They hain't got no stuff in 'em—they can't do anythin'—they are peepin' round, full of pain of every sort—full of rheumatiz, agers, janders, and all sorter ails. I've gone morn'er twenty miles a day, loaded with game, and not a tired hair in me—can do it agin." And thus Venison preached, too much and too long for me to record in full.
Venison continued, and declared that "there was enough of everything just as it was." He attempted to show that there were seeds of life deep in the earth, planted there from the beginning, that came forth in due time, and replenished the earth. He never "see'd any coke till they ploughed a furrow, and built that ere rail fence"—"and down in that ere breakin' (which I saw had been neglected, and was overgrown heavily), the blackberries and ten thousand other things were comin' up." He said he "would jest like to know where all that seed had been lyin' since the world was made—how long it would have laid, he'd jest like ter know, if that ere plough hadn't stirred up the sile." And thus he attempted to illustrate his theory of vegetation.
"Not only the trees, but the Injuns were goin'. 'Tain't as 'twas with 'em when they went a-whoopin' around among the streams and woods. I've see'd mor'n nor forty canoes sailing away here on this river at on'st—and then we had raal Injuns—tall, six-foot fellers, with eyes like the eagle. But they, too, are pinin' out like. The white man, and the white man's ways, and the white man's drink, has taken all the tuck out on 'em. They know, what are left on 'em, that they ain't raal Injuns any more. They don't whoop any more. They hang about the towns a while, and get full of pizen, and then slink away silently inter the forest again. Sometimes, when huntin' season comes on, they fire up, and chase the game, but it is kinder melancholy, after all—like a flame jest spirtin' out a minute from a charr'd and half-burning log. There's old Sakoset (I've known him enymost on to forty years), was jest as much of a king, and had jest as much of a throne, as old George Third ever had. He lov'd his tribe, and they lov'd him. His word was law. These were all his grounds for a hundred miles round. I know it warn't mark'd off into counties, townships, and school de-stricts. They didn't have any place to file away papers, nor didn't write everythin' they did in books—but they had their laws jest as well, all written down inter their heads; and they knew their history—they had, what white men call their traditions—they knew all about their fathers and grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers—and old Sakoset was their chief. He was six feet three inches by measure, and as straight as that 'ere hickory. He was knit all over as tight as an oak. He was as hansome as a picter, and I've seen him in council, when I tho't he was the noblest lookin' mortal on this airth. And there warn't no man, no gov'ment (Venison grew excited here) that had as good a right to these 'ere grounds as Sakoset. God gave 'em to him, and the white man stole 'em away, stole 'em, sir!—stole 'em. Yes, sir! they passed a law that they should be removed 'yond the 'Sippi—gave 'em huntin' grounds, as they call 'em—drove 'em together like scar'd sheep, and forc'd 'em away from their own sile. But old Sakoset didn't like his new home, wouldn't stay, and he and a few of his tribe straggled back here agin, and now wander round these woods. But he ain't the same man any more; he's all broke down like; 'tain't the same place to him, he says. The stream winds round the hill yet, and the mountain is there, but the forest is mostly down, and the white man is everywhere. Sakoset says but little; goes round dreamin'-like; hangs about alone in the woods, a-thinkin', and sees in his mind his tribe all before him as it was when he was king over them on these grounds. I saw him a few days ago up in the Injun buryin'-ground sittin' so still, I first tho't he was a monerment somebody had put up—but 'twas Sakoset."
Venison was here attracted by the roar of a gun, and a deer rushed past, breaking his discourse, and we both followed the hunter and the hunted, to see how the chase would end—saw the deer plunge into the river, the dogs after him, and I watched them until they floated away around the bend beyond my sight.