The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island

by Elijah Kellogg

“Sally: she spun all the twine on the flax wheel, and netted it.”

Taking the net, they went on to the wheat stubble. Near the woods was a place where there had been an opening when the land was in forest; consequently, when the fire had burned off the moss and leaves (duff, as Joe called it), the ground was mellow and free from roots. A portion of this he had dug up, carried away all the sticks and stones, raked it as smooth as a garden bed, and flung wheat on it.

Early in the morning and towards night the wild pigeons would come, light on the trees, look at the grain a while, then fly down and eat. He had baited the pigeons thus for several days, till they had become used to the spot, and quite tame: now he prepared to net them.

In the first place, they set down, at each corner of the bed (which was a little larger than the net), pieces of plank with their edges directed across the bed, about a foot above the surface of the ground: in the sides of two of them cut slots, on the inside of one and the outside of the other, that is, the corner ones; on the longest side, at the distance of about twelve feet from the planks and on the opposite side from the posts in which the slots are cut, they put down, three feet into the ground, and on a line with them, two tough green beech saplings, three inches through at the butt, and six feet in height. To the top of these posts he fastened a strong rope forty feet long, and the edge of the net to this rope. The lower edge of the net was fastened to the ground by little crotches, on the opposite side from the high posts, and merely slack enough left of the rope to admit of taking the net and rope across, and permitting the net to lie nicely folded in as compact a form as possible on the ground along the edge of the bed. He then took two strips of stiff, hard wood board, an inch and a quarter thick and two inches wide, with a dove-tail notch in one end to hold the rope; one end of these he set against the plank posts, which were well over towards the middle of the bed on the side the log posts stood, put the notched end against the bight of the rope to which the net was fastened, and, pressing down with all his might, sprung the stiff beech posts enough to force the sticks (flyers he called them), with the rope attached to them, into the slots in the plank posts. The net, which lay nicely folded along the edge of the bed, was then covered over with earth; long limbs, thickly covered with leaves, were now cut and set up, forming a booth around one of the high posts at one end, bringing the line to which the flyers were fastened into the booth, thus enabling the hunter concealed there, at one twitch, to pull the flyers, which held the net down, out of the slots, when the tremendous spring of the beech poles would fling the net over the bed in an instant.

Wheat was now strown in a long row the whole length of the bed, and nearest to the side on which the net was folded, that the pigeons, when they came on, might be sure to be completely enveloped, being nearer the centre of the net. Some saplings were set in hollow stumps and in the ground to form lighting places, as pigeons like to have a chance to reconnoitre before flying down.

Joe had not intended to set the net so soon, but to have built the booth, set up the poles, and put on the rope, in order that the pigeons might get accustomed to the sight of these objects; but he had hurried up matters to keep the boys there and gratify them.

“We won’t spring it to-night, boys, but let them come here, get their supper, and see all these fixings. They will come and light on the trees, look round, see the grain; some of them will come to the bed, eat a little, and make up their minds that all is right. To-night we’ll put on fresh grain, and in the morning make a real haul.”

The forenoon was fully occupied with the bear and the pigeon-bed. In the afternoon they went to work to make a cage to keep them. They made it of logs, covering the top with small poles, that they might have plenty of light and air, put in roosts, and made a trough for water.

The cage, instead of being square, was made in the shape of a blunt wedge, and the apex lined with a net, so that they could be driven into the narrow part into the net, and caught without difficulty.

At night they visited the bed, found the pigeons had been there, and having put on fresh grain, went home, and, being weary from the work of the previous night, retired early, with sanguine expectations for the morrow.