Although Charlie had no objection to shooting a seal, he was much more anxious to practise growling. It was little after high water: he crawled up behind the ledge, with the boat’s sail over him, to keep off the dew, and lay down in the bright moonlight to watch the seals, who were swimming around the top of the rock, that was just beginning to get bare, preparing to go on to it. With the patience of a sportsman Charlie waited; gradually the rock was left above the water. At length one seal ventured to land; then others followed; and soon they began to converse. Charlie had practised a good deal, at home, by striving to imitate them from recollection, and now had come over here that he might hear them more, and fix the sounds well in his memory: so he lay and listened a long time to the sounds, imitating them in a low tone, repeating them again and again. At length, flattering himself he had caught the tone quite perfectly, he concluded to try it on the seals; but the moment his voice rose on the air, every one of them went into the water. Charlie was quite mortified at this; but it was evident they were not much alarmed, for they soon came back, and resumed their growling. After listening again for some time, and practising as before, he made another effort aloud, when, to his great joy, they remained; another attempt was equally successful; but the third time some false note startled the wary creatures, and off they slid from the ledge; but after swimming around a while they returned again.
Charlie, quite well satisfied now with his proficiency in the language, determined to shoot one of his instructors. He took aim at a big fellow who sat upon the highest part of the ledge and seemed to act as watchman, and fired the old gun. It was heavily loaded with buckshot, and the seal never moved after receiving the charge.
“So much for the big gun,” said Charlie.
On his way home he concluded not to meddle with the boat again till some rainy day, or till he had put the garden and flowers to rights.
After skinning his seal, cutting the skin as little as possible, he stuffed it with salt, intending to make a decoy of it. He rather thought he should get into it, as the Indian got into the hog’s skin to kill poor Sally Dinsmore, thinking he could growl a great deal better in a seal-skin.
The mornings now were most beautiful; it was generally calm till ten or eleven o’clock; and a busier or more attractive spot than Elm Island presented it would be difficult to find. As the gray light of morning began to break, you would hear far off in the woods a single, sudden, harsh cry, breaking with explosive force from the mouth of an old heron, instantly followed by others; the squawks would add their contribution; then would follow the sharp screams of the fish-hawk, mingling with the crowing of cocks,—of which there were no less than three in the barn,—the clear notes of the robin, and the twittering of many swallows from the eaves, that, with their heads sticking out of little round holes in their nests, were bidding their neighbors good morning.
As the sun came up, all were stirred to new emulation; the bobolink, shaking the dew from his wings, poured forth his wild medley of notes; and faint in the distance was heard the bleating of sheep from Griffin’s Island.
As Charlie, mounted on a ladder, trained the honeysuckle over the front door and windows, he often paused to listen, and sitting upon the round of the ladder, inhaled the fragrance of the morning air, or gazed from his elevation upon the beautiful scene before him—the noble bay, smooth as a mirror, touched by the full rays of the rising sun; the gray cliffs of the islands, frowning above, with their majestic coronal of forests; and the green nooks, here and there upon them, glittering with dew.
“I wish I was a bobolink—I do,” said he, as he listened to one, who, more ambitious than his mates, was striving to lead the choir, from the summit of a mullein stalk, with mouth wide open, wings and every feather on him in motion.
The old bush Mrs. Hadlock had given her daughter, sacred to the associations of childhood, was now bending beneath its weight of flowers, while close beside it blushed the cabbage roses, hanging in rich clusters over the edge of the ornamental hoop Charlie had put around the bush.