The next proposal was to wrap Bruin in grain bags so as to protect his skin, and then to drag and roll him down to where traveling would be easier. The bear slayer consented to try this experiment, and two large short bags were drawn over the body, one from its head, the other from its tail. Other bags were laid under the body, and, thus protected, it was dragged, bumping and rolling, down several hundred yards to the foot of the ledges. Short cross-sticks were then inserted in the lashings, which were tied round the bear’s legs, and four of us, two on each side, or two in front and two behind, raised the body by these sticks and bore it through the winding path we had cleared while ascending. The lesser satellite, carrying the rifle, hatchet, and other luggage, brought up the rear, and urged on the party by jeering remarks and snatches of song. In spite of repeated cautions from the bear-slayer, whose stings still smarted, we narrowly escaped walking into the hornet’s nest a second time.
More than six hours had elapsed since our departure from home when our little procession wound out of the woods into my dooryard. Raspberry vinegar never was more gratefully swallowed, and never was dead emperor received with more respect than poor Bruin by the crowds which flocked to view his remains during the afternoon of that hot August day. One bought his nails, another his teeth, a third his thinly haired skin, while pieces of his flesh, prepared for future cooking, were carried away in various directions. As when sugar is spilled upon the ground, ants come from every quarter to gather up the grains and draw them away, so dead Bruin drew gossips and idlers from all parts of the town, eager to pick up bits of his body or stories of his melancholy end.
THE DEAD TREE’S DAY.
It is the theory that there are always plenty of hens to be bought in a New England farming town; but as a matter of fact, in the month of July, 1892, the country north of Bearcamp presented such a dearth of hens that, after traveling miles in my efforts to buy some, I returned to my own neighborhood and hired a contingent for the season. The transaction was unique, but, on the whole, mutually satisfactory. It had one drawback. When one owns fowls, the accumulation of family wrath against the rooster on account of too early crowing on his part always finds relief in eating him; but when one hires a rooster, his life is charmed by contract, and he can with impunity crow the family into nervous prostration. The magnificent Black Spanish cock hired by me began crowing, on the morning of August 21, at twenty minutes of four. Not a ray of daylight pierced the bank of mist which filled the east. Nothing but instinct or a bad conscience could have told Murillo that it was time to crow. Nevertheless, on this occasion his song was welcome, for I had counted upon his arousing me early in order that I might spend an entire day with the Dead Tree.
On the northern shore of Chocorua Lake a broad reach of swampy woodland is broken by a meadow. At the point where the small and very cool brook which bounds the meadow on the west enters the lake, a tall pine once cast its shadow upon a deep pool at its foot. The pine died many years ago, and its bark has been entirely removed by weather and woodpeckers, leaving its trunk and eighty-seven branches, or stumps of branches, as white as bleached bones. A few rods farther from the mouth of the brook stands a smaller pine of similar character. These two trees form a famous bird roost, and at their feet I planned to stay from sunrise to sunset on this August day, in order to see, during consecutive hours, how many birds would make use of the tree as a perch. From frequent visits during this and earlier years, I knew that the tree was not only a rendezvous for the birds living in the meadow and adjoining woods, but also a kursaal for tourists in feathers, and for all birds coming to the lake to hunt or to fish.
As I left the house, hermit thrushes were uttering the short complaining notes of alarm characteristic of them at twilight. Dark as it was, they were awake and stirring. Reaching the bank of the lake a minute or two after four, I startled a spotted sandpiper from the beach, and heard his peeping whistle as he flew from me across the black water, beyond which only dusky masses of gloom marked the pine woods on the farther shore. The surface of the water was disturbed by thousands of insects cutting queer figures upon it. Where they moved, white ripples followed. As I walked along the moist sand of the beach, pickerel shot out from the shore, bats squeaked, and frogs jumped into deeper water with nervous croaks of fear. Then a whippoorwill sang, and as his weird notes echoed from the woods, Venus sailed clear from the mist bank and reflected her dazzling beauty in the lake. As I drew near the mouth of the brook, a solitary tattler ran along the sand in front of me, whistling softly. When I turned into the bushes, he stopped and resumed his search for breakfast.
The dead tree rose above me, jet black against the dark sky. Stepping softly through the bushes, I disturbed the wary catbirds, and their fretful cries awoke the meadow. At twenty minutes past four, three whippoorwills were singing, and two catbirds, with several hermit thrushes, were complaining. A few moments later, the call of a veery was heard, a song sparrow gave a sharp squeak, and then, so still was the air, I heard the heavy stamping of my horse in his stable, a quarter of a mile away, as he gained his feet after a long night’s rest. The stars were growing paler moment by moment, and outlines becoming sharper in the bushes and trees near me. A Swainson’s thrush uttered its clear “quick,” expressive of much more vigilance than the cries of the veery and the hermit, yet less fault-finding than the mew of the catbird.
THE DEAD TREE
I settled myself comfortably amid the bushes eastward of the dead trees, near enough to them to see even a humming-bird if one alighted on the bare branches. At 4.35 I had heard eight kinds of birds, yet the crows, notorious for early rising, had not spoken. A minute later one cawed sleepily among the eastern pines where the mist lay thickest, and soon a dozen voices responded. Dense as was the fog, the light of day made swift inroads upon the shadows, and when, about quarter to five, a young chestnut-sided warbler came out of a dewy bush near me, its colors were plainly distinguishable. The little bird looked sleepy and dull. It moved languidly, and so did three Maryland yellow-throats which appeared from the same clump of thick bushes a moment later. As yet no bird of the day had sung.