Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah

by George Manville Fenn

“You see,” he said, as he busily began to get together all the loose sticks he could find lying about, at the same time showing me a stone and his knife with a little bag full of tinder. “I soon get light, Mass’ George; I get big fire much soon you get de duck.”

The proposition was so sensible that I went off with the gun, and following the course of the river beyond the bluff, I was not long before I heard a familiar noise, and creeping forward in the grey dawn, I was soon crouching behind the low growth by a wide pool of the river, where quite a flock of ducks were disporting themselves, preening their feathers, diving, making the bright drops run over their backs like pearls, and ending by flapping and beating the water heavily with their wings, exactly as I had seen them perform in the pond at home.

I waited my opportunity, lying flat now on my chest, and at last, after nearly firing three or four times and always waiting for a better chance, I drew trigger upon a knot of the ducks after getting several well in a line. There was a deafening report, a sensation as if my shoulder was broken, and a thick film of smoke hid everything from my sight. But as the shot went echoing along the side of the forest, I could hear the whistling and whirring of wings where the ducks flapped along the water, rose, and swept away over the trees. Then the smoke rose, and to my great delight there lay five of the unfortunate ducks; three perfectly still, and floating slowly to the shallow below the pool, the other two flapping wildly and trying to reach the farther shore.

To get the three was easy. I had but to wait and then wade in over the shallow to where I could see the sandy and pebbly bottom quite plain. To get the wounded ducks meant a swim, and perhaps a long hunt.

“Better shoot at them again,” I thought, when I shuddered, for something dark appeared behind one; there was a snap, and it disappeared, while almost at the same moment the other, which must have been nearly twenty yards away, was suddenly struck down beneath the water by something which puzzled me at first, but which the next minute I knew to be an alligator’s tail.

I turned to my three, now well over the shallows, and hesitated as to whether I dared risk going after them, not knowing but that an alligator might make a rush out of the deep black pool and seize them first, or failing them perhaps seize me.

But I was hungry too, and leaping in, I secured all three birds after splashing through the water a bit, and reached the shore again in safety, but not without many an excited look round at the deep place where I knew the monsters were lurking; and as I shook the water from my legs, and stamped about on the bank, I found myself thinking what a pity it was such a lovely country should be marred by dangerous beasts and horrible reptiles like the rattlesnakes and alligators.

Then I thought of the ducks, and as I held them all three by their orange legs, and looked down at their beautifully-coloured plumage, all soft browns and chestnuts, and with wing-spots of lovely green, and having a head of the same colour, my conscience smote me, and I found myself wondering what the ducks thought that beautiful morning when they were having their baths and preening themselves ready for a long flight or a good swim. And I seemed to see them all again playing about, and passing their heads over their backs, and rubbing the points of their beaks in the oil-gland to make their plumage keep off the water. And how soft and close it was!

“What must they have thought,” I said to myself, “about a monster who came with a horrible, fire-dealing weapon that strikes them down like a flash of lightning? Not much room for me to complain about the alligators!” I exclaimed. “But if I had not killed the ducks they would have killed all kinds of insects and little fishes, and if they did not kill the insects and fishes, the insects and fishes would have killed smaller ones. Everything seems to be killing everything else, and I suppose it’s because we are all hungry, as I am now.”

I walked sharply back along the river-bank with the sun now well up, and before long came in sight of a little cloud of smoke rising softly above the trees, and soon after I could hear the crackling of wood, and as I drew near, there was Pomp dodging about in the smoke, piling up pieces of dried stick, and making a roaring fire.