CHAPTER XII
THE SPRING AWAKENING
December and January passed without Striped Coat waking up for more than an occasional peep at the woods whenever the warm south wind was blowing; but the last days of February found him uneasy and on the watch for good weather; then there came a gentle warm rain which brought a new scent into the woods—the scent of Spring.
Striped Coat caught it and was lured out as soon as darkness came; his mother followed eagerly. They were both anxious to get food but also interested in looking around and hunting up the old places which they had frequented in the summer. The mother travelled to the deserted woodchuck burrow under the holly tree, and finding it pleasantly dry and homelike, rearranged the nest and slept there instead of returning to the cabin.
Striped Coat however went further; he made a great circle through the woods which carried him far beyond Farmer Slown’s field to a sandy hill where, because the ground was dryer and warmer than below, many animals had their winter dens and where therefore it was not as lonely as nearer the Creek. Here he found the trails of Possum and of Coon and even of Gray Fox, but of none of his own kind. Wherever he went he saw others of the woods folk, all hungry, all in a hurry and none interested in him.
That day he spent in a hollow log far in the pines. It was an uncomfortable place, so he left it early on the following night and restlessly resumed his trip through the dripping, scented woods, on and on with scarcely a stop for rest. The long sleep had left him lonely, he knew that somewhere were companions, and he would keep on going until he found them.
Nearly all of the food of the last year had already been gathered by the woods creatures and the new year’s food had not begun to grow, but here and there he picked up something to stave off hunger—a half awakened insect or two, a dead shrew, scattered acorns and some grass bulbs. Here and there, too, he found good dens and spent more than one day in comfortably sleeping in them, only to start out again at dusk.
His seemed now almost a hopeless task, due to the success of trappers and especially to Farmer Slown’s relentless work against the wood pussies; yet still he searched.
At length his circle brought him back to the Goose Creek country where he knew the trails and felt a longing once more to sleep safely in his home under the cabin. For ten nights he had been travelling, and now disheartened, footsore and thin, he was back where he started, after finding the world a lonely place. But here would at least be his mother, or was she too gone now and he left, the last of the wood pussies on Goose Creek?
Ahead loomed the cabin. Striped Coat, dragging himself gloomily through the bushes scarcely looked at it until, near the stone pile, he caught on a breath of wind an unfamiliar scent—very faint, very elusive but at the same time unmistakably telling him that a strange wood pussy had been there.
In an instant it reawakened his interest in life and made of him a different looking creature. Again he was alert, quick footed, eager. Again his wonderful fur fluffed up, until his body looked like a perfect muff.