“‘It is it!’ cried my wife, clapping her hands with delight. ‘It is the nut-pine! This will serve for bread until we can grow our wheat and corn. Come, let us gather them,’ added she, pointing to a large grove of the same trees that grew at a short distance; and we all hurried to the grove, and commenced shaking down the cones and gathering them into heaps.
“We had soon collected as many as we wanted, and in the evening we returned to the valley, with our little cart half-full of pine-nuts. On reaching home, some of them were parched and pounded into a sort of coarse meal; and that night, for the first time during many weeks, we had cakes to our supper.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Menagerie, Aviary, and Botanic Garden.
“We were busy of course every day, as we had plenty of work to do. We laid a floor in our cabin, and fenced a couple of fields—one to plant our corn in, and the other to keep Pompo from straying off into the woods, and meeting with some animal that might feel inclined to devour him. We also succeeded in killing several red-deer and a couple of elk, which we stored up for our winter provision. We did not find the black-tails very palatable, and most of their flesh went to feed Castor and Pollux.
“Cudjo was the busiest of all of us. He made several household utensils which proved of great service to us. He also constructed for himself a wooden plough, which would serve every purpose—as there was a considerable portion of the ground that was without turf, and could be easily turned. This part had been covered with beautiful flowers, such as sunflowers, red and orange-coloured poppies, and asclepias. It was almost a pity to plough them up.
“With an eye to the future scarcity of our ammunition, we had begun to practise hunting with a weapon which would answer all our purposes almost as well as the rifle—still keeping the latter of course for great occasions. We had found some of the bois d’arc, or “Osage orange,” as it is called, growing in the valley. This is the famous bow-wood of the Indians; and taking a hint from these children of Nature, we made three bows, stringing them—as the Indians do—with the sinews of the deer. For arrows, we had the straight cane-reeds; and Cudjo made us a set of barbs out of iron spikes that we had taken from the wagon. With daily practising at a mark, before the winter was over, we were all three able to use our new weapons to some purpose; and Harry, to his mother’s great delight, could bring down a squirrel from the top of the highest tree in the valley. As a marksman, both with the bow and rifle, he was quite superior to Frank, who, instead of feeling jealous, seemed rather to be proud of the skill of his brother. Harry, during all the winter, kept our table loaded with partridges, squirrels—of which there were several species—hares, and wild turkeys; the last of which, being much finer than tame ones, of course we were all very fond of.
“My wife, too, added largely to the delicacies of our table. During the last days of autumn, she made several botanical excursions—of course, all of us accompanying her by way of guard—and in each of these some useful production was discovered. We found several species of wild fruits—currants, cherries, and a small fruit known as the “serviceberry,” which grew in great profusion. All these fruits were gathered in quantity, and made into preserves. We obtained roots as well—one of which was the pomme-blanche, or Indian turnip; but the most interesting of all was the wild potato, which we dug up—for, in fact, it is only upon the table-lands of America where that plant is indigenous. We should not have recognised it as an old acquaintance, but for the botanical knowledge of my wife. Its roots were not larger than wren’s eggs, and we could find so few of them that, in its wild state, we saw it would be of no use to us as an article of food. Mary, however, had hopes, that by cultivation, we might produce larger ones; so we collected all the tubers we could fall in with, and kept them for seed.