In spite of her threat, it was Miranda herself who afterwards insisted that the skunk should continue to live on the farm without fear or reproach. Late one afternoon she had been coming down Pond Hill on a search for a new-born calf which, as usual, had been hidden by its mother somewhere in the thick woods. The path was sunken deep between banks covered with the yellow blossoms of the hardhack. At one spot, where the way widened into a rude road, a crooked green stem stretched out across the pathway, and from it swayed a great rose-red flower like some exquisite carved shell. It was the moccasin flower, the most beautiful of our early orchids. Miranda bent down to pick it with a little gasp of delight.
Suddenly, from just beyond, came a warning hiss, and in front of her reared the bloated swollen body of a fearsome snake. The reptile’s head was flattened out until it was half as wide as her hand, and it swelled and hissed rhythmically like the exhaust of a steam-pipe, and repeatedly struck out in her direction, the very embodiment of blind, venomous rage. Half paralyzed with fear, Miranda moved backward and began to wonder what she would do. Night was coming on, and if she went back over the hill, it would be dark before she could reach home. As for going around, no power on earth would have persuaded her to step into the thick bushes on either side of the path, convinced as she was that they must be swarming with snakes.
At this psychological moment, ambling unconcernedly up the path, came the same black-and-white beast about which she had spoken so bitterly the day before. As it caught sight of the snake coiling and rearing and hissing, the skunk’s gait quickened, and it approached the threatening figure with cheerful alacrity. The snake puffed and hissed and struck, but the skunk never even hesitated. Holding the reptile down with its slim paws it nibbled off the threatening head, neatly skinned the squirming body, and before Mrs. Hurlbutt’s delighted eyes ate it up. Then, without apparently noticing her at all, it went on up the hill until lost to sight among the hardhacks.
It would have been impossible to convince Miranda that the snake was nothing but a harmless puff-adder, and that, in spite of its bluffing ways, it had no fangs and never was known to bite. From that day on the skunk was envisaged in her mind as the guardian angel of the farm, and the edict went out that on no account was it to be molested. Not even when most of the bees from one of Mark’s cherished swarms disappeared into its leather-lined interior, would Miranda permit any adverse action.
“Some skunk that!” jeered Mark. “You let it get away with bees an’ boarders an’ milk an’ eggs, an’ never say a word. I wisht you cared as much for your husband.”
“I might, if he was as brave—an’ good-looking,” murmured Miranda.
It was the sweet influences of the month of June which settled the dispute. Jonas had been down in the sap-works, where the vast sugar-maples grew below the milk-house meadow. As he came back up the slope, the great golden moon of June was showing its rim over Pond Hill. Ahead of him he saw a familiar black-and-white shape moving toward the woods. Even as he watched, a procession came down to meet him. At its head marched another full-grown skunk, while back of her was a long winding procession of little skunks. One, two, three, four, five, six—Jonas counted them up to ten, and the last one of all was jet-black except for a tiny stripe of white on its muzzle. There was a long pause as the lone skunk met the band. Then suddenly he was at the head of it, and the long procession trailed contentedly after him. Separated from him by a winter and a spring, Mrs. Skunk had rejoined her mate, bringing her sheaves with her. Away from the tame folk to return no more, the wild folk moved on and on into the heart of the summer woods.