Children of the Wild

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

When the hornet was gone the Child began once more to remember that little stick in the soft moss beneath him. How had he ever forgotten it? He decided that he must have been sitting on it for hours and hours. But just as it was beginning fairly to burn its way into his flesh, a queer little rushing sound close at his side brought his heart into his throat. It was such a vicious, menacing little sound. Glancing down, he saw that a tiny wood-mouse had darted upon a big brown-winged butterfly and captured it. The big wings flapped pathetically for a few seconds; but the mouse bit them off, to save herself the bother of lagging useless material home to her burrow. She was so near that the Child could have touched her by reaching out his hand. But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a rotten stump. Less, in fact, for she might have tried to gnaw into him if he had been a rotten stump, in the hope of finding some wood-grubs.

The mouse dragged away the velvety body of the butterfly to her hole under the roots. She was no more than just in time, for no sooner was she out of sight than along came a fierce-eyed little shrew-mouse, the most audacious and pugnacious of the mouse tribe, who would undoubtedly have robbed her of her prey, and perhaps made a meal of her at the same time. He nosed at the wings of the butterfly, nibbled at them, decided they were no good, and then came ambling over to the Child's feet. Shoe-leather! That was something quite new to him. He nibbled at it, didn't seem to think much of it, crept along up to the top of the shoe, sniffed at the sock, and came at last plump upon the Child's bare leg. "Was he going to try a nibble at that, too?" wondered the Child anxiously, his blue eyes getting very big and round. But no. This live, human flesh—unmistakably alive—and the startling Man smell of it, were too much for the nerves of his shrewship. With a squeak of indignation and alarm he sprang backward and scurried off among the weed-stalks.

"There, now!" thought the Child, in intense vexation. "He's gone and given the alarm!" But, as good luck would have it, he had done nothing of the kind. For a red fox, trotting past just then at a distance of not more than ten or a dozen feet, served to all observers as a more than ample explanation of the shrew's abrupt departure. The fox turned his head at the sound of the scurry and squeak, and very naturally attributed it to his own appearance on the scene. But at the same time he caught sight of those two motionless human shapes sitting rigid behind the poplar sapling. They were so near that his nerves received a shock. He jumped about ten feet; and then, recovering himself with immense self-possession, he sat up on his haunches to investigate. Of course, he was quite familiar with human beings and their ways, and he knew that they never kept still in that unnatural fashion unless they were either asleep or dead. After a searching scrutiny—head sagely to one side and mouth engagingly half open—he decided that they might be either dead or asleep, whichever they chose, for all he cared. He rose to his feet and trotted off with great deliberation, leaving on the still air a faint, half-musky odor which the Child's nostrils were keen enough to detect. As he went a bluejay which had been sitting on the top of a near-by tree caught sight of him, darted down, and flew along after him, uttering harsh screeches of warning to the rest of the small folk of the wilderness. It is not pleasant even in the wilderness to have "Stop thief! Stop thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!" screeched after you by a bluejay. And the fox glanced up at the noisy bird as if he would have been ready to give two fat geese and a whole litter of rabbits for the pleasure of crunching her impudent neck.

All this while there had been other birds in view besides the bluejay—chick-a-dees and nut-hatches hunting their tiny prey among the dark branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and rat-tat-tat-tatting in a most businesslike and determined manner. But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the four-footed kindreds. Just now, however, a bird came on the scene which interested him extremely. It was a birch-partridge (or ruffled grouse) hen, accompanied by a big brood of her tiny, nimble chicks. They looked no bigger than chestnuts as they swarmed about her, crowding to snatch the dainties which she kept turning up for them. The Child watched them with fascinated eyes, not understanding how things so tiny and so frail as these chicks could be so amazingly quick and strong in their movements. Suddenly, at a little distance through the bushes, he caught sight of the red fox coming back, with an air of having forgotten something. The Child longed to warn the little partridge mother, but, realizing that he must not, he waited with thumping heart for a tragedy to be enacted before him.

He had no need to worry, however. The little mother saw the fox before he caught sight of her. The Child saw her stiffen herself suddenly, with a low chit of warning which sounded as if it might have come from anywhere. On the instant every chick had vanished. The Child realized that it was impossible for even such active creatures as they were to have run away so quickly as all that. So he knew that they had just made themselves invisible by squatting absolutely motionless among the twigs and moss which they so exactly resembled in coloring.

The fox, meanwhile, had been gazing around in every direction but the right one, to try and see where that partridge cry had come from. He liked partridge, and it was some time since he had had any. All at once he was surprised and pleased to see a hen partridge, apparently badly wounded, drop fluttering on the moss almost under his nose. He sprang forward to seize her, but she managed to flutter feebly out of his reach. It was obviously her last effort, and he was not in the least discouraged. She proved, however, to have many such last efforts, and the last the Child saw of the fox he was still hopefully jumping at her, as he disappeared from view among the underbrush. About three minutes later there was a hard whirr of wings, and the triumphant little mother reappeared. She alighted on the very spot whence she had first caught sight of the fox, stood for a moment stiffly erect, while she stared about her with keen, bright eyes, and then she gave a soft little call. Instantly the chicks were all about her, apparently springing up out of the ground as at the utterance of a spell. And proudly she led them away to another feeding ground.

What more the Child might have seen had time been allowed him will never be known, for now the session was interrupted. He was hoping for a porcupine to come by, or a deer, or a moose. He was half-hoping, half-fearing that it might be a bear, or a big Canadian lynx with dreadful eyes and tufted ears. But before any of these more formidable wonders arrived he heard a sound of rushing—of eager, desperate flight. Then a rabbit came into view—he felt sure it was one of the two who appeared at the beginning of his watch. The poor beast was plainly in an ecstasy of terror, running violently, but as it were aimlessly, and every now and then stopping short, all of a-tremble, as if despair were robbing it of its powers. It ran straight past the poplar sapling, swerved off to the right, and disappeared; but the Child could hear the sound of its going and perceived that it was making a circle. A couple of seconds later came the weasel, running with its nose in the air, as if catching the scent from the air rather than from the fugitive's tracks.

The weasel did not seem to be in any hurry at all. It was the picture of cool, deadly, implacable determination. And the Child hated it savagely. Just opposite the poplar sapling it paused, seeming to listen. Then it bounded into the bushes on a short circle, saving itself unnecessary effort, as if it had accurately estimated the tactics of its panic-stricken quarry. A few moments later the rabbit reappeared, running frantically. Just as it came once more before the poplar sapling—not more than a couple of yards from the Child's feet, out from under a neighboring bush sprang the weasel, confronting it fairly. With a scream the rabbit stopped short and crouched in its tracks, quivering, to receive its doom.

The weasel leaped straight at its victim's throat. But it never arrived. For at that moment the Child gave vent to a shrill yell of indignation and jumped at the slayer with hands, eyes and mouth wide open. He made such a picture that Uncle Andy exploded. The astonished weasel vanished. The rabbit, shocked back into its senses, vanished also, but in another direction. And the Child, pulling himself together, turned to his uncle with a very red face.

"I'm sorry!" he said sheepishly. "I'm so sorry, Uncle Andy. But I just couldn't help it. I didn't think."