The Wolf's Long Howl

by Stanley Waterloo

[AN EASTER ADMISSION]

This is not, strictly speaking, an Easter tale, nor a love story. It is merely the truthful account of certain incidents of a love affair culminating one Easter Day. It may be relied upon. I am familiar with the facts, and I want to say here that if there be any one who thinks he could relate similar facts more exactly—I will admit that he might do the relation in much better form—he is either mistaken or else an envious person with a bad conscience. I am going to tell that which I know simply as it occurred.

There is a friend of mine who is somewhat more than ordinarily well-to-do, who is about thirty years of age, and who lives ordinarily in the city of Chicago. Furthermore, he is a gentleman of education, not merely of the school and university, but of the field and wood. He knows the birds and beasts, and delights in what is wild. Four or five years ago he purchased a tract of land studded closely with hardwood trees, chiefly the beech and hard maple, and criss-crossed by swift-flowing creeks of cold water. This tract of land was not far from the northern apex of the southern peninsula of the State of Michigan. There were ruffed grouse in the woods, in the creeks were speckled trout in abundance, and my friend rioted among them. He had built him a house in the wilderness; a great house of logs, forty or fifty feet long and thirty wide, with chambers above, with a great fireplace in it, with bunks in one great room for men, and with an apartment better furnished for ladies, should any ever be brought into the wilderness to learn the ways of nature.

Two years ago my friend gave his first house party, and the duration of it included Easter Day, and so was, necessarily, in a happy season. It is pleasant for us in this northern temperate zone that the day, with all its glorious promises, in a spiritual sense, is as full of promise also in the physical sense, in that it corresponds with the awakening of nature and the renewed life of that which so makes humanity. It is a good thing, too, that since the date of Easter Day is among those known as "movable," it means the real spring, but a little farther north or farther south, as the years come and go. So it chanced that the Easter Day referred to came in the northern peninsula of Lower Michigan just when the buds upon the trees showed well defined against one of the bluest skies of all the world, when the teeming currents of the creeks were lifting the ice, and the waters were becoming turbulent to the eye; when the sapsuckers and creeping birds were jubilant, and the honk of the wild goose was a passing thing; when, with the upspring of the rest of nature, the trees threw off their lethargy, and through the rugged maples the sap began to course again. It was only a few days before Easter that my friend—his name was Hayes, "Jack" Hayes, we called him, though his name, of course, was John—had an inspiration.

Jack knew that so far as his own domain was concerned the time had arrived for the making of maple sugar, and there was promise in the making there, for the wilderness was still virgin. He decided that he would have a regular "sugar-camp" in the midst of his "sugar-bush," and that there should be much making of maple syrup and sugar, with all the attendant festivities common formerly to areas farther south—and here comes an explanation.

Not many months before, this friend of mine had done what men had done often—that is, he fell in love, and with great violence. He fell in love with a stately young woman from St. Louis, a Miss Lennox, who was visiting in Chicago; a girl from the city where what is known as "society" is old and generally clean; where the water which is drunk leaves a clayey substance all round the glass when you partake of it, and which is about the best water in the world; where the colonels who drink whisky are such expert judges of the quality of what they consume that they live far longer than do steady drinkers in other regions; where the word of the business man is good, and where the women are fair to look upon. To a sugar-making Jack had decided to invite this young woman, with a party made up from both cities.

The party as composed was an admirable one of a dozen people, men and women who could endure a wholesome though somewhat rugged change, and of varying fancies and ages. There were as many men as women, but four were oldsters and married people, and of these two were a rector and his wife. It was an eminently proper but cheerful group, and the rector was the greatest boy of all. We tried to teach him how to shoot white rabbits, but abandoned the task finally, out of awful apprehension for ourselves. Had the reverend gentleman's weapon been a bell-mouth, some of us would assuredly have been slain. We were having a jolly time, our host furnishing, possibly, the one exception.

Of the wooing of Hayes it cannot be said that it had prospered altogether to his liking. Possibly he had been too reticent. He was a languid fellow in speech, anyhow, and, excellent woodsman as he was, generally languid in his movements. There was vigor enough underneath this exterior, but only his intimates knew that. The lady had been gracious, certainly, and she must have seen in his eyes, as women can see so well, that he was in love with her, and that a proposal was impending; but she had not given him the encouragement he wanted. Now he was determined to stake his chances. There was to be a visit one forenoon to the place where the sugar-making was in progress, and he asked her to go with him ahead of the others, that he might show her how full the forest was of life at all times. He had resolved. He was going to ask her to be his wife.

There was written upon the white sheet of freshly fallen snow the story of the night and morning, of the comedies and tragedies and adventures of the wild things. Their tracks were all about. Here the grouped paws of the rabbits had left their distinct markings as the animals had fed and frolicked among the underwood; and there, over by the group of evergreens, a little mass of leaves and fur showed where the number of the frolickers had been decreased by one when the great owl of the north dropped fiercely upon his prey; there showed the neat tracks of the fox beside the coverts. The twin pads of the mink were clearly defined upon the snow-covered ice which bordered the tumbling creek, and at times the tracks diverged in exploration of the recesses of some brush heap. Little difference made it to the mink whether his prey were bird or woodmouse. Far into the morning, evidently, his hunting had extended, for his track in one place was along that of the ruffed grouse; and the signs showed that he had almost reached his prey, for a single brown black-banded tail-feather lay upon the wing-swept snow, where it could be seen the bird had risen almost as the leap came. The sun was shining, and squirrel tracks were along the whitened crest of every log, and the traces of jay and snowbird were quite as numerous. There was clamor in the tree-tops. The musical and merry "chickadee-dee-dee" of the tamest of the birds of winter and the somewhat sadder note of the wood pewee mingled with the occasional caw of a crow, the shrill cry of a jay, or the tapping of woodpeckers upon the boles of dead trees. A flock of snow-bunting fluttered and fed in a patch of dry seed-laden weeds. Even the creek was full of life, for there could be seen the movements of creeping things upon its bottom, while through the clear waters trout and minnow flashed brilliantly. There were odors in the air. There was evidence everywhere that spring was real; and it occurred to Jack, as the two walked along and he read aloud to her the night's tale told upon the snow, that the poet who insisted that in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love quite understood his business; not that it really required spring in his own case, but the season seemed at least to accentuate his emotions. He wondered if young women were affected the same way. He hoped so. At present his courage failed him.

They reached the "sugar-bush" proper, and wandered about among the big maples. They drank the sweet sap from the troughs, and finally settled themselves down comfortably upon one of the rude benches which had been placed about the fire, over which the kettles boiled steadily, under the watchful eye of an old sugar-maker, whose chief occupation was to lower into the bubbling surface a piece of raw pork attached by a string to a rod whenever the sap showed signs of boiling over. Others of the house party soon joined them. The sun had come out brightly now, and luncheon, brought from the house, was eaten and enjoyed. Then followed more rambling about the wood. The ground showed bare where the snow had melted on an occasional sandy knoll, and there was a search for wintergreen leaves. It was announced that all must be at the house again in time for an early dinner, since the great work of "sugaring-off" was to be the event of the night. It was then that Jack suggested to Miss Lennox that they go by another path of which he knew, but which he had not lately tried. The remainder of the party took the old route, and so the two made the journey once more alone. The man was resolved again. It was three o'clock in the afternoon now, and about as pleasant a day as any upon which man ever made a proposal. Jack took his fate in his hands.