The next day was much like the first. With break of day they had breakfasted, and then, at a signal from Honker, they had mounted up, up into the blue vault, and all day they had heralded the spring to the earth below as they flew into the north. So it was the next day and the next, wise old Honker leading them to some chosen secluded resting-place each night.
Gradually the face of the earth below changed. There were no more cities. The villages became smaller and farther between, and at last they saw no more, only here and there a lonely farm. Great forests and lakes succeeded each other, the air grew colder, but with his thick coat of feathers Tommy minded it not at all.
Then, one day, they found they had outflown the spring. Below them the earth was still frozen and snow-covered. The ponds and lakes were still ice-bound. Reluctantly Honker turned back to their last stopping-place and there for a week they rested in peace and security, though not in contentment, for the call of the North, the Far North, with its nesting-grounds, was ever with them, and made them impatient and eager to be on their way. The daily flights were shorter now, and there were frequent rests of days at a time, for spring advanced slowly, and they must wait for the unlocking of the lakes and rivers. The forests changed; the trees became low and stunted. At last they came to a vast region of bogs and swamps and marshes around shallow lakes and ponds, a great lonely wilderness, a mighty solitude. At least that is what Tommy would have thought it had he been a boy or a man instead of a smart young gander.
It was neither lonely nor a solitude to him now, but the haven which had been the object of those hundreds of miles of strong-winged flight. It was the nesting-ground. It was home! And how could it be lonely with flock after flock of his own kind coming in every hour of every day; with thousands of ducks pouring in in swift winged flight, and countless smaller birds, all intent on home-building?
The flock broke up into pairs, each intent on speedily securing a home of their own. On the ground they made great nests of small sticks and dead grass with a soft lining of down. In each presently were four or five big eggs. And soon there were downy goslings—scores and scores of them—in the water with their mothers for the first swimming lesson.
Then the old birds had to be more vigilant than before, for there were dangers, many of them, even in that far wilderness: prowling foxes, hungry lynxes, crafty mink, hawks, fierce owls, each watching for the chance to dine on tender young goose. So the summer, short in that far northern region, passed, and the young birds grew until they were as large as their parents, and able to care for themselves.
Cold winds swept down out of the frozen Arctic Ocean with warning that already winter had begun the southward march. Then began a great gathering of the geese, and a dividing into flocks, each with a chosen leader, chosen for his strength, his wisdom, and his ability to hold his leadership against all comers. Many a battle between ambitious young ganders and old leaders did Tommy see, but he wisely forbore to challenge old Honker, the leader who had led the way north, and when the latter gathered the flock for the journey he was one of the first to fall in line.
A thousand plus a thousand miles and more stretched before them as they turned to the south, but to the strength of their broad wings the distance was as nothing. But this was to be a very different journey from their trip north, as Tommy soon found out. Then they had been urged on day by day by a great longing to reach their destination. Now in place of longing was regret. There was no joy in the going. They were going because they must. They had no choice. Winter had begun its southward march.
The flights were comparatively short, for where food was good they stayed until some subtle sense warned old Honker that it was time to be moving. It was when they had left the wilderness and reached the great farm-lands that they lingered longest. There in the stubble of the grain fields was feed a-plenty, and every morning at dawn, and again every afternoon, an hour or so before sundown, Honker led the way to the fields. During the great part of the day and all night they rested and slept on the bar of a river, or well out on the bosom of a lake.