The man who ignores such a hint has much to learn about woodcraft, which is largely a subconscious art; so I sat down to smoke a council-pipe with myself and the ash-tree over the matter. No sooner was the mind left to its own unhampered way than it began to piece bits of a puzzle-picture deftly together; and when the picture was complete I knew exactly where I was, and where I might quickly find a familiar trail. Eight years before, in an idle hour when nothing stirred on my pond, I had explored a mile or so beyond the bog to the south, only to find a swampy, desolate country without a trail or conspicuous landmark of any kind. It was while I passed through this waste, seeking nothing in particular and returning to my pond, that the mind took its snapshot of a certain tree, and preserved the picture so carefully, so minutely, that years later the original was instantly recognized. Many similar ash-trees grew on that flat, each with its glossy crown and its gray shaft flecked by dark-green moss; what [[253]]there was in this one to attract me, what outward grace or inward tree-sprite, I have not yet found out.
His massive head thrust forward as he tried to penetrate the far distance with his near-sighted eyes.
[[253]]
Another subconscious record seems to have been made for beauty alone, with its consequent pleasure, rather than for utility. As I watched my pond one summer morning, intent on learning what attracted so many deer to its shores, the mind apparently chose its own moment for making a perfect picture, a masterpiece, which should hang in its woodsy frame on my mental wall forever. The sky was wondrously clear, the water dancing, the air laden with the fragrance of peat and sweet-scented grass. Deer were slow in coming that morning, and meanwhile nothing of consequence stirred on my pond; but there was still abundant satisfaction in the brilliant dragon-flies that balanced on bending reeds, or in the brood of wild ducks that came bobbing out like young mischief—makers from a hidden bogan, or even in the face of the pond itself, as it brightened under a gleam of sunshine or frowned at a passing cloud or broke into a laugh at the touch of a cat’s-paw wind. Suddenly all these pleasant minor matters were brushed aside when a bush quivered and held still on the farther shore.
All morning the bushes had been quivering, showing the silvery side of their leaves to every [[254]]breeze; but now their motion spoke of life, and spoke truly, for out from under the smitten bilberries came a bear to stand alert in the open. The fore part of his body was lifted up as he planted his paws on a tussock; his massive head was thrust forward as he tried to penetrate the far distance with his near-sighted eyes. He was not suspicious, not a bit; his nose held steady as a pointing dog’s, instead of rocking up and down, as it does when a bear tries to steal a message from the air. A moment he poised there, a statue of ebony against the crimson moss; then he leaped a bogan with surprising agility, and came at his easy, shuffling gait around a bend of the shore. Opposite me he sat down to cock his nose at the sky, twisting his head as he followed the motion of something above him, which I could not see,—a hornet, perhaps, or a troublesome fly that persisted in buzzing about his ears. Twice he struck quickly with a paw, apparently missing the lively thing overhead; for he jumped up, rushed ahead violently and spun around on the pivot of his toes. Then he settled soberly to his flat-footed shuffle once more, and disappeared in a clump of larches, which seemed to open a door for him as he drew near.
For me that little comedy was never repeated, though I saw many another on dark days or bright; [[255]]and the last time I visited my pond I beheld it sadly altered, its beauty vanished, its shores flooded, its green trees stark and dead. Unknown to me, however, the mind had made its photographic record, and always I see my pond, as on that perfect day, in its setting of misty-green larches and crimson bog. Again its quiet face changes, like a human face at pleasant thoughts, and over it comes to me the odor of sweet-scented grass. The sunshine brightens it; the clouds shadow it; brilliant dragon-flies play among its bending reeds; the same brood of ducklings glides in or out from bogan to grassy bogan; and forever the bear, big and glossy black, goes shuffling along the farther shore.
[[256]]