Wood folk at school

by William J. Long

The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this time. I found one or two and followed them; but they dodged away into the thick alders, where I could not find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight. After a vain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing.

Woods and lake were soon quiet again. The trout had stopped rising, in one of their sudden moods. A vast silence brooded over the place, unbroken by any buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows were growing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, questioning chatter of partridges came floating out of the alders. The leader was there, in the thickest tangle—I had learned in an hour to recognize his peculiar Prut, prut—and from the hillside and the alder swamp and the big evergreens his scattered flock were answering; here a kwit, and there a prut, and beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer and closer together.

I had still a third partridge to get for my own hungry flock; so I stole swiftly back into the alder swamp. There I found a little game path and crept along it on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to the leader’s continued calling.

“THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY”

In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfect hedge of bushes, I found him at last. He was on the lower end of a fallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar call at every pause. Above him, in a long line on the same log, five other partridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an answer came to the leader’s call, they would turn their heads and listen intently till the underbrush parted cautiously and another bird flitted up beside them. Then another call, and from the distant hillside a faint kwit-kwit and a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge would shoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log beside his fellows. The line would open hospitably to let him in; then the row grew quiet again, as the leader called, turning their heads from side to side for the faint answers.

There were nine on the log at last. The calling grew louder and louder; yet for several minutes now no answer came back. The flock grew uneasy; the leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, calling loudly, while a low chatter, the first break in their strange silence, ran back and forth through the family on the log. There were others to come; but where were they, and why did they tarry? It was growing late; already an owl had hooted, and the roosting place was still far away. Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee! called the leader, and the chatter ceased as the whole flock listened.

I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for the laggards; but there was no answer. Save for the cry of a low-flying loon and the snap of a twig—too sharp and heavy for little feet to make—the woods were all silent. As I turned to the log again, something warm and heavy rested against my side. Then I knew; and with the knowledge came a swift thrill of regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in the silent woods. The leader was calling, the silent flock were waiting for two of their number who would never answer the call again.

I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the sad little drama went on in the twilight shadows, while the great silence grew deep and deeper, as if the wilderness itself were in sympathy and ceased its cries to listen. Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had raised my rifle and covered the head of the largest bird; but curiosity to know what they were doing held me back. Now a deeper feeling had taken its place; the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among the fallen leaves.