Part 26

The turkeys, that reverted as far as they could to the wild state during the summer, are now returning to the barns about the time the chickens are being fed, and are selecting for themselves the best roosting-places. They have grown plump on wild seeds and grasshoppers, and now they make daily excursions to the woods for beechnuts, which they swallow whole. As beechnuts are plentiful this year, nut-fed turkeys should be a feature of the Thanksgiving markets, though no one seems to have made a classification of this kind. Beechnut bacon is sometimes advertised--a fact that causes wonder among the farmers, for in the old days when they dressed their hogs for market the buyers were expert in picking out hogs that had been allowed to eat nuts. These were promptly culled out and either had to be sold at a lower price or taken home. It was claimed that the flesh was soft and oily. But possibly beechnut pork had qualities that were overlooked. Anyway, it sounds good.

_Oct. 13._--When the little yellow handbills announcing the Muncey-Tecumseh Fair appeared in the post office and other places where people assemble a curiosity was aroused that could only be satisfied by a visit to the Indian show. The whole affair was to be conducted by Indians, and the exhibits would be of Indian products. Here was something to kindle the imagination. It recalled memories of times when the Indians made regular excursions from their reservations to sell baskets, axe-handles, whipstocks, and bead-work pincushions to the farmers and the farmers' wives. It is not so many years since there was still "good hunting" in the land, and parties of Indians would be discovered, unexpectedly, living in a brush and bark wigwam in the woods. Although they carried guns, they still used bows and arrows for squirrels and small game, and a visit to one of their camps was an event in the life of a small boy. It was believed in those days, and the belief may have had a foundation in fact, that the Indians had a right to take hickory trees for their axe-handles and whipstocks and hoop-ash for their baskets wherever they found the timber to their liking. At any rate, they helped themselves, with no one to object, and their little camps were developed into primitive manufacturing centres. They usually bartered their products for salt pork, flour, potatoes, old clothes, and apples with the farmers, and for bright ribbons, calico, and many unnecessary things with the storekeepers. When they visited a store they seemed to feel it a duty to keep on buying as long as they had a cent to spend or anything with which to barter.

These recollections naturally roused expectations for the fair. It would surely give an opportunity for another glimpse of primitive life. The trip involved a drive of fifteen miles over roads that varied from a piece that had to be travelled with one wheel in the roadside ditch to avoid a stretch of crushed stone put down under the "county roads system" a year ago, and still unfinished, to a piece that was nothing more than an Indian trail over hills and across gullies. It would take a man of keen discrimination to decide which was the worse, the road made by the white man when working at what should be his best, or by the Indian when not working at all. It should be explained, however, that the trouble with the white man's crushed stone road was the proverbial one of the "ha'p'orth of tar," for lack of which the ship was spoiled. In this case the ha'p'orth represented a heavy steam roller, costing several thousands of dollars, but absolutely indispensable to good road building. Because such a roller was not used on the crushed stone the road that had been treated has naturally caused many people to regard the county roads system of road building a failure. But any system is a failure when the work is not properly done. Another stretch of road represented the work done under military management in pioneer days, and it was something to make automobilists cast all speed limits to the winds--which they mostly do when they strike it, leaving the foot passengers and drivers the option of dodging into the fence corners or landing among the telegraph wires. But despite the roads the scenery was excellent, and gave us much the same comfort that the Irishman's cow got when her owner drove her to the top of a barren hill and told her that, although the pasture was bad, the view was the finest to be had in three counties. Presently a British flag was seen floating from a flag-pole in a bare, open tract of country beyond two interesting-looking gullies that made the horse prick forward his ears and made the driver remember that hill-climbing on foot is excellent for the liver.

One naturally expects an Indian show to be held under spreading trees, but the trees in the part of the Muncey Reserve through which we passed are not doing much spreading just now. Somebody--let us hope it was the Indians--has cleared away the timber so industriously that only a few patches of scrub remain. The show ground is behind a high board fence enclosing a couple of buildings and a little race track. An Indian was in charge of the ticket selling, and two more guarded the gate. So far, the prospect was promising. Evidently the Indians were in charge of their own show, but on entering the grounds the disillusionment began. The refreshment stand looked just like a refreshment stand anywhere else, covered with bunting, and made inviting with exhibits of coloured popcorn balls, pink lemonade, and roasting peanuts. There was no pemmican or jerked buffalo meat in sight anywhere. The one specialist who was calling his wares was selling perfume, "three bottles for a quarter," all undoubtedly coal-tar derivatives. The Indians who were on the grounds wore white men's clothing, and were going around seeing the sights like ordinary citizens at any other fair. They wore the Sunday-go-to-meetin' ready-made clothes with as much grace as the white men who were mingling with them. The dresses of the squaws suggested that at least some of them are dealing with the mail-order houses. There was not a blanket in sight. In the Exhibition Hall there were log-cabin quilts, hand and machine made shirts, knitted woollen socks and mittens, quilted babies' bibs, fancy-work, and overgrown vegetables and fruits of the kind seen at every Fall Fair. Among the work of the school children were obvious copies of pictures by Henry Hutt and Gibson, copied from current magazines by the Indian children. In fact, the Indian show was simply a white man's show, exhibiting products such as might be found at a show in any purely white community. The only evidences of Indian work were a few baskets and a Navajo blanket, loaned by some one who wished to show the Indians some of the kind of work the Indians do elsewhere.

One conspicuous exhibit was worth the trip and the price of admission. Two little Indian children, in red dresses and caps, were playing among the feet of the sightseers with all the vivacity and joyousness of a couple of squirrels. Their liquid black eyes danced with merriment as they risked the chance of being trampled while they played tag with all of childhood's unconsciousness. Their little bronzed faces showed no touch of the care, and perhaps confusion, noticeable in the older faces. The woods were gone, but they were still the little people of the woods. In their veins flowed the pure Indian blood, but they were unconscious that they had been despoiled of their birthright. What they were their elders might still be in a more mature way had it not been for the coming of the white man, but it will not be long before they begin to feel the tragedy of civilisation. All that is left for the Indian is to suppress his own individuality and become an imitation white man. That this is being done with some success is proven by such shows as this, by Government reports, educational reports, and reports of missionary boards. The old quotations about the Indians no longer apply. Pope's lines are obsolete. There were too many black-frocked clergymen going around shaking hands for any one to stand aside, strike a pose, and murmur:

"Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in storms and hears him in the wind."

"Gitche Manitou, the Mighty," has gone to the happy hunting grounds with everything else characteristic of the Indian.

On the homeward trip, as we turned on the Longwoods road, a cloud of dust was sighted in the east.

"To the ditch!" said the driver, and to the ditch we went while a devil-car, driven by what seemed to be a band of Wendigoes, or other fierce barbaric spirits, whirled past. They were of those referred to above, who cast speed limits to the winds, and their passing made a couple of usually very peaceful citizens regret that a few more laws couldn't be cast to the winds for a minute or two. It would have been a real comfort to have taken a pot-shot at that crime against civilisation with an old army musket filled to the muzzle with slugs.

Any one encountering a speed maniac in circumstances such as these no longer wonders why they are hated by the farmers. To be frightened half out of one's wits and then smothered in dust do not give rise to charitable and philanthropic thoughts. The sensation one feels is somewhat the same as that experienced when a man finds himself crossing a railway track and catches sight of an express train coming at the rate of fifty miles an hour. The great difference is that he can get out of the way of the express train, and the engineer and passengers will not show evidences of enjoyment at his discomfiture. No wonder people are afraid of good roads, if having them would entail the advent of motorists of this sort.

_Oct. 18._--After all there is nothing like a day in autumn. At dawn the grass was stiff with hoarfrost. Not a breath was stirring. The crickets and grasshoppers were all silent. The occasional crowing of a rooster or barking of a dog only served to make the stillness more noticeable. Slowly the red sun climbed up the hazy sky and flooded the world with light. Slowly the heat filtered through the still air. The hoarfrost was gone. The grasshoppers and crickets resumed their concert. Flocks of cow-birds whirled over the pasture. The crows in the woods began to caw confidentially as if telling one another secrets. A mower began to clack in the distance, where some farmer was cutting his second crop of clover. An automobile raced past on the concession line throwing up a long cloud of dust that looked like a roll of wool prepared for a giant's spinning. A single hawk circled in the sky and as we looked up we saw that the air was vibrant with heat and light. In the orchard not a leaf was stirring. The apples glowed like fairy lamps on the bending branches. Here and there in the distant woods that were mantled in a blue haze a maple flared out in red and gold. The ducks in the Government drain suddenly exploded into a loud quacking. The air was heavy with heat. The cattle huddled in the shade and the cow-birds flocked around them. By noon it was as hot as midsummer. And yet there was hoarfrost in the morning. After all there is nothing like a day in the autumn.

We have had a visitor on the farm for the past few days--a visitor that every one from the dog up has treated with respect. When I got home from the village on Saturday night the boys were bubbling over with excitement. When they had gone after the cows at sundown they had noticed a little black and white animal with a big bushy tail in the pasture field. After throwing a stick at it they knew it was a skunk. They had never seen one before, but they had no doubt about the identity of the visitor. A vagrant breeze touched my face while they were telling the story and I knew that they were not mistaken. A skunk had certainly paid us a visit. After they had made sure that it was really a skunk they got out the rifle, for where there are ducks roosting on the ground and an occasional clucking hen passing the night on a low nest skunks are regarded as vermin rather than as fur-bearing animals. But it was too dark for them to be able to see the sights and as they were afraid to go too near the intruder they were not sure that their shots had any effect. In the morning we went up to the woods where the skunk had been seen and Sheppy was not long in locating him. He was under a log among some long grass. The dog stood about a rod away and barked. It was quite evident that he knew the nature of skunks. He makes short work of any rats, muskrats, or ground-hogs that he finds in the open, but he seemed to know that a skunk is different. Instead of urging him on I scolded him away, for he lives with us most of the time. When the skunk found that he was attracting so much attention he came out from under the log, probably so as to increase his sphere of influence, and we fell back respectfully. As it was the Sabbath it would not do to take out the rifle, so he escaped. In the evening he was seen again in the pasture-field where he was evidently feeding on crickets and grasshoppers. On Monday morning even Sheppy could not locate him, so it is probable that he has resumed his travels. But every time the wind blows from the north-west we are reminded of his visit.

If every cow-bird that we see in the pastures at this time of the year owes its existence to the destruction of a brood of some other kind of birds the destruction of song-birds this season must have been appalling. I have never before known the cow-birds to be so plentiful. Now that they are flocking before migrating to the south they seem even more plentiful than the blackbirds. One day when driving to the village I noticed a flock of these feathered parasites around a pasturing cow. As nearly as I could judge with my eye the flock was about four rods long and a rod wide. The ground seemed black with them, but supposing that only one stood on each square foot we can make a rough calculation of the number in the flock. Four rods equal sixty-six feet--one rod sixteen and a half feet--say sixteen. Sixteen times sixty-six (I had to take a pencil to finish the sum) gives one thousand and fifty birds or rather square feet on each of which a bird stood. Let us say that there were one thousand birds. Each of these during the nesting period probably crowded out from four to five young song sparrows or other small birds. So that one flock of useless, pestiferous cow-birds probably meant the death of three or four thousand useful birds. No wonder our scientists advise us to shoot cow-birds at sight. If they keep on increasing as they have done this year our smaller birds will be in danger of extermination.

I understand that the golden rod is listed among the injurious weeds of Ontario, but I have a very tender spot for it in my heart. I have never heard any one complaining much about it or putting in a hoed crop to get rid of it, so I do not think it can be very bad. Of course it makes the fence corners look neglected during the summer months, but at this season of the year when it is in bloom it is a delight to the eye. I am told that those afflicted with hay fever have a special grudge against this weed, or flower, but as I have heard hay fever attributed to almost everything from the first violet to the last asters I am not sure that they are right in their diagnosis. Anyway, I am as fond of the golden rod as of the chrysanthemum, and I think that those people who advocate having it adopted for the national flower show excellent taste. The golden rod is now in its glory, and though there may be too much of it to please careful farmers there can never be too much for our artists. It should be allowed to grow in all our parks, for there are no flowers that give a richer touch of colour to the landscape.

_Oct. 21._--The days we are having now are not only worth describing separately, but worth living separately. Each one is complete in itself. Take to-day, for instance. When I opened one eye sleepily and looked out--the tent-flap had been open all night--the "rosy-fingered dawn" was busy in the east. Light, smoky clouds were stretched along the horizon, and while they slowly changed to ribbons of ruddy flame I caught the first glimpse of

"The great, deliberate sun Counting his hill-tops one by one."

Probably I dozed off again, for when I opened my eyes wide in what seemed a moment later the sun was clear of the clouds and the day had begun. All the grass and ground vegetation was white with hoarfrost. As I walked to the mushroom bed that had been made in a patch of sod in the corner of the garden I could feel and hear it crunching underfoot. Of course, the night had been too cold for mushrooms, but before leaving the subject I want to put on record the fact that among those gathered from this bed yesterday was one beauty that measured seventeen inches in circumference. No, I am not living entirely on mushrooms these days.

What seemed the most remarkable event of this morning was the singing of a robin that had perched on the top of a spruce tree. It sang as robins sing in the early spring. As I had not heard one for months, it made the morning start off "cheerily, cheerily, cheerily!" Crows were cawing in that emphatic way they have when they appear to be saying something, and every now and then a meadow-lark flung its musical cry across the fields.

When breakfast was over the frost had disappeared and the chill had left the air. There was a minute of indecision in which we argued whether to haul in corn or to dig the potatoes. It was finally decided to go at the potatoes, as they were planted on a clay knoll and would come out cleaner if dug when the ground was dry than if left until after a rain. The corn could wait. With pails and potato forks we started across the pasture, with the sun behind us, towards a fringe of maple trees. The colours of the landscape ranged from the tender green of a near-by wheatfield to the violent crimson of one bushy maple at the edge of the pasture. The gently-stirring air was full of autumn odours, autumn sounds, autumn touches. There was something to delight every sense. It was a perfect Canadian October day.

The belated harvest of the corn and vegetables is really the most delightful of the year, though people often let it become the most disagreeable. Because there is no particular hurry about husking the corn or getting in the roots and vegetables, many people linger over the work until the bad weather catches them. It is safe to say that every fall there is enough good weather for this work, but it is such beautiful, lazy, deceitful weather that they dawdle through it until it ends in a storm, and then they pick their roots and potatoes with wet, red, cracked, and chilled hands, and perhaps sit in a snowdrift and husk their corn. The potatoes we were digging were not so big as those that proud farmers send to the office of _The Farmer's Advocate_ to show what can be done by scientific methods, but they were of the clean, smooth variety that you like to get baked with a chop and kidney. They came out of the dry ground free from clay, and it was not long before the pile began to look like good eating. I had not picked many bushels, however, before I began to be glad that the day was so beautiful, and that nature about me had so many charms that one had to straighten up to observe and talk about. Picking potatoes is a job that should be done by a man of the kind described by Lincoln, when he said that the fellow's legs were barely long enough to reach to the ground. Mine are altogether too long for this work, and stooping to pick even the finest potatoes gets tiresome.

A frog was heard croaking in the long grass, and I knew from the sound he was making that a garter snake was slowly swallowing him. A careful search failed to locate the scene of the tragedy, but it rested my back.

The potato patch is in a little clearing that extends into the woods from the south, and when the October sun got nicely warmed up to its work I doubt if there was a hotter spot in western Ontario. That gave me an excuse to walk home for a drink of water. I was almost discouraged when I saw the number of potatoes that had been uncovered during my absence. When I was about ready to drop from exhaustion a stray hen began to cackle in the distance. Her nest had to be found, of course. More rest. By this time I was not so much surprised that people put off digging their potatoes until after the snow fell. A black squirrel that stole out of the woods and stole an ear of corn and then stole back to the woods with it afforded a few minutes of restful nature-study. Still the pile grew and was good to look at. The pailfuls of potatoes got heavier every trip that was made to the pit, and I was thinking of going home to get the children's express cart when a mourning dove flew across; but he was too brisk to be interesting. In fact he was not mourning at all. I was. Just about the time I was beginning to wonder if some one had not commanded the sun to stand still so as to give us an interminable forenoon, the call for dinner was heard. I responded as quickly as the hired man who blew up the factory by letting go of the can of dynamite he was lifting the moment he heard the whistle blow.

In the afternoon the nature-study continued, and the thermometer registered eighty-two in the shade. I hate to think what it must have registered out there in the sun. A great flock of crows went flapping across the south-west early in the afternoon, and it was quite comfortable to sit back on the edge of a furrow and watch them and wonder where they were going, but the last one trailed past and then I began to wonder why people eat so many potatoes. There are doctors who say that too much starchy food is not good for one. I wish I had met one in the spring before we planted the potatoes and had been convinced by him that this is true. The chief trouble in this world is that we do so much needless work, but there is a proverb that unless we work we cannot eat. Oh, well, the patch is not so very big, after all, and a good rush will finish it. By the time it was finished I was beginning to feel proud of the pile I had gathered, and was almost sorry to lend a hand in covering it with straw and earth, because that hid the potatoes from sight. But I'll see them again, when they will have to be picked over before being put in winter quarters.

The care of vegetables for winter is quite a study in itself, and I hear many suggestions about the best way to keep cabbages. A favourite plan in this part of the country is to dig a trench and place the heads in it, face downwards, and then cover them with earth. It is also a question whether the parsnips and salsify should be left in the ground as they are and dug as wanted. The celery must be buried in sand, so they say. Beets, carrots, and turnips for household use seem to do better and keep a finer flavour if pitted--provided the mice do not get after them. These are all things that must be settled within the next few days in intervals of corn-husking.