Part 31

Then as I started to the house to find out what was wanted of me, those ducks quacked as exultingly and flapped their wings as foolishly as a political party that has managed to howl down its opponents in debate. And I have no doubt that it is that victory they jabber to one another about every time I go to the barn, but they'll not enjoy their triumph long. They are eating their heads off every day, and presently we will all get together and eat their bodies off. "Quack!" "Quack!" "Quack!"----He quacks best who quacks last.

This morning, while sawing wood with a bucksaw, I began to remember vaguely that when I was a boy we had a playful name of some kind for this convenient implement, but, do my best, I could not remember it. As some one has said, the name "kept tickling my memory with the tip of its tail," but I couldn't catch it. I tried to get it back by every system of association of ideas that I could think of, but they were all of no use. I tried to recall every kind of work that a bucksaw can be used for in the hope that that would suggest the name, but I failed. Naming over the alphabet slowly, and thinking of as many familiar words as possible, beginning with each letter, failed to locate also. Of course, I knew it was of no importance, but when one starts his mind working on even a foolish problem it is hard to stop. That missing name bothered me for a couple of hours before something more important drove it out of my mind. And along in the afternoon, when I was looking up something in the encyclopædia, the name popped into my head with surprising suddenness. "Corporation Fiddle!" Have you ever heard it? That is what all the boys called a bucksaw when I went to school. I wonder why. Nowadays if I were going to call anything a "corporation fiddle" I would probably apply the name to some great newspaper, for I have noticed that the corporations generally manage to play whatever tunes they please on them. But in boyhood days the village or town corporation was the only one heard of. I wonder if it was ever the custom to sentence tramps to saw wood for the jail or town hall, and that the name "corporation fiddle" originated in that way. I seem to have heard some explanation of this kind long ago. But, now that the name has come back to me, I feel that we should find a use for it. Most of our leading papers proudly proclaim themselves "party organs." Would it be a good idea to name those that serve the Big Interests "Corporation Fiddles"? It sounds satisfying to me. I wonder which one we should apply it to first?

A good-natured correspondent writes that he wishes he could drop in on me or that I could drop in on him, so that we could have a good talk. I wish we could. He says he is tired of talking about fat steers and the price of hogs and such things. How can that be? I can't get any one who is skilled in those subjects to talk to me about them. They do not seem to take my views on the proper feeding of steers and hogs seriously. It is quite true I have no steers or hogs, but is that any reason why I should not have opinions? Still, though the real farmers refuse to take me into fellowship on these matters, I have no hard feelings. I have my own way of getting even. For instance, I do not take their political opinions seriously. Honestly, I do not think there is anything funnier in life than watching people acquire views on a public question. If the question is one that comes up unexpectedly, the caution of the people is something wonderful. They frown and shake their heads and appear to be thinking with both lobes of their brains. But wild horses could not drag an opinion out of them. They must think and think. Then some fine morning the party organ or "corporation fiddle" they patronise comes out with its opinions. Now, behold the change! Thinking has stopped and talking has commenced. All the fogs have cleared away and they have settled opinions on the troublesome question. They know just what should be done. Yes, indeed, and their fathers before them knew just what should be done, and any one who doesn't agree with them is more kinds of a fool than they could mention in half a day. To save my peace of mind, I agree with them entirely, whatever their views may be. Still, I have a sneaking suspicion that their views on public questions are no more worthy of respect than my disrespected opinions on fat steers.

_Dec. 9._--Long winter evenings are a reality in the country. At this time of the year they begin about 5 o'clock and last while the lamp holds out to burn. How to put them in without yawning one's head off is something of a problem. The children no longer tallow their boots in the evening so that they will be warm on the next day. No, indeed! They must have overshoes, so that they can make themselves felt in the family by wearing out two pairs of shoes at the same time. As no teaming is done, it is seldom that there is any harness to be patched, and whittling wooden spiles to be ready for the sugar-making in the spring passed out of vogue at least a generation ago. Of course they have papers to read--loads of them, from the local weekly with its neighbourhood news to the city daily with fiery cables about the Budget. There is material in them for all kinds of talk from gossip to philosophising. But the average man can't read and talk for five mortal hours at a stretch with any degree of satisfaction. This leads the observer to regret that the art of sitting before the fire and twiddling one's thumbs has also gone out of fashion in these days of strenuosity. It is pleasant to remember the old-timers who used to sit before the open fireplaces twiddling their thumbs and staring at the coals. Being ignorant of "the three r's," except perhaps enough arithmetic to enable them to keep track of their money, they were unable to feed their minds with the latest sensational news. They therefore sat and twiddled their thumbs; but let no one despise this seemingly futile occupation. One of the shrewdest critics of life known to modern times asserted that "doing nothing is the hardest and most intellectual of all occupations." It was among such that Whitman found his "great uneducated" men, and Touchstone his "natural philosopher," who knew that "the more one sickens the worse at ease he is, and he that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and of fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun." Where is one to find such men now? Packed full of information of all kinds by their favourite newspapers, even the humblest can "profess apprehension" and have opinions on all manner of subjects.

If Canada should produce a Burns among its multitude of poets and he tried to do a "Farmer's Saturday Night" he would be forced to go at it somewhat in this fashion:--

The honest farmer, when his chores are done. Pulls off his boots and sits beside the fire; Toasteth his toes and holdeth forth upon The little things that have aroused his ire. He mourneth for the men he used to hire-- Great brawny giants, who would work all day, Then do the chores and never loaf or tire-- And wait a year at least to get their pay. Thus peevishly he frets and wears the night away.

Or else he takes his weekly paper down And reads it--even the editorial page; Talks of the wicked things they do in town, Where financiers in pirate schemes engage. Or works himself into a sputtering rage About the things that politicians do, Disgracing both their country and the age-- Believing all he reads as being true. O _Globe_, and _Mail_, I fear some things are "up to you."

Their homework done, the children from the loft Bring down the nuts and have their nightly feed; The noise they make their mother chideth oft, To which, alas, they give but little heed. Then rings the telephone, and you may read On Jenny's cheek the old, eternal tale-- She answereth it with startled, nimble speed, Feigneth surprise and striveth hard to veil The converse that she hath with some adoring male.

Somehow the telephone doesn't seem to harmonise with words ending in "eth." The future Burns will be wise to choose some measure more tripping and up-to-date than the stately and rumbling Spenserian stanza.

Do the quail and black squirrels keep posted on the game laws and know when it is safe to appear in public? Kipling says that the wild elephants know to a day when the hunting season ends, and celebrate the occasion with a dance. Our wild game must have knowledge of the same kind. All summer and fall I saw but two flocks of quail, and I wouldn't have seen them if I hadn't happened to walk right among them. Since the shooting season closed I can't cross a field without scaring up a flock, and "their tameness is fearful to me." The black squirrels are positively impudent when one goes walking through the woods. Since the snow fell, rabbit tracks are to be seen everywhere, but the rabbits themselves manage to keep out of sight. They are not protected by the game laws; at least that is the belief in the country, and they are liable to be potted at any time. Some boys not more than a hundred miles from here have been trying to snare rabbits. So far, they have managed to snare two cats and a pullet without disastrous results to any of the victims. Having snares out is strongly recommended to distracted mothers as a means of getting schoolboys quickly dressed in the morning. The snares must be visited just at daylight, and a normal boy can be warranted to jump out of bed and into all his clothes in less than five minutes if he wants to visit them. Apparently, it does no harm to the rabbits, so you must not accuse the boys of cruelty. The cats need exercise anyway, and no doubt a copper wire snare can give the huskiest tom cat a busy five minutes that will work up an appetite for his breakfast.

_Dec. 14._--No matter what happens, we have had a spell of old-fashioned winter. The January thaw may come and be followed by open weather, as so many are prophesying, but we have had sleighing and everything else worth while that winter can offer. First we had a week of cold weather ranging from zero to twenty above. Every day it was cloudy and threatening snow, and enough fell to cover the ground. Then the papers predicted a warm wave and the trouble began. On the morning when the change was due snow began to fall in big flakes, and there was a moderate wind from the south-west. While there was no thawing the snow was soft enough to stick to everything it touched, and soon the buildings, fences, and tree trunks were white with it. I was driving along the road when the change came. Without a moment's warning the wind began to blow a hurricane from the north, and the temperature must have fallen ten degrees in less than a minute. Under the lashing of the wind the snow on the ground rose in blinding drifts. The driver was brought almost to a standstill by the force of the wind. The robe was nearly whisked off my knees, and a loose corner of the curtain on the buggy top flapped and snapped with a sound like pistol shots. For half an hour the air was a smother of drifting and falling snow. All the while the wind steadily increased in violence, then it died down as suddenly as it came, and the sky cleared. The mercury had fallen to eight above zero, and it stayed there. All afternoon the weather continued about the same, with occasional flurries of dry, powdery snow, but at nightfall it began to snow in earnest. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and the fine, dry snow came down as quietly as a mist. It covered everything. It rested on all the branches of the trees, and even on the little twigs. On the following morning there was a blanket of snow four inches deep, and big, glittering frost-flakes were sifting down from an almost cloudless sky. The thermometer registered two above zero, and it was an ideal morning to take out the cutter. While driving to school to the music of bells it was almost impossible to look towards the sun, everything was so blinding white. But everything was beautiful. The distant woods were picked out in white and brown, and every weed, thistle, and stalk of grass was fluffy with snow. There was a little white cap on every fence post, and here and there the snow rested on the wires, the air was so still. The stillness, hardly broken by a sound, continued all day. The snow rested where it fell, feathery light and sparkling like diamond dust. The sun went down through a cold, coppery haze. It had been a perfect winter day. About eight o'clock the mercury suddenly began to fall, and kept on going down until it touched six below. In the still, glistening moonlight the world was a frozen fairyland. Then the sky clouded over, and the weather began to moderate. Since then we have had moderate temperatures, ranging from ten above to twenty-eight, and the sleighing has been of the best. There have been cutter-rides both by night and by day, snowballing, sliding on the government drain, and such coasting as an almost flat country affords. No matter what the future has in store for us, we have had a taste of the best that a Canadian winter can give.

One night when it was too beautiful for one to be indoors there was a walk across the still fields to visit a neighbour. The full moon was swinging up in the east, and there were more stars sparkling underfoot than overhead. The snow was so light that it was kicked aside at every step without being felt. The light wind that was stirring from the west was so cold that it made the nostrils sting and frost gathered even on our eyelashes. Though the fields were white and the moon was shining the shadows under the trees and behind every tuft of grass or weed were dead black. Sleigh-bells could be heard in the distance, and every now and then a gust of laughter and young voices singing would be wafted to our ears. An owl was hooting dismally in the woods, and the sound echoed away until it was lost in the distance. After a brisk walk we were soon warming ourselves beside a roaring wood fire, and the talk began about pioneer days. "A sad tale's best for winter," and there is always sadness in the stories of the old days. As I listened, the impression that grew on me was of heart-breaking isolation and homesickness, and the stifling, imprisoning wilderness. Though the pioneers hewed out homes for themselves, Canada was never their home. Their true homes were in the lands from which they came and to which they never returned. To us who were born to inherit what they won Canada is a true home, and it is hard for us to realise what they felt in the long years it took to transform the wilderness to one of the garden spots of the world. The struggles and weariness and heartache of the pioneers are to me a tale of never-ending interest. They toiled and walked apart from the world, fretted over the past and hoped for the future, but--

"This, all this, was in the olden Time long ago."

While the talk progressed there were apples and winter pears to eat, and then came the walk home through the frosty moonlight, with the snow crunching faintly underfoot. On the road we met others who had been lured away to neighbourly visits by the beauty of the night, and it was good to feel that, instead of killing sociability, the winter weather had really aroused it to more activity. Winter weather and winter pleasures at their best are very good.

_Dec. 17._--A few nights ago the boys were testing their skates, and the familiar ringing sound seemed good in the frosty moonlight. And yet it was sporting under difficulties. All the ice they had to practise on was a frozen puddle about three rods long and a rod wide. As a matter of fact, skating, like everything else, has moved to town. I can remember when we had whole fields for skating ponds, but that was before the days of government drains and underdrainage. Now there are very few ponds or swamps left, and skating is no longer a country sport, except in specially-favoured localities. But every town and practically every village has its skating rink, where they hold carnivals on the solid ice in the winter time, and political meetings in the summer, when statesmen skate on thin ice. Of course, I am not regretting the fact that the country is too well drained for skating. I am merely noting the fact that this change has taken place, and I am afraid that skating is not the only sport that is lost to us. Baseball also seems to have retreated to the cities and towns, and hockey has taken the place of shinny, and is played almost entirely on the town rinks. But there may be another reason for this. Where could a boy find a shinny stick nowadays? The average woodlot in which cattle have been pasturing hasn't a stick left in it that is under thirty or forty years old. It is getting rather hard for country boys and girls to have fun of any kind without going to town for it and paying an admission fee. This may not seem of much importance to serious-minded people, but I am inclined to think it is very important. Most of us like to remember the homes of our childhood by the games we played in them, and to have no games is to have fewer ties binding the children to the land. I am afraid the country is getting altogether too practical and joyless. In the big cities they now have "play-masters," who teach the children how to play in the parks and vacant lots, and it has been found that they work better and behave better because of the good times they have. It seems to me that something should be done in the schools to interest the children in suitable sports that will take the place of those that made life richer for their fathers and mothers.

_Dec. 26._--"The country looks just like a Christmas card," said an enthusiast of city breeding, which goes to prove the truth of Whistler's observation that "Nature is looking up." The sleighing came with Christmas and made it perfect. There had been flurries of snow before that had drifted to the hollows and fence-corners, and had given the country a sketchy, unfinished look, but on Christmas morning the fields and roads were covered several inches deep with an even layer of crisp snow. Cutters were dusted and brought out, and before noon there was a constant jingling of bells on the country roads. Ever since there has been good sleighing, and holiday visiting has been worth while, if for no other reason than the drive through the clear, cold air. Even the turkeys and mince-pies and plum-puddings seemed to taste better after an appetising outing with the thermometer at fifteen above. Since the sleighing began the towns have been crowded with visitors from the farms, who were out more for the drive than for any shopping they had to do. As a matter of fact, sleighing is now simply one of the pleasures of the country. There is no more heavy teaming to do, and really practical farmers who look at things from a business point of view would be just as well pleased if we did not have sleighing at all. As long as there is enough snow to protect the wheat they are satisfied. Sleighing makes it necessary to have sleighs and cutters instead of waggons and buggies, and that is an added expense. Thank heaven, there are still enough inconsequential people living to like sleighing just for the fun of it. They hitch up their roadsters and go out for a spin because they like to feel the exhilaration it gives. May their tribe increase.

As if not satisfied with giving us perfect winter weather, Nature started in yesterday afternoon to show what she can do, when in the mood, to make the world bewilderingly beautiful. Early in the afternoon, wisps of fog began to float across the field and the raw cold proved the truth of the old doggerel:

"A winter fog Will freeze a dog."

As the fog floated past a fine hoarfrost began to settle everywhere and the sun went down red as in Indian summer. The straggling fog-banks on the horizon began to glow, and we said:

"The low, red rim Of a winter's twilight, crisp and dim."

Then came an hour of darkness and when the full moon rose it lighted a fairyland. Every twig, weed, and exposed blade of grass was frosted to three times its usual thickness with feathery hoarfrost of dazzling whiteness. Only the trunks and larger limbs of the trees remained black. As the stars were blotted out by the light, all except the larger ones and a planet that hung in the west like a drop of liquid silver, the snow began to light up with infinite constellations. There was moonlight and snow "Fur's you cud look or listen." Not a breath of air disturbed the tense stillness. Presently, an owl--who, no doubt, "for all his feathers, was a-cold"--hooted in the ghostly woods and the sound boomed and echoed weirdly.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo!"

It seemed the only sound that would be appropriate in that frozen stillness. As the moon rose higher a perfect storm circle that almost broke into rainbow colours formed around it. All night the spectacle lasted, but the wind that came with the dawn scattered the light frost flakes and mingled them with the drifting snow, but all who loved beauty had a chance to see the matchless artistry of

"The goblins of the Northland That teach the gulls to scream, That dance the autumn into dust, The ages into dream."

It is worth while to take a trip along the side roads where they still have rail fences to see the snowdrifts. The briars and withered golden-rod stalks form shelters where the drifts can form and be carved into wonderful shapes by the driving wind. Along the main roads where wire fences are in use the drifts do not have a chance, but on the side-lines they can gather and lie undisturbed, save for the tracking of the wild creatures that now more than at any other season "do seek their meat from God." Sprawling rabbit-tracks abound everywhere, and here and there the loosely-woven lacework of quail-tracks may be seen. Where the briars and weeds are thick they bend down under the weight of the drifts, but hold them up sufficiently to provide hiding-places for the rabbits and quail, and shelter them from the cold. Occasionally one sees the jumping track of a weasel or mink that finds in the drifts an ideal hunting-ground. Everywhere flocks of snowbirds swoop down among the weeds to feed, and add their tiny tracks to the strangely-written history of the winter struggle for existence.

A few mornings ago the predatory members of the family, who, if there be truth in Spencer's lucid observation that the ontogenesis may be traced in the philogenesis, must now be in the stone age, came in with the news that there were rabbit-tracks in the garden. Of course, that meant a rabbit hunt to be organised at once. With outward signs of reluctance, but secret joy, I took a squirrel rifle and joined in the chase. While we were trying to unravel the tangle of tracks and find the freshest, a neighbour told us where a rabbit had been seen not five minutes ago. Following the direction we found the tracks, and started wolfishly on the trail, giving the best imitation we could of

"The long, hard gallop which can tire The hound's deep hate, the hunter's fire."