Part 6

Passing through a patch of withered weeds we saw a lot of rabbit tracks and that made us pause, for rabbits are not to be despised, especially when you haven't managed to get one in a long time. We spent a few minutes in trying to disentangle the tracks, but were finally forced to the conclusion that the rabbits had all gone home to sleep. There was a moment of excitement when we saw a red squirrel, but as it was the only one that had been seen in the neighbourhood for over a year, I would not allow it to be molested. Anyway, he was a pretty wise red squirrel, for he got himself under cover within about ten seconds, and in that way settled the argument in my favour. Although red squirrels are usually impudent and saucy, this one was not taking any chances with human beings who were out so early carrying a gun. After leaving the red squirrel, we plodded straight to the woods where we found the little covering of snow full of tracks of many kinds. There were places where the black squirrels had been hunting for beechnuts so industriously that it looked as if a drove of pigs had been rooting around. Overhead in the trees a flock of blue jays were scolding and squawking, and as I could not remember whether blue jays are of the beneficial birds that should be protected we gave them the benefit of the doubt, and did not shoot at them, although they frequently offered tempting targets. A big hawk sailed out of the top of a tree before we were within range, and, anyway, we would not have shot at him, for hawks now have an excellent reputation on account of the work they do in killing mice. We had not gone far before we found the tracks of the fox, and then the real hunt began. It might have been much more exciting had it not been for a slight thaw on a previous afternoon which enabled us to see that all the fox tracks were, at least, a day old. Still they were fox tracks, and we scouted about hunting for new ones, but without success. Beside a fence near a briar patch we found a rabbits' playground. There was a little space about a rod in diameter where the snow was beaten hard by their little feet. We remembered that in one of his nature stories Charles G. D. Roberts tells how the rabbits come to such places on moonlight nights, and jump around and slap the snow with their flat hind feet in the progress of some strange games that are popular with rabbits. Only a couple of times before have I come across playgrounds of this kind. They seem to be about as rare as the dancing floors of the elephants. But we were after the fox, and did not stay to study the exhibition. As we were unable to find fresh tracks I led the way to the hollow stump referred to above, and we held an inquest on the remains of the rabbit. The work was unquestionably that of a fox, but where was he? In feverish haste we crossed and recrossed the little patch of woods, investigating every stump and hollow log that might give shelter to a fox. Although there were tracks everywhere they did not seem to lead anywhere. At one log we found skunk tracks, but after a careful consultation decided not to visit the little housekeepers. We would just make a purely formal call, and not try to establish either friendly or unfriendly relations. None of us felt inclined to take the risk of being forced to live as a hermit--the usual fate of an inexperienced hunter who tries conclusions with a specimen of "Mephitica," sub-family "Mustelidae." We called him his scientific name and let it go at that.

When we came to the tree where the chicken-killing hawks have had their nest for years, and persist in keeping it, although we shoot them up every summer, we were interested to find that the tree was dead, and that last summer the hawks had fooled us by building a new nest in the bushy top of a big tree near by. It seems that hawks never nest in a dead tree, possibly because it does not give them sufficient cover, or because there is a danger of the dead limbs breaking and letting the nest tumble to the ground. By this time we had been forced to the conclusion that we were not going to find the fox, and the comments of the blue jays were so insulting that it was hard to keep from taking a shot at them. And then, and then--we headed straight for the house, and all burst through the door together asking in eager tones, "Is dinner ready?" If we didn't find the fox we found a fox's appetite.

Now there may be some people who will be so short-sighted as to think that we did not have a fox-hunt at all. That is all wrong. One of the greatest truths of philosophy is that the reward is all in pursuit, and not in the achievement. Men who win success invariably tell us that it is as disappointing as the apples of Sodom, but the struggle for success is always stimulating and develops character. The fact that we did not get the fox greatly improved the philosophic value of our hunt. When they grow older I shall explain this to the boys, but at present they are too much disappointed at not getting the fox to appreciate the lesson.

MARCH

_March 1._--This has been a great winter for signs in the sky. We have had halos around both sun and moon, and both parhelia and paraselenae. (I looked those up in the dictionary. If I had not I would have called them sun-dogs and moon-dogs, but there is nothing like being scientific and correct.) I always understood that such things were signs of storms, but this year they did not seem to work right. We would have these exhibitions, and there would be no noticeable change in the weather.

In all the illustrations of these things that I have examined the straight lines that combine with the circles always run parallel to the horizon or at right angles to it. But one day a couple of weeks ago there was a halo around the sun that had a bright tangent line that was inclined towards the horizon at an angle of forty-five degrees. This moves me to say to the scientists, as my boys say to me: "Now, why was that?" Of ordinary sun-dogs at both sides of the sun and even above and below it we had many, sometimes with halos and sometimes without. Though I have often seen halos around the moon, this winter is the first time I have seen moon-dogs. They are the same as those around the sun, only fainter and without colour. Sometimes the sun would go down with a straight line reaching up from it like the tail of a comet. I am told that all these manifestations are due to ice crystals in the upper air, and I have no doubt there were plenty of them this year. But I should really like to know if that slanting line was good form. The books give no pictures of such lines, and say nothing about them.

To-day the boys and I took a walk to see how the wild things are wintering and were disappointed to find no trace of the quail. There is one corner where there are weeds and briars that seemed to be their favourite shelter and feeding ground, but there was not a track to be seen. On making inquiries I find no one has seen them or any trace of them since the blizzard a couple of weeks ago. Before that there were two flocks on the farm, one of nine birds and one of sixteen. As they had brush-heaps in which to find shelter I thought they would come through the winter all right, but the deep drifts must have buried them somewhere. We used to be able to find their tracks at any time we looked for them and often we would flush the birds themselves. But though the quail have disappeared the mice do not seem to have been affected. Their tracks are everywhere, and in the edge of the woodlot we found a dead mole that had evidently found its way to the surface, only to be overcome by the cold. We saw one black squirrel that dodged around a big maple until we divided into two parties and went yelling around the tree in opposite ways. Then it jumped into a hole. While crossing a field we found an unaccountable track. It was merely a long straight line in the snow such as a boy makes with the whip when driving in a cutter. But there were no tracks beside it. We decided to investigate and after following the line about fifty yards came to a spot where an owl or hawk had stopped to tear up a rabbit. It had evidently been flying low with it, so that it dragged in the snow. We then followed the line in the opposite direction, where we found in the top of a corn-shock the form in which the rabbit had been sitting when captured. It must have been there for some time, for there were no rabbit tracks, though it was two days since the snow had fallen. Its enemy had swooped down on it and lifted it out of the form, but found it too heavy to carry to a tree, so stopped and had its meal on the snow.

Although it is over two weeks since Mr. Clement was here to show me how to prune the orchard, there have been only two days when it was possible to work at the trees. Zero weather with high winds makes tree climbing about the coldest job that a man can tackle. Still there are twenty thoughtfully pruned and carefully scraped trees awaiting his inspection. If the weather moderates a little we shall soon be able to finish the job, for we seem to have got the hang of it. But though I feel sure that I have followed his instructions as I understood them, I am worrying about it just as a schoolboy does about his homework. I want him to come and look them over and say whether they are right. It will soon be time for him to come again and do the first spraying, but everything depends on the weather. This winter seems to be in for making records of all kinds and there is no telling when it will be through with its tricks. But as soon as it gives me a chance I shall finish the pruning and await my fate. If he says that I did not do the work right I shall have to own up to it, and I hate to do that just as much as any one else.

_March 4._--Having just read eighteen pioneer biographies and several pioneer novels of the approved kind, in which everything ends happily, and the hero goes into the ministry in the last chapter, I am tempted to-day to invite everybody to go back over fifty years with me and see what an old-fashioned spring in the woods was like. There is nothing to keep us here, anyway. Outside there is an east wind blowing. The day began with sleet and is ending with slush, and the drive to the post office was anything but a "joy-ride."

The impression I have gathered from the stories I have been reading is that a late spring in the old days was a real hardship. It meant more than a delay in getting in crops and spoiling the chances for a money-making harvest. The great question with the settlers during the first few years was not money, but food. A late spring meant, time and again, that they were forced to eat their seed grain and seed potatoes in order to preserve life. I have just read about one pioneer, and not one of the unthrifty kind either, who was forced to dig up the potatoes after they were planted in order to feed his family. In spite of all this, one of his sons is now an eminent doctor and another a banker. When spring came to the woods there might be a few people who were glad to see the flowers, but there were more whose first search was for leeks, cow-cabbage, nettles, and other pot-herbs. Many had to live for months during the winter on potatoes. Those who could afford pork and oatmeal were already on the high-road to prosperity, and to many wheat bread was a luxury. The more I read and learn about pioneer life the more I am forced to the conclusion that much of the courage shown was the courage of despair. Having moved into the wilderness and built their log huts, there was absolutely nothing for them to do but to maintain life by every possible means. Many of the settlers were scores of miles from any place that could make a pretence to civilisation. Even if they struggled out, what could they hope for without money? The hospitality of civilisation soon wears thin to the penniless, and, even if they were too proud to confess failure, they would soon find that it was better to depend on the sometimes niggardly bounty of nature than on the bounty of fellow-men whose condition was but little better than their own. When men and women had to depend on the spring for food, as well as for warmth and opportunity, they had some reason to be despondent if she lingered a little longer than usual in the lap of winter.

When the spring finally came the settler was in many cases a prisoner on the patch of high ground which he had started to clear. It was not until government drains had been put through that there was much thought of clearing the low ground. If any of this low ground was cleared it was left under grass, the native redtop. For at least a month every spring it would be flooded most of the time, but I have been told that this flooding fertilised the ground, and that the hay crops were more wonderful than anything we see to-day. Even though the snow might melt during winter thaws, the water remained in the swamps, and when the spring "breaking-up" really began the country became a series of islands. I know of one place not a mile from here where there is now a good gravel road that is passable at any time of the year. Fifty years ago people who had to pass that way were forced to use a raft for about three-quarters of a mile during the spring floods. That was on a public road, of course, and was a great improvement on the blazed trails through the woods which most people had to use. A pretty custom of those days was to have a pole wherever the trail crossed a creek or water-hole. The foot passenger was supposed to take this and vault over the water. No wonder vaulting with a pole used to be one of the popular sports on the Queen's Birthday and at the Fall Fair. Though the girls did not take part in the public exhibitions, I am assured that in the depths of the forest they often showed themselves just as expert as their brothers. Careful people when going on a journey of any length through the woods in the springtime took with them a strong, slender pole that they could use for balancing themselves when making their way through the swamps on fallen logs or to vault with when necessary. Another favourite way of crossing the old creeks was on logs, and as it was seldom that any one took the trouble to flatten them, considerable skill was needed by those who attempted a passage. And that reminds me of a story. One spring many years ago two young men were paying court to the same girl. Both had to cross the creek that wound before her home, and one of them had a bright idea. As soon as it was dark he hurried to the creek, carrying a pail of soft soap. Straddling the log, he worked his way backwards across and spread the slippery soap lavishly on the little bridge over which his rival was to follow. He then washed his hands and went to the house to press his suit. About an hour later he was quietly gratified to hear a loud splash in the swollen stream. This put so much courage in him that he pleaded his cause with complete success. Some time about midnight he tore himself away from his future bride and was so exultingly happy that he forgot all about the soaped log. There is no need telling you what happened.

Another thing that made the old-time late spring a disaster was the need of clearing the land. It was during the winter that most of the chopping was done, and in the spring the brush and log heaps had to be burned off before any crop could be put in among the stumps. If the spring was late it was often hard to get the seed in the ground early enough.

About the only relaxation of those spring days when settlers were imprisoned on their islands was that of yelling. The young fellows, when they started out to "browse" their cattle in the morning, would let out a lusty whoop just to tell their neighbours that they were alive. Others would answer them, and the "Good-morning" yell would pass through a settlement in much the same way that cock-crowing does now. You know how that goes if you ever happen to be awake early enough. First you hear a faint crowing away to the east. A few seconds later you hear it a little nearer, and almost before you realise what is going on your own pet Leghorns are hard at it. Then the crowing comes from the nearest barnyard to the west, and presently the noise dies away faintly in that direction. Possibly the cocks are telling one another that all is well, just as the settlers did.

What was perhaps the greatest hardship of all was mentioned in only one of the pioneer stories I have been reading. Possibly the reason why nothing was said about homesickness was that, while these stern people felt it, they considered it a weakness to be ashamed of. Yet homesickness is a very real sickness with a fine Latin name--nostalgia--and only a short time ago I read about American soldiers in the Philippines dying from it. The other day a young English emigrant in Toronto was so homesick that he stole a bicycle so that he might be deported. His case was one for a doctor rather than for a magistrate, but in the old days there was no deportation. If there had been some of those husky first settlers would have stolen the governor's mansion if necessary so as to get home. When conditions were at their worst in the old days in Ontario even a cave-dweller would have got homesick, but we who were born here know nothing of this, and it is just as well. Now let us get back to our own late spring and be thankful. Still I don't want any more people telling me that this is nothing to springs they have known, and that they wouldn't be a bit surprised if we had another month of wintry weather. As the old proverb puts it: "Beware the fury of a patient man."

_March 5._--More than once when coming in with an armful of wood that was cut and split just to keep the fire going, I have heard the remark: "If we ever get a year's wood cut, split, and piled, I shall have a photographer come and make a picture of it." So when word came that the buzz-saw men would be in the neighbourhood in a few days I felt a longing to see one of these pictures myself. I felt that it would be a great joy to take the bucksaw and axe and put them away in some safe place and then forget where I had put them. For almost a year we had been preparing spasmodically for a day with the buzz-saw. All the tops and little trees that we bought last winter had been cut and most of them had been hauled to a knoll in the woods and piled. But there was still a full day's work to do at hauling up the larger logs and skidding them in a heap. Having in my mind's eye a picture of that year's wood neatly piled and of an axe and bucksaw losing the brightness that comes from constant use, I agreed cheerfully to help at the skidding. Although the snow was a trifle deep, it was an ideal day for such work. The logs slipped over the ground as if they were greased and the air was too frosty for the snow to melt on your clothes. The woods protected us from the wind that whirled the snow in ghostly drifts across the fields and the work was hard enough to keep us comfortably warm. But before "snaking" up the logs we had to provide ourselves with handspikes, and that showed me how thoroughly the cattle have been destroying the forests. There was not a sapling to be found that was small enough to make a handspike. Every seedling that had sprouted in the past forty years had been nibbled down by the cows and sheep that had been allowed to run in the woods. We had to make handspikes from the straightest limbs we could find. They were not like the blue beeches and ironwoods of earlier days, but they served our needs. The logs were not very big, anyway, and a two-inch handspike made from a maple limb can stand all the muscle I have to spare for heavy work.

Skidding up logs is not what you would call steady work. It is spasmodic, and it is the spasms that catch a fellow. While we were laying the first tier it was comparatively easy. It was no particular trick to pry loose the logs so that we could get chainhold, and most of my time was spent in walking from the pile to the scattered logs, with the handspike over my shoulder. I felt quite primitive, and thought I was getting a better appreciation of what it meant to be a pioneer. But the second tier made a difference. The logs had to be rolled up on skids, and that meant some moments of heavy lifting, pushing, and heaving with the handspikes. No matter how skilful a man may be at "soldiering" and at taking the little end of the log and doing the grunting while the other man takes the big end and does the lifting, there are bound to be times when he will have to put out every ounce of his strength to keep about a ton of maple from falling back on top of him. After one of those strenuous moments I suddenly remembered a triumphant phrase of cunningly wrought coarseness that described the effort I had put forth with a vigour and accuracy far beyond the possibilities of the vocabulary I am now using. I had heard it long ago from a moss-backed ruffian who had been lifting one of the old horsepowers they once used with thrashing machines. It was a phrase of more than Elizabethan frankness, but somehow it did not seem so bad out in the woods in connection with fierce physical action. Its robust humour could have been conceived only by an imaginative pioneer who knew hard work in all its phases, but, though everything connected with the pioneers is of interest to me, I am afraid I must allow that phrase to pass into oblivion. Still it had its value, for it reminded me of the fact that there were men among the makers of Canada whose mental attitude would be more thoroughly appreciated by Burns than by Longfellow. Clearing the land was not a pink tea affair, and it is not surprising that some of the rough diamonds who did the work described it with brutal frankness.

The supreme moment of the day came after we had heaved a big, cranky, bowed log into its place at the top of the pile. A couple of times it almost slipped back, but by heaving and straining we made it go up. When it was in its place and we stopped, panting and breathless, I could see stars in every direction. My brain was absolutely vacant--every thought and idea crushed out of it, just as you might squeeze water out of a sponge. While the other man drove away to get another log I sat down to recover myself. Then came the flush of exaltation that always comes to every one when something has been accomplished. I was strangely in accord with the world of effort in which we are living. Not thinking, but accepting all things, for one great moment I was exalted above the struggle. Somehow the things that I often rage against seemed intelligible and part of one great plan that is working out for the good of all. It was

"A momentary taste Of being from the well within the waste."

Thinking it over afterwards, I understood what Thoreau meant when he wrote:

"I moments live who lived but years."

But it was some time before definite thoughts came back to me. Almost unconsciously I began noting my surroundings as part of a great picture or mood that I would wish to remember. I saw the grey sky and the snowflakes sifting down between me and the trees. I noticed a woodpecker busy on a lichened trunk and heard the distant clamour of cattle.

But when I thought from all things A perfect charm was caught. The little winds came begging Lest they should be forgot.

In spite of the momentary physical exhaustion the feeling experienced was one of joyousness--a joyousness that comes to all men who accomplish a task, however humble. It was probably such moments that Bergson had in mind when he wrote: