Part 7
Again and again I had to rescue him from their fury, though he was the meekest crow I have ever seen, and they no longer had young to defend. Kingbirds go to bed at early dusk as a rule, but even after dark and long after I had put my foundling under shelter for the night, this pair could be heard swearing away to themselves up in the top of their apple tree, waiting for one more whack at him. Kingbirds leave us for the south about the first of September. I am quite sure this pair delayed their migration for some days that year, hating to give up their daily harrying of my ancient and toothless old crone of a crow.
He died, of old age no doubt, before the winter, seeming to fade gently away, as a patriarch should. When, about the fifth of May the next year, the kingbirds came back, they were noticed looking our back yard over very minutely several different times. They remembered the crow and were prepared to drive him over into the next country before they began their nesting.
The patriarch was so old he could not see when I found him. Box and Cox were so young when I lifted them from their nest that they had never seen. They had scarcely kicked their blue-green, brown-splashed eggshells overboard when I climbed to their great, strongly-built home in the upper limbs of a good-sized pine. It had a foundation of stout sticks topped with smaller ones, and within these a well-woven cup of slender twigs lined with grapevine bark and the soft fiber of the red cedar.
There were five young, hideous, negroid creatures with dark warts where eyes would be, and mouths that gaped portentously. Had I realized when I got them the amount of bird food those gaping mouths would engulf, and then opening, clamor for more, I would have left them to their parents. These had slipped silently away when I approached the nest, nor were they visible at all during the kidnapping. I take it that this desertion is prompted by wisdom, not cowardice or heartlessness, for crows are devoted parents and look after their young long after they have left the nest and after a period at which the devotion of other bird parents has ceased.
There was no choice among the five; all were equally ugly, and I took two at random and shinned down the tree with them in a bandanna handkerchief swung from my teeth. Seeing their young thus carried away in the teeth of a marauder, I dare say the old crows thought of me as I thought of their fellows that ate the young robins. But though I don’t doubt they saw from safe retreat all that went on, they took great care neither to be seen nor heard.
The two young birds accepted the featherless biped in _loco parentis_ without any question. They also accepted all I would put into their yawning maws, and opened them mutely for more. By and by they found eyesight, and later voices. Then, not seeing food coming, they would call for it with yearning and yell for it with ebullient eagerness when they saw it, or me, or any other approaching biped. I don’t think the neighbors took kindly to this pair of pets of mine. It was too much like having a piano and an opera candidate in the next flat.
Sometimes their own weight a day went into these howling dervishes, in the form of fish, frogs, grasshoppers, meat, scraps from the table, any thing, indeed, that luck put in my way or that the ingenuity of desperation suggested, and still nightfall found them ravenously emulating Oliver Twist. But they grew, and grew so much alike that which was Box or which was Cox neither I nor anybody else could tell.
As their feathers sprouted so did their ambitions. In a little while they could stand on the edge of their nest, which I had built for them in the low limbs of a tree near the back door, and flap their impotent wings at the same time that they yelled for the waiter. Though I was their guardian angel it was not for me in particular that their clamor rent the sky, but any one who by any remote possibility might feed them.
Their first venture off the nest showed this. The new minister went through the yard, thus making a short cut to a neighborly call. By chance Box and Cox had been stuffed to repletion some minutes before and were silent, half asleep in fact. But when the new minister’s hat passed within two feet of their nest they rose to the occasion, and with one mutual crow-language yell of “Bread, for the Lord’s sake give us bread!” they landed on his hat. The family rescued him, of course, with humble apologies, and he was good enough not to take offence. He came later to call, generously, also I think somewhat stealthily, and by way of the front door.
Box and Cox had found their wings and they used them to hunt down all possible purveyors of food. They knew me best because I fed them oftenest, but otherwise showed neither partiality nor affection. They kept away from the carpenters at work in the near-by shop because they had many times narrowly missed decapitation with hatchets, but they kept just beyond hatchet stroke only and clamored tantalizingly. The carpenters thought they taunted them and used to threaten gun play.
In return the crows stole bright nails, screws, and such small tools as they could get hold of. They got away with my pearl-handled pocketknife on the same principle, and though we often hunted for their hoard we never found it. Their doings were often amusing to the bystander, but more often vexatious and sometimes outrageous. I have still a vivid mental picture of good old Grandfather Totter on his way home by the path in the field, and stalled, because he could no longer use his cane to hobble with, but had to have it to fight off Box and Cox.
Bird neighbors did not love Box and Cox any better than did human neighbors, and their presence kept kingbirds and robins, bluebirds and sparrows all in a state of great nervous tension, though I am bound to say that I never knew the crows to disturb their nests or young. In fact, as long as I had them, Box and Cox showed no signs of learning to forage for themselves in any way. They depended absolutely on mankind for food, and if man was not kind they went hungry. I think that if I had conscientiously tried to wean them they would have shown ability to take care of themselves, but I never had the courage to try. I did not think the neighborhood would stand the racket.
One day they simply disappeared and I never knew what became of them. Perhaps they suddenly heard and answered the call of the wild. The neighbors had been wild more than once.
Box and Cox were a disappointment. They showed little of either wit or wisdom. They had a small amount of roguishness and a mighty appetite. Such traits as they showed were those of youth; those they lacked might have come with age. Perhaps parent crows teach their young the wisdom which wood-bred birds certainly show. Box and Cox had none of it, or if they had they hid it with the pocketknife and the carpenter’s tools.
On the other hand, the strongest trait of the wood-bred crow is his distrust of man. Instinct, if it works in the crow tribe, should certainly have implanted this distrust in the youthful heads of Box and Cox, but they showed nothing of the sort. And there you have the crow puzzle all over again, for the crow, wild or tame, is a puzzle. Half a hundred of them the other day were congregated about a wood road through the pines, yelling themselves hoarse in the wildest of excitement.
So interested were they that they took no notice of me when I approached, thinking that they had a hawk or owl at bay there and were harrying him. So I walked down the wood road right in amongst them. But there was neither hawk nor owl nor anything else there to account for their excitement. They tore about this empty space, cawing, fluttering, standing erect, alert, and quivering on a limb and gazing wildly at what seemed to be to them very real and very terrible. But it was nothing to me; I could not find so much as a chipmunk stirring there. After a little they chased this terrible nothing on down the road and then across lots into another part of the wood, leaving me gaping and in doubt whether they were just playing a game among themselves, all making believe they saw a monster where there was none, or whether they really could see some woodland bogle that was invisible to my dull eyes and were following him on his way.
Box and Cox may have been among them, and for all I know may later have told the crowd what a queer creature man is when you come to know him as foster-fathered crows have to.
INDEX
A
Acorns, 98, 99, 100
Admiral, red, 5
Alder, 177, 182
---- red-berried, 195
Angleworms, 160
Anosia plexippus, 117
Antiopa vanessa, 116
Apple blossoms, 119, 198
---- tree, 27, 135, 205
---- wild, 156
Arbor vitæ, 39
Aroostook war, 24
Ash tree, 96, 133
Aster, 114
Azalia, 166
B
Barberry, 184, 185
Bat, 76, 79, 82
Bayberry, 111
Bee, 10
Beech, 29
Birch, 29, 34, 35, 74, 75, 83, 92, 93, 126, 127, 133, 143, 165
---- C. T. U., 92, 94
Bittern, 60
Blackberry, 16
Blackbird, red-winged, 119, 178, 180, 182, 201
Blueberry, swamp, 164
Bluebird, 113, 212
Blue Hills, 110
Buck, 38
Buckthorn, 195
Butterfly, 5, 114, 117
---- admiral, red, 5
---- Anosia plexippus, 117
---- Antiopa vanessa, 116
---- Hunters’, 115
---- monarch, 114, 116, 117
---- painted lady, 5, 115
---- Pyrameis, 117
---- Pyrameis atalanta, 5
---- Pyrameis cardui, 5, 116
---- sulphur, 114
C
Catbird, 181, 182, 183
Cedar, 143
---- berries, 113
---- pasture, 121
---- red, 113, 206
---- white, swamp, 113
Cemetery Hill, 173
Cherries, 16
Chestnut, 67, 68, 69, 71, 75, 76, 79, 83, 95, 96, 98, 99, 109, 155
---- bur, 77
---- leaves, 83
---- tree, 76, 77
Chickadee, 3, 4, 173
Chipmunk, 214
Christmas, 195
---- tree, 35
Clam, 41
Clintonia borealis, 15, 16, 17
Clover, 6
Cocoanut, 19
Coon, 174
Cowbird, 188, 189, 190, 191
Coyote, 38
Crow, 40, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215
---- nest, 143
Crustaceæ, 51
Currant, 17
---- fairy, 18
Cyprepedium acaule, 35
D
Deer, 27, 37, 38
Dendragapus canadensis, 35
Doe, 38
Duck, 52, 53, 62
---- black, 54
---- “spirit,” 57
---- teal, blue-winged, 48, 49
E
Elder, 177
Elm, 133
Epilobium angustifolium, 11
Erechthites, 11
---- hieracifolium, 9
F
Fawn, 38
Fern, cinnamon, 184
---- wood, 88
Fir, 23, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37
Fireweed, 10, 11, 12
Fish, flying, 110
Flicker, 40
Fox, 38, 157, 174
Frog, 174, 208
G
Glow-worm, 20
Goldenrod, 114
Goliaths, 28
Grape, 74, 114
Grapevine, wild, 187, 206
Grass, purple wood, 73, 82
Greece, 27
Grebe, pied-billed, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 62
Greek, 191
Grouse, Canada, 3
---- ruffed, 35, 37
Gulliver, 28
H
Hackmatack, 39
Hawk, 38, 214
Hazel nuts, 155
Hedgehog, 157
“Hell-diver,” 55
Hemlock, 121
Hickory, 79, 80, 82, 88, 109, 153, 154, 155
Hob, 8
Holly berries, 195
Huckleberry, black, 164
Hunters’ butterfly, 115
I
Ignis fatuus, 90
Indian, 30
---- summer, 152
J
Jay, blue, 111
Joepye weed, 177
June berries, 156
Juniper, 125, 126
K
Katahdin, 23
Kimball, George, 33
Kingbird, 201, 202, 204, 205, 212
L
Lady’s slipper, 15, 16
Leprachauns, 13
Lilac, 82
---- purple, 134
---- white, 134
Liliputians, 28
Locusts, 103
Loon, 62
M
Macwahoc-Kingman road, 29
Maple, 34, 89, 91, 133, 136, 137
---- red, 94, 96
---- Norway, 94, 97, 135
---- silver-leaved, 94
---- swamp, 89, 90, 93, 94
---- white, 94
“Mast,” 100, 101
Milkweed, 177, 178, 186
Mistletoe, 195
Mitchella, 17
Monarch, 114, 116, 117
Mouse, field, 183
N
Norse Sagas, 46
Nuthatch, 176, 177
O
Oak, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 133, 181, 182
---- black, 98, 99, 101, 103
---- black, “mast,” 101
---- red, 103
---- scarlet, 103
---- scrub, 103, 110
---- white, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103
Oak, white, “mast,” 101
Oliver Twist, 209
Orchid, 15
Owl, 214
---- barred, 40
---- screech, 174
P
Painted lady, 5, 115
Palm, 19
Partridge, 14, 157, 158, 162
---- berries, 14, 16, 17
---- birch, 35, 36
---- spruce, 35, 36
Patten Road, 23, 24, 27
Pear tree, 35
Petrel, 47
Pine, 15, 32, 114, 174, 197, 206, 214
---- pitch, 5, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127
---- pumpkin, 29
---- white, 120, 125
“Piney Home,” 33
Plover, 62
---- piping, 51
---- ring-necked, 51
---- yellow-leg, 47, 48, 49
Poa serotina, 58
Pokeberry, 13
Pokeweed, 12
Porcupine, 27, 157
Porzana carolina, 59
Proteus, 9
Pyrameis, 117
---- atalanta, 5
---- cardui, 5, 116
Q
Queen Mab, 17
R
Rabbit, jack, 38
Rail, Carolina, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62
Raspberry, 16
Rivers, Mattawamkeag, 29
---- Moluncus, 29, 30, 33
---- Macwahoc, 29, 33
---- Orinoco, 58
---- Amazon, 58
Robin, 111, 112, 113, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 212
S
Sandpiper, spotted, 49, 51
Sage-brush, 38
“Seasons,” by Thomson, 136
Shadbush, 156
Skunk, 157
Smilacina bifolia, 17
South African mines, 74
Sparrows, 212
---- English, 190, 191
Spruce, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39
---- cat, 29, 33
---- black, 33
---- timber, 33
---- white, 33
Squirrel, 69, 70, 72, 73, 144, 152, 154, 155
---- gray, 70, 72, 79, 80, 81, 82
---- red, 67, 68, 70, 72, 143, 144, 183
Sulphur butterfly, 114
Sumac, 82
T
Teal, blue-winged, 48, 49, 54
Telia polyphemus, 78, 83
Thoreau, 26
Toad, tree, 174
Totter, Grandfather, 211
Trillium, 19, 20
Triton, 9
V
Vikings, 47
Vireo, 187
Virgin’s bower, 177
W
Warbler, 112, 188, 189
---- myrtle, 112
---- yellow, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191
Willow, 97
---- herb, 11
Witch hazel, 114, 118
---- blooms, 120
---- nuts, 118
Woodchuck, 6, 7, 8
Woodcock, 159, 160, 161, 162
Wood mice, 18
Woodpecker, golden-winged, 39, 40
---- partridge, 114
Wordsworth, 9, 136
Wrights, 41