Ernest Seton - Two Little Savages

"Well, I just want to see that Chipmunk an' maybe I'll believe you."

"In there hunting for a loose patch," and Sam held up the boot.

"Let's turn him out," suggested the Second Chief.

So the string was cut and the Chipmunk scrambled out and away to a safer refuge.

"Now, sonny," said Sam, as it disappeared, "don't tell your folks what happened you or they'll swat you for a liar."

"Oh, shucks! That's no adventure. Why, I—"

"Hold on, Hawkeye; Little Beaver next."

"Well, I don't care. I bet I—"

Sam grabbed his knife and interrupted: "Do you know what Callahan's spring lamb did when it saw the old man gathering mint? Go ahead, Little Beaver."

"I hadn't much of an adventure, but I went straight through the woods where my straw pointed and ran into a big dead stub. It was too old and rotten for Birds to use now, as well as too late in the season, so I got a pole and pushed it over, and I found the whole history of a tenement in that stub. First of all, a Flicker had come years ago and dug put a fine big nesting-place, and used it maybe two or three times. When he was through, or maybe between seasons, the Chickadees made a winter den of it, for there were some Chickadee tail-feathers in the bottom. Next a Purple Blackbird came and used the hole, piling up a lot of roots with mud on them. Next year it seems it came again and made another nest on top of the last; then that winter the Chickadees again used it for a cubby-hole, for there were some more Chickadee feathers. Next year a Blue Jay found it out and nested there. I found some of her egg-shells among the soft stuff of the nest. Then I suppose a year after a pair of Sparrow-hawks happened on the place, found it suited them, and made their nest in it and hatched a brood of little Sparrow-hawks. Well, one day this bold robber brought home to his little ones a Shrew."

"What's that?"

"Oh, a little thing like a Mouse, only it isn't a Mouse at all; it is second cousin to a Mole."

"I allus thought a Mole was a Mouse specie," remarked Hawkeye, not satisfied with Yan's distinction.

"Oh, you!" interrupted Sam. "You'll try to make out the Burnses is some kin to the Raftens next."

"I bet I won't!" and for once Guy got even.

"Well," Yan continued, "it so happened—about the first time in about a million years—the little Hawks were not hungry just then. The Shrew wasn't gobbled up at once, and though wounded, it set to work to escape as soon as it was free of the old one's claws. First it hid under the little ones, then it began to burrow down through the feather-bed of the Sparrow-hawk's nest, then through the Blue Jay's nest, then through the soft stuff of the Blackbird's nest and among the old truck left by the Chickadees till it struck the hard mud floor of the Blackbird's nest, and through that it could not dig. Its strength gave out now, and it died there and lay hidden in the lowest nest of the house, till years after I came by and broke open the old stub and made it tell me a sad and mournful story—that—maybe—never happened at all. But there's the drawing I made of it at the place, showing all the nests just as I found them, and there's the dried up body of the little Shrew."

Sam listened with intense interest, but Guy was at no pains to conceal his contempt. "Oh, pshaw! That's no adventure—just a whole lot of 's'posens' without a blame thing doing. Now I'll tell you what I done. I—"

"Now, Hawkeye," Sam put in, "please don't be rough about it. Leave out the awful things: I ain't well to-day. You keep back the scary parts till to-morrow."

"I tell you I left here and went straight as a die, an' I seen a Woodchuck, but he wasn't in line, so I says: 'No, some other day. I kin get you easy any time.' Then I seen a Hawk going off with a Chicken, but that was off my beat, an' I found lots o' old stumps an' hundreds o' Chipmunks an' wouldn't be bothered with them. Then I come to a farmhouse an'—an' I went around that so's not to scare the Dog, an' I went pretty near as far as Downey's Dump—yes, a little a-past it—only to one side—when up jumps a Partridge as big as a Turkey, an' a hull gang of young ones—about thirty or forty. I bet I seen them forty rod away, an' they all flew, but one that lighted on a tree as far as—oh, 'cross that field, anyway. I bet you fellers wouldn't 'a' seen it at all. Well, I jest hauled off as ca'm as ca'm an' let him have it. I aimed straight for his eye—an' that's where I hit him. Now who gets a grand coup, for there he is !" Hawkeye unrolled his coat and turned out a bobtailed young Robin in the speckled plumage, shot through the body.

"So that's your Partridge. I call that a young Robin," said the First Chief with slow emphasis. "Rules is broke. Killed a Song-bird. Little Beaver, arrest the criminal."

But Hawkeye struggled with all the ferocity born of his recent exploit, and had to be bound hand and foot while a full Council was called to try the case. The angry protests weakened when he found how serious the Councillors were. Finally he pleaded "guilty" and was condemned to wear a black feather of disgrace and a white feather for cowardice for three days, as well as wash the dishes for a week. They would also have made him cook for that term, but that they had had some unhappy experiences with some dishes of Guy's make.

"Well, I won't do it, that's all," was the prisoner's defiant retort. "I'll go home first."

"And hoe the garden? Oh, yes; I think I see you."

"Well, I won't do it. You better let me 'lone."

"Little Beaver, what do they do when an Injun won't obey the Council?"

"Strip him of his honours. Do you remember that stick we burned with 'Sapwood' on it?"

"Good idee. We'll burn Hawkeye for a name and dig up the old one"

"No, you won't, you dirty mean Skunks! Ye promised me you'd never call me that again. I am Hawkeye. I kin see farder'n—n—" and he began to weep.

"Well, will you obey the Council?"

"Yes; but I won't wear no white feather—I'm brave , boohoo!"

"All right. We'll leave that off; but you must do the other punishments.

"Will I still be Hawkeye?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'll do it."

Broad-shouldered, beetle-browed, brutal and lazy was Bill Hennard, son of a prosperous settler. He had inherited a fine farm, but he was as lazy as he was strong, and had soon run through his property and followed the usual course from laziness to crime. Bill had seen the inside of more than one jail. He was widely known in the adjoining township of Emolan; many petty thefts were traced to him, and it was openly stated that but for the help of a rich and clever confederate he would certainly be in the penitentiary. It was darkly hinted, further, that this confederate was a well-to-do Sangerite who had many farms and a wife and son and a little daughter, and his first name was William, and his second name Ra—— "But never mind; and don't for the world say I told you." Oh, it's easy to get rich—if you know how. Of course, these rumours never reached the parties chiefly concerned.