Love of the Wild
9781465630810
330 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The hazy October sunlight sifted through the trees and lay, here and there, golden bits of carpet on the mossy woodland. A glossy black squirrel paused on one of these splashes of sunlight, and, sitting erect, preened his long fur; then as the harsh scolding of a red squirrel fell on his ears he sank on all fours again, and bounded into the heavy shadows of the wood. A pair of pursuing red squirrels sprang from an opposite grove and with shrill chidings crossed the open to the snake fence. By taking this fence they might intercept the quarry’s flight, their object being to make short work of the black, whom they hated with an hereditary hatred harking back to the dim past. In and out they flashed, their yellow-red bodies painting zigzag streaks of gold upon the forest background of green. Suddenly they halted and with tails slashing angrily poured out a tirade of abuse upon the human frustrator of their designs. He stood leaning against the fence, his young face moody, his eyes focused somberly on the new schoolhouse with its unpainted boards, hanging to the face of the hill across the creek. He turned now, his tall form erect, accusation in his glance. Nineteen years among the wild of the wild had schooled him in the knowledge of signs such as that which confronted him, and which were forerunners of the tragedies so numerous in the wooded fastness. “So you would, eh?” he grated, “you little murderers, you.” At the sound of his voice the male squirrel, less courageous than his mate, sprang to earth and scurried up a scraggy beech. The female, not to be cheated out of her wicked pleasure, attempted the old ruse of dropping to the bottom rail of the fence and darting past the boy in this way. But the boy had learned the ways of squirrels as he had learned the ways of all the things of the wild, and as the little animal sprang forward his tall body bent earthward. A muffled squeal came from the buckskin cap he held in his hand, and when he arose his brown fingers nipped the animal securely by the back of its neck. “So it’s you who’ve been drivin’ the black squirrels out of the bush?” he said. “Well, you won’t drive any more out, I guess. You’ve had your last run except the one me and pup’ll give you, and that won’t be a very long one. Here, Joe,” he called, “come here, old feller; I’ve got something for you.”
