WOODS MEDICINE 135 



we frequently hear a gentle, tremulous call from the 

 woods or from below in the orchard. " What is it? " 

 I had been asked a hundred times, and as many times 

 had guessed that it might be the hen partridge cluck- 

 ing to her brood ; or else I had replied that it made 

 me think of the mate-call of a coon, or that I half 

 inclined to believe it the cry of the woodchucks, or 

 that possibly it might be made by the owls. In fact, 

 I did n't know the peculiar call, and year after year I 

 kept guessing at it. 



We were seated one evening on the porch listening 

 to the whip-poor-wills, when some one said, " There 's 

 your woodchuck singing again." Sure enough, there 

 sounded the tremulous woodchuck-partridge-owl-coon 

 cry. I slipped down through the birches determined 

 at last to know that cry and stop guessing about it, 

 if I had to follow it all night. 



The moon was high and full, the footing almost 

 noiseless, and everything so quiet that I quickly 

 located the clucking sounds as coming from the 

 orchard. I came out of the birches into the wood- 

 road, and was crossing the open field to the orchard, 

 when something dropped with a swish and a vicious 

 clacking close upon my head. I jumped from under 

 my hat, almost, and saw the screech owl swoop 

 softly up into the nearest apple tree. Instantly she 

 turned toward me and uttered the gentle purring 

 cluck that I had been guessing at so hard for at least 

 three years. And even while I looked at her, I saw 



