WOODS MEDICINE 135 



we frequently hear a gentle, tremulous call from 

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

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

 ''<) 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 

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

 our 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 

 loiseless, 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 

 slacking 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, 



