24 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jaw. 13, 1894. 



DANVIS FOLKS.-XX. 



A Rainy Day, 



It was a May day with April weather. The rain had 

 poured down m intermittent showers during the night. 

 In the morning the rising sun transmuted the gray mist 

 to floating gold and turned the tremulous strings of sun- 

 drops on every bending twig to resplendent jewels. 



The sheep began to scatter over the pastures, mum- 

 bling out calls to their lambs as they cropped the wet 

 grass. 



But the robins sang vociferously for more rain, the sun 

 veiled itself with a drifting cloud, bordering it with gold 

 and shooting from behind it broad, divergent, watery 

 bolts, a film of shower was trailed along the mountain 

 side, the blotches of sunlight narrowed and faded into 

 the universal somber gray, and after a brief pattering 

 relude the rain poured down again and swept across the 

 furred landscape in majestic columns that fled along the 

 earth while they upheld the narrow sky. 



Then it stopped as suddenly as it began, the sun shone 

 out and revived the drowned splendor of the earth, the 

 bedraggled robins sang again and the murmur of the 

 swollen brooks rose and fell more distinctly with the puffs 

 and lulls of the inconstant wind. Then the sky would 

 darken and blot out the patches of blue and the half -built 

 arch of a rainbow, and the new showers chase away the 

 straggling sunbeams and the pour of the downfall over- 

 bear all other sounds. 



Thus it was pouring, when Uncle Lisha came into the 

 shop from the house and put on his apron, stooping low 

 as he tied the strings to look out through the blurred 

 panes upon the narrow landscape. The innumerable jets 

 of the puddles leaping up to meet the rain, the pelted 

 dodging leaves of the plum and cherry trees bending over 

 their fallen blossoms, that like untimely snow lay be- 

 neath them, where a group of fowls stood, bedraggled 

 and forlorn, with shortened necks and slanted tails. 



Beyond, all objects became flattened and more indis- 

 tinct till in the gray background, mountain and sky met 

 and dissolved in each other.- 



_ An umbrella was coming up the road, dodging from 

 side to side as the bearer avoided puddles and sprang 

 across rivulets. The misty fabric materialized into blue 

 cotton, and presently entered the shop, closed, with its 

 depressed point streaming like a conduit, followed by 

 Peiatiah, who set it to dribble in a corner as he said "Haow 

 dedo" and then "Gosh" as a sufficient comment on the 

 weather. 



"I'm tumble glad you've come, Peltier," said Uncle 

 Lisha, searching among his tools for his pipe, "fer it's a 

 lunsome kinder day, an' I wan't expectin' nob'dy. It's 

 kinder chilly, an' I don't b'lieve but what you'd better 

 whittle up some kindlin' an' start a fire in the stove." 



Nothing loth, Peiatiah got some wood from the box, 

 and kneeling before the stove, whittled some kindling, 

 laid and lighted it, and still kneeling, intently watched 

 the slow progress of the flame. 



"Wal," said the old man, looking at him with kindly 

 anxiety, "haow be ye gettin' 'long? Feelin' any cotri- 

 f'tabler in yer mind?" 



"It aches contin'al," Peiatiah answered. 



"You don't go tu Hamner's no more?" 



Peiatiah shook his head as he got on all fours to blow 

 the reluctant fire, and answered, "Not sence you gin me a 

 talkin' tu 'n under the bridge." 



"You done almighty well, boy, an' you jest stick to 't. 

 When you haint tu work, you go a-fishin' as often 's ye 

 can, an' when it gits so 't there haint no fisbin' go a 

 huntin', an' twixt 'em, they'll fetch ye aout. Stick tu 

 yer fishin'." 



The two doors opened almost at the same moment, and 

 Sam entered from the kitchen leading his now toddling 

 boy, followed by his father bringing in an ox-bow to 

 whittle and scrape where litter offered no offense, while 

 Solon and Antoine came in from the rainy outer world. 



"Hoddy do, all de company?" Antoine saluted. "What 

 you'll said 'bout fishin's? Ah spose probly you an' Peltiet 

 link you felt pooty plump for ketch so much feesh ant it." 

 He got beside the stove steaming in the growing warmth 

 and preparing also to smoke. "Wal seh, One' Lasha dat 

 ant not'ing, not'ing for wat Ah '11 do wen Ah leeve in 

 Canada." 



"Naow lie, dum ye," Uncle Lisha growled. 



"Haow many tarn," Antoine demanded with grieved 

 impressiveness, "Ah '11 gat for tol' you Ah ant never lie? 

 M'sieu Mumpson, he'll read me 'baout George Washins 

 Son chawp a happle tree wid hees new saw, an' tol' hees 

 fader he'll do it 'cause he'll can' lie. Ah '11 chawp more as 

 forty happle, probly feefty tree 'fore Ah '11 lie, me. Yas 

 sah. But All '11 gom' tol' you. Great many tarn, but one 

 teekly tarn Ah 'il go feeshins an' Ah '11 trow meh hook wid 

 nice waum on it an' de traout was so hongry in hees belly 

 an' so crazy in hees head dey'll go after it so fas', de fus 

 one git it, de nex one touch hoi' hees mouf of dat ones 

 tail an' de nex de sem way till dey was twenty probly 'f 

 dey ant fifteen all in string, an' Ah '11 pull it mos so 

 hard Ah'll cant, an' seh. Ah '11 gat all of it honly de 

 middlin' one was kan o' slimber, an' broke off, so Ah'll 

 loss de nine en' of de row. Hoi' on," as Uncle Lisha be- 

 gan to open his mouth, "Ah'll ant fineesh. Wen de 

 traout in de water see where Ah/11 sot mah deesh of 

 waum on de bank, he'll beegin jompon de bank for gat 

 it, an' tumble top of herself for gat hit. Den seh, One' 

 Lasha, Ah '11 peek up mah deesh an' shook it, an' holly 

 'caday, caday' an' dat traouts folia me home so fas' Ah '11 

 had to run an' shut de door for keep it from feel up de 

 haouse." 



"Ann Twine," said Uncle Lisha, heaving a sigh of relief 

 and sinking back into his seat till the leathern bottom 

 creaked, "I was raly afeared you was a-goin' tu tell one 

 o' your lies." Then bending over his work and as he drew 

 the threads, grinning as if that might insure the perfect 

 closing of the seam, "I s'pose I c'n pooty nigh match ye, 

 Ann Twine, on'y my story 's true." 



"Ah '11 wan' hear you tol' jus' one o' dat kan, soli." 



"Wal, oncte aout West, where I was in Westconstant, 

 the' was a man went an' chopped a hole in the ice in 

 a crik tu water his cattle, an' there was a dozen bull 

 paouts come up in the hole, an' he begin a-heavin' on 'em 

 aout tu kerry 'em hum fer his dinner, but fust he knowed, 

 it filled up full, an' he run tu git a bushel baskit tu scoop 



'em up, an' when he got back the hole was a-runnin' over 

 wi' fish, jest a-b'ilin' over on t' the ice, an' kep' a-duin' so 

 till they run over on t' the shore furder an' furder, till he 

 begun tu be afeared they 'd kiver up his farm an' spile it. 

 But the folks begin tu hear on 't an' come wi ? their teams 

 f'm twenty mild off, an' hauled the bullpaouts away in 

 reg'lar percessions, thirty, forty" sled loads in a string, 

 an' fed 'em to the' hawgs, an' m'nured the' land wi' them, 

 till folks didn't know whether they was eatin' pork or 

 fish, on'y fer bein' no bones, an 1 the hull kentry smelt like 

 a fish kittle all summer." 



Uncle Lisha looked around upon his audience, all of 

 whom wondered silently, except Antoine, who asked: 



"You '11 see dat, One' Lishy?" 



"Wal, no; it happened the winter afore I went there, 

 an' I didn't ezactly see it, but I smelt it." 



"Wal, you ant miss much, One' Lishy. It ant be much 

 for see jes' few bullpawt. If Ah '11 ant gat so hoi' Ah '11 

 fregit for rembler mos' all Ah '11 see, Ah could tol' you 

 sometings." 



' What's the reason you don't tell us more o' your ex- 

 periences aout West, Uncle Lisher?" Solon asked, 



"What's the reason," the old man demanded, with a 

 twinkle in his eye, " 'at you an' Ann Twine don't tpll us 

 some o' your experiences up on the maountam t' other 

 day?" 



The treasure seekers stared at each other in blank 

 amazement, wondering how their secret could have es- 

 caped their keeping, when in fact it was only shrewdly 

 guessed at by their host. 



"Why, we haint got nothin' tu tell," said Solon at last. 



"Wal, I haint, nuther, not 'at appears wuth tellin'. 

 Say, folks." during which the mischievous twinkle of his 

 gray eyes brightened, "du you know 'at two men, which 

 their names I wont call, went up ont' the maountain 

 a-sarchin' arter money 'at the man 'at baried it hisself 

 couldn't find agin? O, the s fools an' alius will be, but I 

 cal'late them two 's the beatin'." 



"If the' was sech men, which I don't omit the' was," 

 said Solon, breaking the awkward silence, "they wan't 

 huntin' nothin' but onnat'ral cur'osities, er minnyrils, er 

 Injin relishes. Wal," as a gleam of sunlight patched the 

 Jittered floor and the baby struggled between his father's 

 knees to reach it, 1 'the sun is a divulgin' aout, an' I guess 

 I'll be a moggin'. Goin' my way, Antoine?" 



"Did they, raly?'' Sam said, with a smile broadening on 

 his face as the door closed behind them. 



Uncle Lisha slowly nodded his head and Sam laughed 

 outright, while the little boy reached for the intangible 

 sunbeams. 



"Can't git it, bubby, no more'n they could what they 

 was arter," chuckled the old man. 



Rowland E. Robinson. 



HUNT OF THE CATAWAMPUS CLUB. 



(Concluded from Page 5.) 



We all spent the day around camp. We got wood 

 enough to last the remainder of the week. We cut a road 

 through the woods to the outlet of the little lake. By way 

 of variety there was a shooting match with Will's little 

 .32 Remington, in which Bertie tied Moore for first place. 



Then there was a game of "five and forties" to see who 

 would stay and keep camp with the women. It fell to 

 Judson's lot, but David insisted on taking his place. 

 David is one of those fellows who, if they had squarely 

 won a place within the pearly gates, would be willing to 

 share it with some less fortunate individual. 



To explain why it was necessary for one of us to stay in 

 camp with the girls I will have to tell a story, which, I 

 suppose, properly belongs to an earlier part of the chron- 

 icle. 



Wednesday evening, after the flight was over, Moore 

 and I sat for some time in our blind. It was the kind of 

 evening that makes one feel that the world is beautiful 

 and a good place to be in, at times. There was a broad 

 band of orange, gold and crimson in the west, which re- 

 produced itself in the smooth surface of the lake. The 

 western shore, shadowed by the trees', was inky black; the 

 east and north were immersed in the soft yellowish light 

 of the after-glow. There was something suggestive of 

 peace in the whole scene. It will be essential, therefore, 

 to explain why we sat there, with our guns across our 

 knees, saying nothing. 



At last a sound, weird, tremulous, and withal not very 

 distinct, echoed among the hills away to the northeast. 

 It was about over before it attracted my undivided atten- 

 tion, though I was in a measure conscious of it when it 

 commenced. In answer to the look of inquiry I gave my 

 companion he said, with a laugh, "The catawampus." 

 Then came, loud and hoarse, the h-o-o-o-t! h-o-o-t! Jioot- 

 hoot! hoot-lioot! of an owl. Moore resumed: "I guess 

 that's the fellow that made the noise. The variety of 

 their notes is endless. The celebrated 'Dungarvon 

 whooper' was nothing but an owl. I heard it myself." 

 While he was yet speaking the report of a rifle rang 

 through the woods on the eastern hills. "Wasn't that the 

 Winchester at the camp?" I asked. "Yes; what do you 

 suppose is up?" "Oh, I don't know, perhaps Burke has 

 arrived and they are firing to let us know." "Well, we 

 had better be going, anyway," and we gathered the crowd 

 and went. 



The passage from the shooting ground to the camp was 

 tedious, and probably occupied 45 minutes. "Oh! we 

 thought you never would come," greeted us in a chorus 

 of three female voices, and in a tone that showed they 

 were mighty glad to see us. "Why, what's wrong?" 

 "The catawampus has been here." The laugh at th'"s was 

 general, as it was derisive. ' 'Did you hear him grind his 

 teeth?" asked one. "He couldn't have snapped his tail, or 

 there would have been no one left to tell the story," said 

 another. "Owl," said the Prevaricator, laconically, thus 

 deliberately going back on his own addition to the fauna 

 of North America after its existence had been recognized 

 by no mean authority. "Oh! it is all very well for you 

 men to make fun, but something did come, and we are 

 not going to stay here alone any more, so there. This is 

 an uncanny place for three women to be, and no man 

 within a half-hour's journey." It was evident they were 

 in no mood to stand any nonsense, and the attitude of the 

 boys at once grew conciliatory. David suddenly remem- 

 bered that he had always thought it wasn't right to leave 

 them there, without the fear-destroying influence of mas- 

 culine society. Then it was surprising how quickly the ! 

 rest discovered rust-pits in their consciences from the ] 

 same cause. The Prevaricator declared that he didn't 

 care much for shooting, anyway, especially when he got ' 



nothing; but he knew of no greater pleasure than to sit 

 around and talk to two or three nice women. This would 

 probably have placed him a lap in advance of the rest, in 

 the estimation of the women, had it not been for thei 

 feature of his character that was responsible for his name. 



Moore asked them for their story. "Well," said one, 

 "we were busy cooking when we heard the awfullest yell 

 away off there in the woods, and it kept coming nearer 

 and nearer — " "An owl is always restless when he has a 

 disordered stomach," interjected the Prevaricator, but no 

 one noticed him. "And at last it sounded right there on 

 the hill back of the camp. And when the horses began 

 to snort and the dogs to growl, we thought it about time 

 to get scared, too, and Bertie went to the tent for the rifle 

 anil sent a bullet in the direction of the sound. The nest 

 time we heard it it was further off, and it kept right on 

 away from camp." Moore asked them to describe the 

 sound, "Well, the beginning of it was something like 

 the roaring of ice in a large lake in winter — " "Jest the 

 noise an owl always makes when he has a bad attack of 

 cramps. Now, when I first heard that owl to-night — " 

 but here Bertie interrupted the speaker with a quiet "See 

 here." She fixed her eye on hirn and continued: "I was 

 born not very far from the big woods, and I have lived 

 there the greater part of my life. I have heard all the 

 noises which owls make. That may have been a cata- 

 wampus, for I don't know the animal, but it was no owl." 



It is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what 

 the animal was. The panther does scream; but in my 

 opinion this was not a panther. The common red fox has 

 a cry that will almost curdle the blood of a tenderfoot. 

 The loup cervier, or lynx, can make a noise that will send 

 swift chills up and down the spinal column of the person 

 who hears it for the first time, in the still hours of the 

 night. But, even about the noise this animal made, there 

 was a halo of uncertainty that would have been joy to the 

 heart of a professional gambler. The most we could learn 

 from the girls was, that it ranged somewhere between 

 the roar of the pagnacious "butter-milk cow," that haunted 

 the back pastures of our fathers, and the wail of the 

 slumber-disturbing didymus cat, thatfrequenteth the yard 

 fences of mankind in general, and city-dwellers in partic- 

 ular. 



Returning to the evening shooting: Moore and I occu- 

 pied the "rose nmry" blind; Judson had the raft all to 

 himself and W. H. shot from the boat away up toward 

 the head of the lake. On his way up he made a brilliant 

 double on two birds, which proved to be coots or mud- 

 hens — the first I ever saw in this province. They were 

 therefore valuable specimens for the taxidermist. 1 

 improved on my shooting of the previous evening. Moore 

 shot his same old gait, while Judson did not seem to be 

 able to master the reversed parabolic curves of the mud 

 lake duck. One incident of the evening I will not soon 

 forget. The flight had slacked, and we were debating 

 the advisability of returning to camp, when there was a 

 rocket-like roar, and a "cotton-tearer," which had prob- 

 ably selected the site of our blind as his alighting place, 

 passed within three feet of my head and came near 

 smashing himself against the gun-barrel. I threw up the 

 gun, caught as good a sight as I wanted, and fired. The 

 smoke cloud hung lor a second, and when the bird rose 

 above it, he was so far away that the greenest greenhorn 

 would not have thought of firing the second I have made 

 many misses lor which I could easily account, but I can 

 only explain tins on the theory that the shot never over J 

 took him. We left our boat that night at the outlet, 

 and walked to camp by our newly cut road, lighting out 

 way with birch bark flambeaux. It was a weird-looking 

 procession. 



Our evening programme varied but little. It was usuallj 

 late when the last of the work was done. Then some- 

 times a part of the company would try a rubber at cards, 

 while the rest sat round the fire and talked. Some of the 

 party could sing; and semi-occasionally they favored usi 

 though not quite so often as they were asked. David had 

 a little song of his own, but he never rendered it save 

 when he was appointed overseer of the frying pan. Ii 

 was set to the music of the "White Cockade," and tc 

 make the tune suit the rhythm, the last word of each line 

 had to be spelled. It was sort a of apostrophe to Moore 

 who besides being easily the first man of the party, bore 

 the name of the first man in the world — Adam. The fol 

 lowing is the first stanza: 



"When I have some h-a-m, 

 A-frying in the p-a-n, 

 I don't care, A-d-a-m, 

 For you, or any man." 



Friday morning, two expeditions set out for Second 

 Lake. Judson and W, H. went by way of Blaney Ridge, 

 and Moore and I by the wilderness route. Both parties 

 were cheered by the sight of much game. Out of eight- 

 teen rises W. H. and Judson brought down three birds, 

 Moore and I were more fortunate. We scored our first 

 within a quarter of a mile of camp. Several succeeding 

 rises netted us nothing. Then Moore dropped one intc 

 the middle of Stony Brook. We took a short cut ovei 

 the hills and though the dogs put up several, when we 

 reached the lake we had added nothing to our bag, 

 Second Lake is a lovely sheet of water— clean, its banks, 

 well wooded, with a fine sandy gravel beach at the point 

 where we struck it. It must be seven or eight miles long 

 with an extreme breadth of about a mile. I would have 

 liked to launch a canoe on it, but then we are always 

 longing for the unattainable. While we -were examining 

 the tracks of some deer, on the shore, we missed a good 

 chance at a flock of grouse the dogs put up. We followed* 

 the shore up to the point where Stony Brook discharged, 

 The fresh breeze bore a gentle quack to our ears, and in 

 an instant we were on trie alert. I crept back into the 

 woods, and climbed a tall pine. There they were, fouil 

 of them in a little branch across the stream. Moore was 

 almost within range; I tried to attract his attention with 

 a sharp hiss, but he did not hear me. The ducks saw him' 

 and jumped. There was a lightning double, and three 

 lay on the mud. It is exceedingly frigid weather when 

 Uncle Adam is far behind on a jumping shot. We went 

 up the stream to look for a chance to cross over, and ] 

 ran into and killed another partridge. On my road out 

 to where the ducks lay I saw a snipe near me, but he 

 sailed away while I was exchanging a 7 for a 10 cartridge. 

 Then I saw the dogs making game on the edge of the 

 woods, and I got there in time to cut short the career of 

 ' another grouse out of a bnnch the dogs put up. 

 | After a brief consultation, we abandoned our idea oi 

 going around the head of the lake and hunting some nice 

 1 cover on the other side. We decided to follow Stonj 



