4 4 4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
In the Louisiana Lowlands X. 
BY FRED MATHER. 
{Concluded.) 
Two sharp reports of a gun rebounded from the forest 
opposite, and seemed half a dozen as the echoes died 
away. I crawled out from under the boat and found 
Doctor Gordon running toward it. "Launch it quick, 
I've got some ducks!" he called, and we shoved out 
into the fog on the river. The ducks had fallen up 
stream, and the current was weak on our side, so that 
we were in time to harvest them as they floated past, but 
our range of vision was limited to about 20ft. in all 
directions. We picked up six green-winged teal and 
heard a couple of cripples flop out into the dense mist to 
hide in the sedge all day and be eaten by the keen-nosed 
mink at night. It is a mistaken, idea that a crippled duck 
pines away and dies from blood poisoning or starvation. 
One of two things happens to a wounded wildfowl. If 
only just wing-tipped so that it can't fly, it may skulk- 
by day and have a chance for life by feeding at night and 
sleeping on open water, for all wildfowl are on the 
constant watch for danger. But if badly crippled in 
body or brain, the gulls watch for it by day and the 
mink searches the shores and marshes for it by night. 
The duck then fills the mission for which nature intended 
it, food for man or other animals, and in nature's scheme 
the beasts and birds of prey are to be provided for. The 
moral of this is to show that if a sportsman wounds a 
duck it has a chance to live, mate with some other 
"pensioner" and so round out its life for another sea- 
son, but if badly hurt there is no prolonged suffering. 
An Early Breakfast. 
"Now," said Dr. Gordon, "these six green-wings are 
more than equivalent to three blue-wings, and we may use 
three blues for breakfast and take the fresher birds to 
New Orleans, for the blues were killed long enough to be 
eatable now; you prefer the greens, and I want to take 
I hem to New Orleans and have them served there under 
your orders." 
"You said that you were going to get fish for break- 
fast. Doctor, and while my last waking thoughts were on 
fish, they found no place in dream. I think I slept solid- 
ly all night, for this Gulf breeze, with its freedom from 
mosquitoes, is a relief wdiich I fail to find words to 
express. An aching molar deftly removed is an instant 
relief, but our immunity from the insect has been gradu- 
al. I can only compare it this way: Our first night on 
the Atchafalaya. near Red River Landing, may be 
likened to 'Fiddler's Green,' which the Irish locate as be- 
ing nine miles below Gehenna. Then we reached a spot 
which was an ordinary Hades, as figured in Dante's 
Inferno': a place of punishment for those who had com- 
mitted only the minor sins. Another day brought us 
where the terror of the night is only an annoyance, and 
here we are in the Elysian Fields!" 
The fog w as lifting before the rising sun, and we had 
a journey of some thirty miles before us to Plaquemine, 
with no idea when a steamer would pick us up. The 
Doctor took off a lot of catfish from the set-line, and I 
knocked down a lot of pintails .before the fog lifted, and 
we exchanged them for the darky's teal. If a darky 
thinks sprigtails as good as teal, why not? but the fact 
is that bacon is the grandest thing that his palate knows, 
and all other foods are classed below that great staple. 
The sun was hardly an hour high when we finished our 
breakfast, and the Doctor remarked: "It will be two or 
three hours before our smoked American will be here 
with his team, and we might as well put in our time in 
accumulating a wealth of frogs for use on our journey; 
how does that strike you?" 
"lust the thing: no man can say when we will reach 
the father of waters, and if we have a well-filled com- 
missary we don't care. Get your fish line rigged and I'll 
cut a pole." 
We had by after count sixty-seven giant batrachians, 
taken in three hours, before we heard our wagon coming 
to the landing. It was the middle of November, and the 
sun rose about 6:30. we began frogging an hour later, 
and here was our friend, who promised an early start, 
about to reach us at n A. M. If "time was made for 
slaves" it must have been abolished in George's house- 
hold when emancipation was proclaimed. While we 
were in no pressing hurry, we had an inclination to 
start when ready, and now we began to think of dinner. 
After the creaking lumber wagon had moved off the 
flat boat George remarked: "We's done a heap o' 
wuk dis mawnin', an' me an' Mose is gettin' hungry, an' 
as dis is de las' place whah dey's no skeetahs, I 'spec's 
we bes' get ouh dinnah; ha, ha! Wat yo' say, Doctah?" 
"Yes. get dinner first." Then to me: "That 'skeeter 
argument was a good one; when we leave this Gulf 
breeze we hit the enemy again, and they hit us." 
"Doctor," I asked, "is there no way of hurrying these 
people; have we got to spend the night in a dense forest 
where uncounted millions of poisonous insects are wait- 
ing to feed on us?" 
"You might as well try to hurry the sun as to try to 
instil push into one of these Southern plantation darkies. 
Thev suffer with pains and aches, largely due to care- 
less 'living, but they live long. See all the old ones m 
almost every house. I sometimes think that Dryden had 
one of these uncles in a prophetic mind when he wrote: 
'Fate seemed to wind him up for four-score years; 
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; 
Till like a clock, worn out with eating time, 
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.' 
Many of these old darkies approach the mummy line 
before they die, and just live on in a sort of vegetable 
life until there is no sap left, and they simply wither." 
While dinner was preparing I was busy with my self- 
imposed task of discovering Dr. Gordon's . Here 
our language lacks a word that "nativity" does not fill. 
Old Sam, at Alexandria, had revealed the fact that the 
Doctor was born in Georgia; the Doctor's idioms were 
from all over America and England. He had just spoken 
of a Louisiana negro as a "smoked American," a term 
that was common to the Western troops in Sherman's 
army, but one that I neyer heard from any Eastern 
regiments. Where was he educated? 
We used our fish and some of our frogs for dinner, and 
George and his boy Mose, who had lain on his back on 
some hay in the wagon until the landing was made, 
looked on the frogs with such disgust as they could not 
conceal. They watched to see if we really did eat frogs, 
and after dinner looked over the bones in order to be 
certain that they were "sho' 'nuff" frogs, but our offers 
of this delicacy were politely declined with the assurance: 
"We's got plenty 'nuff, thankee, an' we's got to eat all 
dis bacon an' fried bread an' not was'e it." 
We Start for the Mississippi. 
It was high 12 before the mules were hitched and moved 
their hoofs and the wagon toward the Mississippi. We 
left the old tub of a boat as payment for our trans- 
portation, and we walked. I insisted on taking the can- 
vas, and that was all. George might have it when we left 
him at Plaquemine, but in case of rain it would be of 
service. The mules were in fair condition, but we now 
saw that there was no chance of getting through before 
sundown, and that we must pass a night in the woods 
within whose still recesses lurked millions of mosquitoes 
ready to take our last drop of blood and leave poison 
in its place. Somehow we conveyed this thought to 
each other without speaking, as we glanced at the mid- 
day sun at starting. 
The old wagon had seen long service. The tires had 
been tightened up with wooden wedges, which the 
swamp water swelled so that the wheels were kept from 
dissolution. The axles groaned and cried piteously for 
grease until after a consultation the Doctor and I called 
a halt,' stuck a limb under the end of an axle, lifted the 
wheel, propped up the limb, and took the wheel off and 
slipped it on again over a bit of pork rind, and after 
treating each wheel to the same sort of plaster we went 
our way without further protest from the wheels. When 
I expressed surprise that George had not greased the 
axles before starting, the Doctor replied: 
"These plantation negroes like to hear a wagon squeal, 
possibly they think it keeps off savage beasts, or per- 
haps evil spirits, but I have no idea that George knows 
that grease on an axle' serves any other purpose than 
silencing the noise. I'll ask him. George! why didn't 
you grease your wagon this morning before starting, and 
not have it go groaning and complaining of your neglect 
through the forest?" 
"Hit come dis-a-way, Doctah; I tole my boy Mose. 
a-layin' in de wagon now, to 'range de wagon fo' a long 
trip to Plaquemine, an' he dun fo'got 'bout de grease fo' 
de w'eels. He's de laziest boy, dat Mose, wot I got. an' 
I'se a min' to make him walk, same as we's doin, 'stead 
o* ridin' awn de straw. Hey! You Mose, wake up an 
'splain wheffo' yo' no grease dat wagon dis mawnin' 
'cordin' as I toleyo'!" 
This was accompanied by a very light stroke of the 
black-snake whip as a sign of authority, but which 
would not have hurt a fly, and Mose emerged from the 
straw and said: .... . 
"Yo' done tole me to 'range de wagon fo dis trip, but 
I knowed yo' like to heah him squeal fo' to wawn off 
de bahs an' de ghosts, so I 'gleet fo' to grease de w'eels. 
Ef yo' done tole me fo' to put grease awn de w'eels. I 
done put it awn; dat's so, Doctah. fo' a fac'." 
We had gone a mile or two after lubricating the 
wheels, the Doctor and I were walking behind the 
wagon when there was no water in the road, and piling 
in when we came to a wet spot. We were discussing 
some question of science or of natural history, when 
suddenly the wagon stopped and the mules went on. 
while George lurched out ahead. The animals kicked 
at the whiffletrees dangling against their heels, and then 
turned aside to browse. The old wagon-tongue had 
broken when the wheels dropped into a rut and the 
mules gave it a side strain. 
A Breakdown. 
"I 'clar' to -goodness ef dat ah tongue ain' clean 
busted" George remarked, as he pulled himself out of 
the mud. "Ho! Mose, yo' pull yo'se'f out dat straw an' 
min' dem mules w'ile I see how we gwine get awn." 
The Doctor and I looked at each other. His face ex- 
pressed abject misery, and mine must have impressed 
him in the same way. for we both burst out laughing. 
The prospect of spending several nights in the mosquito- 
laden woods, after our anxiety to get through them in 
one day. was regarded as a joke on us. The insects 
had found us: we could fight them feebly by day, but 
what of the night? . 
The two darkies, father and son, stood gazing at the 
wreck. The father dreamily said: "Ef I had some 
slabs an' nails and some strong cawd. we's done fix dat- 
tah tongue so he go awn good." 
"Very true." the Doctor replied, 'but you have no 
slabs, nails nor cord, and there's no use to wish for 
them. We must make a new tongue." 
"I kin fin' a small 'cawn tree fo' to make a tongue % but 
we ain' got no kin' o' tool fo' to make de holes fo de 
bolts." 
"Doctor," I asked, "what does he mean by a corn 
tree?" 
"It's a species of hickory that bears the pecan nut of 
commerce, but the Southern pronunciation is pecawn, 
which our teamster, and other darkies, shorten into 
'cawn." 
"I see. George, you go get your 'cawn tree and make 
a tongue and I'll bore the holes in it" 
"Wat is yo' gwine make 'em wid?" 
"My fingers! You go get the tree and trim it in shape, 
never mind how I make the holes, and don't be all day 
about it; here it is 3 o'clock, and only two more hours of 
davlight, and we have not made ten miles. Hurry up or 
we will leave you and walk to the landing, for we might 
as well walk all night as to sleep among the 'skeeters 
for two or three nights. Strike out now, get your small 
tree, square it where it goes between the braces, or what- 
ever their names may be, on the axle, and get back 
soon." . . 
The Doctor smiled as the man walked off with his 
axe, and remarked: "If you were talking to some 
Northern woodsman or farmer, your words might have 
a stimulating effect, but as for hurrying George, you 
mio-ht as well try to hurry a clam. It will be dark before 
he "comes in with the tree; yet I don't know but your 
threat of walking may bear fruit" 
"Let us hope that it will. In the darkness of this 
forest, with its miry places in the road, we could not 
make a mile an hour, but we can't move until morning. 
The squirrels are chattering and the frogs are croaking 
in a swamp off to the right. You go for squirrels and 
I'll see if I can't get some frogs and so help out out- 
commissary." 
As I cut a long sapling to hypnotize the frogs with 
and started off, I heard the Doctor singing: 
"As I was a-comin' to Lynchburg town 
My ole ox-cart it done broke down; 
My oxen run, an' never did stop 
Till dey got 'fore de do' ob de blacksmith shop. 
Oh, Johnny Booker, help dis niggah, 
Oh, Johnny Booker, do, oh, do. 
"Says I, 'Mis'r Smith, do you charge anything 
Fo' to men' my oaken ring'? 
'Oh, no,' says he, 'we nebber charge 
Unless de job am berry large; 
A job like dat it am so small, 
We nebber charge anything at all.' 
Oh, Johnny Booker, help dis niggah: 
Oh, Johnny Booker, do." 
This old-time song evidently was suggested to the 
Doctor by the breaking of the wagon-tongue, but thai he 
knew it brought up the old question of his early and 
late environment, for it was one of the. old and early 
minstrel songs, and therefore did not originate in the 
South. 
A Night in the Woods. 
The frogs were difficult to get, because the swampy 
bottom of the marsh was hospitable, and only on the 
extreme edges could I persuade a frog to be mine by 
stroking its back with the sapling or by dangling a fish 
hook before its nose. The diminishing light of the sun 
hinted that an immediate return to camp would be pre- 
ferable to spending the night in the swamp, and I took 
the hint. 
At the show-down George displayed a crude wagon 
tongue of pecan, all complete except the holes for 
bolts. The Doctor brought out fourteen squirrels, and 
I laid out thirty big frogs; not bad work for two hours 
in a' swampy land, where locomotion w r as sorely im- 
peded. 
Supper over, our darkies proposed to turn in, but 1 ob 
jected. The wagon tongue must be completed for a starl 
in the morning. The Doctor and I agreed that an early 
start was desirable, and he turned over the command of 
the camp to me. I had felt the necessity of this niove. 
but was diffident about suggesting it. The way was 
clear now. There was no more consultation with our 
darkies. Mose was ordered to look after the mules and 
George burned the old wagon tongue, or "pole," in order 
to get out the bolts. Then I took the smallest bolt and 
at a red heat made a hole where needed, for a burned 
hole is always larger than the iron that burns it. and so 
\ye had a serviceable tongue fitted before Ave lay down to 
sieep in the wagon, with the canvas propped over us as 
a ridge pole to protect from rain or mosquitoes. 
The ground was too wet to sleep on, and a wagon 
box or "bed." as it is sometimes called in the West 
and South, is only 8ft. long, hence. the problem of four 
men sleeping in it when it would only accommodate 
two abreast. There was but one way to do it. The 
Doctor and I took the front end, under the seat, which 
kept the canvas from our faces, and the Afro-Amer- 
icans slept with their heads to the tail board, which 
protected them from the weight of canvas, but there was 
a lapping of legs, which was a necessary condition in an 
8ft. box/ We slept in our clothing, cf course, but after 
a side talk with the Doctor I ordered that no shoes be 
removed. It was better to have bruised shins than to 
risk evils whose extent we did not know. 
Just how much sleep came to each one of the party was 
an unknown quantity. Some slumber may have ven- 
tured my way. but was not remembered in the morning. 
There was a sound of revelry in the frog pond, a croak- 
ing of night herons, which were combining the sports of 
fishing and frogging without partiality to either as long 
as the diet was sufficiently "fillin'." the hooting of one 
owl and the so-called "screeching" of another, with the 
occasional whicker of a coon, and the omnipresent 
song of the myriads of mosquitoes outside our canvas, 
and the jubilant tone of the few which had got under it 
through the low ventilating folds, seemed a continuous 
performance. 
Now the Frosty Stars are Gone. 
The night was long, close and stifling. The necessity 
of a change of position naturally awoke others whose 
shins were creased by boot soles, and when morning 
came we were glad to lift the canvas, get on land and 
stretch our legs. After breakfast our teamster showed 
110 sign of preparation for the start, and as the Doctor 
had turned all authority over to me I said: "Come, 
George, get a move on you: send Mose out for the 
mules and get ready to go on." 
George was seated on the new wagon tongue in the 
attitude of prayer, and looked up, saying: "Dis yah's 
Sunday, an' de good book says we muss'n' do no wuk 
awn dat day. an' I 'spects we has to camp hcah till to- 
maw." 
The fact was that since leaving the mansion of Lol. 
B. and the Red River we had taken no note of time, but 
the proposition to lie in the mosquito-laden woods and 
cook because it might, or might not. be Sunday was 9 
little too much for me, and there was the Doctor enjoy- 
ing the situation, probably wondering what form my in 
dignation would take. After meeting his eye I cooled 
down and said to George: 
"If your conscience fdrbids you to travel on bunday 
you may remain and cut wood and cook your dinner and 
supper, but I will take the team and wagon and go on 
to the river, where you will find your property when you 
get there. Mose! you get the mules up and harness 
them now, hurry up!" 
"Dad he say we ain' gwine move to-day— 
"Doctor, hand me that shotgun! Mose, if you don t 
bring up the mules I'll put so many shot into your 
trousers that they'll be too heavy to walk in. Your 
young brother, Gawge, must, have tole yo T was a 
