I^EB, X7, 1966.1 
Ponn^'T ANf) STREAM. 
1^3 
finding a wild bull in the bush. That was one of Talolo's 
perennial promises. He was always in the point of bring- 
ing me within shooting distance of that or some other 
one of the wild cattle, but I never did get a shot at any- 
thing with horns in all my days under the dripping 
|joughs. ■ ^■ 
... It was then that Talolo said rats. Now, I had a per- 
sonal grievance against the Samoan rats. At night they 
.invaded the house. They scampered over the floor mats, 
\yhich magnified the scratching of their claws. They ran 
hurdle races over me as I slept, and if by any qiuck 
chance my fingers closed on their soft fur they squeaked. 
Vv^orst of all, they got on the tin roof and held festive 
dances with complicated and noisy steps. That drove 
the sleep from the most drowsy. Really there was only 
one good thing to say in their favor, and that was that 
they were indefatigable hunters of cockroaches, also a 
nocturnal bird and a very annoying one. 
When Talolo in Samoan, which I wish to repeat is 
not slangy, said rats, he used the word "imoa." 
"Isumui?" I questioned in reply. 
"lole fo'i," was his response. "Same rat, three 
names: imoa and isumu and iole, all the same bird." 
That one has soon to recognize in the islands every- 
thing that is not a fish or a worm or some such minor 
creation is a bird, even a horse. 
"But, Talolo," I said, "the rats are asleep in the day 
time. The only time we can get them is at night, and 
anyway my shoot gun is dead — no powder." 
■'Much cloud to-day, Tamaita'i," he promptly replied. 
■'Night and day some thing. Day better, for no aitu. 
Rats wake up and walk about in the bush and we catch 
them. Gun no good. Gun big. Rats small. Kill them 
with throwing stick. Good for eat for you, for me." 
The last item was really unnecessary. I never did get 
to the limit of the fish, flesh and fowl, and "birds" that 
were not in some way "good for eat for you for me," 
principally for him. 
That is how I came to go on the hunt with Talolo 
for "mice and rats and such small deer." Our only 
weapons were throwing sticks, mere dried wands of the 
lightest kind of wood, each about as thick as my little 
finger and rather more than a yard in length. The 
chief use of these sticks is in a game over which the 
islanders spend many days at a time in the effort to see 
which can throw the greatest distance with one ricochet 
:on the worn turf of tlae throwing green, which may be 
found in every village and where fierce contests are 
waged with the wands, to the accompaniment of bar- 
baric feasts and dances. 
The experience taught me one thing, and that is that 
it is no easy thing for a white woman to throw a 6- 
ounce stick with any hope of stunning or even hitting 
a field rat at the distance of 100 yards, and on the wing, 
as one may say. Total result: I confess ignominious 
failure. I did not myself kill a single rat, except one 
that doesn't count, for I squashed him by a backward 
step, not having the remotest idea that he was there. 
Talolo w^as more than disgusted, for he had given me the 
■very straightest wand that he had in his collection. 
Therefore, if anybody wants to know how it seems to 
hit a rat with a stick at long range he is going to be 
disappointed, so far as my personal experience goes; 
but I did see how Talolo did it. Between us we brought 
home a fair string of game, including my squashed 
victim, and there can be no doubt that Talolo by him- 
self would have done much better if it had not been for 
my company. A boy can't kill as many rats as he other- 
wise would if he has to spend a very considerable part of 
his time in hunting for a woman's throwing stick and 
never feeling quite certain whether it is in the deep lan- 
tana brush (a prickly pest, that), or up "in the summit of 
some high tree. I really could not help it. After the 
stick left my hands I never could teU which way it was 
going. That it would not annoy the rat was certain; its 
ultimate destinatioii was doubtful, 
Talolo was right about the effect of the heavy clouds; 
but then Talolo was always right about his woodcraft ex- 
cept for some of his views about the aitu and snakes that 
cackle like a hen, and even as to those I am not entirely 
sure that he was lying. It was only in other matters 
that he gave full swing to his Samoan mendacity, ques- 
tions as to who was his mother and such like unim- 
portant trifles. The Samoan bush is always gloomy, even 
when the sun is at its torrid brightest above the leaves. 
On this day of lowering clouds, it was as dark as in the 
twilight wiiich Northern nations know. Between the 
trunks of great trees and under the cordage of pendent 
lianas looking like the braces and halyards of some ship 
left to rot in the Sargasso sea, were long vistas through 
the undergrowth, where the long slabs of banana leaves 
arched over head and the near the ground the flat ex- 
panse of taro leaves simulated a green platform, and all 
tied together with the sturdy convolvulus out of which 
the Samoans believe the first women were created and 
then bore the first men and peopled the world — the whole 
world of the five islands. Every such vista was closely 
scanned by Talolo, as we made our dripping Avay over 
the soggy soil, where it has never ceased to rain since 
the world was young. Some were barren of guidance to 
him. In others he tried to show me the track of the 
scampering rails. Here and there he professed to find 
the course of the blue lizzards, which flashed now and 
then on our sight, sharp-eyed creatures that sprang from 
under foot and gave a glimpse of their foot-long agility, 
dreadful things to have drop on you from overhead, for 
then your neck swells up and you die, and I always be- 
lieved whatever Talolo told me in the bush, since that 
was his own country. At last the lad found a runway 
of the rats. I must confess that I could see little spoor, 
but to his eyes it was clear that he had found one of the 
paths which the woodland rats use. 
We walked along this thin trail until we catUP'tipon a 
straightaway stretch of very nearly 200 yards, [and there 
we took our stand in silence. Yet, still as we -were, the 
jungle seemed filled with sound. There was the distant 
and melancholy cooing of the wood dove, the manutangi; 
the lizards scnttering through the grass gave vent to lit- 
tle squeaks: the vagrant hermit crabs fell in clumsy 
slumps, as their top-heavy borrowed shells overbalanced 
them. In our waiting we felt a sudden chill, and Talolo 
insisted that we should tie the fragrant leaves of ginger 
about our heads in precaution, for those sudden chills 
mean the passage of some aitu on its hunt, and ginger 
may keep them off. 
Suddenly there was a little beast on the runway ahead 
of us, a lump of blue fur sitting in its tracks erect upon 
its haunches and washing its face with its forepaws. 
That was the first rat. It seemed too pretty to kill, but 
Talolo had no scruples whatever. He signed to me with 
a wave of his hand, and we threw at once. My stick 
landed in an orchid half way up the trunk of a tamanu— 
that strange tree of the South Sea forests that grows 
boards. But Talolo directed his stick with a more ac- 
quainted aim, and rat the first fell to our bag. At least 
the rat was stunned, and Talolo gleefully running up 
broke the little animal's neck and brought it to me that 
I might see what dignified sport we were pursuing. 
What I saw was a little animal no bigger than the 
chipmunks of our fences, gracefully shaped, covered 
with a thick fur of light slaty blue which might be or- 
namental when dressed and made up. Its eyes were 
almost as large and fine as those of our roadside squir- 
rels, and entirely dift'erent from the sharp beads which 
we associate with our household rats. In fact, this rat 
is entirely indigenous to the islands, and drives out the 
foreign rats which escape from the ships in the harbor. 
As was this first rat, so were the others that came to 
the runway on which we had taken our stand. Invariably 
I missed, except for the one that I inadvertently stepped 
on, and with very few exceptions Talolo was able to 
land his game at very considerable distances. 
Talolo had assured me that the rats were "good for 
eat for you, for me." I took a few of the spoil and put 
them in Tanoa's hands for cooking. They had first to 
be skinned and wrapped in leaves, and then buried in the 
ground over night to season. In the morning Tanoa 
presented them fried for breakfast. Somehow or other I 
did not seem to hanker after fried rat. A junior mem- 
ber of the family swore positively that so long as there 
remained a can of any sort in the kingdom of Samoa, 
and a can-opener was available, he was going to draw the 
line at rats. Another member of the family, with past 
years of acquaintance with savage eating, welcomed the 
fried rats, and said that he was ready to eat the mess 
himself with no assistance. "What's a rat," he an- 
nounced, "after you've had to feed on 'wums' and bugs?" 
With this encouragement, I nibbled gingerly at my first 
fried rat. Come to think of it, it is somewhat of a new 
sensation to an unaccustomed palate. But it was so fine 
and tasty a morsel that I insisted that as between myself 
and the other member of the household who had a liking 
for rat, there should be an equitable distribution of the 
crame. Llewella Pierce Churchill. 
Sam^s Boy. — XIL 
The Lynx. 
When the Indian arrows were hopelessly lost and their 
place poorly suppUed by clumsy substitutes, tashioned by 
Uncle i^isha, 'iimothy JL,ovel and bam, Sammy began to 
desue a deadlier weapon thun the bow, and cast longing 
eyes upon his father's guns. The ponderous nlie, popu- 
larly known as the Ore Bed, for its weight of metal, was 
quite beyond his hope of aiming for many a year to come, 
but when he was permitted to handle the longer, but 
lighter, smooth-bore, he was rejoiced to find he could 
raise it for an instant to an off-hand aim, and thereupon 
begged earnestly to be allowed to go hunting with it. 
This was, of course, refused for the present, but with a 
half.promise that he might do so "one of these days." 
This was much pondered, and not forgotten by the boy. 
In due course of time it happened one day that all the 
grown-up inmates of the I.ovel homestead were abroad 
except Uncle Lisha, who was left in charge of the house 
and the two children. For the most part he sat on his 
bench, working at a pair of new shoes, answering as well 
as he could the children's endless questions, and doing 
his best to satisfy their insatiable appetite for stories of 
old times. 
Now and then he would get upon his feet, and after 
brushing the scraps and shreds from his apron make an 
inspection of the kitchen, look out the door, up and down 
the road, and comment on the unusually infrequent 
"pass," note hour and minutes marked by the hands of 
the tall clock, and then go back to the shop, glad to retire 
from the oppressive, unwonted quiet of the room, made 
the more noticeable by the deliberate, muffled tick of the 
clock, and the drowsy buzzing of flies in the windows. 
Now and then, when the children could not extract an- 
other tale from their story-teller, they ran out to play in 
the yard, and Polly's doll was captured by Indians over 
and over again, and rescued after seasons of savage cap- 
tivity; was treed by hordes of wolves, followed by pan- 
thers, always to be saved just in the nick of time by the 
mighty hunter and Indian fighter, Sammy. When in- 
vention of adventures was exhausted, they went into the 
shop, with sharpened appetites for stories, but ashamed to 
ask for more. Uncle Lisha, fully expecting a fresh de- 
mand, cudgelled memory and wits for a way to meet it 
as he stared out abstractedly over the bright September 
landscape. Aftermath and woodland were as green as 
woods and meadows of June, yet of a riper tint, and a 
changed depth and slant of shadows. 
"Wal, this 'ere's a neat time for younkets tu play aou' 
door, hain't it, naow?" he said, uttering the happy thought 
suggested by the beauty of the day. 
"Ya-as," Sammy admitted. 
"Yes, sir, this 'ere's one o' the days," Uncle Lisha 
said, with greater emphasis. 
"W'ha'd you say. Uncle Lisher?" the boy asked, prick- 
ing his ears; "one o' these days 'd you say it was?" 
"Yes, sir, jest one o' these 'ere-days I'd be a playin' 
aou' door if I was a younket, or aout yonder in the woods 
a-huntin' pa'tridge, if I was twenty, year younger'n I be." 
By some sign common to the freermasonry of child- 
hood, Sammy signaled Polly out of doors and out of hear- 
ing of Uncle Lisha, and whispered Icwjdlv: "Say; 'd you 
hear him say that it's one o' these,f&y^?" 
Polly nodded, though not co^if^ehending the drift of 
it all " : . - 
"An' you know daddy tpl' me I might go a-huntin' wi 
his real, shootin' ^owed-no folks* gun 'one o' these days.* 
Naow, le's me an' you git it an' go; 'cause you see, this 
day's one of 'em, an' he won't care!" 
"You think Unc' Lisher let us?" Polly asked, a little 
scared by the audacious proposal. 
"We hain't his children, an' he hain't got no business 
not to let us, 'long as daddy said we might when 'one o- 
these days' come. We won't ask. Come!" 
The argument was convincing, and without further de- 
mur she followed his cautious footsteps to the kitchen 
door, which was opened and entered, a wooden-bottomed 
chair moved to position under the gun hook mounted, 
the gun, powder horn and shot bag taken from them, and 
out of doors, and all accomplished so noiselessly under 
favor of the fortune that no less frequently attends naughty 
children than it does their naughty elders, that Uncle 
Lisha's attention was not attracted. 
Crouching as they ran, they got around the house uiitll 
the rear of the woodshed was reached, and they were hid- 
den from their guardian in the shop, and stopped a mo- 
ment to regain the breath that had almost gone otit of 
them in gasps of fear and painful repression. Sammy 
crawled through a hole in the back of the shed and se- 
cured a wasp nest for wadding, and then the pair laid a 
straight course for the woods, keeping in range of the 
barn. During the purloining of the gun the young 
hound, grown almost to his full height, but awkward and 
unbidable in puppyhood, was harrying a woodchuck in 
the pasture wall, to the great relief of Sammy, who was 
aware of the risk of betrayal by Drive's unrestrainable 
demonstrations. But, now they were safely out of Uncle 
Lisha's sight, the dog's company would be welcome 
enough, so when he desisted a moment from digging and 
discovered his young comrades crossing the field, the boy 
carying the gun on his shoulder in such pride that he felt 
himself growing an inch a minute, he galloped after them 
with one reluctant look backward at the stronghold_ of 
the woodchuck. Drive had learned from the wise teaching 
of his master that the gun brought the reward of hunting, 
having already killed for him several squirrels, a treed 
woodchuck and a running hare, and now expressed his 
joy at going hunting with the children, careering madly 
about them and far before them, uttering a medley of 
yelps and deep-mouthed challenges, then tearing back at 
top speed and leaping up at the gun, to the impeding of 
Sammy's progress and imminent risk of knocking him 
over, and now, by many unmistakable signs, asking for 
help to dislodge the wood chuck from its stronghold. 
"No, Drive, can't," Sammy declared, resolutely. 
"Daddy savs we mustn't pull down no wall for 
woo'chucks.' Come on int' the woods an' git a pa'tridge 
or suthin'." Sammy did not know that a hound was not 
exactly suited to partridge hunting, and Drive was ready 
for the pursuit of anything by scent except cats, of which 
he had unpleasant recollection. 
They had scarcely entered the woods before he scented 
game and began working up the trail, with Sammy fol- 
lowing so close that his shins were rapped by the dog's 
slender tail at every step, and Polly, awed b" the dark, 
mysterious interior that was opening before her, stuck as 
closely to her brother's heels. 
Suddenly there was a roar of half a dozen pairs of wings 
as Drive ran into the midst of a company of grouse dust- 
ing in the powdered mold of a decayed tree trunk. The 
dog stared after them until the last one disappeared, and 
then looked inquiringly at his young master, as if to ask, 
"Didn't I do that in good style?" while Sammy stared as 
intently at the blurred forms vanishing among boughs 
and shadows, hoping that one might alight within sight 
and range. Then the dog trotted forward in quest of new 
achievements until out of sight, but still making his where- 
abouts known as he threshed brush and trunks with his 
busy tail and. snapped dry twigs under foot. 
Presently the sound of the tail beats ceased, and then 
the dog came skulking back wiih_ hackles bristling and 
tail lowered. ' -, . , 
"Why, dawg!" Sammy said' to him, searching the dark 
shade beyond for the cause of alarm, "you look as if ol' 
Maltee an' her hul' fam'ly was arter ye. What is 't?" 
"Oh, Bub! See! See!" the little sister said, almost in 
a whisper, clutching at his sleeve and pointing eagerly 
upward at something crouching on a great branch of a 
tree just beyond the partridges' dusting place, 
Following the direction of her finger, Sammy saw a 
pair of big, round, yellow eyes glaring at him out of a 
grav chucklehead, the pricked ears tipped with tufts of 
black hair, all of which, with a ruff flaring out behind the 
head, made such a fierce looking visage that the boy 
wished himself and his companions well out of the woods, 
and would have quickly betaken hiself thence if the eyes 
of Polly had not been upon him. It would never do to 
show the white feather in her presence, so he sidled up to 
the nearest tree, with Polly sticking close to his side and 
Drive cowering behind, in which position only he dared 
utter a growl at ihe biggest cat he had ever seen crouched 
along the bough, eyeing the trio closely, yet Avith insolent 
indifference. It was a formidable looking beast, and 
Sammy was glad to remember that the gun was still 
loaded with the charge of BB shot that he had seen his 
father pour into the barrel. He cocked the gun and raised 
it to a rest against the great tree and got a steady aim 
right between the yellow eyes. 
The beast seemed to recognize a menace in this, for 
it bared its sharp, white teeth with a gasping hiss and did 
not take its eyes off the boy, who pulled on the trigger 
without effect till he was sure the gun was only half 
cocked, and then, assuring himself that it was, put a sec- 
ond finger and all his strength on the trigger. It yielded 
and the striker, a clumsy bit of iron screwed into the place 
of the discarded flint, came down with a crack on the cap, 
the woods were filled with a far-echoing- roar, pierced by 
a terrific scream, and through the slowly lifting cloud of 
smoke Sammy had a glimpse of a gray body curving 
down toward him. It struck the earth heavily, but went 
.-^'feet in the air with a quick rebound, repeated after each 
fall,' which, as the ground descended slightly, each re- 
bound brought the beast, with all four big, talon-armed 
paws lashing out blindly, a little nearer to the dazed 
group, till Polly's skirt was caught in a sweeping stroke 
that cut it like knives. Then Sammy came to his wits, 
and, catching hold of his sister, ran pell-mell down the 
slope with her, preceded by Drive, whimpering and tuck- 
ing his tail to its tightest between his legs. There was 
no halt till the brook was crossed. 
Then, as they stood listening to the threshing of the 
