484 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 20, 1902. 
A Story of Amos Cummings. 
The relations of Amos J. Cummings and Lawrence S. 
Kane were those of Damon and Pythias. Were both 
alive now, one, the late Congressman, would not deny 
tiiat he preferred to gratify his ruling passion for practi- 
cal joking on "Larry," in spite of his strong liking for 
him, to "rigging" any other of his acquaintances, and 
"Larry" would admit that he submitted to Amos's fun 
without rancor. They used to fish for black bass at Hen- 
derson Harbor on Lake Ontario. Larry was one of those 
nervous sportsmen who are always on edge and ready 
to bag anj^thing. On his fishing trips he was never with- 
out his gim and ammunition. 
Larry at 4 'o'clock one summer morning -was roused 
by Amos with the information: 
"Ducks, wild ducks." 
"Where?" asked Larry, vaulting out of bed and 
rubbing his eyes. 
"Down the cove. Ten of 'em. Now, quick and care- 
ful." 
In a minute Larry, gun in hand and dressed in anything 
he could snatch up was on the porch of the hotel cram- 
ming cartridges in his pocket. While he loaded his gun — 
he crammed in buckshot cartridges by mistake — Amos 
planned the campaign against the wild fowl. 
"They're as wary as hawks," he said, "and the only 
way to get within gunshot, Larry, is to stalk 'em." 
"Stalk 'em?" 
"Yes. Over the knoll, just as if they were deer. You 
mustn't raise your head, but go along on all fours. 
'Tisn't far. Only about a quarter of a mile. Then you 
come to some brush not seventy-five yards from where 
thev are, and can give it to them. You crawl ahead and 
rif follow." 
Trembling with excitement Larry began the "stalk" 
over rough ground, covered with briers and chunks of 
rock. Had he looked around he would have seen Amos 
walking erect and rolling with merriment. At the brow 
of the knoll he was halted with a "Sh-h-h-h" from Amos, 
who crawled up beside him. 
"See 'em?" Amos asked in a whisper, pointing to a 
little bay in the cove. 
Larry strained his eyes and saw a number of floating 
objects bobbing on the water, and his excitetnent in- 
creased. 
"Go on stalking 'em," was Amos's caution, "to those 
bushes. Then bag 'em. Fire at the bunch. I'll stay 
here." 
Larry, perspiring and breathless, continued wriggling 
like a snake over the broken ground and managed to 
reach the place indicated. He leveled his gun three times 
as he lay prone before he could aim, and then pulled 
both barrels. The recoil knocked him around so that 
he could see Amos — ruiming and yelling with laughter 
toward the hotel. 
"I kept shy of Larry," said Amos, relating the story, 
"until dinner time, when he sat down at the table rather 
sheepishly, shook hands and attacked the grub without 
sajdng a word. I felt a bit contrite, but I would again 
get a wetting as I did in putting out those decoy ducks 
to see Larry crawling over that knoll and the expression 
of his face when, waist deep in water, he discovered the 
facts. The only sign of anger from him was after dinner 
•when I snickered at his remark: 
" 'Well, anyway, that Parker of mine made a good 
pattern on the decO^^s.' " T. 
Advanced Ideas in Farming, Trap- 
ping and Woodcraft* — IIL 
Then a strange thing happened. You may, per- 
haps, have observed during your perusal of the mod- 
ern novel — the twentieth century novel of average con- 
struction, dealing in yellow mystery, inch-deep plot, 
beer froth and unsanitary exhalations, that when the 
story has reached a point of unusual stupidity and utter 
rot, that the author apparently awakens to the start- 
ling truth that if he is to get any further along, he must 
interject something with an exclamation point following 
it. He invariably says: "Then a strange thing hap- 
pened!" 
The reader, aroused by this jolt, and impelled by curi- 
osity to ascertain if there was anything stranger than 
that the writer had found a publisher, now pulls him- 
self together, rubs his eyes, steps on the cat's tail, and 
partially awake, reads on under a misapprehension. 
But he commonly finds that the author has been try- 
ing to ^eep him awake under false pretenses, that 
really nothing does happen, and he again peacefully 
falls asleep to dream of croquet, and young people sit- 
ting on the beach, with a big policeman hiding behind 
a tree. But in my case it is wholly different. I make 
use of the phrase advisedly and with malice prepense, 
as it were, and you will agree with me later on that 
I know what I am talking about. I repeat, A strange 
thing happened. The 11:45 M. through fast freight 
had passed the rear end of our farm without stopping 
at the last station, apparently having an important 
business engagement further on down the line. At 
this point there is a considerable grade, at the foot 
of which there is a sharp curve; just why the chaps 
that surveyed the line for this road put that curve 
just where they did has puzzled more than one cracker 
barrel scientist. 
Uncle Ephraim, however, had a theory that it was 
because the railroad company regarded the price asked 
for the right of way through the sheep pasture on the 
rear end of the farm as too high, and sought a less 
expensive route for the distance of a mile. Of course, 
the land embraced in the sheep pasture was no doubt 
the worst on the farm, beside, uncle didn't keep any 
sheep, anyway. Ordinarily, the piece in question would 
be dear at ?i2 per acre for any purpose except for rail- 
road tracks,' but uncle was one of your thrifty New 
England farmers raised out among the stone heaps of 
Vermont, and he estimated that for railroad purposes 
the strip, equal to about four acres, was worth to the 
railroad about $5,000, but seeing it was for the public 
good, and all that, he would take $2,500, and an annual 
pass over the line. This offer was declined with 
thanks by the railroad officials, and failing to remove 
uncle's impressions regarding comparative real estate 
values, the road took a scoot around that corner of the 
farm, and uncle still remains sole owner thereof. 
The fast freight was coming down the grade at about 
a forty-five-mile-per-hour gait, and when it struck the 
bend at the foot beyond the row ol maples, on that 
dark midnight, the engineer saw before him, about 
eighty yards away, the headlight of another locomo- 
tive; he could see a long train moving as fast as his 
own. He was undoubtedly impressed with the force 
of a now generally admitted fact that it is highly im- 
prudent if not positively riskj^^ for two trains moving 
in opposite directions upon the same track to attempt 
to pass each other. The thing has been tried time 
and time again, and probably fools and cranks will 
keep on trying just the same as they do on perpetual 
motion. But the inevitable result is dismal failure 
and an awful mussing up of the right of way. The train 
crews, of course, jumped, some into a concenient 
ditch, others into adjacent piles of ties and railroad 
iron. That was another strange thing — why the men 
preferred to land on piles of iron rails and cedar ties 
when they could just as well alight gently in the mud. 
There's no accounting for tastes, as the old lady said. 
1 remember a cussed little gray pony that uncle once 
bought of an Indian and put him on the farm to haul 
the two boys and me to school. That pony seemed 
to have less sense and judgment than anything living. 
He would stand in the broiling sun all day with a thou- 
sand flies making life miserable, and never flick a fly, 
with a nice, shady grove within fifty feet of him. He 
would eat mullen leaves and burdock, when a clover 
pasture was wide open to him. He was certainly the 
biggest fool in Kansas, and that is saying a good deal. 
The train which the fast freight met with so much 
suddenness and informality happened to be the first 
section of a circus train. It contained the menagerie 
and performing monkeys, also the usual assortment 
of "gentlemanly assistants who will now pass around 
the ruby lemonade, etc." It might be mentioned in 
passing that there was no lemonade passed at that per- 
formance. If you had been in close proximity to the 
point where those two trains met, I think you would 
have said that I am amply justified in using the ex- 
pression with which this chronicle opens. When the 
animals realized what had occurred and that there 
would be no duties demanded of them the following 
day, they just simply tore things wide open, and every 
single specimen that had any claims to a voice at all 
vied with every other specimen in filling the surround- 
ing space with noise, and the space was soon crowded 
with it. At first the people in the surrounding coun- 
try thought it was our big Shanghai rooster, but re- 
membering that I had sold it, they came rushing over, 
pell mell, falling over the African lions and butting 
into the big and little elephants, trying to get away 
from the polar bears and avoid the snakes and wal- 
ruses. That "aggregation of attractions" never gave 
such an exhibition before or since. Everything was 
a! fresco and aii naturel, free, gratis, for nothing, and 
every man for himself. It also looked as though not 
only the devil would take the hindmost, but that the 
royal Bengal tiger would be an active competitor for 
this honor. The giraffe was the only creature, biped 
or quadruped, that appeared to take an excited view of 
the situation, and he proved to have had a leg broken. 
Well, it was a bad mess, and the tumult lasted until 
noon the next day, when the managers and bosses and 
animal trainers took account of stock of things. 
I saw my opportunity. It is truly an obstinate and 
unruly tornado in Kansas that blows no good to any- 
body whatever. I saw my chance to go into the 
adapting business mentioned as one of my fond am- 
bitions. I hung around the treasures and found that 
the show was financially embarrassed, anywaj', and 
this calamity was the last strand. I began to throw out 
feelers for bargains in animals, and in less than an 
hour I had a broken-legged giraffe, two white sacred 
cows (with some of the paint rubbed off, but practi- 
cally as good as new), one damaged zebra, one cage 
of brown melopotismians (unclassed), three horned 
owls, four ostriches (much the worse for the loss of 
their feathers and three eyes), two camels (affected 
with catarrh and ingrowing nails), one yellow horse 
with a false tail and a glass eye (which he had lost in 
the accident), then together with an assorted lot of 
battered monkeys gave me an elegant collection, all 
for three hundred and forty-four dollars. The wild 
man of Borneo struck me for a position as care taker 
at $20 per month, but when he said he was raised in 
Canada and talked Irish, I turned him down cold. 
As my chronicle concerns the farm and its affairs, 
the development of nature's forces and especially the 
principle of adaptation, as previously announced, 1 
will not longer follow the fortunes of the_ \vrecked 
circus, nor the incidents and future of its victims. _ I 
think I have my hands full at home, to say nothing 
of the barns, the barnyard and the fullness thereof. 
It didn't take me over two hours to realize that I had 
made an awful mistake in acquiring that yellow horse 
and the cage of monkeys. But the giraffe commended 
himself to me at once by an accidental occurrence; 
he reached up to the topmost limit of an apple tree and 
helped himself to the finest pippin on the tree. Then 
came an inspiration. This, I think, was inspiration 
No. 2. I would train this beautiful and tractable ani- 
mal to pick my apples. I set the broken leg, fixed up a 
comfortable place for him, and in three weks he was as 
good as new; and in another three weeks I had that 
chap trained so that I could strap a couple of bushel 
baskets to his back, and he would march through that 
orchard picking every tree clean, discarding the rot- 
ten apples and sorting out the choice fruit into one 
basket and the common into another. When the bas- 
kets were full he would make a bee-line for the barn, 
and kneeling down, empty the baskets on the barn 
floor, or on the grass plot in front. I also taught him 
many other useful things, such as packing the apples- 
in barrels, with the proper arrangement of the best- 
looking specimens on top. It was indeed touching to 
watch the intelligence of an animal that is not visually 
considered as having enough sense to keep him out 
of the fire. I called him Sage (after my old friend 
Russel). 
The white sacred cows of Burmah, after I had re- 
moved the remaining whitewash, proved to be just two 
ornery very old scrubs, and mighty ornery at that. 
These, I afterward sold to a peripatetic dealer in Jer- 
seys, my hired man having ingeniously devised a hair 
dye that was a great success. These cows " were al- 
ways so thin in ifesh, and with thin new coat of hair 
dye, . that anyone would take them for Jerseys — if they 
didn't know the difference. The damages to the zebra 
were easily repaired, yet I always thought he would 
look better if he had not parted with one of his ears; 
the only other drawback was that, owing to the shock 
of the collision, probably I could never make him 
move forward. He always backed. If I wanted him 
to go to the barn, for instance, I was obliged to turn 
hirn around and say "git," and he would back straight 
to the desired spot and never make a miss. He would 
also draw any desired load, smaller than a load of hay, 
with his teeth, while backing. 
The cage of brown melopotismians I never could 
make much of, and I never have seen anybody that 
could, They were a sort of cross between a 'coon, 
'possum, muskrat, catfish and mud turtle, with all the 
bad qualities of each and not a good quality of any. 
They are for sale — anybody wanting some melopotis- 
mians can get this collection cheap, without waiting 
for a marked down sale. The camels are fine. I feel 
proud of that purchase for this reason: I had a white 
mule that could and would kick everything within 
reach, and keep on kicking. He would kick when there 
wasn't anything to kick at. He evidently hated every- 
thing on earth, including himself. One day he was 
prowling around the biggest camel, and apparently 
selecting some point of vantage to deliver a full bat- 
tery of his most vigorous kicks. He never got a 
chance. " The old hump-back suspected something, and 
when the mule came within range, she let out with 
both hind feet at once, and that mule didn't stop 
tumbling over himself until he struck the barnyard 
fence. You never saw so surprised an animal in this 
world as that devilish mule. He picked himself up 
and sneaked around behind the barn, and that was the 
last ever seen of him. The ostriches I have trained 
to plant corn and potatoes with great skill, while as 
potato-bug destroyers, they have made it unnecessary 
for to go to the drug store after Paris green. The 
monkeys and horned owls will require a chapter all 
to themselves. 
Frank Haywood. 
(to be CONTINUED.) 
♦ 
Addison on Animal Instinct. 
Opening a little volume of "The Spectator" at ran- 
dom, I lit upon No. 120. "I must confess," says the 
genial writer, "I am infinitely delighted with those specu- 
lations of nature which are to be made in a coimtry life; 
and as my reading has very much lain among books of 
natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this 
occasion the several remarks which I have met with in 
authors, and comparing them with what falls under my 
own observation." 
We usually think of Addison as only a writer of Eng- 
lish of unsurpassed sweetness and excellence, but he was 
a close observer of nature, and finds many an illustration 
of his topics in the humbler life around him; thus he 
finds something similar to memory "in those several 
animals that are filled with stores of their former food, 
on which they may ruminate when their present pasture 
fails ;" and looldng around him he wonders to observe, O-S 
he says, "by what a gradual progress the world of lite 
advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a 
creature is formed that is complete in all its senses," by 
the way tracing up an argument from the lowest forms 
of animal life to the highest that seems a foreshadowing 
of Darwin's doctrine of evolution. 
There is a charming simplicity in these old observers 
of nature. Sir Thomas Browne, Izaak Walton, Gilbert 
White, and Joseph Addison. They lived in a simpler and 
clearer age, before science with all its close analysis had 
turned everything inside out, and before microscopy gone 
to seed had disgusted men with the discovery of loath- 
some bacteria, microbes, and what not in every crystal 
drop that distills from the rock and in every cheny that 
hangs red upon its twig. 
The point at issue in Addison's "Spectator," No. 120, 
was the instinct of animals as against their reason. Of 
course he rather begs the question in advance by assum- 
ing that those who claim some intelligence for the lower 
animals claim it "to as great a degree as man," which 
is preposterous. Nobody has ever made any such claim, 
but only that animals possess reason within certain, per- 
haps very narrow, limits as compared with man. But to 
deny all reason and intelligence beyond simple instinct 
to the elephant, the horse, or the dog, it seems to me 
is to deny too much. 
Addison seems to have made a special study of the 
hen. "My friend Sir Roger," says he, "is very often 
merry with me upon my passing so much of my time 
among his poultry; he has caught me twice or thrice 
looking after a bird's nest, and several times sitting an 
hour or two together near a hen and chickens." It was 
very well for him to argue his point from this fowl, for I 
suppose a chicken has less sense than any other creature 
of its. size. We have had learned pigs and trained fleas, 
but an educated chicken we have yet to hear of. He re- 
marks that the brute makes no discovery of reason except 
in'a'feiVv particulars and within a very narrow compass; 
only so far, in fact, as regards the animal's own preserva- 
tion bir the 'continuance of his species. Take a brute out 
cf his instiijct, he says, and you ^ find him wholly de- 
prived of understanding. And that is just the point that 
some people deny. Then Addison proceeds to illustrate 
his doctriiie by meaiis of the barnyard fowl. 
"With what caution," he says, "does the hen provide 
herself a nest in places unfrequented, and free from noise 
and disturbance? When she has laid her eggs in such 
a manner that she can cover them, what care does she 
