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Young Hunters · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter five of the Story of My Boyhood and Youth. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Reading by Sue Anderson The Story of My Boyhood and
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Youth by John Muir, Chapter five. Young hunters, American headhunters, deer,
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a resurrected woodpecker, muskrats, foxes and badgers, a pet coon,
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bathing squirrels, gophers, a burglaria shrike. In the older Eastern States,
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it used to be considered great sport for an army of boys to assemble to
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hunt birds, squirrels, and every other unclaimed, unprotected live thing of shootable
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size. They divided into two squads, and choosing leaders, scattered through the
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woods in different directions, and the party that killed the greatest number enjoyed a
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supper at the expense of the other. The whole neighborhood seemed to enjoy the
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shameful sport, especially the farmers, afraid of their crops. With a great
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air of importance, laws were enacted to govern the gory business. For example,
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a gray squirrel must count four heads, a woodchuck six heads, common
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red squirrel two heads, black squirrel ten heads, a partridge five heads.
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The larger birds, such as whipper wheels and nighthawks two heads each, the
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wharry crows three, and bob whites three, But all the blessed company of
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mere song birds, warblers, robins, thrushes, orioles, with nuthatches,
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chickadees, blue jays, woodpeckers, et cetera, counted only one head each.
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The heads of the birds were hastily wrung off and thrust into the game
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bags to be counted, saving the bodies only of what were called game,
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the larger squirrels, bob whites, partridges, et cetera. The blood stained
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bags of the best slayers were soon bulging full. Then at a given hour
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all had to stop and repair to the town, empty their dripping sacks,
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count the heads, and go rejoicing to their dinner. Although like other wild
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boys I was fond of shooting, I never had anything to do with these
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abominable head hunts. And now the farmers, having learned that birds are their
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friends, wholesale slaughter has been abolished. We seldom saw deer, though their
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tracks were common. The Yankee explained that they traveled and fed mostly at night,
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and hid in tamarack swamps and brushy places in the daytime, and how
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the Indians knew all about them and could find them whenever they were hungry.
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Indians belonging to the Monomonee and Winnebago tribes occasionally visited us at our cabin to
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get a piece of bread or some matches, or to sharpen their knives on
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our grindstone, and we boys watched them closely to see that they didn't steal
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jack We wondered at their knowledge of animals when we saw them go direct to
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trees on our farm, chop holes in them with their tomahawks, and take
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out coons of the existence of which we had never noticed the slightest trace.
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In winter, after the first snow, we frequently saw three or four Indians
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hunting deer in company, running like hounds on the fresh, exciting tracks.
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The escape of the deer from these noiseless, tireless hunters was said to be
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well nigh impossible. They were followed to the death. Most of our neighbors
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brought some sort of gun from the old country, but seldom took time to
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hunt, even after the first hard work of fencing and clearing was over,
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except to shoot a duck or prairie chicken. Now and then that happened to
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come in their way. It was only the less industrious American settlers who left
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their work to go far a hunting. Two or three of our most enterprising
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American neighbors went off every fall with their teams to the pine regions and cranberry
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marshes in the northern part of the state to hunt and gather berries. I
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well remember seeing their wagons loaded with game when they returned from a successful hunt.
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Their loads consisted usually of half a dozen deer or more, one or
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two black bears, and fifteen or twenty bushels of cranberries, all solidly frozen.
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Part of both the berries and meat was usually sold in portage. The
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balance furnished their families with abundance of venison, bear grease, and pies.
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Winter wheat is sown in the fall, and when it is a month or
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so old, the deer, like the wild geese, are very fond of
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it, especially since other kinds of food are then becoming scarce. One of
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our neighbors across the Fox River killed a large number, some thirty or forty
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on a small patch of wheat, simply by lying in wait for them.
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Every night. Our wheat field was the first that was sown in the neighborhood.
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The deer soon found it and came in every night to feast, but
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it was eight or nine years before we ever disturbed them. David then killed
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one, the only one killed by any of our family. He went out
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shortly after sundown at the time of full moon, to one of our wheat
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fields, carrying a double barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. After lying in wait
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an hour or so, he saw a doe and her fawn jump the fence
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and come cautiously into the wheat after they were within sixty or seventy yards of
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him. He was surprised when he tried to take aim that about half of
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the moon's disk was mysteriously darkened, as if covered by the edge of a
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dense cloud. This proved to be an eclipse. Nevertheless, he fired at
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the mother, and she immediately ran off, jumped the fence, and took
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to the woods by the way she came. The fawn danced about, bewildered,
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wondering what had become of its mother, but finally fled to the woods.
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David fired at the poor deserted thing as it ran past him, but
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happily missed it. Hearing the shots, I joined David to learn his luck.
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He said he thought he must have wounded the mother, And when we
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were strolling about in the woods in search of her, we saw three or
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four deer on their way to the wheat field, led by a fine buck.
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They were walking rapidly, but cautiously halted at intervals of a few rods
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to listen and look ahead and scent the air. They failed to notice us,
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though by this time the moon was out of the eclipse shadow, and
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we were standing only about fifty yards from them. I was carrying the gun.
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David had fired both barrels, but when he was reloading one of them,
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he happened to put the wad intended to cover the shot into the empty
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barrel, and so when we were climbing over the fence, the buckshot had
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rolled out, and when I fired at the big buck, I knew by
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the report that there was nothing but powder in the charge. The startled deer
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danced about in confusion for a few seconds, uncertain which way to run,
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until they caught sight of us. When they bounded off through the woods.
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Next morning we found the poor mother lying about three hundred yards from the place
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where she was shot. She had run this distance and jumped a high fence
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after one of the buckshots had passed through her heart. Excepting Sundays, we
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boys had only two days of the year to ourselves, the fourth of July
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and the first of January. Sundays were less than half our own on account
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of Bible lessons, Sunday school lessons and church services. All the others were
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labor days, rain or shine, cold or warm. No wonder then that
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our two holidays were precious, and that it was not easy to decide what
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to do with them. They were usually spent on the highest rocky hill in
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the neighborhood called the Observatory, in visiting our boy friends on adjacent farms to
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hunt fish, wrestle and play games, in reading some new favorite book we
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had managed to borrow or buy, or in making models of machines I had
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invented. One of our July days was spent with two Scotch boys of our
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own own age hunting red winged blackbirds, then busy in the corn fields.
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Our party had only one single barreled shotgun, which as the oldest and perhaps
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because I was thought to be the best shot, I had the honor of
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carrying. We marched through the corn without getting sight of his single red wing.
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But just as we reached the far side of the field, a red
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headed woodpecker flew up, and the lawson boys cried, shoot him, shoot
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him. He is just as bad as the blackbird he eats corn. This
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memorable woodpecker alighted in the top of a white oak tree about fifty feet high.
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I fired from a position almost immediately beneath him, and he fell straight
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down at my feet. When I picked him up and was admiring his plumage,
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he moved his legs slightly, and I said, poor bird, he's
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no dead yet, and will have to kill him to put him out of
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pain, sincerely pitying him. After we had taken pleasure in shooting him,
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I had seen servant girls ringing chicken necks, so with desperate humanity, I
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took the limp unfortunate by the head, swung him around three or four times,
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thinking I was wringing his neck, and then threw him hard on the
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ground to quench the last possible spark of life and make quick death doubly sure.
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But to our astonishment, the moment he struck the ground. He gave
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a cry of alarm and flew right straight up, like a rejoicing lark,
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into the top of the same tree, and perhaps to the same branch he
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had fallen from, and began to adjust his ruffled feathers, nodding and chirping,
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and looking down at us, as if wondering what in the bird world
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we had been doing to him. This of course banished all thought of killing
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as far as that revived woodpecker was concerned, no matter how many ears of
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corn he might spoil, and we all heartily congratulated him on his wonderful,
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triumphant resurrection from three kinds of death, shooting, neck ringing, and destructive
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concussion. I suppose only one pellet had touched him, glancing on his head.
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Another extraordinary shooting affair happened one summer morning, shortly after daybreak. When
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I went to the stable to feed the horses, I noticed a big,
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white breasted hawk on a tall oak in front of the chicken house, evidently
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waiting for a chicken breakfast. I ran to the house for the gun,
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and when I fired, he fell about half way down the tree, caught
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a branch with his claws hung back downward and fluttered a few seconds, then
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managed to stand erect. I fired again to put him out of pain,
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and to my surprise, the second shot seemed to restore his strength instead of
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killing him, for he flew out of the tree and over the meadow with
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strong and regular wing beats for thirty or forty rods, apparently as well as
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ever, but died suddenly in the air and dropped like a stone. We
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hunted muskrats whenever we had time to run down to the lake. They are
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brown, bunchy animals about twenty three inches long, the tail being about nine
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inches in length, black in color and flattened vertically for sculling, and the
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hind feet are half webbed. They look like little beavers. Usually have from
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ten to a dozen young are easily tamed and make interesting pets. We like
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to watch them at their work and at their meals. In the spring,
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when the snow vanishes and the lake ice begins to melt, the first open
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spot is always used as a feeding place, where they dive from the edge
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of the ice and in a minute or less reappear with a mussel or a
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mouthful of pontederia or water lily. Leaves, climb back onto the ice and
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sit up to nibble their food, handling it very much like squirrels or marmots.
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It is then that they are most easily shot a solitary hunter, oftentimes
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shooting thirty or forty in a single day. Their nests on the rushy margins
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of lakes and streams, far from being hidden like those of most birds,
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are conspicuously large and conical in shape. Like Indian wigwams, they are built
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of plants, rushes, sedges, mosses, etc. And ornamented around the
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base with mussel shells. It was always pleasant and interesting to see them in
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the fall, as soon as the nights began to be frosty, hard at
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work cutting sedges on the edge of the meadow, or swimming out through the
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rushes, making long, glittering ripples as they sculd themselves along, diving where
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the water is perhaps six or eight feet deep, and reappearing in a minute
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or so with large mouthfuls of the weedy, tangled plants gathered from the bottom,
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returning to their big wigwams, climbing up and depositing their loads where most
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needed to make them yet larger and firmer and warmer, foreseeing the freezing weather,
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just like ourselves when we banked up our house to keep out the frost.
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They lie snug and invisible all winter, but do not hibernate through a
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channel carefully kept open. They swim out under the ice for mussels and the
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roots and stems of water lilies, et cetera, on which they feed,
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just as they do in summer. Sometimes the oldest and most enterprising of them
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venture to orchards near the water in search of fallen apples. Very seldom,
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however, do they interfere with anything belonging to their mortal enemy man. Notwithstanding
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they are so well hidden and protected during the winter, many of them are
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killed by Indian hunters, who creep up softly and spear them through the thick
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walls of their cabins. Indians are fond of their flesh, and so are
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some of the wildest of the white trappers. They are easily caught in steel
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traps, and after vainly trying to drag their feet from the cruel crushing jaws,
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they sometimes, in their agony, gnaw them off. Even after having
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gnaw off a leg. They are so guileless that they never seem to learn
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to know and fear traps, for some of them are occasionally found that have
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been caught twice and have not off a second foot. Many other animals suffer
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for an excruciating pain in these cruel traps gnaw off their legs. Crabs and
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lobsters are so fortunate as to be able to shed their limbs when caught or
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merely frightened, apparently without suffering any pain, simply by giving themselves a little
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shivery shake. The muskrat is one of the most notable and widely distributed of
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American animals, and millions of the gentle industrious beaver like creatures are shot and
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trapped and speared every season for their skins with a dime or so, like
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shooting boys and girls for their garments. Surely a better time must be drawing
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nigh when godlike human beings will become truly humane and learn to put their animal
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fellow mortals in their hearts instead of on their backs or in their dinners.
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In the meantime, we may just as well as not learn to live clean,
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innocent lives instead of slimy, bloody ones. All hail red blooded boys
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are savage. The best and boldest the savagest font of hunting and fishing.
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But when thoughtless childhood is past, the best rise the highest. Above all
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this bloody flesh and sport business, the wild, foundational animal, dying out
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day by day as divine, uplifting, transfiguring charity grows in. Hares and
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rabbits were seldom seen when we first settled in the Wisconsin woods, but they
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multiplied rapidly after the animals that preyed upon them had been thinned out or exterminated,
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and food and shelters supplied in grain fields and log fences, and the
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thickets of young oaks that grew up in pastures after the annual grass fires were
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kept out. Catching hares in the winter time, when they were hidden in
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hollow fence logs was a favorite pastime with many of the boys whose fathers allowed
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them time to enjoy the sport. Occasionally, a stout lithe hair was carried
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out into an open, snow covered field, set free, and given a
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chance for its life in a race with a dog. When the snow was
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not too soft and deep, it usually made good its escape, for our
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dogs were only fat, short legged mongrels. We sometimes discovered hares in standing
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hollow trees, crouching on decayed punky wood at the bottom as far back as
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possible from the opening, but when alarmed, they managed to climb to a
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considerable height if the hollow was not too wide, by bracing themselves against the
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sides. Foxes, though not uncommon. We boys held steadily to work,
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seldom saw and as they found plenty of prairie chickens for themselves and families,
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they did not often come near the farmers hen roosts. Nevertheless, the discovery
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of their dens was considered important. No matter how deep the den might be.
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It was thoroughly explored with pick and shovel by sport loving settlers at a
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time when they judged the fox was likely to be at home. But I
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cannot remember any case in our neighborhood where the fox was actually captured in one
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of the dens. A mile or two from our farm. A lot of
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prairie chickens were found, and some smaller birds. Badger dens were far more
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common than fox dens. One of our fields was named Badger Hill from the
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number of badger holes in a hill at the end of it, but I
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cannot remember seeing a single one of the inhabitants. On a stormy day in
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the middle of an unusually severe winter, a black bear, hungry, no
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doubt, and seeking something to eat, came strolling down through our neighborhood from
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the northern pine woods. None had been seen here before, and it caused
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no little excitement and alarm for the European settlers, imagined that these poor,
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timid, bashful bears were as dangerous as man eating lions and tigers, and
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that they would pursue any human being that came in their way. This species
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is common in the north part of the state, and few of our enterprising
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Yankee hunters who went to the pineries in the fall failed to shoot at least
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one of them. We saw very little of the owlish, serious looking coons,
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and no wonder since they lie hidden nearly all day in hollow trees and
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we never had time to hunt them. We often heard their curious, quavering,
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whinnying cries on still evenings, but only once succeeded in tracing an unfortunate
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family through our cornfield to their den in a big oak and catching them all.
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One of our neighbors, mister mc rath, a Highland scotchman, caught
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one and made a pet of it. It became very tame and had perfect
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confidence in the good intentions of its kind friend and master. He always addressed
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it in speaking to it as a little man. When it came running to
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him and jumped on his lap or climbed up his trousers, he would say,
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while patting its head, as if it were a dog or a child.
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Cooney, mamany, cooney ma maany, how are ye the day?
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I think you're hungry? As the comical pet began to examine his pockets were
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nuts and bits of bread. Nah, Nah, there's nothing in my pooch
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for ye the day, my ween manny, But I'll get ye something.
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He would then fetch something it liked, bread, nuts, a carrot,
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or perhaps a piece of fresh meat. Anything scattered for it on the floor
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it felt with its paw instead of looking at it, judging of its worth
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more by touch than sight. The outlet of our fountain lake flowed past mister
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mc grath's door, and the coon was very fond of swimming in it and
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searching for frogs and mussels. It seemed perfectly satisfied to stay about the house
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without being confined occupied a comfortable bed in a section of a hollow tree,
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and never wandered far. How long it lived after the death of its kind
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master, I don't know. I suppose that almost any wild animal may be
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made a pet simply by sympathizing with it and entering as much as possible into
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its life. In Alaska, I saw one of the common gray mountain marmots
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kept as a pet in an Indian family. When its master entered the house,
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it always seemed glad, almost like a dog, and when cold or
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tired, it snuggled up in a fold of its blanket with the utmost confidence.
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We have all heard of ferocious animals lions and tigers, et cetera,
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that were fed and spoken to only by their masters, becoming perfectly tame,
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and as is well known, the faithful dog that follows man and serves him,
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and looks up to him and loves him as if he were a god
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is a descendant of the bloodthirsty wolf or jackal. Even frogs and toads and
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fishes may be tamed, provided they have the uniform sympathy of one person with
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whom they become intimately acquainted, without the distracting and varying attentions of strangers,
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and surely all God's people, however serious and savage, great or small,
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like to play. Quails and elephants, dancing, humming gnats and invisibly small
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mischievous microbes all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in
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them. As far as I know, all wild creatures keep themselves clean.
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Birds, it seems to me take more pains to bathe and dress themselves than
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any other animals. Even ducks, though living so much in water, dip
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and scatter, cleansing showers over their backs, and shake and preen their feathers
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as carefully as land birds. Watching small singers taking their morning baths is very
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interesting, particularly when the weather is cold. Alighting in a shallow pool,
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they oftentimes show a sort of dread of dipping into it, like children hesitating
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about taking a plunge, as if they felt the same kind of shock,
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And this makes it easy for us to sympathize with the little feathered people.
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Occasionally I have seen from my study window red headed linnets bathing in dew when
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water elsewhere was scarce. A large moderation cypress with broad branches and innumerable leaves
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on which the dew lodges in still nights made favorite bathing places, alighting gently,
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as if afraid to waste the dew. They would pause and fidget,
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as they do before beginning to plash in pools, then dip and scatter the
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drops in showers, and get as thorough a bath as they would in a
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pool. I have also seen the same kind of baths taken by birds on
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the boughs of silver firs on the edge of a glacier meadow. But nowhere
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have I seen the dew drop so abundant as on the Monterey cypress, and
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the picture made by the quivering wings and iris dew was memorably beautiful. Children
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too, make fine pictures plashing and crowing in their little tubs, how widely
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different from wallowing pigs bathing with great show of comfort and rubbing themselves dry against
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rough bark trees. Some of our own species seemed fairly to dread the touch
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of water. One, then, the sound of absolute cleanliness by means of
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frequent baths, was being preached by a friend who had been reading Combe's Physiology,
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in which he had learned something of the wonders of the skin, with
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its millions of pores that had to be kept open for health. One of
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our neighbors remarked, Oh, that's unnatural. It's well enough to wash in
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a tub maybe once or twice a year, but not to be paddling in
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the water all the time like a frog in a spring hole. Another neighbor,
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who prided himself on his knowledge of big words, said, with great
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solemnity, I never can believe that man is amphibious. Natives of tropic islands
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pass a large part of their lives in water, and seem as much at
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home in the sea as on the land. Swim and dive pursue fishes,
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play in the waves like surf ducks and seals, and explore the coral gardens
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and groves and seaweed meadows as if truly amphibious. Even the natives of the
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far North baye at times. I once saw a lot of Eskimo boys ducking
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and plashing right merrily in the Arctic ocean. It seemed very wonderful to us
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that the wild animals could keep themselves warm and strong in winter when the temperature
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was far below zero. Feeble looking rabbits scud away over the snow lithe and
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elastic, as if gloring in the frosty, sparkling weather, and sure of
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their dinners. I have seen gray squirrels dragging ears of corn about as heavy
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as themselves out of our field, through loose snow and up a tree,
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balancing them on limbs, and eating in comfort, with their dry electric tails
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spread airily over their backs. Once I saw a fine hearty fellow go into
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a knothole, thrusting in my hand, I caught him and pulled him out.
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As soon as he guessed what I was up to, he took the
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end of my thumb in his mouth and sunk his teeth right through it.
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But I gripped him hard by the neck, carried him home and shut him
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up in a box that contained about half a bushel of hazel and hickory nuts,
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hoping that he would not be too much frightened and discouraged to eat while
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thus imprisoned after the rough handling he had suffered. I soon learned, however,
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that sympathy in this direction was wasted, for no sooner did I pop
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him in than he fell to with right hearty appetite, gnawing and munching the
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nuts as if he had gathered them himself, and was very hungry that day.
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Therefore, after allowing time enough for a good square meal, I made
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haste to get him out of the nut box and shut him up in a
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spare bedroom in which father had hung a lot of selected ears of Indian corn
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for seed. They were hung up by the husks on cords stretched across from
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side to side of the room. The squirrel managed to jump from the top
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of one of the bedposts to the cord, cut off an ear and let
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it drop to the floor. He then jumped down, got a good grip
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of the heavy ear, carried it to the top of one of the slippery
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polished bedposts, seated himself comfortably, and holding it well balanced, deliberately cried
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out one kernel at a time. With his long chisel teeth, ate the
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soft sweet germ and dropped the hard part of the kernel. In this masterly
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way, working at high speed, he demolished several ears a day, and,
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with a good warm bed in a box, made himself at home and
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grew fat. Then, naturally, I suppose free romping in the snow and
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tree tops with companions came to mind. Anyhow, he began to look for
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a way of escape. Of course, he first tried the window, but
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found that his teeth made no impression on the glass. Next he tried the
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sash and gnawed the wood off level with the glass. Then father happened to
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come upstairs and discover the mischief that was being done to his seed, corn
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and window, and immediately ordered him out of the house. The flying squirrel
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was one of the most interesting of the little animals we found in the woods.
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A beautiful brown creature with fine eyes and smooth, soft fur like that
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of a mole or field mouse. He is about half as long as the
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gray squirrel, but his wide spread tail and the folds of skin along his
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sides that form the wings make him look broad and flat, something like a
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kite. In the evenings, our cat often brought them to her kittens at
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the shanty, and later we saw them fly during the day from the trees
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we were chopping. They jumped and glided off smoothly and apparently without effort,
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like birds, as soon as they heard and felt the breaking shock of the
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strained fibers at the stump. When the trees they were in began to totter
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and groan. They can fly, or rather glide twenty or thirty yards from
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the top of a tree twenty or thirty feet to the foot of another,
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gliding upward. As they reached the trunk, or if the distance is too
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great, they alight comfortably on the ground and make haste to the nearest tree
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and climb, just like the wingless squirrels. Every boy and girl loves the
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little fairy airy striped chipmunk, half squirrel, half spermophile. He is about
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the size of a field mouse and often made us think of linnets and song
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sparrows as he frisked about gathering nuts and berries. He likes almost all kinds
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of grain, berries and nuts, hazel nuts, hickory nuts, strawberries,
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huckleberries, wheat oats, corn. He is fond of them all and thrives
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on them. Most of the hazel bushes on our farm grew along the fences
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as if they had been planted for the chipmunks alone, for the rail fences
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were their favorite highways. We never wearied watching them, especially when the hazel
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nuts were ripe and the little fellows were sitting on the rails, nibbling and
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handling them like tree squirrels. We used to notice too, that although they
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are very neat animals. Their lips and fingers were dyed red like our own.
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When the strawberries and huckleberries were ripe. We could always tell when the
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wheat and oats were in the milk by seeing the chipmunks feeding on the ears.
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They kept nibbling at the wheat until it was harvested, and then gleamed
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in the stubble, keeping up a careful watch for their enemies, dogs,
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hawks, and shrikes. They are as widely distributed over the continent as the
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squirrels, various species inhabiting different regions on the mountains and lowlands, but all
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the different kinds have the same general characteristics of light, airy, cheerfulness,
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and good nature. Before the arrival of farmers in the Wisconsin woods, the
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small ground squirrels called gophers lived chiefly on the seeds of wild grasses and weeds,
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But after the country was cleared and plowed, no feasting animal fell two
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more heartily on the farmers wheat and corn. Increasing rapidly in numbers and knowledge,
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they became very destructive, especially in the spring when the corn was planted,
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for they learned to trace the rose and dig up and eat the three
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or four seeds in each hill about as fast as the poor farmers could cover
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them, and unless great pains were taken to diminish the numbers of the cunning
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little robbers, the fields had to be planted two or three times over,
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and even then large gaps in the rows would be found. The loss of
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the grain they consumed after it was ripe, together with the winter stores laid
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up in their burrows, amounted to little as compared with the loss of the
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seed on which the whole crop depended. One evening about sundown, when my
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father sent me out with a shot gun to hunt them in a stubble field,
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I learned something curious and interesting in connection with these mischievous gophers, though
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just then they were doing no harm. As I strolled through the stubble watching
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for a chance for a shot, a shrike flew past me and alighted on
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an open spot at the mouth of a burrow about thirty yards ahead of me.
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Curious to see what he was up to, I stood still to watch
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him. He looked down the gopher hole in a listening attitude, then looked
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back at me to see if I was coming, looked down again and listened
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and looked back at me. I stood perfectly still, and he kept twitching
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his tail, seeming uneasy and doubtful about venturing to do the savage job that
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I soon learned he had in mind. Finally, encouraged by my keeping so
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still, to my astonishment, he suddenly vanished in the gopher hole. A
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bird going down a deep, narrow hole in the ground like a ferret or
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a weasel seemed very strange, and I thought it would be a fine thing
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to run forward, clap my hand over the hole, and have the fun
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of imprisoning him and seeing what he would do when he tried to get out.
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So I ran forward, but stopped when I got within a dozen or
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fifteen yards of the hole, thinking it might perhaps be more interesting to wait
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and see what would naturally happen without my interference. While I stood there,
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looking and listening, I heard a great disturbance going on in the burrow,
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A mixed lot of keen, squeaking, shrieking, distressful cries, telling that
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down in the dark something terrible was being done. Then suddenly out popped a
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half grown gopher, four and a half or five inches long, and without
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stopping a single moment to choose a way of escape, ran screaming through the
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stubble straight away from its home, quickly followed by another and another, until
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some half dozen were driven out, all of them crying and running in different
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directions, as if at this dreadful time, Home sweet home was the most
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dangerous and least desirable of any place in the wide world. Then out came
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the shrike, flew above the runaway gopher children, and, diving on them,
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killed them one after another with blows at the back of the skull.
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He then seized one of them, dragged it to the top of a small
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clod so as to be able to get a start, and laboriously made out
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to fly with it about ten or fifteen yards when he alighted to rest.
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Then he dragged it to the top of another clod and flew with it about
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the same distance, repeating this hard work over and over again until he managed
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to get one of the gophers on to the top of a log fence.
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How much he eight of his hard won prey, or what he did with
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the others, I can't tell, for by this time the sun was down,
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and I had to hurry home to my chores. End of Chapter five