Part 6 (1/2)

Well, no matter about that. The Mississippi pond was in sight, and she was just slanting down toward the water, when a hunter fired at her from behind a clump of trees. His aim was all too true, and she fell headlong to the ground, with a broken wing dangling helplessly at her side.

Now, as you probably know, a loon isn't built for running. There is an old story, one which certainly has the appearance of truth, to the effect that when Nature manufactured the first of these birds she forgot to give him any legs at all, and that he had started off on the wing before she noticed her mistake. Then she picked up the first pair that came to hand and threw them after him. Unfortunately they were a misfit, and, what was, perhaps, still worse, they struck his body in the wrong place. They were so very short and so very far aft that, although he could stand nearly as straight as a man, it was almost impossible for him to move about on them. When he had to travel on land, which he always avoided as far as he could, he generally shoved himself along on his breast, and often used his wings and his bill to help himself forward. All his descendants are just like him, so you can see that the widow's chances were pretty small, with the hunter bursting out of the bushes, and a broad strip of beach between her and the friendly pond.

But she was a person of resource and energy, and in this great emergency she literally rose to the occasion, and did something that she had never done before in all her life, and probably will never do again. The astonished hunter saw her lift herself until she stood nearly upright, and then actually _run_ across the beach toward the water. She was leaning forward a trifle, her long neck was stretched out, her two short legs were trotting as fast as they could go, and her one good wing was wildly waving in a frantic endeavor to get on. It was a sight that very few people have ever seen, and it would have been comical if it hadn't been a matter of life and death. The hunter was hard after her, and his legs were a yard long, while hers were only a few inches, so it was not surprising that he caught her just as she reached the margin. She wriggled out of his grasp and dashed on through the shallow water, and he followed close behind. In a moment he stooped and made another grab at her, and this time he got his arms around her body and pinned her wings down against her sides. But he had waded out a little too far, and had reached the place where the bottom suddenly shelves off from fifteen inches to seventy-two. His foot slipped, and in another moment he was splas.h.i.+ng wildly about in the water, and the loon was free.

A broken wing is not necessarily as serious a matter as you might suppose. The cold water kept the inflammation down, and it seemed as if all the vital forces of her strong, healthy body set to work at once to repair the damage. If any comparative anatomist ever gets hold of the widow and dissects her, he will find a curious swelling in the princ.i.p.al bone of her left wing, like a plumber's join in a lead pipe, and he will know what it means. It is the place where Nature soldered the broken pieces together. And it was while Nature was engaged in this soldering operation that Mahng arrived and began to cultivate the widow's acquaintance.

”_In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast,_”

and in the spring the loon puts on his wedding-garment, and his fancy, like the young man's, ”lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

But speaking of Mahng's wedding-garment reminds me that I haven't told you about his winter dress. His back and wings were very dark-brown, and his breast and under-parts were white. His head and the upper portion of his neck were black; his bill was black, or blackish, and so were his feet. His coat was very thick and warm, and his legs were feathered right down to the heel-joint. More than five feet his wings stretched from tip to tip, and he weighed at least twelve pounds, and would be still larger before he died.

As to his nuptial finery, its groundwork was much the same, but its tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs were different and were very elegant. White spots appeared all over his back and the upper surfaces of his wings, some of them round, and some square. They were not thrown on carelessly, but were arranged in gracefully curving lines, and they quite changed his appearance, especially if one were as near him as one is supposed to be during a courting. His spring neckwear, too, was in exceedingly good taste, for he put on a sort of collar of very narrow vertical stripes, contrasting beautifully with the black around and between them. Higher up on his neck and head the deep black feathers gleamed and shone in the sunlight with brilliant irridescent tints of green and violet. He was a very handsome bird.

And now everything was going north. The sun was going north, the wind was going north, the birds were going, and summer herself was sweeping up from the tropics as fast as ever she could travel. Mahng was getting very restless. A dozen times a day he would spread his wings and beat the air furiously, das.h.i.+ng the spray in every direction, and almost lifting his heavy body out of the water. But the time was not yet come, and presently he would fold his pinions and go back to his courting.

Do you think he was very inconstant? Do you blame him for not being more faithful to the memory of the bird who was shot at his side only a few months before? Don't be too hard on him. What can a loon do when the springtime calls and the wind blows fresh and strong, when the new strong wine of life is coursing madly through his veins, and when his dreams are all of the vernal flight to the lonely northland, where the water is cold and the fish are good, and where there are such delightful nesting-places around the marshy ponds?

But how did his new friend feel about it? Would she go with him? Ah!

Wouldn't she? Had not she, too, put on a wedding-garment just like his?

And what was she there for, anyhow, if not to be wooed, and to find a mate, and to fly away with him a thousand miles to the north, and there, beside some lonely little lake, brood over her eggs and her young? Her wing was gaining strength all the time, and at last she was ready. You should have heard them laugh when the great day came and they pulled out for Michigan--Mahng a little in the lead, as became the larger and stronger, and his new wife close behind. There had been nearly a week of cooler weather just before the start, which had delayed them a little, but now the south wind was blowing again, and over and over it seemed to say,

”_And we go, go, go away from here!

On the other side the world we're overdue!

'Send the road lies clear before you When the old Spring-fret comes o'er you, And the Red G.o.ds call for you._”

And the road was clear, and they went. Up, and up, and up; higher and higher, till straight ahead, stretching away to the very edge of the world, lay league after league of suns.h.i.+ne and air, only waiting the stroke of their wings. Now steady, steady! Beat, beat, beat! And the old earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour! No soaring--their wings were too short for that sort of work--and no quick wheeling to right or left, but hurtling on with whizzing pinions and eager eyes, straight toward the goal. Was it any wonder that they were happy, and that joyful shouts and wild peals of laughter came ringing down from the sky to tell us poor earthbound men and women that somewhere up in the blue, beyond the reach of our short-sighted eyes, the loons were hurrying home?

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_The old earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour._”]

Over the fresh fields, green with the young wheat; over the winding rivers and the smiling lakes; over the--shut your eyes, and dream a little while, and see if you can imagine what it was like. Does it make you wish you were a loon yourself? Never mind; some day, perhaps, we too shall take our wedding-journeys in the air; not on feathered pinions, but with throbbing engines and whizzing wheels, and with all the power of steam or electricity to lift us and bear us onward. We shall skim the prairies and leap the mountains, and roam over the ocean like the wandering albatross. To-day we shall breathe the warm, spicy breath of the tropic islands, and to-morrow we shall sight the white gleam of the polar ice-pack. When the storm gathers we shall mount above it, and looking down we shall see the lightning leap from cloud to cloud, and the rattling thunder will come upward, not downward, to our ears. When the world below is steeped in the shadows of coming night, we shall still watch the sunset trailing its glories over the western woods and mountains; and when morning breaks we shall be the first to welcome the sunrise as it comes rus.h.i.+ng up from the east a thousand miles an hour. The wind of the upper heavens will be pure and keen and strong, and not even a sleigh-ride on a winter's night can set the live blood dancing as it will dance and tingle up there above the clouds. And riding on the air, alone with the roaring engines that have become for the time a part of ourselves, we shall know at last what our earth is really like, for we shall see it as the loons see it--yes, as G.o.d and His angels see it--this old earth, on which we have lived for so many thousand years, and yet have never seen.

But, after all, the upper heavens will not be home; and some day, as we shoot northward, or southward, or eastward, or westward, we shall see beneath us the spot that is to be for us the best and dearest place in all the world, and dropping down out of the blue we shall find something that is even better than riding on the wings of the wind. That was what happened to Mahng and his wife, for one spring evening, as they came rus.h.i.+ng over the pine-tops and the maples and birches, they saw the Glimmergla.s.s just ahead. The water lay like polished steel in the fading light, and the brown ranks of the still leafless trees stood dark and silent around the sh.o.r.es. It was very quiet, and very, very lonely; and the lake and the woods seemed waiting and watching for something. And into that stillness and silence the loons came with shouting and laughter, sweeping down on a long slant, and hitting the water with a splash. The echoes awoke and the Glimmergla.s.s was alive, and summer had come to the northland.

They chose a place where the sh.o.r.e was low and marshy, and there, only two or three yards from the water's edge, they built a rude nest of gra.s.s and weeds and lily-pads. Two large greenish eggs, blotched with dark-brown, lay in its hollow; and the wife sat upon them week after week, and covered them with the warm feathers of her broad, white breast. Once in a while she left them long enough to stretch her wings in a short flight, or to dive in search of a fish, but she was never gone very long. It was a weary vigil that she kept, but she sat there in daylight and darkness, through suns.h.i.+ne and storm, till at last the day came when there were four loons instead of two at the Glimmergla.s.s.

The chicks were very smart and active, and they took to the water almost as soon as they were out of the sh.e.l.l, swimming and diving as if they had been accustomed to it for weeks instead of hours. In some ways, however, they required a good deal of care. For one thing, their little stomachs were not quite equal to the task of a.s.similating raw fish, and the parents had to swallow all their food for them, keep it down till it was partly digested, and then pa.s.s it up again to the hungry children.

It made a good deal of delay, and it must have been very unpleasant, but it seemed to be the only practicable way of dealing with the situation.

I am glad to say that it did not last very long, for by the time they were two weeks old the young loons were able to take their fish and reptiles and insects at first hand.

When they first arrived the chicks were covered all over with stiff down, of a dark, sooty gray on their backs, and white underneath. But this did not last long, either. The first feathers soon appeared, and multiplied rapidly. I can't say that the young birds were particularly handsome, for even when their plumage was complete it was much quieter and duller of hue than their parents'. But they were fat and plump, and I think they thoroughly enjoyed life, especially before they discovered that there were enemies as well as friends in the world. That was a kind of knowledge that could not be avoided very long, however. They soon learned that men, and certain other animals such as hawks and skunks, were to be carefully shunned; and you should have seen them run on the water whenever a suspicious-looking character hove in sight. Their wings were not yet large enough for flying, but they flapped them with all their might, and scampered across the Glimmergla.s.s so fast that their little legs fairly twinkled, and they actually left a furrow in the water behind them. But the bottom of the lake was really the safest refuge, and if a boat or a canoe pressed them too closely they would usually dive below the surface, while the older birds tried to lure the enemy off in some other direction by calling and shouting and making all sorts of demonstrations.

Generally these tactics were successful, but not always. Once some boys cornered the whole family in a small, shallow bay, where the water was not deep enough for diving; and before they could escape one of the youngsters was driven up onto the beach. He tried to hide behind a log, but he was captured and earned off, and I wish I had time to tell you of all the things that happened to him before he was finally killed and eaten by a dog. It was pretty tough on the old birds, as well as on him, but they still had one chick left, and you can't expect to raise _all_ your children as long as bigger people are so fond of kidnapping and killing them.

Not all the people who came to see them were bent on mischief, however.

There was a party of girls and boys, for instance, who camped beside the Glimmergla.s.s for a few weeks, and who liked to follow them around the lake in a row-boat and imitate their voices, just for the fun of making them talk back. One girl in particular became so accomplished in the loon language that Mahng would often get very much excited as he conversed with her, and would sometimes let the boat creep nearer and nearer until they were only a few rods apart. And then, all of a sudden, he would duck his head and go under, perhaps in the very middle of a laugh. The siren was getting a little too close. Her intentions might possibly be all right, but it was just as well to be on the safe side.

The summer was nearly gone, and now Mahng did something which I fear you will strongly disapprove. I didn't want to tell you about it, but I suppose I must. Two or three male loons pa.s.sed over the Glimmergla.s.s one afternoon, calling and shouting as they went, and he flew up and joined them, and came back no more that summer. It looked like a clear case of desertion, but we must remember that he had stood by his wife all through the trying period of the spring and early summer, and that the time was at hand when the one chick that was left would go out into the world to paddle his own canoe, and when she would no longer need his help in caring for a family of young children. But you think he might have stayed with her, anyhow? Well, so do I; I'm sorry he didn't. They say that his cousins, the Red-throated Loons, marry for life, and live together from the wedding-day till death, and I don't see why he couldn't have done as well as they. But it doesn't seem to be the custom among the Great Northern Divers. Mahng was only following the usual practice of his kind, and if his first wife had not been shot it is likely that they would have separated before they had gone very far south. And yet it does not follow that the marriage was not a love-match. If you had seen them at their housekeeping I think you would have p.r.o.nounced him a very good husband and father. Perhaps the conjugal happiness of the spring and early summer was all the better for a taste of solitude during the rest of the year.