Part 34 (1/2)
”The colts!” exclaimed Halse, forgetting the eagle. ”Dead!”
The big bird raised its head, then rose into the air with mighty flaps and sailed away. We watched it glide off along the ridge, and saw it alight in an oak, the branches of which bent and swayed beneath its weight.
”All dead!” cried Halstead, gazing around. ”Isn't that hard!”
The eagle had been tearing at their tongues, which protruded as they lay on the ground. There was a strong odor from the carca.s.ses.
”Been dead some time,” Halse exclaimed. ”What killed them?”
We examined them attentively. Not the slightest mark, nor wound, could be detected. But a lot of fresh splinters lay at the foot of the pine stub, close by them.
”Must have been lightning,” I said, glancing up. ”That's just what it was! They were struck during that big shower.”
We went to the house with the unwelcome tidings. At first the folks would scarcely believe our account. Then there were rueful looks.
”Ah, those pine stubs ought to have been cut down,” exclaimed the Old Squire. ”Dangerous things to be left standing in pastures!”
Later in the day we took shovels and went to the pasture, with Asa Doane, to bury the dead animals. While this was going on, the eagle came back and sailed about, high overhead.
”Leave one carca.s.s above ground,” said Asa. ”That old chap will light here again. You can shoot him then, or catch him in a trap.”
So we left Black Hawk unburied, and bringing over an old fox-trap, fastened a large stick of wood to it and set it near. During the day we saw the eagle hovering about the spot, also a great flock of crows, cawing noisily, and next morning when we went over to see if any of them had got into the trap, both trap and stick were gone.
”Must have been the eagle,” said Addison. ”A crow could never have carried off that trap!” But as neither trap nor eagle was anywhere in sight, we concluded that we had lost the game.
Several days pa.s.sed, when one morning we heard a pow-wow of crows down in the valley beyond the Little Sea. A flock of them were circling about a tree-top, charging into it.
”Owl, or else a racc.o.o.n, I guess,” said Addison. ”Crows are always hectoring owls and 'c.o.o.ns whenever they happen to spy one out by day.”
Thinking that perhaps we might get a 'c.o.o.n, we took the gun and went down there. But on coming near, instead of a racc.o.o.n, lo! there was our lost eagle, perched in the tree-top, with a hundred crows scolding and flapping him. He saw us, and started up as if to fly off, but fell back, and we heard a chain clank.
”Hard and fast in that trap!” exclaimed Addison. The stick and trap had caught among the branches. The big bird was a prisoner. We wished to take him alive, but to climb a tall ba.s.swood, and bring down an eagle strong enough to carry off a twelve-pound clog and trap, was not a feat to be rashly undertaken. Addison was obliged to shoot the bird before climbing after him. It was a fine, fierce-looking eagle, measuring nearly six feet from tip to tip of its wings. Its beak was hooked and very strong, and its claws an inch and a half long, curved and exceedingly sharp.
Addison deemed it a great prize, for it was not a common bald eagle, but a much darker bird. After reading his Audubon, he p.r.o.nounced it a Golden Eagle and wrote a letter describing its capture, which was published in several New York papers. Gramp gave him all the following day to ”mount” the eagle as a specimen. In point of fact, he was nearer three days preparing it. It looked very well when he had it done. I remember only that its legs were feathered down to the feet.
CHAPTER XX
CEDAR BROOMS AND A n.o.bLE STRING OF TROUT
It was a part of Gram's household creed, that the wood-house and carriage-house could be properly swept only with a cedar broom. Brooms made of cedar boughs, bound to a broom-stick with a gray tow string, were the kind in use when she and Gramp began life together; and although she had accepted corn brooms in due course, for house work, the cedar broom still held a warm corner in her heart. ”A nice new cedar broom is the best thing in the world to take up all the dust and to brush out all the nooks and corners,” she used to say to Theodora and Ellen; and when, at stated intervals, it became necessary, in her opinion, to clean the wood-house and other out-buildings, or the cellar, she would generally preface the announcement by saying to them at the breakfast table, ”You must get me some broom-stuff, to-day, some of that green cedar down in the swamp below the pasture. I want enough for two or three brooms. Sprig off a good lot of it and get the sprigs of a size to tie on good.”
The girls liked the trip, for it gave them an opportunity to gather checkerberries, pull ”young ivies,” search for ”twin sisters” and see the woods, birds and squirrels, with a chance of espying an owl in the swamp, or a hawk's nest in some big tree; or perhaps a rabbit, or a mink along the brook.
If they could contrive to get word of their trip to Catherine Edwards and she could find time to accompany them, so much the more pleasant; for Catherine was better acquainted with the woods and possessed that practical knowledge of all rural matters which only a bright girl, bred in the country with a taste for rambling about, ever acquires.
A morning proclamation to gather broom-stuff having been issued at about this time, the three girls set off an hour or two after dinner for the east pasture; Mrs. Edwards, who was a very kind, easy-going woman, nearly always allowed Catherine to accompany our girls. Kate, in fact, did about as she liked at home, not from indulgence on the part of her mother so much as from being a leading spirit in the household. She was very quick at work; and her mother, instead of having to prompt her, generally found her going ahead, hurrying about to get everything done early in the day. Then, too, she was quick-witted and knew how to take care of herself when out from home. Mrs. Edwards always appeared to treat Kate more as an equal than a daughter. There are children who are spoiled if allowed to have their own way, and others who can be trusted to take their own way without the least danger of injury, and whom it is but an ill-natured exercise of authority to restrict to rules.
The Old Squire was breaking greensward in the south field that afternoon with Addison and Halse driving the team which consisted of a yoke of oxen and two yokes of steers, the latter not as yet very well ”broken”