Part 4 (1/2)

You ought to see the tiny seed ”birds” from the gray birches, scattering on the autumn winds; the thistledown, too; and a dozen other of the winged, and plumed, and ballooned, seeds that sail on the wings of the winds. You should see the burdock burs in the cows' tails when they come home from the pasture, and the stick-tights and beggar-needles in your own coat-tails when you come home from the pastures. And seeing that, you should _think_--for that is what real seeing means. Think what? Why, that you are just as good as a cow's tail to scatter Nature's seeds for her, and not a bit better, as she sees you.

X

You ought to see the migrating birds as they begin to flock on the telegraph wires, in the chimneys, and among the reeds of the river.

You ought to see the swallows, blackbirds, robins, and bluebirds, as they flock together for the long southern flight. There are days in late September and in early October when the very air seems to be half of birds, especially toward nightfall, if the sun sets full and clear: birds going over; birds diving and darting about you; birds along the rails and ridge-poles; birds in the gra.s.s under your feet--birds everywhere. You should be out among them where you can see them. And especially you should see--without fail, this autumn and every autumn--the wedge of wild geese cleaving the dull gray sky in their thrilling journey down from the far-off frozen North.

CHAPTER V

WHIPPED BY EAGLES

As you head into Maurice River Cove from Delaware Bay by boat, the great eagle's nest of Garren's Neck Swamp soon looms into view. It is a famous nest, and an ancient nest; for it has a place in the chart of every boat that sails up the river, and has had for I don't know how many years. From the river side of the long swamp the nest is in sight the year round, but from the land side, and from the house where we lived, the nest could be seen only after the leaves of the swamp had fallen. Then all winter long we could see it towering over the swamp; and often, in the distance, we could see the eagles coming and going or soaring in mighty circles high up in the air above it.

That nest had a strange attraction for me. It was the home of eagles, the monarchs of this wide land of swamp and marsh and river.

Between me and the great nest lay a gloomy gum swamp, wet and wild, untouched by the axe and untraveled, except in winter by the c.o.o.n-hunters. The swamp began just across the road that ran in front of the house; and often at night I would hear the scream of a wild cat in the dark hollows; and once I heard the _pat, pat_ of its feet as it went leaping along the road.

Then beyond the swamp and the nest stretched a vast wild marsh-land, where the reeds grew, and the tides came in, and the mud-hens lived.

And beyond that flowed the river, and beyond the river lay another marsh, and beyond the marsh another swamp. And over all this vast wild world towered the nest of the eagles, like some ancient castle; and over it all--swamp and marsh and river--ruled the eagles, as bold and free as the mighty barons of old.

Is it any wonder that I often found myself gazing away at that nest on the horizon and longing for wings?--for wings with which to soar above the swamp and the bay and the marsh and the river, to circle about and about that lofty eyrie, as wild as the eagles and as free? Is it any wonder that I determined some day to stand up in that nest, wings or no wings, while the eagles should scream about me, and away below me should stretch river and marsh and swamp?

To stand up in that nest, to yell and wave my arms with the eagles wheeling and screaming over me, became the very peak of my boy ambitions.

And I did it. I actually had the eggs of those eagles in my hands. I got into the nest; but I am glad even now that I got out of the nest and reached the ground.

It must have been in the spring of my fourteenth year when, at last, I found myself beneath the eagle tree. It was a stark old white oak, almost limbless, and standing out alone on the marsh some distance from the swamp. The eagle's nest capped its very top.

The nest, I knew, must be big; but not until I had climbed up close under it did I realize that it was the size of a small haystack. There was certainly half a cord of wood in it. I think that it must originally have been built by fish hawks.

Holding to the forking top upon which the nest was placed, I reached out, but could not touch the edge from any side.

I had come determined to get up into it, however, at any hazard; and so I set to work. I never thought of how I was to get down; nor had I dreamed, either, of fearing the eagles. A bald eagle is a bully. I would as soon have thought of fearing our hissing old gander at home.

As I could not get out to the edge of the nest and scale the walls, the only possible way up, apparently, was through the nest. The sticks here in the bottom were old and quite rotten. Digging was easy, and I soon had a good beginning.

The structure was somewhat cone-shaped, the smaller end down. It had grown in circ.u.mference as it grew in years and in height, probably because at the bottom the building materials had decayed and gradually fallen away, until now there was a decided outward slant from bottom to top. It had grown lopsided, too, there being a big bulge on one side of the nest near the middle.

The smallness of the bottom at first helped me; there was less of the stuff to be pulled out. I easily broke away the dead timbers and pushed aside the tougher sticks. I intended to cut a channel clear to the top and go up through the nest. Already my head and shoulders were well into it.

Now the work became more difficult. The sticks were newer, some of them being of seasoned oak and hickory, which the birds had taken from cord-wood piles.

I had cut my channel up the side of the nest nearly halfway when I came to a forked branch that I could neither break off nor push aside.

I soon found that it was not loose, but that it belonged to the oak tree itself. It ran out through the nest horizontally, extending a little more than a foot beyond the rough walls.

Backing down, I saw that this fork was the support of the bulge that had given the nest its lopsided appearance. A few large timbers had been rested across it, small loose pieces had gradually lodged upon these, and thus in time brought about the big bulge.