CHAPTER XV
HOW THE ROBIN CAME TO KANSAS--MOCKING-BIRDS--EATEN BY SNAKES--JOE LOSES HIS TAME ELK--THE LAST OF THE WOLVES--FINDING THE QUAIL'S NEST--JOE BUILDS A CAGE FOR THEM--RAISING CHICKENS
THE winter was short, and soon came April, with its sunny skies. Therobins, wrens, blue jays, and the mocking-birds made the woods melodiouswith their sweet notes. The violets by the brook side under the shade ofthe great trees were the first harbingers of the beautiful season, andthe dining-table was made odorous with their blue blossoms at everymeal. Both Kate and Gertrude loved flowers, and never failed to gatherthree times a day, a large bowl full of these poems of springtime.
Mr. Tucker surprised them one evening by paying them a visit after asolitary hunting expedition up the creek. The boys soon persuaded him tostay the night, and tell them a story until bedtime.
"What shall it be, hunting or fighting?" said Mr. Tucker, turning toJoe.
Before her brother could speak, Gertrude answered for him. "Tell us thatlegend about the robin, that you have promised us so often."
"Yes, the robin," said Joe. So they all settled into comfortablepositions, and Mr. Tucker told them the following story:--
"The Delaware Indians claim that the robin followed them to Kansas. Hehas been in the eastern part of the state only since the establishmentof their reservation within its limits, according to the legend of thetribe.
"The Delawares, you know, were those Indians with whom William Penn madea treaty, the provisions of which were religiously kept for many years.
"Among the Delawares the robin is sacred. From the gray-headed chiefs tothe papoose just freed from the thongs of his hard cradle, they alllisten with superstitious love and reverence to his warbling. The birdwas once the favorite son of a great sachem of that powerful tribe,changed by the Manitou, but still loving man, and evincing it always bybuilding his nest and singing near his abode.
"Once there was, ages ago, a great chief among the Delawares, who thenlived in the far East. He was distinguished for his wisdom in thecouncil, and his success in war. He had many wives, but they brought himdaughters only, and he, as well as his nation, was dissatisfied, for hedesired a son who should succeed to the honorable position of hisfather.
"One day when the chief was walking through the village, a dove lit onhis shoulder, and then flew and nestled in the bosom of a young Indianmaiden to whom it belonged. She was the daughter of the medicine-man ofthe tribe, and her father declared that the dove was a messenger fromthe Great Spirit, who had thus shown by that sign that the two should beone.
"The news imparted by the medicine-man was agreeable to the chief, forthe girl was beautiful and virtuous. He married her, and she became thefavorite wife, who, in due time, greatly to his and the joy of hispeople, presented him with a son. The boy was called Is-a-dill-a, and hegrew up different from all the youth of his age; for he was fond ofpeace, would not mingle with the crowd who tortured prisoners doomed todeath, and his father thought him a coward. One day the fatherupbraided his son for his peaceful inclinations, and Is-a-dill-aanswered:--
"'Great chief of the mighty Delawares, my liver is not white, nor wouldmy blood chill like snow before the enemy, but Is-a-dill-a prefers togather the wild blossoms which grow upon the prairie, and chase the deeramong the cliffs, to lying in ambush for the red man, and sending anarrow into his heart; the Great Spirit, who is father of all the redmen, has told me in my dreams to love them all.'
"His father was about to respond angrily to the utterance of a homily sounbecoming a great warrior's son, and the future chief of a powerfultribe, when he saw a huge black bear approaching him with angrydemonstrations. The chief was armed, as usual, with bow and arrows, anda stone axe. Is-a-dill-a, without any weapons, was ordered by his fatherto climb a tree, that he might escape the danger of the impendingconflict. The chief, then resting upon one knee, and fixing a selectedarrow to his bow, aimed at the eye of the bear, when only a few feetdistant. The oscillating motion of the beast's head prevented it fromtaking fatal effect, and the arrow struck the skull, which was too thickand hard to be penetrated. The now infuriated animal, with a savagegrowl, sprang upon the chief who dealt it a fearful blow with his stoneaxe, but was seized in the ponderous paws of the bear, and a mortalstruggle ensued. In a moment the chief was bleeding from a hundredwounds, and the animal's mouth was already at his throat, whenIs-a-dill-a picked up his father's axe, dealt the beast a powerful blowover the eye, which completely destroyed it, and continued the workuntil the exhausted animal fell to the earth. But in his death agoniesthe bear succeeded in embracing Is-a-dill-a and tearing him dreadfully,so that he lay insensible by the side of the dead brute.
"The chief was the first to recover from the swoon in which he hadfallen from loss of blood, and as he saw the body of his son lyingbeside that of the immense bear, it was some time before he couldconnect the circumstances, for it appeared impossible for a boy of hisage to perform such an exploit. He was bitterly grieved, when he thoughthow pure was the filial affection of his son, and bitterly regretted thereproaches he had often heaped upon him who was so worthy of honor andaffection. He crawled to his son's body,--for he believed him dead,--butfeeling that the heart was still beating, with much effort and greatpain he succeeded in getting some water from a little spring near by,and applied it to the forehead and lips of the insensible Is-a-dill-a;in a few moments he gave a deep sigh, looked at his father with a glowof recognition, then again became unconscious.
"Fortunately at this moment, three squaws who had been gatheringberries, approached, and seeing the condition of the chief and his son,hastened to the village for assistance. By careful nursing, bothrecovered, and the boy became the object of admiration and reverence;for since his exploit with the bear, none dare dispute his courage,which is the greatest virtue among the Indians.
"As I have already told you, it is necessary for all promising youths toretire into some solitary place, and submit to a long fast, that theymay propitiate the Great Spirit. In a few years, Is-a-dill-a expressedhis desire to attempt the ordeal. The chief made everything inreadiness, and soon Is-a-dill-a was alone in his little lodge in thewilderness, upon his bed of skin. He looked up with great confidence tothe Great Spirit, and felt that the light of his countenance would restupon him. Every morning his father visited him, and encouraged him topersevere, by appealing to his pride, his ambition, and his nobleinstincts. The ninth day came and passed, and also the tenth; on themorning of the eleventh Is-a-dill-a was dying with weakness, and hisfull, rounded muscles had shrunk and withered from the prostratingeffects of the terrible ordeal.
"'Father,' said the almost expiring youth, 'I have fasted eleven days, alonger time than man ever fasted before; the Great Spirit is satisfied;give me something to eat that I may not die.'
"'To-morrow, my son, before the bright sun rises, I will bring youvenison cooked by your mother; fast until then that your name may becomemighty among the great chiefs of the Delawares.'
"The old man departed, proud of the fame his son would acquire; and thenext morning, before the sun had risen, he was at the lodge ofIs-a-dill-a, with a supply of the most tempting food, but he stoodmotionless before a strange sight within the lodge. There was a youthwith golden wings and most beautiful features, having a halo of lightaround his head, painting the breast of Is-a-dill-a with vermilion, andhis body brown. Then, in a moment, the winged youth was changed to adove, and Is-a-dill-a to a strange and beautiful bird, and they bothflew through the door of the lodge to a tree, and the strange bird thusaddressed the chief of the Delawares:
"'Father, farewell. The Great Spirit, when he saw that I was dying fromhunger, sent a messenger for me, and I am changed to this bird. I willalways preserve my love for man, and will build and carol near hisdwelling.'
"The two birds then flew away, but every morning the robin, during thelifetime of the chief, sang from the large oak tree that overshadowedhis lodge.
"When the Delawares moved west of the Missouri, the
faithful descendantsof the strange bird followed them, and that is how the robins came toKansas."
The mocking-bird, that sweetest of our feathered songsters, isindigenous to the central region of the great plains, and his notes areheard when the day breaks. He seeks the highest points upon thedwellings, the ridge of the house, the barn, or the top of the windmill,if there be one, where, like the Aztecs of old, or their linealdescendants, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico to-day, he greets thecoming god in the east.
Like the robin, the mocking-bird loves the companionship of man. Hebuilds his nest near their dwellings, in the garden, the orchard, or thetrees close by. Kate and Gertrude had made several attempts to get holdof some little ones in their nests, but there was always something thatseemed to thwart their plans. Last year they found a nest in a grapevinein the garden, and they watched it zealously day by day, from the layingof the last twig by the parent birds, to the hatching of the two whiteeggs. They saw the fledglings develop from week to week, until they werenearly large enough to be taken from the nest, when one morning, ongoing as usual to watch the progress of the little birds, what was theirhorror to see a snake swallowing the last one. The other they knew, bythe swelled body of the reptile, was hopelessly gone! Their disgust andsorrow may be imagined, and as it was too late in the season to think offinding another nest with young ones in it, they were forced to abandontheir quest until another spring.
This April they were successful. A pair had built their nest in thevine-covered summer-house, a rustic little place that Mr. Thompson haderected out of the wild grape, for a retreat in which his wife anddaughters might sit in the afternoons when they did not care to go asfar as the deep woods. No harm came to the fledglings this time, andthey were placed in a handsome cage bought by the girls from theproceeds of the eggs laid by their own brown Leghorn hens.
The birds soon became very tame, and made the house resonant all daylong with their brilliant notes. They knew the girls the moment theycame near the cage, and would stretch their wings and gently pick attheir fingers when they put them between the wires. They were a constantsource of pleasure, for the girls loved pets of all kinds, and taughtthem to return their affection by means of gentleness and constantkindness.
Joe lost his elk this spring, and he was greatly disturbed by it. He hadmade arrangements with an old hunter, living near Fort Harker, to go outto the Saline Valley and capture another young one. He intended to breakthem both to harness, and expected to have a unique team to drive. Theelk was so tame that he permitted it to roam at will through the woodson the margin of the Oxhide, where it browsed on the small bushes orgrazed on the luxurious grass which grew in such profusion on the creekbottom. It always returned to the corral at night for its feed of corn,but one evening it failed to come up as usual. He wandered through thewoods, looking for it, when, happening to come upon a camp near themouth of the Oxhide on the trail westward, he saw to his indignation,that the emigrants, a very ignorant set from Missouri, had butchered hiselk. He gave them a talking-to that was more emphatic than choice in itslanguage. They told him they thought it was a wild one, but he becamedisgusted at their falsehood, and asked them if wild elks had blueribbons on their necks as his had, and he pulled it from the hide whichwas lying near their wagons. The girls had sewed it on the elk for himnot a week ago. He saw that the party was such a miserable set that hecould do nothing with them, so he had to leave the place, as mad as awet hen, and abandon his idea of ever having an elk team.
It was a relief for the family to feel that they could now go where theypleased without fear of marauding bands of Indians. The winter campaignhad most effectually settled their propensities for murdering andscalping the settlers, so both the girls and boys made trips to theneighbors, and went on fishing excursions, or hunted whenever they caredto. Even the wolves, which had been such a terror to the wholeneighborhood, had been so successfully thinned out in several"surrounds" by the men living on the various creeks, that the raspberrypatch was no longer infested by them.
Kate and her sister went up there one morning, not expecting, of course,that the berries would be ripe as early as April. As neither of themhad visited the place since Kate's capture, and everything was nowperfectly safe, they thought they would like to go there again.
When they arrived at the well-remembered ledge of rocks, Kate pointedout to Gertrude the exact spot where she was standing when the savagesswooped down on her; and they climbed to the top where they wereattacked by the wolf.
They found the vines full of blossoms, promising a beautiful crop inJune, and while strolling along the bank of the stream they suddenlycame upon a quail's nest in which twenty-five eggs were just hatchingout. As the quail runs the moment it breaks from the shell, the girlsdetermined to take the little ones home and bring them up as they didtheir chickens. The old birds made a terrible fuss. They would run ashort distance from the nest, and pretend to be very lame; apparentlybeing hardly able to move. They thus tried to induce the girls to catchthem--a ruse adopted by many other birds when their young ones are indanger. But Kate and Gertrude, who were well posted in the tricks ofanimals and birds, paid no attention to the antics of the old quails,but were intent on catching all of the little ones they could. Even thenit was a hard job, for the baby quails run almost as fast as theparents, and hide in the grass where they lie quiet until all danger ispast. They succeeded, however, in getting all but four of them, andwalked hurriedly back to Errolstrath with the tender things in theiraprons.
"If I didn't know they were quails," said Kate, "I should think thatthey were young brown Leghorn chickens. Did you ever see such aresemblance, Gert?"
"They do look exactly like the brown Leghorns, and do you know, Kate,that when I first saw a brood of Leghorns, I thought they were youngquails."
"I expect we shall have little trouble in raising them, for JennyCampbell had as many as a dozen of them in her cellar all last summer.Her brother caught them as we did these, in the spring, just as theywere coming out of their shells. They will eat small grain likechickens."
"Well, we won't keep them in our cellar," said Gertrude; "we'll get Joeor Rob to build us a big cage out of lath, and then we can make them astame as the mocking-birds."
"Do you purpose to eat them?" inquired Kate.
"Certainly; why not? Mamma and papa love them broiled on toast, and sodo I. I don't expect to make such pets of them that when the time comesto eat them, I shall think so much of them that I can't do it; and youmust not either, Kate."
The girls arrived safely at the ranche with their charge, and Joe beingbegged to make a cage, set about it at once, and had it ready in lessthan an hour. The birds were put in it, and it was set on the veranda,where the little things could get plenty of air and sunlight. Theypicked up millet seed as readily as an old chicken, when Gertrude threwin a handful to them. In a few days they were contented in theirconfinement and became very tame.
Kate and her sister intended to raise a great many chickens this spring,and they set as many as forty hens; for their eggs and young broilersbrought a good price at the fort and in the village. They had excellentluck at hatching time, but as the little ones began to grow, when thegirls counted them every morning they found their number decreasing dayby day. They could not divine the cause at first, so Rob was set towatch, and discover, if he could, what caused their disappearance. Somehens that had fifteen or sixteen would come around the yard next morningwith only six or seven.
They had three cats: one named Dame Trot, a pure tabby; one calledMischief, a white and gray; and Tortoise, because of her color. Tortoisehad a litter of kittens which she kept under the front porch. Joe hadsuspected that the cats knew something of the disappearance of thelittle birds, and told Rob to keep his eyes on them. As he sat oneevening on the veranda he saw Tortoise suddenly spring from behind acherry tree and catch one of the young Leghorns in her mouth and carryit to her nest under the porch. Rob immediately crawled there, and tohis surprise found the heads of more than twenty chickens.
He ran intothe house and told of his discovery. His father said that the cat mustbe killed at once; for when a cat gets a taste for chickens, it isimpossible to break it of the habit, and Joe was commissioned to putthe guilty Tortoise out of the way.
Kate cried and was in great distress, for Tortoise was her cat, and shebegged her father to put off its death until to-morrow morning, when shewould go and spend the day with Jenny Campbell. She could not bear tostay and see her favorite cat killed. Her request was granted, andTortoise had a respite until morning, but she was shut up in a box sothat she could not get any more of the chickens.
When morning came, Kate got Rob to saddle Ginger, but before she startedshe begged Joe to bury Tortoise in some out of the way place where shewould never find her grave. Joe promised he would, and when his sisterwas out of sight down the trail, he took the cat out of her prison andwent to the woodpile, and with one stroke of the axe cut off her head.Then he took her down into the woods and buried her under a bunch ofwild plum bushes, where no one would ever see the grave.
After the death of Tortoise the chickens throve admirably, and no morewere ever missed by reason of the cats having caught them.