To-day, as I write, is December 2, 1917; and this morning as I walked in my homeland, a sailing, splendid hawk came pouring out the old refrain, "kee-yi-o, kee-yi-o, kee-oh." Oh, it was glorious! I felt little prickles in the roots of my hair as he went over; and I rejoiced above all things to realize that he sang just as well as, yes maybe a little better than that first one did, that I heard in the winter woods some forty years ago.
TALE 58
The Fingerboard Goldenrod
"Oh, Mother Carey! All-mother! Lover of us little plants as well as the big trees! Listen to us little slender Goldenrods.
"We want to be famous, Mother Carey, but our stems are so little and our gold is so small, that we cannot count in the great golden show of autumn, for that is the glory of our tall cousins. They do not need us, and they do not want us. Won't you give us a little job all our own, our very own, for we long to be doing something?"
The Compass Goldenrod Pointing Toward the North
Then Mother Carey smiled so softly and sweetly and said: "Little slender Goldenrods, I am going to give you something to do that will win you great honour among all who understand. In the thick woods the moss on the trunk shows the north side; when the tree is alone and in the open, the north side is known by its few branches; but on the open prairie, there is no plant that stands up like a finger post to point the north for travellers, while the sun is hid."
"This, then do, little slender Goldenrods; face the noon sun, and as you stand, throw back your heads proudly, for you are in service now. Throw back your heads till your golden plumes are pointing backward to the north—so shall you have an honourable calling and travellers will be glad that I have made you a fingerboard on the plains."
So the slender Goldenrod and his brothers rejoiced and they stood up straight, facing the noon sun, and bent backward, throwing out their chests till their golden caps and plumes were pointed to the north.
And many a traveller, on cloudy days and dark nights, has been cheered by the sight of the Compass Goldenrod, pointing to the north and helping him to get home.
This does not mean that every one of them points to the north all the time. They do their best but there are always some a little wrong. Yet you can tell the direction at night or on dark days if you look at a bed of them that grew out in full sunlight.
"Yon is the north," they keep on singing, all summer long, and even when winter comes to kill the plant, and end its bloom, the brave little stalk stands up there, in snow to its waist, bravely pointing out the north, to those who have learned its secret. And not only in winter storms, but I have even found them still on guard after the battle, when the snow melted in springtime. Once when I was a boy, I found a whole bank of them by a fence, when the snow went off in April, and I wrote in their honour this verse:
TALE 59
Woodchuck Day, February Second Sixth Secret of the Woods
WOODCHUCK DAY: COLD WEATHER
"To be, or not to be"
It was Monapini that told Ruth Pilgrim, and Ruth Pilgrim told the little Pilgrims, and the little Pilgrims told the little Dutchmen, and the little Dutchmen told it to all the little Rumours, and the grandchild of one of these little Rumours told it to me, so you see I have it straight and on good authority, this Sixth Secret of the Woods.
The story runs that every year the wise Woodchuck retires to sleep in his cozy home off the subway that he made, when the leaves begin to fall, and he has heard the warning. Mother Carey has sung the death-song of the red leaves; sung in a soft voice that yet reaches the farthest hills:
And Mother Earth, who is Maka Ina, cries to her own: "Come, hide in my bosom, my little ones." And the wise Woodchuck waits not till the blizzard comes, but hides while he may make good housing, and sleeps for three long moons.
But ever on the second sun of the Hunger-moon (and this is the Sixth Secret) he rouses up and ventures forth. And if so be that the sun is in the sky, and the snow on the bosom of his Mother Earth, so that his shadow shall appear on it, he goeth back to sleep again for one and a half moons more—for six long weeks. But if the sky be dark with clouds and the earth all bared of snow so that no shadow shows, he says, "The blizzard time is over, there is food when the ground is bare," and ends his sleep.
This is the tale and this much I know is true: In the North, if he venture forth on Woodchuck Day, he sees both sun and snow, so sleeps again; in the South there is no snow that day, and he sleeps no more; and in the land between, he sleeps in a cold winter, and in an open winter rouses to live his life.
These things I have seen, and they fit with the story of Monapini, so you see the little Rumour told me true.
THINGS TO KNOW
How the Pine Tree Tells Its Own Story
TALE 60
How the Pine Tree Tells Its Own Story
Suppose you are in the woods, and your woods in Canada, or the Northern States; you would see at once two kinds of trees: Pines and Hardwoods.
Pines, or Evergreens, have leaves like needles, and are green all the year round; they bear cones and have soft wood.
The Hardwoods, or Broadleaves, sometimes called Shedders, have broad leaves that are shed in the fall; they bear nuts or berries and have hard wood.