Love of the Wild. Archie P. McKishnie

over and over.

      “I reckon some little codgers’ll be missin’ their mammy, pup.”

      Joe cocked his ears and looked up at his master.

      “They’ll be lookin’ to see her maybe by now,—but,” savagely, “ain’t never goin’ to see her no more.”

      The squirrel twisted and attempted to dig its long yellow teeth into the hand that held it prisoner.

      “She’s just like everythin’ else that has babies,” frowned the lad, “savage and foolish. Here, you,” he called to the dog, “where are you goin’, Joe?”

      The setter was trotting slowly away.

      “What’s got into him, I wonder,” muttered the young man; “never knowed Joe to run away from sport before, unless it was that time the old she-’coon slashed his nose, after we’d cut down her tree and found her babies.”

      Once more he turned the animal about and looked into its big soft eyes.

      “I’m goin’ to give you another chance,” he said. “Pup don’t seem to hanker for your life, and I guess if a dog thinks that way about it I ought to think the same way. It’s a mighty good thing for you that you’ve got young ’uns. And now, you thievin’, murderin’ little devil—get.”

      He tossed the squirrel on the moss. The frantic thing crouched for a second, then sprang away and sought the sheltering branches of a nearby tree. From this secure refuge she cursed the boy viciously in squirrel language. The boy nodded, then scowled.

      “You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” he said, and cramming his hands deep into the pockets of his buckskin trousers he walked thoughtfully back to his old post.

      Slowly he climbed the fence and perched himself on its topmost rail, his knees drawn up, his chin sunk in his hands. Once more he gazed somberly across the stumpy clearing to the new schoolhouse on the hill. He hated it; hated the brazen sound of its bell. Mentally he combated it as he combated other elements of civilization. All the young soul of him rebelled against what he considered the defacing of Nature. Those wide swaths which man had mowed through the forest to him meant no advancement. They were scars made by interlopers upon the face of a great sweet mother. Nature had endowed the boy’s spirit with her own moods. His soul held the shadows of her quiet places as it retained the records of her swishing songs of trees and waterfalls. He knew no order save that of the great Brotherhood of the Untamed. His was a broad kingdom. It was being usurped and would soon be a toppling power.

      Moody and unmoving be sat until the gold splashes crept from the open spaces of the wood and the patches of the yellow-tops of the slashing turned from yellow to bronze-brown and from bronze-brown to gray. A covey of brown quail scurried from a tangled patch of rag-weed to a dry water-run, to scuttle, a long animated line, to the thicket of sumach. Far down in the corner of the fallow another scattered brood were voicing the shrill, mellow call of retreat, and all throughout the darkening wood there sounded the medley of harmonious voices of wild things in twilight song. Only in the soul of the boy was there a discord that rose and fell and disturbed an old-time restfulness that had been his for nineteen years. Perhaps the indefinable something that whispered to him pitied him also, for resentment and combativeness sank away from his heart with the hazy glow of day. Like his great Wild that nestled in the peace of twilight, his soul threw off its struggles and seemed to rest. When darkness came he climbed down from the fence. Through the forest-trees murmured the low song of early night-breezes, and to him they voiced a prophecy. Something brushed against him, and the boy bent down and drew the shaggy head of a dog over against his breast.

      “Damn ’em,” he cried chokingly, and shook a clenched fist toward the swaths of civilization. Then slowly he passed out into the darkness, the dog at his heels.

      At the edge of the hill he halted and gazed down the long dark hollow of the creek-bed to where a white splash of water slept beneath the rising moon. All along the wooded vista whip-poor-wills piped their wakeful joy-notes, and the musical whistle of migrating woodcock made a shrill treble note to the harsher wing-song of incoming wild ducks. Dew-mists, laden with the scent of dead leaves and moldy woods, crept to him, and he breathed the sweetness in long, sensuous breaths. But all the while the boy looked toward the bay and the golden trail of moonlight across it, to the uneven, scrag-line of Point aux Pins Forest, and wondered vaguely at the savagery of civilization that sought, as it was seeking, to destroy God’s life and beauty.

      A pair of woodcock arose from a swale and passed between him and the water. Against the moonlight their bronze breasts flashed out for a second and faded, and their mellow wing-notes reverberated dyingly from the shadow. Right across their track a flock of ducks came speeding, their goal the reedy ponds of Rond Eau Bay.

      “Joe,” the young man said wistfully, “it’s funny, isn’t it, now? Some goin’ and some comin’. Woodcock flyin’ south ’cause they hate the cold; ducks flyin’ north ’cause they love it.”

      They passed on, the dog taking the lead. At the edge of a wide clearing they paused alert. The dim outline of a log-house lay before them. From the windows streamed the glow of candlelight. Across the open from the house a figure was advancing, and to the dog’s low growl the boy chided a whispered, “Be still, Joe.” When the figure came close to where they waited the boy stepped out and stood before it. His arms were folded tight across his breast and his mouth narrowed to a thin line.

      “Did you tell her?” he questioned quietly. The tall man thus accosted stepped back with a startled exclamation.

      “Well, Boy McTavish, is it you?”

      Young McTavish half crouched, then quickly drew himself up again.

      “Yes, it’s me, teacher,” he said. “What I want to know is, did you tell her?”

      “Yes, I told her.”

      “All right, get out of my way, then.”

      “Wait a moment, Boy,” returned the man. “You understand, don’t you, that it is my duty to report all pupils who do not attend school regularly?”

      The boy changed his position so that the moonlight would fall full upon the face of the man before him.

      “Do you suppose I care for your reportin’ me?”

      The tone was wondering, contemptuous.

      “Why, teacher, you can’t hurt me, and you know it. Do you suppose I was thinkin’ of myself when I asked you not to tell her? And do you suppose any man would have done what you’ve done?”

      “Hush,” warned the other, “I can’t let you talk to me in this way, Boy. Remember who I am. I won’t have it, I say.”

      “Well, I can’t see how you’re goin’ to help it. I want to tell you somethin’, Mr. Simpson, and you’ve got to listen. Don’t you move or by God I’ll sic Joe on to you. I’m goin’ to tell you again what I told you before. Ma’s sick in bed and maybe she ain’t never goin’ to get up no more. I told you that, remember?”

      “Yes, you told me that—well?”

      “Well, she’s been thinkin’ that I’ve been to school and you and me know I haven’t. I couldn’t stay in your school and live, but I was willin’ to take the hick’ry or anythin’ you said, if you wouldn’t tell her.”

      The teacher was silent.

      “Pup,” said the boy, “see that he answers up better.”

      The dog growled, and the man spoke quickly.

      “I was only doing my duty.”

      “And it’s your duty to tell a dyin’ mother that her boy’s goin’ to hell—I say goin’ to hell, and her so near the other place? Do you call that duty?” demanded the boy bitterly.

      The moon floated further into the open, lighting up the two; the boy erect and accusing with