A Hermit's Wild Friends

Part 1

Transcriber Note

Text emphasis is denoted as Italics.

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A Hermit's Wild Friends

Eighteen Years in the Woods

Mason A. Walton

(The Hermit of Gloucester)

Boston

Dana Estes & Company

Publishers

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Copyright, 1903

By Dana Estes & Company

All rights reserved

A HERMIT'S WILD FRIENDS

Published October, 1903

Colonial Press

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.

Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

To the

Lovers of Nature,

everywhere,

this volume is fraternally dedicated.

NOTE

During my eighteen years of hermit life, I claim to have discovered several new features in natural history, namely:

That the cow-bunting watches over its young, assists the foster parents in providing food, and gradually assumes full care of the young bird, and takes it to the pasture to associate with its kind; that the white-footed mouse is dumb, and communicates with its species by drumming with its toes; that the wood-thrush conducts a singing-school for the purpose of teaching its young how to sing; that the chickadee can count; that the shadbush on Cape Ann assumes a dwarf form, and grows in patches like the low-bush blueberry, fruiting when less than a foot in height; that the red squirrel owns a farm or fruit garden, and locates his male children on territory which he preempts for the purpose. I am aware that my claims will be vigorously assailed, but I have verified these discoveries by years of patient observation, and would say to my critics: "You would better investigate carefully before denying the probability of any one of these claims."

Thanks are due the publishers of Forest and Stream and Youth's Companion for permission to republish articles which have appeared in these respective journals.

M. A. WALTON.

Part 2

Gloucester, April 5, 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Nature versus Medicine 11 II. Satan the Raccoon 30 III. Wabbles 52 IV. Bismarck, the Red Squirrel 67 V. Changes in Hermit-life 99 VI. The White-footed Mouse 118 VII. Three Years Later 136 VIII. The Crow 140 IX. Life in the Woods 156 X. Mr. and Mrs. Chewink 172 XI. Some of the Wild Things 190 XII. The Instinct of the Cowbird 208 XIII. Bee Hunting 223 XIV. Tiny 236 XV. The Chestnut-sided Warbler 253 XVI. Instinct 265 XVII. The Chickadees 282 XVIII. Triplefoot 295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The "Hermit" and His Home Frontispiece Tree Sparrow 25 Fox Sparrow 27 Bay-winged Bunting 28 Blackbird 29 Raccoon's Head 30 "I begun by tying on a nut" 37 "With a savage snarl he sprang on to the dude" 47 Song Sparrow 52 "Wabbles made it his business to awake me at daylight" 54 Wabbles 65 Pigeon Hawk 69 "Many a sprinting match of this kind takes place in my dooryard" 74 "The winter storehouse was completed" 85 Indigo-bird 96 Oven-bird 97 Black-throated Green Warbler 98 Cedar-bird 102 The New Cabin 103 Maryland Yellowthroat 104 Red-winged Blackbirds 104 Brown Thrush 105 Swamp Song-sparrow 106 Baltimore Oriole 107 Belted Kingfisher, Watching 109 Kingfisher, Striking 110 Kingfisher, Lifting His Catch 111 "The distance between them grew less quite rapidly" 114 "Hermit, you are out" 117 "It carries its victim by the middle" 125 Mole 131 Kingbird 141 Ruffed Grouse 145 "The next sentinel takes up the call" 151 "I shot two ducks" 158 Coot's Head 159 Chickadee 173 "I threw a bit of cookie to her" 174 English Sparrow 186 Sparrow 189 "Found his owlship on a low limb" 191 Owl Chased 193 Yellow-bellied Woodpecker 196 "HE Coiled Around My Arm" 202 Blue-winged Yellow Warbler 211 Bee Hunting 226 "Again the plucky little bunting set its wing and lowered its head" 241 "Made his way to the box, hand over hand" 245 Chestnut-sided Warbler 254 Blue Jays 265 Wood Thrush 275 The Hermit Thrush 278 Triplefoot's Den 298 "She stopped to look around, and saw me" 303

A Hermit's Wild Friends

Eighteen Years in the Woods

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NATURE versus MEDICINE

Eighteen years ago I was in sore straits. Ill health had reduced my flesh until I resembled the living skeleton of a dime show. I realized that a few months more of city life would take me beyond the living stage, and that the world would have no further use for me except to adorn some scientific laboratory.

A diagnosis of my case would read as follows:

Dyspepsia, aggravated, medicine could give but slight relief. Catarrh, malignant, persistent. A douche was necessary every morning to relieve the severe facial pain. A cough that had worried me by day and by night, and thrived on all kinds of cough medicine. Also, my lungs were sore and the palms of my hands were hot and dry. I thought that I was fading away with consumption, but the doctors said my lungs were sound. I was advised to go into the woods and try life in a pine grove. As there was no money for the doctors in this advice, I looked upon it as kind and disinterested, but my mind ran in another direction.

When I was young and full of notions, the idea entered my head that I should like a change from fresh to salt water. It resulted in a two months' trip on a fishing schooner. During the trip I had been free from seasickness, and had gained flesh rapidly. The memory of that sea voyage haunted me, now that I had become sick and discouraged. It seemed to me that a few weeks on salt water would save my life.

With high hopes, I boarded the little steamer that plied between Boston and Gloucester. I thought it would be an easy matter to secure board on one of the many vessels that made short trips after mackerel. For three days I haunted the wharves in vain. The "skippers," one and all, gave the same reason for refusing my offers. "We are going after fish," said they, "and cannot be bothered with a sick man." At last one "skipper" discouraged me completely. He said to me: "I once took a sick man on board, and because we did not strike fish, the fishermen called the passenger a Jonah, and made his life miserable. Three days after we returned he died, and I swore then that I never would take another sick man to sea." This "skipper's" story, and my fruitless efforts caused me to abandon the salt water cure. I turned now to the hills around Gloucester. In the end I selected Bond's Hill, because it was surrounded by pine groves.

I found the hill covered with blueberry and huckleberry bushes, the latter loaded with fruit. On the brow of the hill the soil had been washed away, leaving great masses of bed rock (granite) towering above the cottages that clung to the base of the cliff. On the extreme brow of the hill I found a spot where the soil had gathered and maintained a grass-plot. Here I pitched my little tent. Here I lived from August to December. I called the spot the Eyrie, because it reminded me of the regions inhabited by eagles. A visit to the spot will disclose the fitness of the name.

On this spot my eighteen years of hermit life begun. At first I made it a practice to go to the city every day for one meal, bringing back food enough to last until another day. I found the huckleberries good wholesome food that did not aggravate my chronic dyspepsia.

Two weeks of outdoor life had brought a little color to my cheeks and had made me feel like a new man. About this time I awoke in the morning to remember that I had not coughed during the night. The cough that had harassed me night and day for two years, left me then and there, never to return.

Nature was performing wonders where medicine had failed.

Before the month of September had ended, my catarrh disappeared, and I no longer had use for the douche. From that time to this, I have been free from catarrh. I do not have even the symptoms, known as hay-fever.

The dull, heavy pain that I had experienced constantly from dyspepsia, gradually sub sided and eventually ceased. Since that time I have been able to eat any kind of food, at any time, day or night, without the depressing pains of indigestion.

During my first experience, climbing Bond's Hill, on my return from the city, had been almost beyond my strength. I had to rest three times before reaching my tent. By the middle of November my strength had returned nearly to the old standard, and I mounted the hill without a thought of weariness.

Standing one day on a massive spur of bed rock, near my tent, my thoughts went back to the statement of the doctors in relation to my lungs. I had just ascended the hill, without a long breath, and a hale, hearty feeling pervaded every fibre of my system. I knew, then, that my lungs were all right, and thanks to Nature, I had recovered my health and stood there comparatively a well man.

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