Part 41

Miss Wilde, who arrived at the schoolhouse rather earlier than usual, found the door locked, and no fire in the stove. It was Dave’s week to tend the fire, and, as Miss Wilde stood in the open doorway pondering on the matter, one of the most exacting of the school committee men came bumping along in a lumber cart. Pulling up his horses so suddenly that a neighbour who was with him tipped backward off the seat, he called to the astonished teacher: “You had best close up and go home; you won’t have any pupils to-day. Or else come down, and hold school on the shore! The rest of the committee will probably meet together in a few minutes, and we’ll vote to extend Thanksgiving holidays over to-day.” So saying, he cracked his whip and rattled downhill, leaving Miss Wilde to wonder if he was losing his mind, or the world was turning topsyturvy, or if she was still asleep, for it was beginning to be hard to wake up as the mornings shortened.

Miss Wilde locked the door and started to walk toward Eliza Clausen’s house, that being the nearest place where she could possibly find out what was happening. As she reached the cross-road that met the turnpike a little above the school, she heard the sharp trot of hoofs, and, turning in that direction, saw Jacob Hughes driving the depot rockaway, Goldilocks being beside him and Gray Lady seated behind. Goldilocks waved her hand on seeing Miss Wilde, and in another minute “teacher” was seated beside Gray Lady, and not only knew of the avalanche of oysters, but was herself on the way to the shore with her friends, who were going, not for the sake of the oysters, but to enjoy what was sure to be a picturesque scene, with the shell-strewn beach, the sharp bluff on the left, and the long sand-bar, with its lighthouse on the right, for a setting. Nor were they disappointed.

For once tell-tale news did not exaggerate, and, though there were many cut and scratched fingers from the sharp shells, before noon there was no one who had not gathered all the oysters he could carry. The more thrifty among the men also began to gather the seaweed into heaps safe from the incoming tide, so that they might be sure of finding it the next day, while the women and children gathered driftwood and, making fireplaces of a few stones, heated the coffee they had brought. For, though the sun was now shining clear, and the wind had dropped to a little breeze that scarcely moved the surface of the tide pools, there was a growing keenness in the air that named the month “December,” and promised the wind would be in the northwest by night.

In spite of the unusual human picture before them, that which interested Gray Lady, Miss Wilde, and Goldilocks the most were the Gulls that covered the bare sand-bar, waded in the shallow pools, and clambered among the stones in search of food, which they picked out with their stout, hooked bills, then flew swiftly overhead toward the creek, across the salt meadows, with a shrill cry, such as the creaking windlass of a well gives when the rope plays out quickly and the bucket drops—“quake-wake-wake.”

Further out, in the arm of the bar, where there was no current, and the water was deep and smooth, many Gulls were resting motionless as white skiffs at anchor, or flying and diving for food in the wake of some boats that were evidently grappling to discover the extent of the damage to the oyster-beds.

“How many kinds of Gulls are there?” asked Goldilocks. “Three, I should think, unless the males and the females were different.”

“The Gulls here are all Herring, or, as the Wise Men now wish them called, ‘Harbour Gulls.’ The old birds have the pure white breasts and pearly gray, or what is sometimes called ‘Gull-blue,’ upper parts and the black-and-white wing-markings. The mixed and streaked ash, buff, and brown birds are the young of the year, while the black-and-white patched birds are not Gulls, but Old Squaw Ducks. These have spent the winter about the bay and bar ever since I can remember, and, strangely enough, both Gulls and Ducks seem to be no less in number than they were twenty years ago. That is probably because the Gulls are protected, and the Ducks’ flesh is so tough that even a hungry dog could hardly tear it apart. I hope your children are noticing these birds while they are gathering driftwood for the fires,” Gray Lady said to Miss Wilde. “It is very seldom that they come to the shore as late as this, or see the Gulls in such numbers. It seems to-day as though the storm must have driven all that belong to many miles of coast to take shelter in this bay.”

“Yes, they are looking,” said Goldilocks, “for Sarah and Tommy and Dave and Clary, who are all together by the nearest fire, are watching and pointing to the Gulls that are over by the boats, and I think that Bobby has found a dead Gull tangled in seaweed and he is showing it to the others.”

“Then I foresee that the Harbour Gull will be the bird of next Friday afternoon,” said Gray Lady, as they turned homeward, taking Miss Wilde with them for lunch, so that Gray Lady might talk over a new plan concerning the old farm-house in the corner of the orchard, with its great stone chimney where the Swifts loved to build.

* * * * *

As Gray Lady had expected, the next Friday afternoon, when she went to Foxes Corners schoolhouse, she was greeted by many enthusiastic accounts of the stolen holiday at the shore, but a perfect chorus of questions arose about the “big birds that fly and swim and yet aren’t quite like Ducks”; while Bobby proudly produced his treasured Gull, wrapped in a newspaper, at the same time assuring Gray Lady, as became a member of the Kind Hearts’ Club, that he hadn’t thrown a stone at it, or anything, and that it was “drowned dead in the seaweed.” All of which she already knew to be true.

“Why aren’t the Gulls there in the summer when we go down camping and clamming?” asked Tommy.

“Because,” said Gray Lady, “they do not like very warm weather, and nowadays at least, though they live all through North America, they do not nest on the Atlantic coast south of Maine. For this reason, we seldom see them between May and October, and that is the very time that you children and people in general visit the shore.”

“It must take a pretty big tree to hold a Gull’s nest,” said Dave, picking up the bird and weighing it in his hand; “it’s lots bigger than a Crow.”

“Yes; a Gull measures two feet in length (that is, from the tip of its beak over its back to the tail, which is the way the length of a bird is reckoned), and is quite three feet across the spread of its open wings, while the body of the Crow is five inches shorter and the wings only spread a little over two feet.

“You probably noticed, the other day, what very long, pointed wings the Gulls have. But though these Gulls do sometimes nest in fairly high trees and in bushes, it is not common, and their favourite place is on the gray shingle, and among the stones of rocky beaches well above tide-water, or else between tussocks of beach grass or sheltering pieces of driftwood.

“As a Gull’s chief food is gleaned from the sea, it must nest as close as possible to its source of supply. You can easily see that so large a bird could never be free from annoyance on our bathing beaches or offshore islands that are used as summer resorts; so, as people flocked to the shore, more and more, the places where Gulls might nest in comfort grew fewer and fewer, and they were driven to the remote islands like those off the Maine coast, Great Duck Island, No Man’s Land, and others, and it is at Great Duck Island that is to be found the largest colony of Gulls within the United States.

“But even here and on many lesser islands, with only lighthouses and their keepers for company, where there were no summer cottages or pleasure-seekers, until a few years ago, the Gulls were not safe, for they, like the White Herons of the South, were bonnet martyrs.”

“Bonnet martyrs!” exclaimed Eliza Clausen, jumping as if some one had stuck a pin in her. “I don’t think they would look one bit nice on hats; why, they are so big that there wouldn’t be any hat, but all bird.”

“You are quite right,” said Gray Lady, “but the whole Gull was not used. These beautiful white breast-feathers were made into turbans. Perhaps, on one side of these, a smaller cousin of the Gull, the Tern, or Sea Swallow, with its coral-red beak, would be perched by way of finish. Or else, soft bands made of the breast, and some of the handsomest wing quills were used for trimming.

“Not only were these feathers sold wholesale to the plume merchants and milliners, but people who went to the coast resorts would buy them of the sailors simply because they were pretty, without giving a thought to the lives they cost, or of how desolate and lonely the shores would be when there were no more Gulls.

“There are comparatively few people, I earnestly believe, who would wear feathers for ornament if they realized the waste of life that the habit causes. It is largely because people do not stop to think, and they do not associate the happy living bird with the lifeless feathers in the milliner’s window. But now that the Wise Men—yes, and wise women, too—have explained the matter, the protection of these beautiful sea-birds is an established fact.

“This bird was called ‘Herring Gull,’ because by hovering over the schools of Herring where they swam, and diving to get them for food, they told the fishermen, who spend their lives upon the ocean on the lookout, where the fish were to be found. Now, though the Gulls still do this, they do better work, also, for they spend the time that they are away from their nesting-homes about the harbours of the large cities, making daily trips up the rivers and cleansing the water of refuse, upon which they feed. For this reason, ‘Harbour Gull’ seems to be a better name for them.

“They are very sociable birds at all times of the year, keeping in colonies even in the breeding season, a time when song- and other land-birds pair, and prefer to be alone. The nests, when on the ground or upon flat rocks, are built of grass, mosses, seaweed, and bits of soft driftwood formed into a shallow bowl. If the edges of this crumble or flatten while the birds are sitting, they use bunches of fresh grass or seaweed to keep it in repair, with the result that the nest is not only a very tasteful object, but it blends perfectly with its surroundings.

“The eggs are very interesting because no two seem to be of the same colour, being of every shade of blue and gray, from the colour of summer sky and sand to the tint of the many-coloured, water-soaked rocks themselves. The markings vary also in shape and size, and are in every shade of brown, through lilac and purple, to black. The parents are very devoted to their nests, and take turns in sitting, though the eggs are often left to the care of the sun on days when it is sufficiently warm. When the young are first hatched, though covered with down, they are very weak in the neck and helpless; but in the course of a few hours the little Gulls are strong enough to walk, and the instinct to hide at the approach of anything strange comes to them very suddenly, so that a Gull only three or four hours old will slip out of the nest and either hide beneath a few grass blades or flatten itself in the sand, where, owing to its spotted, colour-protective down, it is almost invisible, so well does Nature care for her children—provided that man does not interfere. When a Gull nests in a tree, however, the little birds, not feeling the same necessity for hiding, do not try to leave the nest until the growth of their wings will let them fly.

“On the sea beaches squids and marine refuse are fed to the young Gulls, but where they have nested near fresh, instead of salt, water many insects gleaned from the fields are eaten.

“It was in the Gulls’ nesting season that the plunderers chose to go to their island haunts, steal the eggs, and kill the parent birds, whose devotion, like that of the White Heron, left the birds at the mercy of the plume hunters.

“At the end of summer the young, wearing their speckled suits, are able to join the old in flocks, and it is then that they scatter along the coast, some going from the northern borders down to the Great Lakes. In and about New York City they are one of the features of the winter scenery; they fly to and fro under the arches of the great bridge, and follow the ships the entire length of the harbour and out to sea. At night they bed down so close together that in places they make a continuous coverlid of feathers on the waters of the reservoirs and in the sheltered coves of the Hudson. From the banks of Riverside Park, any autumn or winter afternoon, so long as the channel is free from ice, they may be seen flying about as fearless as a flock of domestic Pigeons.”