Part 28

The husking was varied by an exciting rat hunt. Under one of the shocks there was a surprising pile of earth, fully two feet high. It was evidently the home of a family of rats, and as these creatures have no redeeming features it was decided to destroy them. They are filthy, destructive, disease-bearing vermin, and to kill them is a public service. As the ground was mellow, it was easy to follow the winding tunnels that went out on every side. These tunnels had little chambers every yard or two, evidently to enable the rats to turn round if pursued, but I was surprised to find that every tunnel ended without a hole leading to the surface. I thought that every creature that burrows in the earth has a back door as well as a front door to his home, but these rats had only one hole for going in or out. They evidently depended for safety on their intricate system of tunnels, and they had a system that must have equalled the one in the Portland estates in England or the kind you read about in old romances. The tunnels were so near the surface that they broke through when stepped on, and it was not hard to follow them and throw them open with a fork-handle. After yards of tunnels had been opened rats began to pop out--but there is no need describing the carnage. One old rat and twelve that were partly grown were rooted out and killed. It was an unpleasant duty, but a duty nevertheless. If left to themselves those rats would have eaten and destroyed as much corn as several hogs. While it is a scientific fact that man and the rats have discovered and conquered the world together there is war between them, and there will be war until the end of time.

After the day's husking comes the job of binding up the cornstalks and when the stalks are dry it is just about the meannest job imaginable. You pick out the softest, juiciest-looking stalk you can find, bend it between the joints and proceed to tie up an armful of stalks that scratch your wrists and face, and just as you are starting to twist the ends into a knot the wretched thing breaks and you have to start the whole performance over again. After this has happened a few times your temper begins to slip cogs and your language becomes "painful and frequent and free." Of course it had the advantage of making me forget how stiff my joints were from sitting on the cold ground, and before I knew it I was warm clean through, but that kind of warmth is not the kind of warmth a fellow wants. I grumbled so much about this feature of the husking that a man of experience asked why I did not use binder twine. That solved the difficulty, and the husking is being done in a proper frame of mind. Although the yield is not remarkable for quantity, the ears are large and the grain is sound.

Oct. 8.--There is a pear tree that is hemmed in on one side by an apple tree and on the other by an oak. The result is that the lower branches have died and fallen off and the fruit grows from thirty to forty feet above the ground. For some time past the children had been picking up the wind-falls, ripening them in the bureau drawers, and asking when I was going to pick the pears. When it comes to lofty and fancy climbing I have to do it myself. The youngsters do enough climbing to tear their clothes, but that is all. When we got ready to pick the apples I decided to begin by picking the pears. I have a weakness for these particular pears that made me want to harvest them. This was the only kind on the farm when I was a boy and I have never found others quite like them. They are not of any of the standard varieties, and as they are not good keepers or particularly good for preserves they are not in favour with thrifty people. But as eating pears they are unrivalled. When picked at the right time and hidden in a hay-mow for a few weeks they used to be as delicious to a predatory small boy as hoarded beechnuts to a red squirrel. Even when ripened among the clothes in a bureau drawer they are good enough, though they lack the tang of stolen fruit. This year there was about a bushel on the tree in spite of the spring frost that destroyed most of the blossoms. The longest ladder on the place barely reached to the first branches, but when I had pulled myself up among the fruit I was greatly rewarded. About the first thing that caught my eye was a big, perfect pear lying in a little nest of twigs where several branches were crossing one another. It had evidently ripened early, fallen into this hiding place, and then mellowed in the sun and wind. As I picked it up my thumb made a dent in its soft flesh. A moment later I had sunk my teeth in its rosy, juicy side and my palate was quivering with joy. It had the real hay-mow flavour and after the first taste I got the stolen fruit tang, for a voice floated up from below,

"Aw, gimme a bite!"

"All right! Come up and get it!" I exulted. Making myself comfortable in a fork of the tree I proceeded with my little banquet, and before it was done I was derisively singing an old schoolboy refrain:

"Billy! Dey ain't goin' to be no core!"

Feeling greatly refreshed I then picked the pears.

It was no easy job, for the top branches were long and slim, and as I swung around and took chances I felt that Calverly knew what he was talking about when he described the monkeys as clinging,

"With ape-like glee, By the teeth or tail or eyelid To the slippery mango tree."

While occupying my position of vantage I had a rush of primordial feelings that made me almost a believer in the Darwinian theory. It could be nothing but the stirring of some hereditary emotion that made me long to throw pears at the people below who were sending up exclamations of caution and advice. There would be a joy in it such as must have been felt by our ancestors when:

"Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage The potato ground and cut Down the unsuspecting savage With the well-aimed cocoanut."

Before my task was finished I was led to reflect that a prehensile tail must be a great advantage to a climber. Yet there can be no advantage without its penalty. I remember a joke in Life about a monkey that was complaining because it had slipped and sprained its tail.

While picking the pears I had a chance to overlook the activities of the whole neighbourhood, but my interest was largely centred in my own cornfield, where a band of original Canadians, Indians, were busy husking. That corn had been hanging over me like an incubus, for I thought I would have to husk it all myself, but

"The red man came, the roaming hunter tribe,"

and I promptly made a treaty with them. But the consideration was not glass beads and red cotton handkerchiefs. Not at all. They are civilised--as civilised as an imported hired man. They insisted on getting five and a half cents a bushel--"and find themselves." Reflecting that even at that price I would not make much more than board wages, I agreed to pay. And as I looked at the cornfield from the pear tree I felt glad that I had done so, for real judges have estimated that there will be at least five hundred bushels. I will have enough to do in hauling home the ears and stalks. The piles of yellow ears delighted my eye, and then I noticed the golden sprinkling of pumpkins in the field, and I called down orders for pies. Somehow, in this country life our appetites are always with us.

Looked at from the height I was occupying, the world seemed more alive than usual. I could see men working in their fields or about their buildings for a mile or two in every direction. Ordinarily we see only the people and animals on our own farms, and are oppressed by a sense of loneliness. From my tree-top I could see that I really have neighbours. As I realised this I was struck by the thought that all our activities take place within a few feet of the ground. In spite of our boasted freedom of action we are the slaves of the law of gravity which keeps us "crawling 'twixt the earth and heaven." But because we can walk and run and travel in trains, and even fly a little, we think ourselves entirely free and are not conscious of the fact that gravity binds us as with chains. Who knows but in a similar way our actions, both moral and intellectual, are governed by laws of which we are unconscious? Perhaps if we could make our analysis keen enough we would find that our lives impinge on the peripheries of other spheres than that of the earth, and that we are whirled around on them forever like Ixion on his wheel. Such a discovery would settle to the satisfaction of all the endless debate regarding predestination and free will. But it does not do to indulge in such metaphysical flights while clambering around in a tree forty feet from the ground. They might make us giddy, and then "What a fall would be there, my fellow-countrymen." Still it was worth the climb to get away for a little while from the flatness of things and to realise that there is much in life that is missed by the sensible people who keep their feet constantly on the ground. We need an occasional breath from the heights, and I am inclined to think there was much wisdom in the words of the poetess who closed a notable poem in a recent number of The Forum with the couplet:

"He whose soul is flat, the sky Will cave in on him by and by."

Oct. 10.--Why are there no good quotations about October? We are having weather just now that makes one long for a burst of poetry that will surpass "What is so rare as a day in June?" as much as ripeness surpasses greenness. Poe has something about "the lonesome October" that gives one cold chills to remember. Is it because the only decent rhyme for October is "sober" that the poets have been unable to get enthusiastic? And what a peculiar touch of irony it is that "sober" is the only rhyme for the month of wine-pressing, cider-making, and "brown October ale." But perhaps the trouble is that the poets cannot do the subject justice. At no other season of the year is the country so bewilderingly beautiful--so "beautiful exceedingly." The frost has worked miracles with the foliage. The staid green of summer has given place to "a riot of colour" (good old phrase) ranging from the most delicate yellow to crimson and purple. After the frosty nights the air has an exhilarating quality not to be described in a country where prohibition sentiment is so strong. The October sunshine has a satisfying warmth that makes a man as mellow as a fall pippin. Some one has somewhere described this as "the season when every schoolboy trudges along the country roads munching a ripe apple." That does very well for prose, but the subject is one that demands poetry. We should have something as meaty as the well-filled granaries and as luscious as the closely-packed apple barrels. Let our poets get busy. Some American magazine will be glad to pay a proper price for the gem when it is completed.

A drive through the country has charms at all times, but just now it is especially worth while. If scenery is your hobby the above-mentioned "riot of colour" may be seen from a thousand angles. Piles of apples, rosy, yellow, and green, give an appetising beauty to every orchard--marred somewhat by commercial-looking apple barrels, indicating that these good things will be sold to be enjoyed elsewhere. It may be observed everywhere that

"The frost is on the pumpkin, and the corn is in the shock."

Potatoes are being dug and huge piles are in evidence ready to be pitted. This, by the way, is the season of the real Canadian harvest. The corn, potatoes, beans, and pumpkins are native products and were cultivated long before the coming of the white man. The Indian harvest was really gathered in Indian summer. The harvest over which we make so much is all of cereals introduced by the white man.

This is also the small boy's harvest. The nutting season is on, although it is somewhat spoiled by "No Trespassing" signs that give such an unneighbourly look to some parts of the country. Walnuts and chestnuts are carefully protected as a rule, for they have a market value, but beechnuts and hickory nuts are free for all. One misses, however, those most industrious nut-gatherers, the red squirrels. They have practically disappeared from this part of the country. They understood the science of nut-gathering to the last detail, and the boy who kept a close watch on them usually reaped a rich, though piratical, harvest. When gathering hickory nuts, the red squirrel selected the best and put them through a proper course of treatment before carrying them to his nest in some hollow tree. The nuts were first buried under decaying leaves or old damp logs until the outer husks were loosened. These preliminary storehouses were the ones raided by the predatory small boys, for the squirrels usually managed to hide their winter homes so carefully that there was no finding them. It used to be said that the squirrels never climbed a home tree, but left and approached it through the branches so that no tell-tale tracks would be left on the snow. The boy who managed to plunder a number of busy squirrels usually got a winter store of the choicest nuts, but the urchin of to-day must do his own climbing, selecting, and hulling. Judging by observation, the shell-bark hickories have not changed in any way, but are just as exasperating to climb as ever. Moreover, they are just as tall as ever, and the choicest nuts grow out of range of the well-aimed sticks. The boy who does not want to get into trouble by having his clothes torn wisely waits until the nuts are brought down by his ancient enemy, Jack Frost.

The cider presses are now working overtime, and everybody who cares to can have a plentiful supply of apple butter, cider vinegar, and possibly a little--only a little, for the stomach's sake--hard cider. Those who have encountered some of this home-made hard cider when it giveth its colour aright assure me that it stingeth like an adder and biteth like a serpent and has a headache in every mouthful. It is whispered that some people add a bushel of white wheat to every barrelful--which ought to make a fairly husky brew. But let us talk of apple butter. This is made by boiling down the cider to one-third the original quantity and adding enough sound apples to make a thick "sass." It is a "nippy" preserve that is appetising and satisfying. Some cider is boiled slightly and put away in sealers to be used for drinking purposes and to make Thanksgiving and Christmas mince pies. Cider-making, like almost everything else, has undergone a change. It is unusual to find a farmer with an old-fashioned hand press, as it was found that these did not extract all the cider. They now have cider mills, to which the farmers take their apples to be ground and pressed by powerful machinery. And even though the huge presses seem to squeeze the fruit as dry as a small dealer who has fallen into the hands of a trust, I am told that in some places the pulp is carefully preserved and shipped to wine manufacturers, who subject it to a further treatment, which enables them to make a champagne that, when properly labelled, will rank with the finest and most costly. Speaking of wines, if ancient tales tell true, this is the year for connoisseurs to lay in a supply. It is one of the superstitions of wine countries that wine made in a "comet year" surpasses all others in body and bouquet.

Country sales are now in progress and are being advertised on every convenient roadside tree. Bridges and gate posts are decorated with attractive bills and the voice of the auctioneer is heard in the land. It is said that owing to the scarcity and high price of feed many farmers are selling their young cattle, but the prices reported indicate that few bargains can be picked up. Good stock still commands high prices. The auctioneers of the present are business-like individuals, and those who attend sales do not come home with the good stories and choice bits of repartee that used to make a sale a sort of country entertainment. Sales are now attended chiefly by people who are looking for something to buy, and "business is business, b'gosh."

The turkeys, that reverted as far as they could to the wild state during the summer, are now returning to the barns about the time the chickens are being fed, and are selecting for themselves the best roosting-places. They have grown plump on wild seeds and grasshoppers, and now they make daily excursions to the woods for beechnuts, which they swallow whole. As beechnuts are plentiful this year, nut-fed turkeys should be a feature of the Thanksgiving markets, though no one seems to have made a classification of this kind. Beechnut bacon is sometimes advertised--a fact that causes wonder among the farmers, for in the old days when they dressed their hogs for market the buyers were expert in picking out hogs that had been allowed to eat nuts. These were promptly culled out and either had to be sold at a lower price or taken home. It was claimed that the flesh was soft and oily. But possibly beechnut pork had qualities that were overlooked. Anyway, it sounds good.

Oct. 13.--When the little yellow handbills announcing the Muncey-Tecumseh Fair appeared in the post office and other places where people assemble a curiosity was aroused that could only be satisfied by a visit to the Indian show. The whole affair was to be conducted by Indians, and the exhibits would be of Indian products. Here was something to kindle the imagination. It recalled memories of times when the Indians made regular excursions from their reservations to sell baskets, axe-handles, whipstocks, and bead-work pincushions to the farmers and the farmers' wives. It is not so many years since there was still "good hunting" in the land, and parties of Indians would be discovered, unexpectedly, living in a brush and bark wigwam in the woods. Although they carried guns, they still used bows and arrows for squirrels and small game, and a visit to one of their camps was an event in the life of a small boy. It was believed in those days, and the belief may have had a foundation in fact, that the Indians had a right to take hickory trees for their axe-handles and whipstocks and hoop-ash for their baskets wherever they found the timber to their liking. At any rate, they helped themselves, with no one to object, and their little camps were developed into primitive manufacturing centres. They usually bartered their products for salt pork, flour, potatoes, old clothes, and apples with the farmers, and for bright ribbons, calico, and many unnecessary things with the storekeepers. When they visited a store they seemed to feel it a duty to keep on buying as long as they had a cent to spend or anything with which to barter.

These recollections naturally roused expectations for the fair. It would surely give an opportunity for another glimpse of primitive life. The trip involved a drive of fifteen miles over roads that varied from a piece that had to be travelled with one wheel in the roadside ditch to avoid a stretch of crushed stone put down under the "county roads system" a year ago, and still unfinished, to a piece that was nothing more than an Indian trail over hills and across gullies. It would take a man of keen discrimination to decide which was the worse, the road made by the white man when working at what should be his best, or by the Indian when not working at all. It should be explained, however, that the trouble with the white man's crushed stone road was the proverbial one of the "ha'p'orth of tar," for lack of which the ship was spoiled. In this case the ha'p'orth represented a heavy steam roller, costing several thousands of dollars, but absolutely indispensable to good road building. Because such a roller was not used on the crushed stone the road that had been treated has naturally caused many people to regard the county roads system of road building a failure. But any system is a failure when the work is not properly done. Another stretch of road represented the work done under military management in pioneer days, and it was something to make automobilists cast all speed limits to the winds--which they mostly do when they strike it, leaving the foot passengers and drivers the option of dodging into the fence corners or landing among the telegraph wires. But despite the roads the scenery was excellent, and gave us much the same comfort that the Irishman's cow got when her owner drove her to the top of a barren hill and told her that, although the pasture was bad, the view was the finest to be had in three counties. Presently a British flag was seen floating from a flag-pole in a bare, open tract of country beyond two interesting-looking gullies that made the horse prick forward his ears and made the driver remember that hill-climbing on foot is excellent for the liver.

One naturally expects an Indian show to be held under spreading trees, but the trees in the part of the Muncey Reserve through which we passed are not doing much spreading just now. Somebody--let us hope it was the Indians--has cleared away the timber so industriously that only a few patches of scrub remain. The show ground is behind a high board fence enclosing a couple of buildings and a little race track. An Indian was in charge of the ticket selling, and two more guarded the gate. So far, the prospect was promising. Evidently the Indians were in charge of their own show, but on entering the grounds the disillusionment began. The refreshment stand looked just like a refreshment stand anywhere else, covered with bunting, and made inviting with exhibits of coloured popcorn balls, pink lemonade, and roasting peanuts. There was no pemmican or jerked buffalo meat in sight anywhere. The one specialist who was calling his wares was selling perfume, "three bottles for a quarter," all undoubtedly coal-tar derivatives. The Indians who were on the grounds wore white men's clothing, and were going around seeing the sights like ordinary citizens at any other fair. They wore the Sunday-go-to-meetin' ready-made clothes with as much grace as the white men who were mingling with them. The dresses of the squaws suggested that at least some of them are dealing with the mail-order houses. There was not a blanket in sight. In the Exhibition Hall there were log-cabin quilts, hand and machine made shirts, knitted woollen socks and mittens, quilted babies' bibs, fancy-work, and overgrown vegetables and fruits of the kind seen at every Fall Fair. Among the work of the school children were obvious copies of pictures by Henry Hutt and Gibson, copied from current magazines by the Indian children. In fact, the Indian show was simply a white man's show, exhibiting products such as might be found at a show in any purely white community. The only evidences of Indian work were a few baskets and a Navajo blanket, loaned by some one who wished to show the Indians some of the kind of work the Indians do elsewhere.