CHAPTER XVI. The Road to the Sea

THE ROAD TO THE SEA

Towards evening clouds began to gather; then a gentle wind from the South brought the first signs of thawing weather. Later a warm rain drenched the woods, washing away the snow and leaving the swamps cloaked in vapor.

This was the kind of winter weather the woodsfolk preferred to any other. Nearly all of them came out. Even the raccoons and the skunks, who sleep in cold weather no matter how long it lasts, crept forth to have a good hunt before the next cold spell began.

They had never before seen Red Ben, so each eyed him very carefully and left plenty of room between. As usual, the coons followed the water, the possums wandered along the edges of the swamp, and the skunks roamed the open places. None of them seemed sociable. The only ones Red Ben saw together were two coons who were having a loud altercation in the top of a hollow hickory. Each wanted the hollow entirely for himself, but neither could throw the other out of the tree.

In the stream a mink suddenly appeared. He had a frog in his jaws which he carried ashore and left on a tussock of grass. Returning to the water he dove, searched the muddy bottom, found another frog that was hibernating there, and laid it on the tussock beside its fellow. When he had collected four fat ones he finished his meal, leaving what he did not need, for other less expert hunters, like the possum, to find, if they could.

A larger animal than the mink also came swimming down the stream; it had a flatter head and lighter color. Red Ben, who was sitting on a high part of the bank watching all that was going on, saw at once that this was a creature not to be found in Goose Creek and Cranberry Swamp. It was an otter, on its way to winter quarters farther down the stream. Like most of the other woodsfolk, it had to find a snug, safe hole to live in during the many cold days ahead.

Even the big owls always sought holes when the leaves fell from the trees and the North Wind began to moan in the woods. They hunted out hollows in trees; so did the animals that could climb; but the others, the mink, the skunk, the muskrat and the weasel, slept in holes in the ground. These they dug themselves, if they had to; but generally it was possible for them to find old holes that would do very well. They were very lazy about that kind of thing, far different from animals like the squirrels, which built such snug nests for themselves in summer as well as in winter.

Red Ben found a possum carrying his bed along with him. Instead of holding the grass in his mouth as a squirrel would, he wrapped his queer tail around a big pile of it. Whenever he came across some more material that was suitable, he stopped, picked it up with a front foot and, reaching under his body, tucked it also into the bundle. The tail was curved down and then under his body, so the ends of the grass stuck out on each side, making him look, from the rear, like a little haystack wandering about.

It was not difficult to get food. There were still acorns under the oaks and fruit under the wild apple and persimmon trees. Red Ben, who of course knew nothing of this part of the country, found the trees by following the trails of the creatures that lived in the neighborhood. He looked for wild ducks as he later travelled down the edge of the stream, but found them too wild to be caught. The farther he went the more ducks he saw. The stream was joining other streams and getting wider and wider, until suddenly it came out of the woods and wound through a flat stretch of grass land.

There was now a different scent in Red Ben's nostrils, a dull roar always in his ears. He had reached the salt marshes, close to the ocean; just beyond them were the waves of the Atlantic hurling themselves on the hard beach of sand. Here were coon tracks in all directions, but no signs of other woods animals.

Red Ben trotted cautiously to the big sand dunes that edged the beach. Beyond them was the roar he had heard all the way from the woods. Climbing the soft sand, he looked over the top of the dunes and saw before him the Ocean, stretching as far as his eye could travel. For a long while he stood there watching the waves. Then he saw a fox, a gray, trotting along the beach. It was not afraid; why should he be cautious?

Down the dune he loped and over the hard, shell studded beach, to the very edge of the water. The gray walked forward to meet him, saw he was a stranger and at once put on all the hostile airs he could.

Red Ben, however, was not surprised. By this time he knew a good deal about gray foxes. He walked around the other, eyeing him sharply, but giving him every chance to attack if he wanted to. The gray was fooled. With a snarl he leaped at the apparently stupid red, only to be met by a blaze of teeth. The fight was over in a moment. The gray did not stop running until he had the big sand dunes between him and that red whirlwind.

Red Ben found crabs, fish, snails and clams washed up on the beach. He had never seen so much food. Some he ate, and some he carried to the dunes and buried for future use. He did not know that a new supply was washed in by every tide. Soon, however, he gave up the idea of burying all the fish he found; there were hundreds of them! Here indeed was the place in which to live and hunt--no traps, no hounds, no hunger. Red Ben sprang into the air in pure joy and raced down the beach and back again, and in and out of the dunes, and then off to the woods to find a resting place for the day.

All through January and the first weeks of cold February he lived by the sea. Then one warm night the loneliness came upon him again. The woods were wet and sweet, the ground was thawing; Spring seemed in the air. Instead of going to the beach, he wandered about the woods and then started West, towards the Pine Barrens. Often he stopped, but always trotted on again; something was calling him. Was it the sunny Ridge, so far from the angry winds and mists of the ocean? Red Ben did not know, but each hour brought him nearer.

With day came a change in the air. Snow began to fall, very softly, but very thick. Nearly blinded, Red Ben curled up under a laurel bush and waited, while inch by inch the flakes rose on the ground around him. No creature was stirring. There was something so determined in the way the snow fell that they were cowed and glad to hide in their snug beds. All night, too, it snowed, and all the next day. Red Ben lay now in a room of snow; on all sides and on top, except where his breath had thawed a hole, was the white blanket. He was completely snowed in.