Wood Folk at School | Page 8

there, he lives in the midst of law and
order--an order of things much older than that to which he is
accustomed, with which it is not well to interfere. I was uneasy,
following the little deer path through the twilight stillness; and my
uneasiness was not decreased when I found on a log, within fifty yards
of the spot where the fawn first appeared, the signs of a big lucivee,
with plenty of fawn's hair and fine-cracked bones to tell me what he
had eaten for his midnight dinner.
* * * * *
Down at the lower end of the same deer path, where it stopped at the
lake to let the wild things drink, was a little brook. Outside the mouth
of this brook, among the rocks, was a deep pool; and in the pool lived
some big trout. I was there one night, some two weeks later, trying to
catch some of the big trout for my next breakfast.
Those were wise fish. It was of no use to angle for them by day any
more. They knew all the flies in my book; could tell the new Jenny
Lind from the old Bumble Bee before it struck the water; and seemed
to know perfectly, both by instinct and experience, that they were all
frauds, which might as well be called Jenny Bee and Bumble Lind for
any sweet reasonableness that was in them. Besides all this, the water
was warm; the trout were logy and would not rise.
By night, however, the case was different. A few of the trout would
leave the pool and prowl along the shores in shallow water to see what
tidbits the darkness might bring, in the shape of night bugs and careless
piping frogs and sleepy minnows. Then, if you built a fire on the beach
and cast a white-winged fly across the path of the firelight, you would
sometimes get a big one.

It was fascinating sport always, whether the trout were rising or not.
One had to fish with his ears, and keep most of his wits in his hand,
ready to strike quick and hard when the moment came, after an hour of
casting. Half the time you would not see your fish at all, but only hear
the savage plunge as he swirled down with your fly. At other times, as
you struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come back to you, or
tangle itself up in unseen snags; and far out, where the verge of the
firelight rippled away into darkness, you would see a sharp
wave-wedge shooting away, which told you that your trout was only a
musquash. Swimming quietly by, he had seen you and your fire, and
slapped his tail down hard on the water to make you jump. That is a
way Musquash has in the night, so that he can make up his mind what
queer thing you are and what you are doing.
All the while, as you fish, the great dark woods stand close about you,
silent, listening. The air is full of scents and odors that steal abroad
only by night, while the air is dew-laden. Strange cries, calls, squeaks,
rustlings run along the hillside, or float in from the water, or drop down
from the air overhead, to make you guess and wonder what wood folk
are abroad at such unseemly hours, and what they are about. So that it
is good to fish by night, as well as by day, and go home with heart and
head full, even though your creel be empty.
I was standing very still by my fire, waiting for a big trout that had
risen and missed my fly to regain his confidence, when I heard cautious
rustlings in the brush behind me. I turned instantly, and there were two
great glowing spots, the eyes of a deer, flashing out of the dark woods.
A swift rustle, and two more coals glow lower down, flashing and
scintillating with strange colors; and then two more; and I know that
the doe and her fawns are there, stopped and fascinated on their way to
drink by the great wonder of the light, and by the witchery of the
dancing shadows that rush up at timid wild things, as if to frighten them,
but only jump over them and back again, as if inviting them to join the
silent play.
I knelt down quietly beside my fire, slipping on a great roll of birch
bark which blazed up brightly, filling the woods with light. There,

under a spruce, where a dark shadow had been a moment agone, stood
the mother, her eyes all ablaze with the wonder of the light; now staring
steadfastly into the fire; now starting nervously, with low questioning