The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1902-05-23
A GREAT CAPTURE.
BY ALDEN sANDERsoN.

Maine; but most of the winter of 1900 had
passed when Abel Cushman and his wife set
off with horse and sleigh, to visit Mrs.
Cushman's brother, who lived about 20
miles away. They left their boy Charley,
aged IA, to keep house and care for the cows,
sheep and poultry at the barn. And in order
that he might not be lonely, they had sent
down to Oldtown for his cousin, Charley
Stetson, to come and stay with him.
Mrs. Cushman had cooked food enough for
the boys during the week they would be
alone. 10 save them from that mischievous
idleness which creeps upon boys when they
play all day long, Mr.. Cushman set off
section of the woodpile for them to reduce
to stove wood. 1t was a small section, how
ever, hardly more than cord; they would
not be obliged to work on it more than an
hour each day.
There was still much snow upon the
ground; but on the fourth day after the de-
parture of Mr.. and Mrs. Cushman there
came rainstorm which laid the fields bare
in spots, raised the brooks and flooded the
pond behind the Cushman woodlot till the
water stood foot deep on the winter ice.
AS it CHANGED, this portion of the state lay
near the snow line; which means that not
many many miles to the northward there
were sleet and snow instead of rain, while
to the southwark nearly all the snow had
gone. Looking north and northwest,
Mount Katahdin showed wholly white; to
the south the hills lay bare and brown. The
rain ceased and the sky cleared in part on
the next afternoon. During the following
evening, as the two Charleys were popping
corn at the sittingroom fireplace, Charley
Stetson thought that he heard queer noise
up the chimney.
Sounds like geese" he said. "Lots of
geese long way off"
He continued hearing it as he shook the
corn, and at last the two boys ran to the out
side door to listen. Then, indeed, they
heard geese in earnest. The sky, the fields
and the whole surrounding country ap-
peared to be full of geese!
1t was too dark to see them, however, and
for long time the two lads stood at the
door, and listened to the clamor For not
only were tlocks passing over, but other
focks appeared to be circling about, in con-
fusion or alarm.
"Wild geese flying north" said Charley
Cushman. "They fly every spring, but I
never heard SO many before" Neither had
anyone else, not even the oldest inhabitant,
although this region is in the line of the
from the southern coast northward to Hud-
son Bay
But this season the unusual meteorolog-
ical conditions must have been misleading.
Finding the earth bare of snow along the
coast and for so miles inland, the focks seem
to have passed the watchword to fly north.
But as they reached the latitude of Malta
wamkeag, they Unexpectedly found the
whole country still buried in snow and all
the lakes, streams and small ponds sealed
with ice.
The focks in advance turned back at the
small lakes in alarm, or from lack of food;
and when these retreating foeks met others
coming up from the south great squalling
prevailed. The captain ganders loudly
abused one another. Somebody had blum
dered. Nobody, that is to say, no goose,
knew what to do; and it ended in many
thousands of geese alighting in the fields and
all along the streams and ponds on the snow
line.
The focks were hungry and disturbed,
and there was little to eat except grass roots
in the fields. The uproar all night was ire
mendous; the two Charleys hardly closed
their eyes, and daylight revealed the fields
gray with wild geese. They were literally
grubbing up the entire farm.
Mr.. Cushman owned a gun, but he had
taken good care to leave no ammunition in
the house The boys unable to shoot the
geese, attempted to drive them out of the
fields. The focks rose as they ran toward
them and flew away to adjoining fields; but
other focks soon took their place
During the afternoon snow squalls swept
down from Katahdin and cold wave came
on; it was bitingly frosty and bleak. The
next morning the temperature at Malta
wamkeag was ten degrees below zero. All
the open puddles of water froze solid. The
geese probably had turned southwark;
there were few to be seen at daylight but
the boys heard great clamor at the pond,
beyond the wood lot; and wrapping them
selves up warm, they went through the
woods to see what was going on.
Several hundred geese were on the pond,
some flying about over it, others rising in
the air, and still others tapping wildly on
the surface of the ice; all were raising pro
digious clamor.
As the boys drew nearer they saw that
many of the geese, although tapping power
fully, were unable to rise, and soon the
truth of the situation was manifest. More
than a hundred geese were frozen into the
ice, where they had sat in the water, and
could not extricate their legs The cold
wave had trapped them cruelty.
The boys attempted to seize one, but the
fettered bird fought stoutly with beak and
wings, squalling defiance. By coming up
from behind, however, and catching the
goose around the neck, they mastered it.
But the boys could not pull the bird out of
the ice.
At last they went to the house for an ak,
with which they chopped: the. ice from
about the feet of two of the geese. Then,
as they were carrying the birds home, an
idea occurred to Charley Stetson.
"Let's put the lamb crate on the sled, yoke
the steers and drive over there and get all
of them, l will hold their necks and you
chop them out, one at time. We will put
them in the barn. And won't Uncle Abe
stare when he gets home"
They made two trips to the pond with the
sled and lamb crate, and actually secured
more than 80 wild geese, which they drew
home and turned loose in the old barn-the
greatest capture of the kind on record. That
barn was a noisy placei
Mr.. Cushman and his wife arrived home
on the following day. Their surprise was
genuine, as well as agreeable. Baked goose
figured prominently ON the farmhouse table
for some time, and half dozen billowy
beds and soft pillows form lasting SOU
venir of the catchy uth's Companion.
A Qualified Opinion.
One of the constituents of Judge gilbert
son, the father of the present senator from
81 ,o1 @l,at |,