The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1902-01-25
Among tho Wood-Folk.

Among tho Wood-Folk.
Here is living, breathing pen-pic-:
ture. taken from that unique and re-
markable story, ''The Heart of the An
Gent Wood" which every one of you
should read. The whole book. like
this extract, pulses with the very in
nermost life of nature: Keen of
vision, skilled in woodcraft though he
was, the grave-faced old lumberman
saw nothing in the tranquility about
MIN save tree trunks, and fallen, rot
ting remnants, and messed hillocks,
and thickets of tangled shrub. He
noted the difference, not known to the
general eye, between white spruce,
RH&ck spruce, and fir, between gray
birch and yellow birch, between white
wood and viburnum; and he read in
stlnctively, by the lichen growth about
their edges, how many seasons had
laid their disfeaturing touch upon
those old scars Of the axe which
marked the trail. But for all his craft
ne thought himself alone. He guessed
not OF the many eyes that watched
him. In truth, his progress was the
locus OF an 1nnumerable attention. The
1urt1ve eyes that followed his move
ments were some of them timorously
hostile, some impotently vindictive
some Indifferent; but all alien. All
were at one in the will to remain un-
seen; so all kept an unwinking i'm
mobility, and were swallowed up, as it
were, in the universal stiffness. The
cock-partridge, well-traveled bird.
who knew the settlements and their
violent perils, watched the indignant
apprehension. Not without purpose
mad he come whirring so tumultu-
ously up the trail, warning to the
ears OF all the voolfolk. His fear
was lest the coming of this gray man
figure should mean an invasion of
these long black sticks that went off
with smoky bang ,swhen they were
pointed. He effaced himself till his
brown notified feathers were fairly one
with the notified brownbark of his
perch, but his liquid eye lost not
least movement Of the stranger. The
nuthatch, who had been walking
straight up the perpendicular trunk of
pine when the sound of the alien
footsteps froze him, peered fixedly
around the tree. His eye, a black
point of inquiry, had never before
seen anything like this clumsy and
slow-moving shape, but knew it for
something dangerous. His little slaty
head, jutting at an acute angle from
the bark, looked like a mere caprice
OF knot or wood fungus; but it had
the singular quality of moving
smoothly around the trunk, as the
lumberman advanced, so as to keep
him always in view Equally curious.
but quivering with fear, two wood
mice watched him intently, sitting un-
der the broad leaf of a skunk-cabbage
not three feet from the trail. Their
whiskers touched each others noses,
conveying thrills and palpitations of
terror as he drew near, drew nearer,
came-and passed. But not unless
that blind, unheeding heel had been
on the very point of crushing them,
would they. have ~disobsyed the prime,
law OF their tribe, which taught them
that to sit still was to sit unseen. A
little farther back from the trail, I'm
der spreading tangle of ironwood. on
a bed Of tawny moss crouched a hare.
His ears lay quite flat along the back.
His eyes watched with aversion, not
unmixed with scorn, the heavy, tall
creature that moved with such effort
and such noise. Never" thought the
hare, disdainfnl1y, would he he able
to escape from his enemiesr' AS the
delicate yurrent OF air that pulses i'm
|'pereepttb 5SVhrough the forest bore
the scent OF the NAM to the hares
hiding-place the fine nustrils OF the
latter worked rapidly with dislike.