I looked at the spot he was examining and said, ‘Well, no, I pounded it on a rock there, but I did have to chew it a bit around the neck. It stuck me.’
We looked at each other then. I wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to begin. He picked at my sleeve again.
‘My kid brother has one that looks more real than that thing. Whataya got that on for anyway?’
I looked at his clothes. He had on a nice pair of gray slacks, a white shirt opened at the neck, and a leather jacket. As I looked at these things, I found my voice.
‘Well, I’d rip anything like you have on all to pieces in about a week.’
He didn’t answer; he walked around me again.
‘Where did you say you came from?’
‘I didn’t say, but I come from a farm up the way.’
‘Whatja say your name was?’
‘Well, you called me Daniel Boone.’
‘Daniel Boone, eh?’ He walked around me once more, and then peered at me.
‘You’re from New York. I can tell the accent.’ He leaned against the cosmetic counter. ‘Come on, now, tell me, is this what the kids are wearing in New York now? Is this gang stuff?’
‘I am hardly a member of a gang,’ I said. ‘Are you?’
‘Out here? Naw, we bowl.’ The conversation went to bowling for a while, then he looked at his watch.
‘I gotta go. You sure are a sight, Boone. Whatja doing anyway, playing cowboys arid Indians?’
‘Come on up to the Gribley farm and I’ll show you what I'm doing. I’m doing research. Who knows when we’re all going to be blown to bits and need to know how to smoke venison.’
‘Gee, you New York guys can sure double talk. What does that mean, burn a block down?’
‘No, it means smoke venison,’ I said. I took a piece out of my pocket and gave it to him. He smelled it and handed it back.
‘Man,’ he said, ‘whataya do, eat it?’
‘I sure do,’ I answered.
‘I don’t know whether to send you home to play with my kid brother or call the cops.’ He shrugged his shoulders and repeated that he had to go. As he left, he called back, ‘The Gribley farm?’
‘Yes. Come on up if you can find it.’
I browsed through the magazines until the clerk got anxious to sell me something and then I wandered out. Most of the people were in church. I wandered around the town and back to the road.
It was nice to see people again. At the outskirts of town a little boy came bursting out of a house with his shoes off, and his mother came bursting out after him. I caught the little fellow by the arm and I held him until his mother picked him up and took him back. As she went up the steps, she stopped and looked at me. She stepped toward the door, and then walked back a few steps and looked at me again. I began to feel conspicuous and took the road to my mountain.
I passed the little old strawberry lady’s house. I almost went in, and then something told me to go home.
I found Frightful, untied her, stroked her creamy breast feathers, and spoke to her. ‘Frightful, I made a friend today. Do you think that is what I had in mind all the time?’ The bird whispered.
I was feeling sad as we kicked up the leaves and started home through the forest. On the other hand, I was glad I had met Mr. Jacket, as I called him. I never asked his name. I had liked him although we hadn’t even had a fight. All the best friends I had, I always fought, then got to like them after the wounds healed.
The afternoon darkened. The nuthatches that had been clinking around the trees were silent. The chickadees had vanished. A single crow called from the edge of the road. There were no insects singing, there were no catbirds, or orioles, or vireos, or robins.
‘Frightful,’ I said. ‘It is winter. It is winter and I have forgotten to do a terribly important thing—stack up a big woodpile.’ The stupidity of this sent Mr. Jacket right out of my mind, and I bolted down the valley to my mountain. Frightful flapped to keep her balance. As I crossed the stones to my mountain trail, I said to that bird, ‘Sometimes I wonder if I will make it to spring.’
in which
I Pile Up Wood and Go on with Winter
Now I am almost to that snowstorm. The morning after I had the awful thought about the wood, I got up early. I was glad to hear the nuthatches and chickadees. They gave me the feeling that I still had time to chop. They were bright, busy, and totally unworried about storms. I shouldered my ax and went out.
I had used most of the wood around the hemlock house, so I crossed to the top of the gorge. First I took all the dry limbs off the trees and hauled them home. Then I chopped down dead trees. With wood all around me, I got in my tree and put my arm out. I made an x in the needles. Where the x lay, I began stacking wood. I wanted to be able to reach my wood from the tree when the snow was deep. I piled a big stack at this point. I reached out the other side of the door and made another x. I piled wood here. Then I stepped around my piles and had a fine idea. I decided that if I used up one pile, I could tunnel through the snow to the next and the next. I made many woodpiles leading out into the forest.
I watched the sky. It was as blue as summer, but ice was building up along the waterfall at the gorge. I knew winter was coming, although each day the sun would rise in a bright sky and the days would follow cloudless. I piled more wood. This is when I realized that I was scared. I kept cutting wood and piling it like a nervous child biting his nails.
It was almost with relief that I saw the storm arrive.
Now I am back where I began. I won’t tell it again, I shall go on now with my relief and the fun and wonderfulness of living on a mountaintop in winter.
The Baron Weasel loved the snow, and was up and about in it every day before Frightful and I had had our breakfast. Professor Bando’s jam was my standby on those cold mornings. I would eat mounds of it on my hard acorn pancakes, which I improved by adding hickory nuts. With these as a bracer for the day, Frightful and I would stamp out into the snow and reel down the mountain. She would fly above my head as I slid and plunged and rolled to the creek.
The creek was frozen. I would slide out onto it and break a little hole and ice fish. The sun would glance off the white snow, the birds would fly through the trees, and I would come home with a fresh meal from the valley. I found there were still plants under the snow, and I would dig down and get teaberry leaves and wintergreen. I got this idea from the deer, who found a lot to eat under the snow. I tried some of the mosses that they liked, but decided moss was for the deer.
Around four o’clock we would all wander home. The nuthatches, the chickadees, the cardinals, Frightful, and me. And now came the nicest part of wonderful days. I would stop in the meadow and throw Frightful off my fist. She would wind into the sky and wait above me as I kicked the snow-bent grasses. A rabbit would pop up, or sometimes a pheasant. Out of the sky, from a pinpoint of a thing, would dive my beautiful falcon. And, oh, she was beautiful when she made a strike—all power and beauty. On the ground she would cover her quarry. Her perfect feathers would stand up on her body and her wings would arch over the food. She never touched it until I came and picked her up. I would go home and feed her, then crawl into my tree room, light a little fire on my hearth, and Frightful and I would begin the winter evening.
I had lots of time to cook and try mixing different plants with different meats to make things taste better—and I must say I originated some excellent meals.
When dinner was done, the fire would blaze on; Frightful would sit on the foot post of the bed and preen and wipe her beak and shake. Just the fact that she was alive was a warming thing to know.
I would look at her and wonder what made a bird a bird and a boy a boy. The forest would become silent. I would know that The Baron Weasel was about, but I would not hear him.
Then I would get a piece of birch bark and write, or I would make new things out of deer hide, like a hood for Frightful, and finally I would take off my suit and
my moccasins and crawl into my bed under the sweet-smelling deerskin. The fire would burn itself out and I would be asleep. Those were nights of the very best sort. One night I read some of my old notes about how to pile wood so I could get to it under the snow, and I laughed until Frightful awoke. I hadn’t made a single tunnel. I walked on the snow to get wood like The Baron Weasel went for food or the deer went for moss.
in which
I Learn About Birds and People
Frightful and I settled down to living in snow. We went to bed early, slept late, ate the mountain harvest, and explored the country alone. Oh, the deer walked with us, the foxes followed in our footsteps, the winter birds flew over our heads, but mostly we were alone in the white wilderness. It was nice. It was very, very nice. My deerskin rabbit-lined suit was so warm that even when my breath froze in my nostrils, my body was snug and comfortable. Frightful fluffed on the coldest days, but a good flight into the air around the mountain would warm her, and she would come back to my fist with a thump and a flip. This was her signal of good spirits.
I did not become lonely. Many times during the summer I had thought of the ‘long winter months ahead’ with some fear. I had read so much about the loneliness of the farmer, the trapper, the woodsman during the bleakness of winter that I had come to believe it. The winter was as exciting as the summer—maybe more so. The birds were magnificent and almost tame. They talked to each other, warned each other, fought for food, for kingship, and for the right to make the most noise. Sometimes I would sit in my doorway, which became an entrance to behold—a portico of pure white snow, adorned with snowmen—and watch them with endless interest. They reminded me of Third Avenue, and I gave them the names that seemed to fit.
There was Mr. Bracket. He lived on the first floor of our apartment house, and no one could sit on his step or even make a noise near his door without being chased. Mr. Bracket, the chickadee, spent most of his time chasing the young chickadees through the woods. Only his mate could share his favorite perches and feeding places.
Then there were Mrs. O’Brien, Mrs. Callaway, and Mrs. Federio. On Third Avenue they would all go off to the market together first thing in the morning, talking and pushing and stopping to lecture to children in gutters and streets. Mrs. Federio always followed Mrs. O’Brien, and Mrs. O’Brien always followed Mrs. Callaway in talking and pushing and even in buying an apple. And there they were again in my hemlock; three busy chickadees. They would flit and rush around and click and fly from one eating spot to another. They were noisy, scolding and busily following each other. All the other chickadees followed them, and they made way only for Mr. Bracket.
The chickadees, like the people on Third Avenue, had their favorite routes to and from the best food supplies. They each had their own resting perches and each had a little shelter in a tree cavity to which they would fly when the day was over. They would chatter and call good night and make a big fuss before they parted; and then the forest would be as quiet as the apartment house on Third Avenue when all the kids were off the streets and all the parents had said their last words to each other and everyone had gone to their own little hole.
Sometimes when the wind howled and the snows blew, the chickadees would be out for only a few hours. Even Mr. Bracket, who had been elected by the chickadees to test whether or not it was too stormy for good hunting, would appear for a few hours and disappear. Sometimes I would find him just sitting quietly on a limb next to the bole of a tree, all fluffed up and doing nothing. There was no one who more enjoyed doing nothing on a bad day than Mr. Bracket of Third Avenue.
Frightful, the two Mr. Brackets, and I shared this feeling. When the ice and sleet and snow drove down through the hemlocks, we all holed up.
I looked at my calendar pole one day, and realized that it was almost Christmas. Bando will come, I thought. I’ll have to prepare a feast and make a present for him. I took stock of the frozen venison and decided that there were enough steaks for us to eat nothing but venison for a month. I scooped under the snow for teaberry plants to boil down and pour over snowballs for dessert.
I checked my cache of wild onions to see if I had enough to make onion soup, and set aside some large firm groundnuts for mashed potatoes. There were still piles of dogtooth violet bulbs and Solomon’s seal roots and a few dried apples. I cracked walnuts, hickory nuts, and beechnuts, then began a pair of deer-hide moccasins to be lined with rabbit fur for Bando’s present. I finished these before Christmas, so I started a hat of the same materials.
Two days before Christmas I began to wonder if Bando would come. He had forgotten, I was sure—or he was busy, I said. Or he thought that I was no longer here and decided not to tramp out through the snows to find out. On Christmas Eve Bando still had not arrived, and I began to plan for a very small Christmas with Frightful.
About four-thirty Christmas Eve I hung a small red cluster of teaberries on the deerskin door. I went in my tree room for a snack of beechnuts when I heard a faint ‘halloooo’ from far down the mountain. I snuffed out my tallow candle, jumped into my coat and moccasins, and plunged out into the snow. Again a ‘halloooo’ floated over the quiet snow. I took a bearing on the sound and bounced down the hill to meet Bando. I ran into him just as he turned up the valley to follow the stream bed. I was so glad to see him that I hugged him and pounded him on the back.
‘Never thought I’d make it,’ he said. ‘I walked all the way from the entrance of the State Park; pretty good, eh?’ He smiled and slapped his tired legs. Then he grabbed my arm, and with three quick pinches, tested the meat on me.
‘You've been living well,’ he said. He looked closely at my face. ‘But you’re gonna need a shave in a year or two.’ I thanked him and we sprang up the mountain, cut across through the gorge and home.
‘How’s the Frightful?’ he asked as soon as we were inside and the light was lit.
I whistled. She jumped to my fist. He got bold and stroked her. ‘And the jam?’ he asked.
‘Excellent, except the crocks are absorbent and are sopping up all the juice.’
‘Well, I brought you some more sugar; we’ll try next year. Merry Christmas, Thoreau!’ he shouted, and looked about the room.
‘I see you have been busy. A blanket, new clothes, and an ingenious fireplace—with a real chimney—and say, you have silverware!’ He picked up the forks I had carved.
We ate smoked fish for dinner with boiled dogtooth violet bulbs. Walnuts dipped in jam were dessert. Bando was pleased with his jam.
When we were done, Bando stretched out on my bed. He propped his feet up and lit his pipe.
‘And now, I have something to show you,’ he said. He reached in his coat pocket and took out a newspaper clipping. It was from a New York paper, and it read:
wild boy suspected living off deer
and nuts in wilderness of catskills
I looked at Bando and leaned over to read the headline myself.
‘Have you been talking?’ I asked.
‘Me? Don’t be ridiculous. You have had several visitors other than me.’
‘The fire warden—the old lady!’ I cried out.
‘Now, Thoreau, this could only be a rumor. Just because it is in print, doesn’t mean it’s true. Before you get excited, sit still and listen.’ He read:
‘ “Residents of Delhi, in the Catskill Mountains, report that a wild boy, who lives off deer and nuts, is hiding out in the mountains.
‘ “Several hunters stated that this boy stole deer from them during hunting season.” ’
‘I did not!’ I shouted. ‘I only took the ones they had wounded and couldn’t find.’
‘Well, that’s what they told their wives when they came home without their deer. Anyway, listen to this: “This wild boy has been seen from time to time by Catskill residents, seme of whom believe he is crazy!” ’
‘Well, that’s a terrible thing to say!’
‘Just awful,’ he stated. ‘Any normal red-blooded Ame
rican boy wants to live in a tree house and trap his own food. They just don’t do it, that’s all.’
‘Read on,’ I said.
‘ “Officials say that there is no evidence of any boy living alone in the mountains, and add that all abandoned houses and sheds are routinely checked for just such events. Nevertheless, the residents are sure that such a boy exists!” End story.’
‘That’s a lot of nonsense!’ I leaned back against the bedstead and smiled.
‘Ho, ho, don’t think that ends it,’ Bando said, and reached in his pocket for another clipping. ‘This one is dated December fifth, the other was November twenty-third. Shall I read?’
‘Yes.’
old woman reports meeting wild boy
while picking strawberries in catskills
‘ “Mrs. Thomas Fielder, ninety-seven, resident of Delhi, N.Y., told this reporter that she met a wild boy on Bitter Mountain last June while gathering her annual strawberry jelly supply.
‘ “She said the boy was brown-haired, dusty, and wandering aimlessly around the mountains. However, she added, he seemed to be in good flesh and happy.
‘ “The old woman, a resident of the mountain resort town for ninety-seven years, called this office to report her observation. Local residents report that Mrs. Fielder is a fine old member of the community, who only occasionally sees imaginary things.” ’
Bando roared. I must say I was sweating, for I really did not expect this turn of events.
‘And now,’ went on Bando, ‘and now the queen of the New York papers. This story was buried on page nineteen. No sensationalism for this paper.
boy reported living off land in catskills
‘ “A young boy of seventeen or eighteen, who left home with a group of boy scouts, is reported to be still scouting in that area, according to the fire warden of the Catskill Mountains.
‘ “Evidence of someone living in the forest—a fireplace, soup bones, and cracked nuts—was reported by Warden Jim Handy, who spent the night in the wilderness looking for the lad. Jim stated that the young man had apparently left the area, as there was no evidence of his camp upon a second trip—” ’
My Side of the Mountain Page 8