The Desert Home: The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness

by Mayne Reid

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

  LITTLE MARY AND THE BEE.

  "During the winter we saw very little of our beavers. Through the coldseason they lay snug in their houses--although not in a state oftorpidity, as the beaver does not become torpid in winter. He onlykeeps within doors, and spends most of his time in eating and sleeping;but he goes out of his house at intervals to wash and clean himself, forthe beaver is an animal of very precise habits. He is not compelled,however, to go abroad in search of food. As we have seen, he lays up astock which serves him throughout the cold season.

  "For several weeks in mid-winter, the dam was frozen over with icestrong enough to bear our weight; and we visited the houses of thebeavers that stood up like so many hay-stacks. We found them so hardand firm, that we could climb upon them, and pounce down upon theirtops, without the least danger of breaking them in. In fact, it wouldhave been anything but an easy task to have opened one of them fromabove; and no animal--not even the wolverene with his crooked claws,--could have done it. We observed that in every case the doors were farbelow the ice, so that the entrance still remained open to the animalswithin; and, moreover, when any one stamped heavily upon the roof,through the clear ice we could see the frightened creatures making theirescape by darting off into the water. Sometimes we remained to see ifthey would return, but in no instance did they come back. At the timewe wondered at this--as we knew they could not possibly live under theice, where there was no air. We soon found, however, that these cunningcreatures knew what they were about; and that they had already providedmeans to escape from the danger of being drowned.

  "Along one side of the dam there was a bank, that rose considerablyabove the water; and into this bank they had made large holes, or asthey are termed `washes.' These were so constructed that the entrancesto them could not be frozen up; and we found that whenever the beaverswere disturbed or frightened from their houses, they invariably betookthemselves to these washes, where they could crawl quietly up above thesurface of the water, and breathe in safety!

  "This was the proper season to trap the beaver, as their fur is morevaluable in winter than at any other time; but, as I have already said,it was not our intention to disturb them, until they should become verynumerous.

  "The ice upon the dam was exceedingly smooth, and of course suggestedthe idea of skates. Both Frank and Harry were very fond of thisamusement, and, indeed, I was rather partial to it myself.

  "Skates then must be had, at all cost, and again we had recourse to the_bois d'arc_, the wood of which was sufficiently light and compact forour purpose Cudjo, with his hammer and a good hickory-fire, soon drewout the shoeing for them, making it very thin--as our stock of ironconsisted in what we had taken from the body of the wagon, and was ofcourse very precious, and not to be wasted upon articles designed merelyfor amusement. However, we knew it would not be lost upon the skates;as we could take it from them, whenever we should want to apply it to amore useful purpose. In a short time, we had three pairs; and,strapping them firmly to our feet with strips of deerskin, were soongliding over the dam, and spinning around the beaver-houses--no doubt tothe great wonderment of such of the animals as came out under the ice tolook at us. Mary, with Cudjo and the children, stood watching us fromthe shore, and clapping their hands with delight.

  "With these and such-like innocent recreations, we passed the wintervery agreeably. It was but a very short winter; and as soon as thespring returned, Cudjo, with his wooden plough, turned up our littlefield, and we planted our corn. It occupied nearly an acre of ground;and we had now the pleasant prospect that, in six weeks' time, we shouldgather about fifty bushels. We did not neglect our hundred grains ofwheat, but sowed that carefully in a corner by itself. You may fancythat it did not take up much ground. Mary had also her garden, withbeds of wild potatoes, and other roots, which she had discovered in thevalley. One of these was the species of turnip already mentioned as the_pomme-blanche_, or Indian turnip. She had found wild onions too, whichproved of great service in soup-making. In her garden were many othersof which I only know the names; but three of them, the `kamas,' the`kooyah,' and `yampah' roots are worth mentioning, as thousands of themiserable Indians who inhabit the American Desert subsist chiefly onthem. The widely scattered tribes known as the `Diggers,' take theirname from the fact of their digging for, and living upon, these roots.

  "The flowers now came out in full bloom; and some of the openings nearthe upper end of the valley were a sight to behold. They were literallycovered with beautiful blossoms--_malvas, cleomes, asclepiae_, and_helianthi_. We frequently visited this part, making pic-nic excursionsto all the places of note in our little dominion. The cataract wherethe stream dashed over the cliff, the salt spring, and such-like places,formed points of interest; and we rarely failed in any of theseexcursions to draw some useful lesson from the school of Nature.Indeed, Mary and I frequently designed them, for the purpose ofinstructing our children in such of the natural sciences as we ourselvesknew. We had no books, and we illustrated our teachings by the objectsaround us.

  "One day we had strayed up as usual among the openings. It was veryearly in the spring, just as the flowers were beginning to appear. Wehad sat down to rest ourselves in the middle of a glade, surrounded bybeautiful magnolias. There was a bed of large blue flowers close by;and Frank, taking little Mary by the hand, had gone in among them togather a bouquet for his mother. All at once the child uttered ascream, and then continued to cry loudly! Had she been bitten by asnake? Alarmed at the thought, we all started to our feet, and ran forthe spot. The little creature still cried--holding out her hand, whichwe at once perceived was the seat of the pain. The cause of it wasevident--she had been stung by a bee. No doubt she had clasped aflower, upon which some bee had been making his honey, and the angryinsect had punished such a rude interference with his pleasures.

  "As soon as the child had been pacified by a soothing application to thewound, a train of reflection occurred to the minds of all of us. `Thereare bees, then, in the place,' said we. We had not known this factbefore. In the autumn previous we had been too busy with other thingsto notice them; and of course during the winter season they were not tobe seen. They were just now coming out for the early spring flowers.

  "It was natural to infer, that where there were bees there should alsobe honey; and the word `honey' had a magic sound in the ears of ourlittle community. Bees and honey now became the topic of conversation;and not a sentence was uttered for some minutes that did not contain anallusion to bees or bees' nests, or bee-trees, or bee-hunters, or honey.

  "We all scattered among the flowers to assure ourselves that it reallywas a bee, and not some rascally wasp that had wounded our little Mary.If it was a bee, we should find some of his companions roaming aboutamong the blossoms of the helianthus.

  "In a short time Harry was heard crying out, `A bee!--a bee!' and almostat the same instant Frank shouted, `Another!' `Hya--hya!' cried Cudjo,`yar's de oder one--see 'im!--biz-z-z. Gollies! how he am loaded withde wax!'

  "Two or three others were now discovered, all busily plying theirindustrious calling; and proving that there was one hive, at least, insome part of the valley.

  "The question now arose, how this hive was to be found? No doubt it wasin some hollow tree--but how were we to find this tree, standing as itlikely did among hundreds of others, and not differing from the rest inappearance? This was the question that puzzled us.

  "It did not puzzle all of us though. Fortunately there chanced to be abee-hunter among us--a real old bee-hunter, and that individual was ourfamous Cudjo. Cudjo had `treed' bees many's the time in the woods of`Ole Vaginny,' and cut down the trees too, and licked the honey--forCudjo was as sweet upon honey as a bear. Yes, Cudjo had `treed' beesmany's the time, and knew how--that did Cudjo.

  "We should have to return to the house, however, to enable him to makeready his implements; and as the day was now pretty far advanced, wedetermined to leave our bee-hunting for
the morrow."