IX
Tracks
In the wet sand down by the edge of the brook he one day found somecurious markings--evidently tracks. Yan pored over them, then made alife-size drawing of one. He shrewdly suspected it to be the track ofa Coon--nothing was too good or wild or rare for his valley. As soonas he could, he showed the track to the stableman whose dog was saidto have killed a Coon once, and hence the man must be an authority onthe subject.
"Is that a Coon track?" asked Yan timidly.
"How do I know?" said the man roughly, and went on with his work. Buta stranger standing near, a curious person with shabby clothes, anda new silk hat on the back of his head, said, "Let me see it." Yanshowed it.
"Is it natural size?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yep, that's a Coon track, all right. You look at all the big treesnear about whar you saw that; then when you find one with a hole init, you look on the bark and you will find some Coon hars. Then youwill know you've got a Coon tree."
The Coon track]
Yan took the earliest chance. He sought and found a great Basswoodwith some gray hairs caught in the bark. He took them home with him,not sure what kind they were. He sought the stranger, but he was gone,and no one knew him.
How to identify the hairs was a question; but he remembered a friendwho had a Coon-skin carriage robe. A few hairs of these were comparedwith those from the tree and left no doubt that the climber was aCoon. Thus Yan got the beginning of the idea that the very hairs ofeach, as well as its tracks, are different. He learned, also, how wiseit is to draw everything that he wished to observe or describe. Itwas accident, or instinct on his part, but he had fallen on a soundprinciple; there is nothing like a sketch to collect and conveyaccurate information of form--there is no better developer of trueobservation.
One day he noticed a common plant like an umbrella. He dug it up bythe root, and at the lower end he found a long white bulb. He tastedthis. It was much like a cucumber. He looked up "Gray's SchoolBotany," and in the index saw the name, Indian Cucumber. Thedescription seemed to tally, as far as he could follow its technicalterms, though like all such, without a drawing it was far fromsatisfactory. So he added the Indian Cucumber to his woodlore.
On another occasion he chewed the leaves of a strange plant because hehad heard that that was the first test applied by the Indians. He soonbegan to have awful pains in his stomach. He hurried home in agony.His mother gave him mustard and water till he vomited, then she boxedhis ears. His father came in during the process and ably supplementedthe punishment. He was then and there ordered to abstain forever fromthe woods. Of course, he did not. He merely became more cautious aboutit all, and enjoyed his shanty with the added zest of secret sin.