_ CHAPTER XIII. A FOREST RAMBLE
"Father," said John one summer afternoon, when his tasks for the day were quite finished, "Brutus and I are going for a long walk."
"Very well, my son," answered the Hermit, "I will bide here and read my book, for the heat has made me somewhat weary. But see that you return before sunset."
"Yes, father," said John.
Slinging over his shoulder a little basket in which to fetch home any strange plants which he might find in the forest, John whistled to Brutus, and the pair trotted away together as they loved to do. The Hermit looked after them, and smiled.
"John is a good boy," he said. "One day he will be a fine man. May the Saints help me to make him worthy of his father and of the name he bears." Then he turned to his beloved book.
John and Brutus went merrily through the forest, the boy singing under his breath snatches of the cheerful hymns that he and the Hermit loved. The dog ran ahead, exploring in the bushes, sometimes disappearing for long minutes at a time, but ever returning to rub his nose in John's hand and exchange a silent word with him. They were not going for any particular errand to any especial spot. They were just rambling wherever the forest looked inviting; which is the nicest way to travel through the woods,--especially if one of you can be trusted to find the way home, however wavering may be the trail that you leave behind. It was what John loved to do more than anything in the world.
The woods were cool and green and full of lovely light. It was so still and peaceful, too! The tiny queer noises all about, which once, before he knew the kingdom of the forest, had frightened him so much, now filled John with the keenest joy. Often he paused and listened eagerly. He liked to feel that he was surrounded everywhere by little brothers, seen and unseen. With a word to Brutus, which made the dog lie down and keep perfectly quiet, John would steal forward softly and peer through a screen of bushes, or into a treetop, and watch the housekeeping of some shy brother beast or bird. Once he flung himself flat on the ground, and lay for a long time eagerly watching the antics of a beetle. A little later, with Brutus patiently beside him, he sat cross-legged for ten minutes, waiting to see how a certain big yellow spider would spin her web between two branches of a rose-bush.
They wandered on and on. A great golden butterfly rose before them from a bed of lilies, and together he and Brutus ran after it; not to capture and kill it, oh no! for to John the wonder of the flower with wings lay in the life which gave it power to move about and pay calls upon the other blossoms that must be always stay-at-homes. John chased it gaily, as one brother plays with another. And when it lighted on a rose-bush or a yellow broom-flower, or poised on a swaying blade of grass, he crept up and admired its lovely colors without touching the fragile thing. But at last, as if suddenly remembering an errand which it had forgotten, the butterfly soared quickly up and away over the treetops and out of sight.
"Good-by, little brother!" called John after it. "I wish I could fly as you do and look down upon the kingdom of the forest! Then indeed I would learn all the secrets of our friends up in the treetops there, who hide their nests so selfishly. Oh, I should so love to see all the little baby birds! To be sure, some that I have seen in the ground-nests are ugly enough. Oh, the big mouths of them! Oh, the bald skins and prickly pin-feathers! Ha! ha!" John laughed so heartily that Brutus came running up to see what the joke was. "O Brutus!" cried John. "I think I know why the father and mother birds build their nests so high. They are ashamed to have any one see their funny little ones before they are quite dressed!"
Brutus looked up in John's face and seemed to smile. The boy and the dog often had talks together in this wise.
"I think I will ask them," said John. "Now, Brutus, lie still." He gave a peculiar whistle, waited a moment, and repeated it, twice, thrice. At the first call there was a fluttering in the branches overhead. At the second call one saw the silhouettes of tiny bodies dropping from branch to branch ever nearer to the boy below. At the third, there was a flutter, a rush of wings, and a flock of dear little birds came flying to John's shoulder, to his out-stretched arms, to his head; so that presently he looked like a green bush which they had chosen for their perch.
John talked with them in his own way, with chirps and lisping of the lips, and they were no more afraid of him than of a good-natured tree. But after a while, a fly, which had been tickling Brutus's nose, grew so impertinent that the poor dog had to punish him with his paw. At the sudden movement the birds fluttered away, and John looked reproachfully at his friend. But when he saw the drop of blood on the dog's nose he forgave him.
[Illustration: John talked with them.]
"Poor Brutus!" he said. "You kept still as long as you could, I know. And indeed, it is time we were moving. Come, Brutus!"
The pair continued their voyage of discovery. The woods are so full of thrilling stories for those who know how to read them! A field-mouse's nest in a tuft of grass; a beehive in a hollow tree; tracks of a wild boar in the muddy edge of the brook; a beautiful lizard changing color to match the leaves and moss over which it crept. John longed to carry this little brother home to join the circle of pets. But he knew it was kinder to leave him there, where perhaps he had a home and family.
And oh, the flowers! So many kinds, so fragrant and so beautiful! John gathered a great armful to carry back to the Hermit. And so the minutes went; the shadows began to lengthen, and it was time to turn homeward. _