MOTHER CAREY'S LASH poisons THE wise men tell us that it is the same as the venom of Snakes. They tell us that it comes when the fool-trap toadstool is grown stale, and by these ye may know its hidden presence: When the cap is old and upturned at the edge, when hell-born maggots crawl and burrow and revel in the stem, when drops of gummy, poisonous yellow blood ooze forth, when both its smells—the warning smell of the crawling hundred-legger and the alluring smell of strong green butternuts—are multiplied to fourfold power. monsters Their day was nearly over. They were now like old worn hags, whose beauty is It was the same sweet piny woods, the same bright sparkling stream, and the Song-hawk wheeled and sang the same loud song, as Bannertail came once again to seek his earth-born food, to gratify his growing lust. And Mother Carey led him on. Plentifully strewn were the unholy madcaps, broad bent and wrinkled now, their weird aroma stronger and to a morbid taste more alluring. Even yet a tiny warning came as he sniffed their rancid, noxious aura. The nut allurement, too, was strong, and Bannertail rejoiced. The feast was like the other, but shorter, more restrained. There were little His mouth was dripping with its natural juice, something gripped his throat, the last morsel was there and seemed to stick. He tight closed his eyes, violently shook his head. The choking lump was shaken out. Pains shot through his body. Limbs and lungs were cramped. He lay flat on the bank with head down-hill. He jerked his head from side to side with violent insistence. His stomach yielded most of the fateful mass. But the poison had entered into his body, already was coursing in his veins. Writhing with agony, overwhelmed with loathing, he lay almost as dead, and the smallest enemy he ever had might now and easily have wreaked the limit of revenge. It was accident so far as he was concerned that made him crawl into a dense thicket and like dead to lie all that day and the night and the next day. And dead he would have been but for the unusual vigor of his superb body. Good Mother Carey kept his enemies away. Back at the home nest the mate and family missed him, not much or pointedly, as would folk of a larger brain and life, but they missed him; and from the tall, smooth shaft that afternoon the little mother sent a long "qua" call. But there was no answering "qua." She had no means of knowing; she had no way of giving help had she known. The sun was low on Jersey hills that second day when poor broken Bannertail, Three days he suffered there, but the fever had turned on that first night; from the moment of that cooling drink he was on the mend. For food he had no wish, but daily and deeply he drank at the stream. On that third day he was well enough to scramble up the hill; he passed a scattering group of the earthy madcaps. Oh, how he loathed them; their very smell set his mouth a-dripping, refusing its own proper juice. strawberries Good things there were to eat on the ground, but he had little appetite, though for three days he had not eaten. He passed by fat white grubs and even nuts, but when he found some late wild strawberries he munched them eagerly. Their acid sweetness, their fragrant saneness, were what his poor sick body craved. He rested, then climbed a leaning tree. He had not strength for a real climb. In an old abandoned Flicker hole he curled himself in safety, and strong, gentle Mother Nature, Mother Carey, loving ever the brave ones that never give up, now spread her kindly influence, protecting, round about him and gave him blessed, blessed sleep. Mother Carey |