Bradley University - Anaga Yearbook (Peoria, IL)

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tomary breakfast of garter snakes and river water, or whatever variation of the menu the fortunes of the chase dictated. Then they remembered. They were dumb for a few moments, trying in their baby way to grasp the situation, then they burst out in wild frantic calls, imploring their mother to come gliding swift as an arrow to drive away the terror that was eating away at her little ones hearts. No silent shadow dropped in thru the leafless boughs. She did not come. A gray squirrel chattered loudly from a nearby tree and a discordant scream from a fish-hawk sounded from a dead snag near the water's edge. A big white gull went noiselessly over head. Three miles back in the hills in a deep valley between two high bluffs, a large brown female hawk fluttered its wings despairingly and giving a powerful spring sailed a few yards into the air only to fall back among the dead leaves and undergrowth once more. One leg dangled uselessly as she tried to rise from the ground. A few stray shot from some hunter's gun had broken it and pierced her side deeply. She could never balance herself in the air again. From their home under an oak tree, two little animals about the size of a rat, but longer, followed her unsteady Hight with eager eyes. Instantly they trotted off thru the long grass and reappeared on opposite sides of the old hawk, as she lay crouched in a slight hollow. I-Ier fierce beady eyes blazed out at them with the fire of a ancient enmity. They looked at her dully, impersonally. As she half rose her broken leg came into view. Like the Hash of a black-snake in the grass one of them fastened on it. She fell on one side, striking fiercely at him as she did so. Her powerful beak bared the tough hide in two long bleeding streaks, then the keen front teeth of the other weasel met in her brain and her black eyes glazed as her talons clenched and unclenched spasmodically. After that she lay very quiet. Pls ill 144 Pls Ili 11 bk vis Dk Ik Pk Ik Pk if All that day the fledgling hawks huddled in the nest. They were growing weaker. Early on the morning of the third day Apachels brother scrambled out on the nest with trembling little legs. He looked down: something moved at the foot of the tree. To the baby hawk it resembled a large rabbit, such as his mother sometimes brought them. He stepped eagerly out on a twig, lost his balance and went fluttering straight down to the foot of the tree. As he rebounded from the light springy turf, the gray furry animal broke his neck with a single snap of his powerful jaws and carried him below to the den of the little foxes. Apache heard not a sound. He only knew that his brother disappeared and he soon forgot that he had ever had a brother. Two more days of sapping heart breaking hunger and thirst went by. Apache's fat little body had grown gaunt and his eyes feverish. How he longed for even a big fat mouse, a juicy one with lot of blood in him. Late in the afternoon he heard a scratching sound on the tree trunk. It came on up the tree toward the nest. Apache crawled down into the very bottom of the hollow in his house and crouched there motionless with his little beady eyes Hxed unwinkingly on the black line of his horizon. He did not know why but he was very much afraid of that approaching thing. It paused just beneath the nest, and then scrambled quickly up and stood boldly outlined against the sky. It was only a young buck squirrel, but to the baby hawk it was a ferocious monster. Had he known that squirrels are particularly fond of torturing fledg- lings he would have been even more frightened. The squirrel took in the situation at a glance and came chattering triumphantly toward him. Cornered, Apache opened his huge red mouth and hissed loudly in terror and anger. I-Iis enemy paused and then circled more warily nearer. Contlnued on p. 196 '24

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HDOCllC,S ECll'l U l.ll?6 PACI-IE awoke and shuffled his wings uneasily. It was growing dark and a vague, growing unrest, gradually took hold of him. He moved again, this time so brusquely as to arouse his brother, who squeaked resentfully and struck out his beak once or twice in a vengeful, brotherly way. Why can't you let a fellow sleep? What's the matter with you anyway, can't you be satisfied without forever waking up to stuff yourself? he said, much more plainly than words. However he hadn't rubbed the sleep out of his eyes yet, and his aim being bad his beak glanced harmlessly off from Apache's stout armor of resilient wing feathers. They were a quarrelsome pair, very much like brothers, and gave their mother endless worry and opportunities to spank them heartily, opportunities she was not slow to avail herself of. Indeed, I think they were fiercer and less forgiving than most families, because it was not in their nature to be kind. Continual fighting to protect one's self or to gain food, tends to erase any softness, which may be hidden beneath the surface of the most gentle of beings, and centuries of bitter struggle for existence have left few tender feelings in the breast of the hawk. Once awake Apache's brother realized why Apache had stirred so restlessly, and he joined in the disquieting peeps and whistles, which his brother was uttering. They were hungry, but worse than that they were lonesome and fearful of the deep shadows which were falling over the great marsh. The strange eerie silence of evening was closing in about them and they missed the protecting warmth of their mother, as she huddled over them or sat on the edge of the nest and divided up the mice or tiny rabbit which she never failed to bring for their dinner. And those strange unexplainable noises,-the honk of the Canadian goose as he flew on his way to the North, the yapping of a fox as he leisurely hopped by on the trail of an unluckly rabbit, or the far off splash of a bass breaking water after a minnow-these rushed in and struck terror to the hearts of the. tiny feathered occupants of the big nest, which was tightly wedged in the crotch of a giant swamp maple as it towered up sixty feet without a single branch, and then branched suddenly over the tops of the other trees. It was a large tree, even among the enormous, densely packed boles of the swamp growth, and had been particularly chosen by Apaehe's father and mother, while on their honeymoon, because it had no low branches and measured a little more than twice the distance in circumference which even a large boy can enclose with his legs and arms. One of the former boys had tried it when Apache was only a turbid spot in the yolk of an egg, but had soon given it up in despair. Apache's father had soared a little too close to exult at his enemies' discomforture and had fallen victim to a charge of number four shot fired from the barrel of a full choked shot-gun. His wings now adorned a barn door about two miles back in the hills, but of that Apache was carelessly ignorant. He had entirely forgotten his father, but he began to whimper a soft whistling ery for his mother. He had never appreciated her before because she had never failed him. Now he was very cold and snuggled down beside his brother. They put their bills together and dozed off as the darkness settled down impenetrably upon them. The cold rays of the morning sun glowed redly from the big limb immediately above the nest. In a minute the nestlings were awake and crying for their cus- 23

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' lv. Pllpini HE young Father Delmonte was sick at heart. Life was so different from what he had expected. Here he was twenty-three years of age, consecrated to the priesthood, with a mind full of great visions of a life of service for God and for humanity. And what was he doing? He looked out over the muddy field and sighed. Above him shells were shrieking through the air like a March wind. The hum of the aeroplanes, like big mosquitoes, could be heard in the distance. Now and then, there came the thunder of a cannon, or the crack and hiss of a shrapnel shell. It was hot, very hot. In front of him, a soldier had just put his rifie between the sandbags and the priest heard the whip-like crack as the man tired. Some poor Austrian gone, I supposef' he muttered. l-le shut his eyes but that did not shut out the sound. O God, he prayed, why must such things he? But since they do exist, help me to be loyal to Thee and to my country. Avanto! Avanto! With the instinct of a true soldier, Father Delmonte Sprang forward. The soldiers scrambled hurriedly out of the trenches and the charge was on. And opposite came the gray-clad Austrians, advancing amid a rain of bullets, their rifles shining in the sun. It was a murderous attack. Three times the two lines met and three times they rolled back again, nothing accomplished, but leaving the best of the men stretched out on the field. The young priest was in the thick of the fight, with a smile on his face as he encouraged the soldiers. Here was a man, wounded, he stooped to stanch the blood. There was a dying soldier, he gently closed his eyes. Suddenly, he looked up. The third attack was just over. But where were the line of officers of the battalion? I-Ie strained his eyes, but not one was to be seen. They all had fallen. just then his eye lighted on the regimental flag, which seemed to be wavering. His teeth grew set. Should it, too, fall, the Hag of the IV Alpini, which never had touched the ground? Please God, it should not. He snatched a ritie from a wounded soldier, and with a cry, Avanto ! he rushed to the standard, raised it on high and led the men in the fourth counter attack. It was evening. All was quiet in the little hospital, save over in one corner, where a nurse was conversing in low tones with a dying man. It's all right, young Father Delmonte was saying, It's all right. So the men won in the fourth attack, did they? I'm so glad. Something sputtered, and then I didn't know any more. But it's all right. I did my duty -his voice was growing weaker- I did my duty, and now, I'm going -his voice dropped to a whisper- Hgoing home-home-to God. -L B. HAZZARD. Wliip-Door-Will Through the dusky veil of night, Wlien the tiretlies' lanterns light, And there's not a star in sight, O'er the hill comes Whip-poor When the twilight weeps her dew, And the sky is darkest blue, Hang the star-flowers pale and few, Sad and shrill floats Whip-p Blythe the cricket chirps his lay, Frogs, carouse in chorus gay, I-lark a lone cry seems to say, Life is ill, Whip-poor-will. oor-wi 25. -will. Tell nie, why so sad thy song, In the night hours deep and longg Hath some creature done thee wrong? t'Peace, be still, Whip-poor-willf' Is thy heart so full of woe, As the seasons come and go, That thy song no joy can show? Sadly shrill Whip-poor-will. Try to trust in heaven's love, And the holy One above, Cease thy mourning, like the dove, Fear not ill, Whip-poor-will. -Esther june Thompson.