Two Little Savages - Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned

Ernest Thompson Seton

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• Publié par: phoic
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 62
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Two
Little Savages, written and
illustrated by Ernest Thompson
Seton
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Title: Two Little Savages
Author: Ernest Thompson Seton
Release Date: September 19, 2004 [eBook #13499]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO LITTLE
SAVAGES***
E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Lesley Halamek,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
T WO LITTLE SAVAGES
Being the ADVENTURES of Two BOYS
Who Lived as INDIANS and
What They LEARNED.
WITH OVER THREE HUNDRED DRAWINGSWritten & Illustrated
By
E RNEST T HOMPSON SETON
AUTHOR of Wild Animals I have Known , Lives of the Hunted ,
Biography of a GRIZZLY , Trail of the SANDHILL STAG , etcetera,
& NATURALIST to the Government of MANITOBA.
1917
Preface
Because I have known the torment of thirst I would
dig a well where others may drink.
E.T.S.
In this Book the designs for Title-page, Jackets,
and general make-up were done by
Grace Gallatin Seton.
The Chapters
Part I
Glenyan & Yan
Page
I. Glimmerings . . . 19
II. Spring . . . 26
III. His Adjoining Brothers . . . 28
IV. The Book . . . 32
V. The Collarless Stranger . . . 38
VI. Glenyan . . . 46 VII. The Shanty . . . 50
VIII. The Beginnings of Woodlore . . . 56
IX. Tracks . . . 66
X. Biddy's Contribution . . . 71
XI. Lung Balm . . . 76
XII. A Crisis . . . 82
XIII. The Lynx . . . 88
XIV. Froth . . . 95
The Chapters
Part II
Sanger & Sam
Page
I. The New Home. . . 103
II. Sam . . . 111
III. The Wigwam . . . 117
IV. The Sanger Witch . . . 131
V. Caleb . . . 141
VI. The Making of the Teepee . . . 151
VII. The Calm Evening . . . 157

VIII. The Sacred Fire . . . 167
IX. The Bows and Arrows . . . 176
X. The Dam . . . 188
XI. Yan and the Witch . . . 199
XII. Dinner with the Witch . . . 212
XIII. The Hostile Spy . . . 218
XIV. The Quarrel . . . 232
XV. The Peace of Minnie . . . 241
The Chapters
Part III
In the Woods
Page
I. Really in the Woods . . . 251
II. The First Night and Morning . . . 262
III. A Crippled Warrior and the Mud-Albums . . . 270
IV. A "Massacree" of Palefaces . . . 282
V. The Deer Hunt . . . 288
VI. War Bonnet, Teepee and Coups . . . 299
VII. Campercraft . . . 314
VIII. The Indian Drum . . . 320
IX. The Cat and the Skunk . . . 327
X. The Adventures of a Squirrel family . . . 337
XI. How to See the Woodfolk . . . 344
XII. Indian Signs and Getting Lost . . . 355
XIII. Tanning Skins and Making Moccasins . . . 364XIV. Caleb's Philosophy . . . 373
XV. A Visit from Raften . . . 379
XVI. How Yan Knew the Ducks Afar . . . 385

XVII. Sam's Woodcraft Exploit . . . 394
XVIII. The Owls and the Night-School . . . 399
XIX. The Trial of Grit . . . 411
XX. The White Revolver . . . 421
XXI. The Triumph of Guy . . . 429
XXII. The Coon Hunt . . . 443
XXIII. The Banshee's Wail and the Huge Night 456
XXIV. Prowler 470
XXV. Hawkeye Claims Another Grand Coup . . . 478
XXVI. The Three-fingered Tramp . . . 489
XXVII. Winning Back the farm . . . 496
XXVIII. The Rival Tribe . . . 502
XXIX. White Man's Woodcraft . . . 508
XXX. The Long Swamp . . . 523
XXXI. A New Kind of Coon . . . 534
XXXII. On the Old Camp Ground . . . 537
The New War Chief . . .
Illustrations
List of Full Pages
Part I
Page
1. "Gazing spellbound in that window" . . . 22
2. "He already knew the Downy Woodpecker" . . . 36
3. "Yan's Toilet" . . . 59

4. "The Coon Track" . . . 67
5. "There in his dear cabin were three tramps" . . 85
6. . 91
"It surely was a Lynx" . . .
Part II
Page
7. "The wigwam was a failure" . . . 127
8. "Get out o' this now, or I'll boot ye" . . . 143
9. Pattern for Teepee . . . 147
10. Pattern of Thunder Bull's Teepee and of Black 152
11. Bull's Teepee 159
12. "'Clicker-a-clicker!' he shrieked . . . and down 174

13. like a dart" . . . 183
14. Rubbing-sticks for fire-making . . . 193
15. The Archery Outfit . . . 223
16. "The dam was a great success" . . . 239
"Ugh! Heap sassy" . . .
"There stood Raften, spectator of the whole
affair" . . .Part III
Page
17. "If ye kill any Song-birds, I'll use the rawhoide 259
18. on ye" . . . 266
19. "Where's the axe?" . . . 271
20. "He soon appeared, waving a branch" . . . 301
21. The War Bonnet . . . 333
22. "The old Cat raged and tore" . . . 357
23. Indian Signs . . . 361
24. "The Two Smokes" . . . 387
25. The Fish and River Ducks . . . 391
26. The Sea Ducks . . . 405
27. Owl-stuffing plate . . . 433
28. "Guy gave a leap of terror and fell" . . . 480
29. "Well, sonny, cookin' dinner?" . . . 529
"He nervously fired and missed" . . .
19
Two Little Savages
I
Glimmerings
AN was much like other twelve-year-old boys in having a keen
interest in Indians and in wild life, but he differed from most in
this, that he never got over it. Indeed, as he grew older, he
found a yet keener pleasure in storing up the little bits of
woodcraft and Indian lore that pleased him as a boy.
His father was in poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined tastes,
but indolent—a failure in business, easy with the world and stern with his
family. He had never taken an interest in his son's wildwood pursuits; and when
he got the idea that they might interfere with the boy's education, he forbade
them altogether.
There was certainly no reason to accuse Yan of neglecting school. He was the
20 head boy of his class, although there were many in it older than himself. He
was fond of books in general, but those that dealt with Natural Science and
Indian craft were very close to his heart. Not that he had many—there were very
few in those days, and the Public Library had but a poor representation of
these. "Lloyd's Scandinavian Sports," "Gray's Botany" and one or two
Fenimore Cooper novels, these were all, and Yan was devoted to them. He
was a timid, obedient boy in most things, but the unwise command to give up
what was his nature merely made him a disobedient boy—turned a good boy
into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey openly, but heused to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields and woods, and at each
new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite thrill of mingled pleasure and
pain—the pain because he had no name for it or means of learning its nature.
The intense interest in animals was his master passion,
and thanks to this, his course to and from school was a
very crooked one, involving many crossings of the street,
because thereby he could pass first a saloon in whose
window was a champagne advertising chromo that
portrayed two Terriers chasing a Rat; next, directly
opposite this, was a tobacconist's, in the window of which
was a beautiful effigy of an Elephant, laden with tobacco.
By going a little farther out of his way, there was a game
store where he might see some Ducks, and was sure, at
least, of a stuffed Deer's head; and beyond that was a
furrier shop, with an astonishing stuffed Bear.
23 At another point he could see a livery stable Dog that was said to have killed a
Coon, and at yet another place on Jervie Street was a cottage with a high
veranda, under which, he was told, a chained Bear had once been kept. He
never saw the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found pleasure in
passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand streets, according to a
schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed years ago and could still be
smelled on damp nights. He always stopped, if passing near on a wet night,
and sniffed and enjoyed that Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out
to be a leakage of sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure he originally
found in it.
Yan had no good excuse for these weaknesses, and he blushed for shame
when his elder brother talked "common sense" to him about his follies. He only
knew that such things fascinated him.
But the crowning glory was a taxidermist's shop kept on Main Street by a man
named Sander. Yan spent, all told, many weeks gazing spellbound, with his
nose flat white against that window. It contained some Fox and Cat heads
grinning ferociously, and about fifty birds beautifully displayed. Nature might
have got some valuable hints in that window on showing plumage to the very
best advantage. Each bird seemed more wonderful than the last.22
There were perhaps fifty of them on view, and of these, twelve had labels, as
24 they had formed part of an exh