IX HOW UNK-WUNK THE PORCUPINE MET HIS MATCH

IN the thick cover of the spruces, down in a natural hollow, where it was dark and still, and the fragrant boughs swept the ground, forming a perfect little bower, or tent, lived a very interesting family, Father and Mother Porcupine and their three young ones. So very young were the little porcupines, or hedgehogs, as they are sometimes called, that they resembled neither cubs nor kittens, but at first sight looked not unlike homely young crows before the pin-feather age; for when the little hedgehog is born, he is strange looking enough, his quilly armor being covered with a transparent skin; and besides, he is totally deaf and blind, and very helpless.

It did not take long, however, for quills to poke through the skin covering, and then sight came to the small, piggy eyes, and the little ones began to look more like porcupines. One fine day the wanderlust seized Father Porcupine, and off he strolled into the deep woods, and was never seen again. He had deliberately deserted his little family beneath the green tent, which is not at all an uncommon occurrence in hedgehog circles.

The little ones were quite often left alone now to shift for themselves, for their mother also took to wandering, and so one night when she had been gone all day, upon her return she found two of them missing. In the early twilight a stealthy, sinuous stranger had entered her home; just two little protesting squeaks came from beneath the hedgehog tent, and when the weasel left, only Unk-Wunk, the largest of the little ones, was left.

“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” grunted the lonely little hedgehog to his mother, as she peered in at him with her little dull eyes through the curtain of balsams, her cold manner showing no emotion whatever, for such is the nature of the hedgehog tribe that they rarely show much feeling over anything, no matter how tragic.

Now Unk-Wunk would never have escaped from the sharp teeth of the sly weasel had not his quills been longer and sharper than his unfortunate brothers. He had heard their terrified squeaks, and when the weasel made for him, he simply backed away, and for the first time in his life made use of his quill armor.

“Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” he grunted fiercely, while the weasel glared at him savagely with its hateful, little red eyes. The weasel thought to himself, no doubt, what a silly, helpless thing you are to grunt at me so boldly. Who’s afraid of your stupid “Unk-Wunk?” But the weasel soon found out his mistake, and backed out in haste from the hedgehog tent, his sly, pointed snout stuck full of cruel barbs, which it took him days to rub out, and taught him such a lesson that, ever after that, he never cared to cross the track of a hedgehog, and would frequently make a long détour whenever he chanced to spy one along the forest trails.

Unk-Wunk being of a particularly bold, independent nature, his mother soon left him, and went off to live with a colony of hedgehogs who had located their camp on a distant ledge. But somehow Unk-Wunk tarried in the old tent, for he loved the fragrant balsam scent, where overhead, when autumn came, the beech leaves turned golden yellow, and the brown nuts came rattling down in showers to his very door. Besides, just a short stroll away lay the marsh pools, threaded thick with succulent lily roots, considered, by the hedgehog tribe, the very daintiest eating to be had. All this lay close at hand, and as Unk-Wunk was naturally a lazy, indolent fellow, and did not care to hurry, or take unnecessarily long journeys, no wonder the place suited him.

Never, perhaps, had there been such an absolutely fearless hedgehog as young Unk-Wunk, because his first great success in driving off the sly old weasel had taught him the use of his quills, and made him unafraid of anything in the forest, whether it wore fur or feathers. He actually never bothered himself to get out of their very tracks, but would just stand looking very stupid indeed, and stare at them coldly with his little, dull eyes; if they presumed to come too near he would raise his armor and utter threatening grunts at them, so that usually they passed him by.

At twilight, when the old hoot owl, who nested above him in the beech tree, came out upon a limb and began to send out his weird call, and the hermit thrushes called to each other across the marsh-lands, then Unk-Wunk would lazily uncurl himself from an all day snooze, and leisurely stroll off through the silent places of the forest looking for a meal. When it began to grow frosty in the lowlands, and the nights were cooler, he covered longer distances in his raids, and even ventured into the lumber camps, gnawing his way through intervening boards of the shacks and sampling fat bacon, which he found so good that he would travel long distances to taste it. He stole eggs, too, and would manage one so deftly that he rarely spilled a drop of the golden contents, for he had a nice way of cracking a small place in the shell at the top, and inserting his tongue, or small paw, and never losing a morsel, leaving behind him just a pile of empty shells.

Strangely enough, the lumbermen’s yellow hound, when he heard the steady “gnaw, gnaw, gnaw” of Unk-Wunk’s sharp teeth through the shack flooring, would simply raise his head and utter little timorous, muffled whines under his breath, never offering to drive him away; if the truth were known the yellow dog was terribly afraid of Unk-Wunk. He would not hesitate to bay fiercely, chase a fox, coon, or even a bob cat, but once he had returned to camp with his jowls stuck full of Unk-Wunk’s terrible quills, and after that he played the coward whenever he saw a hedgehog.

When you studied Unk-Wunk carefully, you might think him a very stupid, dull-looking animal. But back of his ugly, half-witted skull lay an alert brain, what there was of it. He dearly loved to play a joke, and for sheer sport would roll himself up into a ball and lie stupidly in one of the well-worn trails of the wood people; unsuspectingly, they would creep nearer and nearer the queer looking bundle. Then Unk-Wunk’s dull eyes, peering out at them, perhaps, from beneath his hind leg, would sparkle with malice, and, like a flash, out would fly his tail, which held the very sharpest, most penetrating quills on his body. Then the curious one would usually go squeaking off on a jump, very much wiser than it had been before concerning the hedgehog family.

One autumn evening Unk-Wunk visited the marsh pool; his desire for a feast of lily roots, before the pool froze over, was keen upon him. To his dismay he found the pool already occupied by the blue heron family who were wading about upon their long, stilt-like legs for minnows or crawfish. Unk-Wunk realized well enough that he would be at the mercy of the herons’ long, sword-like beaks once he entered the water, so he just stood behind the shelter of a spruce bush and thought out a plan to get rid of the herons, and have the pool to himself.

Waddling clumsily back into the deep woods, Unk-Wunk found a bed of dry beech leaves, and then deliberately laying himself down among them, he rolled his spiky body back and forth among them until every quill held a leaf; he was completely coated over with dry leaves, so that even his head was concealed. Then he crept warily back toward the pool and suddenly uttering a loud “Unk-Wunk, Unk-Wunk,” he appeared right in plain view of the herons. Ordinarily the sight of a mere stupid hedgehog would never have stirred the wise herons, and they would simply have flown at him, flapping their great wings in his face, and sent him off. But as soon as they caught a glimpse of the strange appearing thing, all covered with leaves, and heard it actually cry out, with shrill, terrified screams they all spread their wings and flew off over the mountain, perfectly panic-stricken at the strange thing they had seen. It did not take the sly Unk-Wunk long to rid himself of the leaves, and plunge into the pool which he now had all to himself.

Now among the kindred of the wild Red-Brush, the Fox, is reckoned as the wisest of the wise. Still, in spite of his reputation for wisdom, he too had once been an easy mark for Unk-Wunk. In his travels Red-Brush was wont to seek his prey in all manner of curious places. He never failed to investigate hollow logs along the trail, for times without number he had run across an apparently vacant log, and discovered it to be occupied by a rabbit or some other easy prey.

Unk-Wunk had feasted well. A covey of partridges had strayed to his very door after beechnuts, and he had chanced to come home just in time to catch them. In vain did the brave little cock partridge drum at him, trying to mislead Unk-Wunk and turn his attention away from the mother partridge and her little brood, which scattered like fallen beech leaves in all directions. Unk-Wunk simply stood still and let the father Partridge bluster until he had become more emboldened by the seeming passivity of the hedgehog, which did not offer to molest him, and foolishly drew nearer, drumming in his very face, and so fell an easy prey to sly Unk-Wunk. After his feast all he desired was a safe, quiet spot to take a nap in. A hollow beech log lay conveniently at hand, and inside this Unk-Wunk crawled.

“Pat, pat, pat,” came Red-Brush the crafty one, swinging jauntily over the trail, even before Unk-Wunk had a chance to close his eyes. They had sighted the fox, however, long before he arrived at the log, and instantly Unk-Wunk changed his position inside the log. Turning about he took care to leave the mere tip of his tail showing from the entrance. Then, with his little dull eyes twinkling, grunting softly to himself over the cruel joke he would play upon sly Red-Brush, Unk-Wunk waited for him.

Red-Brush advanced very cautiously. Ah, surely something had moved inside the entrance of the log. Soon the inquisitive yellow eyes were close to the opening. A sudden swift slap, and Unk-Wunk had played his joke. He grunted derisively as the fox tore off back to his burrow with a snout full of terrible quills.

Everybody knows that in an actual trial of wits the fox might really outwit a hedgehog. Humiliated enough was Red-Brush at the mean joke which Unk-Wunk had played upon him, and made up his mind, fox fashion, that he would one day get even with him. At last he took to dodging the trail of Unk-Wunk, hoping to catch him napping, for he had conceived a plan. The longed-for opportunity came at last. Chancing to stroll to the pool, the fox concealed himself in a leafy thicket to wait for game, which often came to the pool, and peering out from behind the rushes whom should he see but Unk-Wunk grubbing for lily roots. The sly fellow finished his feast, and so gorged himself with his favorite delicacy that instead of going home he settled himself at the top of a hill, just above the pool, for a nap.

The golden eyes of Red-Brush never left him; he bided his time until the hedgehog was fast asleep, then stole softly to the top of the hill. Unk-Wunk lay curled there in a round ball, and Red-Brush, with a swift blow of his paw, started the ball rolling swiftly down-hill. Unk-Wunk would uncurl himself before he reached water, for this they always do; with a bound Red-Brush reached the pool ahead of the ball, and just as Unk-Wunk gave a swift twist of his body to uncurl, the jaws of Red-Brush snapped together with a click, finding the unprotected throat of the hedgehog, and Unk-Wunk, the cruel joker, had at last met his match.