20 I Cooperate With the Ending

In Which I Cooperate with the Ending By the middle of March I could have told you it was spring without looking. Jessie did not come around any more, she was fishing the rewarding waters of the open stream, she was returning to a tree hollow full of babies. The Baron Weasel did not come by. There were salamanders and frogs to keep him busy. The chickadees sang alone, not in a winter group, and the skunks and minks and foxes found food more abundant in the forest than at my tree house. The circumstances chat had brought us all together in the winter were no more. There was food on the land and the snow was slipping away.

By April 1 was no longer living off my storehouse. There were bulbs, tubers, and greens to be had. Meals were varied once more. There were frogs' legs, eggs, and turtle soup on my table. I took my baths in the spring again rather than in the turtle shell with warmed-over snow. I plunged regularly into the ice water of the spring– shouting as my breath was grabbed from my lungs. I scrubbed, ran for my tree. I dried myself before the fire, shouting as I stepped into my clothes. Then I would sing. I made up a lot of nice songs after my bath, one of which I taught to a man who was hiking along the top of the gorge one day.

He said his name was Aaron, and he was quiet and tall. I found him sitting on the edge of the cliff, looking across the valley. He was humming little tunes. He had a sad smile that never went away. I knew I would not have to hide from him just by looking at him, so I walked up and sat down beside him. I taught him my "cold water song". I learned he wrote songs and that he was from New York. He had come to the Catskills for the Passover festivities and had wandered off for the day. He was about to go back when I sat down and said, "I heard you humming." "Yes," he said. "I hum a good deal. Can you hum?" "Yes," I replied, "I can hum. I hum a good deal, too, and even sing. especially when I get out of the spring in the morning. Then I really sing aloud."

"Lets hear you sing aloud." So I said, feeling very relaxed with the sun shining on my head. "All right. I'll sing you my cold water song." "I like that," Aaron said. "Sing it again." So I did. "Let me suggest a few changes." He changed a few words to fit the tune and the tune to fit the words, and then we both sang it. "Mind if I use the hum hum hum dee dee, part?" he asked presently. "You can use it all," I said. "Tunes are free up here. I got that from the red-eyed vireo." He sat up and said, "What other songs are sung up here?" I whistled him the "hi-chickadee" song of the black-capped Mr Bracket; and the waterfall song of the wood thrush. He took out a card,

lined it with five lines, and wrote in little marks. I stretched back in the sun and hummed the song of the brown thrasher and of Barometer, the nuthatch. Then I boomed out the song of the great horned owl and stopped. "That's enough. isn't it?" I asked. "I guess so." He lay back and stretched, looked into the leaves, and said, "If I do something with this, I'll come back and play it to you. I'll bring my portable organ." "Fine," I said. Then after a drowsy pause, he said, "Will you be around these pans this summer?" "I'll be around," I said. Aaron fell asleep, and I rolled over in the sun. I liked him. He hadn't asked me one personal question. Oddly enough, I wasn't sure whether that made me glad or not. Then I thought of the words

Frightful had spoken in my head. "You want to be found," and I began to wonder. I had sought out a human being. This would not have happened a year ago. I fell asleep. When I awoke Aaron was gone and Frightful was circling me. She saw me stir, swooped in, and sat on a rock beside me. I said, "Hi," but did not get up, just lay still listening to the birds, the snips and sputs of insects moving in the dry leaves, and the air stirring the newly leafing trees. Nothing went on in my head. It was comfortably blank. I knew the pleasures of the lizard on the log who knows where his next meal is coming from. I also knew his boredom. After an hour I did have a thought. Aaron had said that he was up in the Catskills for Passover. Then it must also he near Easter, and Matt would be coming soon. I had not counted notches in weeks. A cool shadow crossed my face and I arose, whistled for Frightful to come to my hand,