My Side of the Mountain Read online

  This did worry me, because I was depending on fish to keep me alive until I got to my great-grandfather’s mountain, where I was going to make traps and catch game.

  I looked into the stream to see what else I could eat, and as I did, my hand knocked a rotten log apart. I remembered about old logs and all the sleeping stages of insects that are in it. I chopped away until I found a cold white grub.

  I swiftly tied a string to my hook, put the grub on, and walked up the stream looking for a good place to fish. All the manuals I had read were very emphatic about where fish lived, and so I had memorized this: ‘In streams, fish usually congregate in pools and deep calm water. The heads of riffles, small rapids, the tail of a pool, eddies below rocks or logs, deep undercut banks, in the shade of overhanging bushes—all are very likely places to fish.’

  This stream did not seem to have any calm water, and I must have walked a thousand miles before I found a pool by a deep undercut bank in the shade of overhanging bushes. Actually, it wasn’t that far, it just seemed that way because as I went looking and finding nothing, I was sure I was going to starve to death.

  I squatted on this bank and dropped in my line. I did so want to catch a fish. One fish would set me upon my way, because I had read how much you can learn from one fish. By examining the contents of its stomach you can find what the other fish are eating or you can use the internal organs as bait.

  The grub went down to the bottom of the stream. It swirled around and hung still. Suddenly the string came to life, and rode back and forth and around in a circle. I pulled with a powerful jerk. The hook came apart, and whatever I had went circling back to its bed.

  Well, that almost made me cry. My bait was gone, my hook was broken, and I was getting cold, frightened, and mad. I whittled another hook, but this time I cheated and used string to wind it together instead of bark. I walked back to the log and luckily found another grub. I hurried to the pool, and I flipped a trout out of the water before I knew I had a bite.

  The fish flopped, and I threw my whole body over it. I could not bear to think of it flopping itself back into the stream.

  I cleaned it like I had seen the man at the fish market do, examined its stomach, and found it empty. This horrified me. What 1 didn’t know was that an empty stomach means the fish are hungry and will eat about anything. However, 1 thought at the time that I was a goner. Sadly, I put some of the internal organs on my hook, and before I could get my line to the bottom I had another bite. I lost that one, but got the next one. I stopped when I had five nice little trout and looked around for a place to build a camp and make a fire.

  It wasn’t hard to find a pretty spot along that stream. I selected a place beside a mossy rock in a circle of hemlocks.

  I decided to make a bed before I cooked. I cut off some boughs for a mattress, then I leaned some dead limbs against the boulder and covered them with hemlock limbs. This made a kind of tent. I crawled in, lay down, and felt alone and secret and very excited.

  But ah, the rest of this story! I was on the northeast side of the mountain. It grew dark and cold early. Seeing the shadows slide down on me, I frantically ran around gathering firewood. This is about the only thing I did right from that moment until dawn, because I remembered that the driest wood in a forest is the dead limbs that are still on the trees, and I gathered an enormous pile of them. That pile must still be there, for I never got a fire going.

  I got sparks, sparks, sparks. I even hit the tinder with the sparks. The tinder burned all right, but that was as far as I got. I blew on it, I breathed on it, I cupped it in my hands, but no sooner did I add twigs than the whole thing went black.

  Then it got too dark to see. I clicked steel and flint together, even though I couldn’t see the tinder. Finally, I gave up and crawled into my hemlock tent, hungry, cold, and miserable.

  I can talk about that first night now, although it is still embarrassing to me because I was so stupid, and scared, that I hate to admit it.

  I had made my hemlock bed right in the stream valley where the wind drained down from the cold mountaintop. It might have been all right if I had made it on the other side of the boulder, but I didn’t. I was right on the main highway of the cold winds as they tore down upon the valley below. I didn’t have enough hemlock boughs under me, and before I had my head down, my stomach was cold and damp. I took some boughs off the roof and stuffed them under me, and then my shoulders were cold. I curled up in a ball and was almost asleep when a whippoorwill called. If you have ever been within forty feet of a whippoorwill, you will understand why I couldn’t even shut my eyes. They are deafening!

  Well, anyway, the whole night went like that. I don’t think I slept fifteen minutes, and I was so scared and tired that my throat was dry. I wanted a drink but didn’t dare go near the stream for fear of making a misstep and falling in and getting wet. So I sat tight, and shivered and shook—and now I am able to say—I cried a little tiny bit.

  Fortunately, the sun has a wonderfully glorious habit of rising every morning. When the sky lightened, when the birds awoke, I knew I would never again see anything so splendid as the round red sun coming up over the earth.

  I was immediately cheered, and set out directly for the highway. Somehow, I thought that if I was a little nearer the road, everything would be all right.

  I climbed a hill and stopped. There was a house. A house warm and cozy, with smoke coming out the chimney and lights in the windows, and only a hundred feet from my torture camp.

  Without considering my pride, I ran down the hill and banged on the door. A nice old man answered. I told him everything in one long sentence, and then said, ‘And so, can I cook my fish here, because I haven’t eaten in years.’

  He chuckled, stroked his whiskery face, and took the fish. He had them cooking in a pan before I knew what his name was.

  When I asked him, he said Bill something, but I never heard his last name because I fell asleep in his rocking chair that was pulled up beside his big hot glorious wood stove in the kitchen.

  I ate the fish some hours later, also some bread, jelly, oatmeal, and cream. Then he said to me, ‘Sam Gribley, if you are going to run off and live in the woods, you better learn how to make a fire. Come with me.’

  We spent the afternoon practicing. I penciled these notes on the back of a scrap of paper, so I wouldn’t forget.

  ‘When the tinder glows, keep blowing and add fine dry needles one by one—and keep blowing, steadily, lightly, and evenly. Add one inch dry twigs to the needles and then give her a good big handful of small dry stuff. Keep blowing.’

  the manner in which

  I Find Gribley’s Farm

  The next day I told Bill good-by, and as I strode, warm and fed, onto the road, he called to me, ‘I’ll see you tonight. The back door will be open if you want a roof over your head.’

  I said, ‘Okay,’ but I knew I wouldn’t see Bill again. I knew how to make fire, and that was my weapon. With fire I could conquer the Catskills. I also knew how to fish. To fish and to make a fire. That was all I needed to know, I thought.

  Three rides that morning took me to Delhi. Somewhere around here was Great-grandfather’s beech tree with the name Gribley carved on it. This much I knew from Dad’s stories.

  By six o’clock I still had not found anyone who had even heard of the Gribleys, much less Gribley’s beech, and so I slept on the porch of a schoolhouse and ate chocolate bars for supper. It was cold and hard, but I was so tired I could have slept in a wind tunnel.

  At dawn I thought real hard: Where would I find out about the Gribley farm? Some old map, I said. Where would I find an old map? The library? Maybe. I’d try it and see.

  The librarian was very helpful. She was sort of young, had brown hair and brown eyes, and loved books as much as I did.

  The library didn’t open until ten-thirty. I got there at nine. After I had lolled and rolled and sat on the steps for fifteen or twenty minutes, the door whisked ope
n, and this tall lady asked me to come on in and browse around until opening time.

  All I said to her was that I wanted to find the old Gribley farm, and that the Gribleys hadn’t lived on it for maybe a hundred years, and she was off. I can still hear her heels click, when I think of her, scattering herself around those shelves finding me old maps, histories of the Catskills, and files of letters and deeds that must have come from attics around Delhi.

  Miss Turner—that was her name—found it. She found Gribley’s farm in an old book of Delaware County. Then she worked out the roads to it, and drew me maps and everything. Finally she said, ‘What do you want to know for? Some school project?’

  ‘Oh, no, Miss Turner, I want to go live there.’

  ‘But, Sam, it is all forest and trees now. The house is probably only a foundation covered with moss.’

  ‘That’s just what I want. I am going to trap animals and eat nuts and bulbs and berries and make myself a house. You see, I am Sam Gribley, and I thought I would like to live on my great-grandfather’s farm.’

  Miss Turner was the only person that believed me. She smiled, sat back in her chair, and said, ‘Well, I declare.’

  The library was just opening when I gathered the notes we had made and started off. As I pushed open the door, Miss Turner leaned over and said to me, ‘Sam, we have some very good books on plants and trees and animals, in case you get stuck.’

  I knew what she was thinking, and so I told her I would remember that.

  With Miss Turner’s map, I found the first stone wall that marked the farm. The old roads to it were all grown up and mostly gone, but by locating the stream at the bottom of the mountain I was able to begin at the bridge and go north and up a mile and a half. There, caterpillaring around boulders, roller-coastering up ravines and down hills, was the mound of rocks that had once been Great-grandfather’s boundary fence.

  And then, do you know, I couldn’t believe I was there. I sat on the old gray stones a long time, looking through the forest, up that steep mountain, and saying to myself, ‘It must be Sunday afternoon, and it’s raining, and Dad is trying to keep us all quiet by telling us about Great-grandfather’s farm; and he’s telling it so real that I can see it.’

  And then I said, ‘No. I am here, because I was never this hungry before.’

  I wanted to run all the way back to the library and tell Miss Turner that I had found it. Partly because she would have liked to have known, and partly because Dad had said to me as I left, ‘If you find the place, tell someone at Delhi. I may visit you someday.’ Of course, he was kidding, because he thought I’d be home the next day, but after many weeks, maybe he would think I meant what I said, and he might come see me.

  However, I was too hungry to run back. I took my hook and line and went back down the mountain to the stream.

  I caught a big old catfish. I climbed back to the stone wall in great spirits.

  It was getting late and so I didn’t try to explore. I went right to work making a fire. I decided that even if I didn’t have enough time to cut boughs for a bed, I was going to have cooked fish and a fire to huddle around during those cold night hours. May is not exactly warm in the Catskills.

  By firelight that night I wrote this:

  ‘Dear Bill [that was the old man]:

  ‘After three tries, I finally got a handful of dry grass on the glow in the tinder. Grass is even better than pine needles, and tomorrow I am going to try the outside bark of the river birch. I read somewhere that it has combustible oil in it that the Indians used to start fires. Anyway, I did just what you showed me, and had cooked catfish for dinner. It was good.

  Your friend,

  Sam.’

  After I wrote that I remembered I didn’t know his last name, and so I stuffed the note in my pocket, made myself a bed of boughs and leaves in the shelter of the stone wall, and fell right to sleep.

  I must say this now about that first fire. It was magic. Out of dead tinder and grass and sticks came a live warm light. It cracked and snapped and smoked and filled the woods with brightness. It lighted the trees and made them warm and friendly. It stood tall and bright and held back the night. Oh, this was a different night than the first dark frightful one. Also I was stuffed on catfish. I have since learned to cook it more, but never have I enjoyed a meal as much as that one, and never have I felt so independent again.

  in which

  I Find Many Useful Plants

  The following morning I stood up, stretched, and looked about me. Birds were dripping from the trees, little birds, singing and flying and pouring over the limbs.

  ‘This must be the warbler migration,’ I said, and I laughed because there were so many birds. I had never seen so many. My big voice rolled through the woods, and their little voices seemed to rise and answer me.

  They were eating. Three or four in a maple tree near me were darting along the limbs, pecking and snatching at something delicious on the trees. I wondered if there was anything there for a hungry boy. I pulled a limb down, and all I saw were leaves, twigs, and flowers. I ate a flower. It was not very good. One manual I had read said to watch what the birds and animals were eating in order to learn what is edible and nonedible in the forest. If the animal life can eat it, it is safe for humans. The book did suggest that a raccoon had tastes more nearly like ours. Certainly the birds were no example.

  Then I wondered if they were not eating something I couldn’t see—tiny insects perhaps; well, anyway, whatever it was, I decided to fish. I took my line and hook and walked down to the stream.

  I lay on a log and dangled my line in the bright water. The fish were not biting. That made me hungrier. My stomach pinched. You know, it really does hurt to be terribly hungry.

  A stream is supposed to be full of food. It is the easiest place to get a lot of food in a hurry. I needed something in a hurry, but what? I looked through the clear water and saw the tracks of mussels in the mud. I ran along the log back to shore, took off my clothes, and plunged into that icy water.

  I collected almost a peck of mussels in very little time at all, and began tying them in my sweater to carry them back to camp.

  But I don’t have to carry them anywhere, I said to myself. I have my fire in my pocket, I don’t need a table. I can sit right here by the stream and eat. And so I did. I wrapped the mussels in leaves and sort of steamed them in coals. They are not quite as good as clams—a little stronger, I would say—but by the time I had eaten three, I had forgotten what clams tasted like and knew only how delicious freshwater mussels were. I actually got full.

  I wandered back to Great-grandfather’s farm and began to explore. Most of the acreage was maple and beech, some pine, dogwoods, ash; and here and there a glorious hickory. I made a sketch of the farm on my road map, and put x’s where the hickories were. They were gold trees to me. I would have hickory nuts in the fall. I could also make salt from hickory limbs. I cut off one and chopped it into bits and scraps. I stuck them in my sweater.

  The land was up and down and up and down, and I wondered how Great-grandfather ever cut it and plowed it. There was one stream running through it, which I was glad to see, for it meant I did not have to go all the way down the mountain to the big creek for fish and water.

  Around noon I came upon what I was sure was the old foundation of the house. Miss Turner was right. It was ruins—a few stones in a square, a slight depression for the basement, and trees growing right up through what had once been the living room. I wandered around to see what was left of the Gribley home.

  After a few looks I saw an apple tree. I rushed up to it, hoping to find an old apple. No apples beneath it. About forty feet away, however, I found a dried one in the crotch of a tree, stuck there by a squirrel and forgotten. I ate it. It was pretty bad—but nourishing, I hoped. There was another apple tree and three walnuts. I scribbled x’s. These were wonderful finds.

  I poked around the foundations, hoping to uncover some old iron imp
lements that I could use. I found nothing. Too many leaves had fallen and turned to loam, too many plants had grown up and died down over the old home site. I decided to come back when I had made myself a shovel.

  Whistling and looking for food and shelter, I went on up the mountain, following the stone walls, discovering many things about my property. I found a marsh. In it were cattails and arrow-leaf—good starchy foods.

  At high noon I stepped onto a mountain meadow. An enormous boulder rose up in the center of it. At the top of the meadow was a fringe of white birch. There were maples and oaks to the west, and a hemlock forest to the right that pulled me right across the sweet grasses, into it.

  Never, never have I seen such trees. They were giants—old, old giants. They must have begun when the world began.

  I started walking around them. I couldn’t hear myself step, so dense and damp were the needles. Great boulders covered with ferns and moss stood among them. They looked like pebbles beneath those trees.

  Standing before the biggest and the oldest and the most kinglike of them all, I suddenly had an idea.

  this is about

  The Old, Old Tree

  I knew enough about the Catskill Mountains to know that when the summer came, they were covered with people. Although Great-grandfather’s farm was somewhat remote, still hikers and campers and hunters and fishermen were sure to wander across it.

  Therefore I wanted a house that could not be seen. People would want to take me back where I belonged if they found me.

  I looked at that tree. Somehow I knew it was home, but I was not quite sure how it was home. The limbs were high and not right for a tree house. I could build a bark extension around it, but that would look silly. Slowly I circled the great trunk. Halfway around the whole plan became perfectly obvious. To the west, between two of the flanges of the tree that spread out to be roots, was a cavity. The heart of the tree was rotting away. I scraped at it with my hands; old, rotten insect-ridden dust came tumbling out. I dug on and on, using my ax from time to time as my excitement grew.