Millpond Memories (1958)

[Music] This is the story of an old mill pond. A pond that lies somewhere east of the Rockies and west of the Atlantic. Down to this pond there came a boy. Perhaps you remember that boy. Possibly you were that boy. It could have been 5, 15, or 50 years ago. But you remember that old pond as clearly as though it were yesterday. There you learned the ways of the frogs and toads and turtles. This old bullfrog with his deep bass voice, his cousin the green frog, and this leopard frog with his sleek green coat covered with roundish blotches. In the trees and bushes, sticky toes, the tree toad leaped from limb to [Music] limb. And then there were the turtles. [Music] You possibly wondered at the peculiar markings of the spotted turtle until you saw one in a pool covered with duckweed algae. Then the reason for those spots was crystal clear. They are protective colors, nature's camouflage. Then there were the fish you came to catch. The perch with their zebra striped markings, bullheads, bluegills, calico bass, and these chubby little sunfish with their broad shapes and sharp spined dorsal fins. Did you ever see anything like this come up out of the old mill pond? As you did, your mind possibly went back over the years, back over the ages to the time when monster reptiles roamed the earth. Like their huge relatives of those ages past, our snapping turtles come up out of the water and dig holes in the ground. In those holes, they lay their eggs. Round white eggs that look like little pingpong balls. After they lay their eggs, they cover them up. Then slowly, deliberately, and unhurriedly, they go back into the water again and pay no further attention to those eggs. Then there was the day you saw the baby muskrats taking their first swimming lessons. As you watched, you saw the reason for those flattened tails. They use those tails for propellers and swim by lashing them from side to side. From someplace along the bank, the proud old mother muskrat fondly watched her tiny offspring swim and play. Suddenly, without warning, the muskrat family dashed off in wild alarm. And you saw the reason for the muskrat's panic. Along came the mink, the dreaded enemy of all muskrats. He is sly and cruel and crafty, a bolt of lightning in a bundle of soft brown fur. He feeds on fish, prays on muskrats, chases squirrels into the treetops, stalks the birds and animals that live on the land. True, he is a cruel and bloodthirsty killer. He also is highly intelligent, very resourceful, and a fearless fighter. Many of his traits we must admire. Then there was the family of baby cottontail rabbits that lived down in the old woodchuck burrow. When the mink goes down the hole, cottontails come out fast in all [Music] directions. Anyone that does not come out fast comes out inside the mink later on. He has many relatives. That mink, the weasel, the otter, the martin, the fisher, and possibly, you know, this one. This one is slowm moving. He is slow thinking. He can't overtake swift moving prey. So he digs for grubs, robs birds nests, feeds on fruits and berries. But slow as he is, not many things ever bother that skunk. Many a time as you sat there on that old log, a pair of tawny eyes was watching every move you made. You never saw that fox, but that fox saw everything you did. In some safe vantage point, in a secluded place, he ws away the daylight hours. But when evening comes, he gets restless. He gets up, yawns, stretches, and begins to prowl. He feeds on fruits and berries. His favorite food is field mice, but he is equally fond of rabbits and ground nesting birds when he can catch them. He has a keen brain, excellent vision, marvelous hearing, and a highly developed sense of smell. Those things on which he prays must be on constant guard against the craft and cunning of the fox. And you never will forget the time this dough came out of the woods. The wind was blowing from her towards you, and she never saw you. You learned something about deer that day, that they depend more on their sense of smell and on their hearing than on their eyesight. You sat there fascinated. You never moved a muscle. You scarcely dared to breathe for fear you'd frighten her away. Closer and closer she came. From time to time, she would stop, arch her neck, prick up her ears, sniff the air. She was nervous. She was worried. She was much concerned, and she had a reason to be concerned. This little spotted fawn, just a few hours old, that got up out of the blueberry bushes and followed his mother off into the woods on rubbery little legs. On other trips, you came to know that fawn better. You watched him grow up into a sturdy little animal with powerful legs that could take him bounding away into the woods in time of danger. You watched him wait across the old millstream and wait out on the opposite bank. From watching that fawn, you learned why our white-tailed deer is so widely distributed from Florida far north into Canada and from the Atlantic westward to the Rockies. It is because they thrive on a great variety of plant foods. Deer, as you see, graze freely on the grasses, as do the sheep and [Music] cattle, but they also browse on leaves and buds, as do the goats. One day he tried to get a drink in a pool in a drying up swamp. A pool filled with squirming masses of tadpoles that tickled his nose and tickled his feet. So he bucked and shied like a skittish colt. And then you saw the way his spotted coat blended in with the [Music] background. Up and down the stream bank, down around the old mill pond, you saw tracks in the soft mud that looked like the imprint of a baby's hand. In those tracks, you read the story of the coming and going of this raccoon to seek his food and wash it. It is possible even that you came across the that made those tracks. He chooses some hollow in an ancient tree and sleeps away the daylight hours. From time to time, he takes a look around. When he is fully satisfied that all is well, he curls up and goes back to sleep again. When the sun goes down, the raccoon gets restless and begins to prowl. He feeds on a great variety of plants and animals. During the warm months, he is especially food- minded because he then must store up the layers of fat that last him during the long, cold months of hibernation. His favorite feeding place is down around the water. He hunts for river muscles, turns over stones for crawfish, digs up the eggs of turtles and devours them, robs the nests of ducks and red-winged blackbirds. The raccoon is slower than the fox or mink, yet he too is an enemy against whom the muskrat family must be on constant guard. He too would eat the muskrats if he could catch them. But he finds the nest of the blue-winged teal, a nest with an even dozen waxy white eggs in it. And when he leaves that nest behind, little is left but broken eggs and empty [Music] shells. Yes, the does eat a great variety of foods, but he eats some things we wish he would leave alone. Things like the eggs of birds. Things like the eggs of our wild ducks. [Music] Boys and dogs and old mill ponds are a combination that goes very well together. It is a question whether boys or dogs enjoy those old ponds more fully. [Music] And now that we are on that subject of dogs, these dogs enjoy the old pawns, [Music] too. Do you remember the first bullhead you caught? And how you made a wild grab for that flopping fish and then found out to your stunned surprise that nature had protected it with three sharp spines she concealed in its fins? Three sharp spines she gave it to protect it against being swallowed by bigger fish like the picker. the northern pike and the large-mouthed black [Music] bass. Yes. Whether you caught a string of fish or whether you didn't get a thing, every trip down to that old pond was an interesting excursion.