And we were once long-haired, strong-limbed savages who roamed the forest hunting him--ages and ages ago. And we, too, like him, remember the smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest fruits--and of pig, _roast_ pig! And if the pig in his heart is still a wild boar, no less are we, at times, wild savages in our hearts. Anyhow, for one day in the fall I want to go “leafing.” I want to give my pig a taste of acorns, and a big pile of leaves to dive so deep into that he cannot see his pen. I can feel the joy of it myself. No, I do not live in a pen; but then, I might, if once in a while I did not go leafing, did not escape now and then from my little daily round into the wide, wild woods--my ancestral home. CHAPTER XII A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS FALL I You ought to hear the scream of the hen-hawks circling high in the air. In August and September and late into October, if you listen in the open country, you will hear their piercing whistle,--shrill, exultant _scream_ comes nearer to describing it,--as they sail and sail a mile away in the sky. II You ought to go out upon some mowing hill or field of stubble and hear the crickets, then into the apple orchard and hear the katydids, then into the high grass and bushes along the fence and hear the whole stringed chorus of green grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets. You have heard them all your life; but the trouble is that, because you have heard them so constantly in the autumn, and because one player after another has come gradually into the orchestra, you have taken them as part of the natural course of things and have never really heard them individually, to know what parts they play. Now anybody can hear a lion roar, or a mule bray, or a loon laugh his wild crazy laugh over a silent mountain lake, and know what sound it is; but who can hear a cricket out of doors, or a grasshopper, and know which is which? III Did you ever hear a loon laugh? You ought to. I would go a hundred miles to hear that weird, meaningless, melancholy, maniacal laughter of the loon, or great northern diver, as the dusk comes down over some lonely lake in the wilderness of the far North. From Maine westward to northern Illinois you may listen for him in early autumn; then, when the migration begins, anywhere south to the Gulf of Mexico. You may never hear the call of the bull moose in the northern woods, nor the howl of a coyote on the western prairies, nor the wild _cac_, _cac_, _cac_ of the soaring eagles, nor the husky _yap_, _yap_, _yap_ of the fox. But, if you do, “make a note of it,” as Captain Cuttle would say; for the tongues that utter this wild language are fast ceasing to speak to us. IV