---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Maughan, George H.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 10
published: 1919-08
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Maughan, George H., "Who Appreciates?," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 10 (August 1919): 884–885.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera22010unse
start_page: 884
end_page: 885
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-08)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  publication_year: 1919
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Who Appreciates?

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Baby Moose
                          By F. H. Sweet

      Billows of smoke rolled up the vertical mountain side, and
out of them flashed angry sheets of flame. The whole forest on
the steep west bank of the St. Maurice, above Rat River, was
ablaze. At the southern boundary of the fire, men were fighting it with shovels, fire and water. On the river, Burden and
Winne, fire-rangers, were paddling their light canoe up the swift
current, seeking a point of attack from above. They had passed
the fiercest of the flames, and were headed for the bank, when
a puff of wind rolled down a cloud of smoke which nearly smothered them. For a minute they floated on the stream, blind to
their course, not knowing which way to turn.       Then came a
crash as a big animal plunged into the water beside them, and
a cow-moose swam past within reach of their paddles. A moment later, as the cloud of smoke lifted, the rangers saw an
ungainly little animal awkwardly struggling in the water between themselves and the nearby bank of the river. With a
sweep of his paddle Burden cent the canoe gliding toward the
little creature, as he shouted to his companion:

    "Grab it, Winne! It's a baby moose!"
     "All right," answered Winne. "I'll take care of the baby,
if you'll look after the canoe. We'll be in the river in a minute."
     Winne caught the creature by the ear and held its head
well out of the water, despite its desperate struggles, while Burden balanced the canoe against the shifting weight of his companion. After a little the animal teamed to struggle, and Burden
began to drive the craft toward the bank as they drifted with
the current.   They had almost reached the shore, when the
baby moose made a sudden plunge, and striking the canoe with
knees and head, capsized the craft.
    Burden swam ashore with the canoe, which he dragged out
on the bank, while Winne and the moose were swept down
stream by the current. The ranger was an expert swimmer,
given to diving from high bridges, and other acrobatic follies,
but he found that swimming with a frightened young moose in
deep water of a turbulent river called for all his skill. Often
he got near the bank, and as often was swept away, until he had

<!-- page:885 -->

BABY MOOSE                          887

been carried a quarter of a mile down the river, and the end of
his strength was in sight.
     Then a favoring eddy swept him against a bank from which
the soil had been washed away until the roots of the trees which
grew upon it projected into the river.     Exhausted though he
was,    Winne managed to cling to a root until his companion,
scrambling through hot ashes and around burning stumps, could
get to him.  Then Burden made fast, around the neck of the
baby moose, the long sash which Canada woodsmen often wear
in place of a belt, and Winne crawled out on the bank.     Together the fire-rangers dragged the long-legged, awkward little
animal out of the river and tied him to a tree.
       The rangers, who had been carried below the line of the
forest fire, now returned to theirwork of directing and aiding
 the men whom they had called out to fight it. It was late at
night when the fire was finally subdued, and the returning
rangers found Baby Moose bleating piteously beside the tree to
which they had tied him. They petted and soothed the little
creature until he lost his fear of them, and they then led him
without trouble down to the river to the house of a French
habitant, where they got a pail of milk. After Baby Moose's
nose had been pushed into the milk a few times, he learned to
drink, and after he had emptied the pail he lay down contentedly to sleep, with the rangers camped beside him.
     In the morning, Burden hunted up a drive-boat, in which
he offered to row Winne and Baby Moose across the St. Maurice
to the house of a friend of theirs, the forester of a great lumber
company which controlled a thousand square miles of land and
water on the St. Maurice and its tributaries. He stipulated that
Winne must be responsible for the baby during the voyage, and
in case of disaster must swim ashore with it. But there was no
trouble on the trip, for Baby Moose behaved like a tourist, and
remained quietly on the boat, viewing the scenery, until the
craft landed at the bank beside the cottage of their friend.
     The forester put Baby Moose in his little garden of a quarter
of an acre, which was surrounded by a wooden fence to keep out
the cattle of the lumber company. After the baby had been fed
he was introduced to the forester's dog, of which he showed no
fear, while the big dog licked the baby's nose, perhaps because
it had just been dipped in a pail of milk.

     Baby Moose was gaunt and ungainly, long-legged and awkward beyond belief. His lying-down and getting-up were picturesque in their clumsiness, but day after day he grew less thin,
and day after day his intelligence and friendliness increased. He
followed the forester's wife as she walked around the garden,
and bleated when she left him.       He was friendly with the