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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18227-8.txt b/18227-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ff294d --- /dev/null +++ b/18227-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1517 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Spring Days in Iowa + +Author: Frederick John Lazell + +Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18227] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies +have been maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked +with a [TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list found +at the end of the text. + + + + +Some Spring Days in Iowa + + + BY + Frederick John Lazell + + + [Illustration] + + + CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA + THE TORCH PRESS + NINETEEN HUNDRED EIGHT + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1908 + BY + FRED J. LAZELL + + + + +FOREWORD + + +It is indeed a pleasure thus to open the gate while my friend leads us +away from the din and rush of the city into "God's great out-of-doors." +Having walked with him on "Some Winter Days," one is all the more eager +to follow him in the gentler months of Spring--that mother-season, with +its brooding pathos, and its seeds stirring in their sleep as if they +dreamed of flowers. + +Our guide is at once an expert and a friend, a man of science and a poet. +If he should sleep a year, like dear old Rip, he would know, by the +calendar of the flowers, what day of the month he awoke. He knows the +story of trees, the arts of insects, the habits of birds and their parts +of speech. His wealth of detail is amazing, but never wearying, and he is +happily allusive to the nature-lore of the poets, and to the legends and +myths of the woodland. He has the insight of Thoreau, the patience of +Burroughs, and a nameless quality of his own--a blend of joyous love and +wonder. His style is as lucid as sunlight, investing his pages with +something of the simplicity and calm of Nature herself. The fine sanity +and health of the man are in the book, as of one to whom the beauty of +the world is reason enough for life, and an invitation to live well. He +does not preach--though he sometimes stops to point to a forest vista, or +a sunset, where the colors are melted into a beauty too fair and frail +for this earth. + +Let us hope that the author will complete his history of the seasons, and +tell of us of Summer with its riot of life and loveliness, and of the +Autumn-time with its pensive, dreamy beauty that is akin to death. He is +a teacher of truth and good-will, of health and wisdom, of the +brotherhood of all breathing things. Having opened the gate, I leave it +open for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. + +JOSEPH NEWTON + +CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA + DECEMBER 1, 1908 + + + + +APRIL--BUDS AND BIRD SONGS + + + + +IV. APRIL--BUDS AND BIRD SONGS + + + _"Has she not shown us all? + From the clear space of ether, to the small + Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning + Of Jove's large eyebrow, to the tender greening + Of April meadows?"_ + + _"And whiles Zeus gives the sunshine, whiles the rain."_ + + +A strong southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving +big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in turn, +pushes at the base of the waves and causes their wind-driven crests to +fall forward and break into spray. The whole surface of the river is +flecked with these whitecaps, a rare sight on an inland stream but +characteristic of April. We sit on a ledge of rock high up the slope of +the caņon and listen as they break, break, break. We may close our eyes +and fancy we are with Edmund Danton in his sea-girt dungeon, or with +Tennyson and his "cold, gray stones," or with King Canute and his +flattering courtiers on the sandy shore. But a song sparrow with his +recitative "Oleet, oleet, oleet," followed by the well-known cadenza, +dispels the fancies and calls our attention to himself as he sits on a +hop hornbeam and sings at half-minute intervals. The wind ruffles his +sober coat of brown and gray and he looks like a careless artist, +thrilling with the soul of song. + +Notwithstanding the high wind there is a heavy haze through which the sun +casts but faint shadows. Across the white-flecked river the emerald +meadow rises in a mile long slope until it meets the sky in a mist of +silver blue. To the right a big tract of woodland is haloed by a denser +cloud of vivid violet as if the pillar of cloud which led the Israelites +by day had rested there; or as if mingled smoke and incense were rising +from Druid altars around the sacred grove. As a matter of fact, it is a +mingling of the ever increasing humidity, the dust particles in the air +and the smoke from many April grass fires. To the left of the meadow +there is a sweep of arable land where disc harrows, seeders, and ploughs +are at work. The unsightly corn stalks of the winter have been laid low, +the brown fields are as neat and tidy as if they had been newly swept; +and this is Iowa in April. + +Up and down the river the willow leaves are just unfolding, bordering the +stream with tender green. The tassels of the pussy willows, which were +white in March, are now rosy and gold, due to the development of the +anthers. The aspens at the front of the wood are thickly hung with the +long yellowish-white tassels and look like masses of floss silk among the +tops of the darker trees. A big cottonwood is at its most picturesque +period in the whole year. The dark red anthers make the myriads of +catkins look like elongated strawberries. Tomorrow, or the next day, +these red anthers will break and discharge their yellow pollen and then +the tassels will be golden instead of strawberry-colored. Spring seems to +unfold her beauties slowly but she has something new each day for the +faithful. + +The ash, the hackberry, the oaks, the linden, the locusts on the hill and +the solitary old honey-locust down by the river's brink are as yet +unresponsive to the smiles of spring. The plum, the crab apple, the +hawthorn and the wild cherry are but just beginning to push green points +between their bud scales. But the elms are a glory of dull gold; every +twig is fringed with blossoms. The maples have lost their fleecy white +softness, for the staminate flowers which were so beautiful in March have +withered now. But the fruit blossoms remind us of Lowell's line, "The +maple puts her corals on in May." In Iowa he might have made it April +instead of May. But that would have spoiled his verse. + + * * * * * + +For long we sit and drink in the beauty of the scene. Meanwhile the birds +on this wooded slope are asking us to use our ears as well as our eyes. +Such a mingling of bird voices! The "spring o' th' year" of the meadow +larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by +the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear "phe-be" of the +chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. +Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl +botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the +loud and prolonged "O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick" of the flicker makes us +lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the +handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their +white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful +black crescent on their breasts. When we hear the call of the flicker we +may know that spring is here to stay. They are as infallible as the +yellow-breasted larks in the meadows. + +"Chip-chip-chip-chip,"--yes, of course that's the chipping sparrow; +another of the engaging creatures which almost has been driven from the +habitations of his human friends by the miserable English sparrows. Often +have we seen the little fellow set upon and brutally hurt by these +pirates. Now he stays around rural homes, and his chestnut crown, brown +coat mixed with black and gray, his whitish vest and black bill are +always a welcome sight. He takes up the chant of the year where the +departing junco left it off, throws back his tiny head and his little +throat flutters with the oft-repeated syllable, continued rapidly for +about four seconds. A while longer we wait and are rewarded by a few bars +of the musicful song of the brown thrasher who has just arrived with Mrs. +Thrasher for two weeks of courtship and song, after which they will build +a new home in the hazel thicket and go to housekeeping. + +Just as we are rising to leave there is the glimmer of the blue-bird's +wing and the brilliant fellow and his pretty mate appear at the top of +the bank, where the staghorn sumac still bears its berries. None of the +birds of the winter seems to care much for these berries but the +bluebirds evidently love them. As another instance of their tastes in +this direction may be mentioned the fact that for the past three weeks a +pair of blue birds have made many visits every day to a Chinese matrimony +vine, by the dining room window of the writer's home. This vine, as +everyone knows, has a wreath of juicy red berries in the fall, which hang +through the winter and are dried, but still red, in the spring. It was +the first week of March when the family first heard the pleasing notes of +the blue bird outside the window at breakfast time, and saw the +brilliant male sitting on a post on the back lawn and his less +brilliant, but equally attractive mate sitting on the clothesline. A +little later and he flew to the vine, picked off one berry and ate it, +took another one in his mouth and then returned to his post, while she +followed his example. Both chirped and pronounced the berries good, +though up to that time the members of the household had supposed they +were poisonous. After a few more bites of the morning meal the birds went +all around the house, inspecting every nook and crevice. But they found +every place fully occupied by the pestiferous English sparrows, who +darted at them maliciously. For two whole days the blue birds stayed +around the lawn and garden, but the sparrows made their lives miserable +and finally they went to the timber an eighth of a mile away and selected +an abiding place in the cavity of a basswood. But every morning and +evening, sometimes many times during the day, they came for their meal of +berries from the vine. Usually they were on hand as soon as the sun was +up, and a more devoted and well behaved couple was never seen either in +the bird or the human world. + + * * * * * + +We rise at length and walk along the wooded slope admiring new beauties +at every step. Here is a thicket of wild gooseberry filled with dark +green leaves and the tinkling notes of tree sparrows, and we hardly know +which is the more beautiful. A little farther and we are in a tangle of +pink and magenta raspberry vines from which the green leaves are just +pushing out. The elder has made a great start; the yellowish-green shoots +from the stems and from the roots are already more than six inches long. +The panicled dogwood and the red-osier dogwood (no, not the flowering +dogwood) as yet show no signs of foliage, but the fine white lines in the +bark of the bladdernut, which have been so attractive all winter, are now +enhanced by the soft myrtle green of the tender young leaves. The shrubby +red cedar is twice as fresh and green as it was a month ago, as it hangs +down the face of the splintered rock where the farmer boys have set a +trap to catch the mother mink. But Mrs. Mink is wary. Here is a pile of +feathers, evidently from a wild duck, which seems to indicate that while +the duck was making a meal of a fish which she had brought to shore, the +mink pounced upon her and ate both duck and fish. + +While we stand looking there is a slight movement among the roots of a +silver maple at the river's brink. A moment later Mrs. Mink comes around +the tree and towards us. She is about eighteen inches long, with a bushy +tail about another eight inches, her blackish-brown body about as big +round as a big man's wrist, and she has a "business-looking" face and +jaw. Did you ever try to take the young minks from their nest in the +latter part of April and did Mrs. Mink fight? She hasn't seen or smelled +us yet, but suddenly when she is within seven feet of us, there is an +upward movement of that supple, snakelike neck, a quick glance of those +black diamond eyes, and she turns at right angles and dives into the +river. A frog could not enter the water so silently. + + * * * * * + +We climb the slope again and pause in front of a big sugar maple, a +rather rare sight hereabouts. The sap-sucker has bored a row of fresh +holes in the bark of the tree and the syrup has flowed out so freely that +the whole south side of the tree is wet with it. Scores of wasps, bees +and flies of all sizes and colors are revelling in the sweetness. + +Finally we come to where there is less grass but more dead leaves and +leaf mould, and here is the first real herbaceous flower of this spring, +the dwarf white trillium, or wake-robin. How beautiful it looks, its +three pure, waxy-white petals, its six golden anthers and three long +styles, and its pretty whorl of three ovate leaves, at the summit of a +stem about four inches high. A little farther and we find a group of them +and then other clusters, fresh and pure and sweet enough to make a +bouquet for Euphrosyne. + +Oh, but someone says, the hepatica is the first flower of spring; all the +nature writers say so. Well, but they don't seem to say much about the +trillium; possibly they haven't found it so often. Indeed, it seems to be +more choice of its location. It is hardly ever, perhaps it would be safe +to say never, found on a southern or a southwestern slope. Almost +invariably it is found on the steep slope of a river bank, facing +northeast or east. Hepaticas nearly always grow on the same slope, but +they come into blossom about two days later than the trillium. But on +another bank which faces the noon and the afternoon sun the hepaticas are +up with the trilliums in the calendar of spring. This year the trillium +was found blooming, on a northeastern slope, March 24. At this place the +hepatica did not bloom until March 26. But it bloomed March 24, on a +southwest slope, fifteen miles away. + +By-the-way, the list of March blooming plants for 1908, is probably one +of the longest for years: March 20, aspen; twenty-first, hazel and silver +maple; twenty-third, pussy willow, prairie willow and white elm; +twenty-fourth, dwarf white trillium and hepatica (also known as +liverleaf, squirrelcup, and blue anemone); twenty-fifth, slippery elm, +cottonwood; twenty-ninth, box elder and fragrant sumac; thirtieth, +dandelion; thirty-first, Dutchman's breeches. + +How some of these early flowers secure the perpetuation of their species +is an interesting study for amateur botanists. In the case of the +trillium the fruit is a three-lobed reddish berry, but one has to search +for it as diligently as Diogenes did for an honest man before he finds +it. The plant seldom sets seed in this vicinity, but seems to depend +rather upon its tuber-like rootstocks in which the leaves lie curled all +through the winter. The hepatica attracts pollen-feeding flies, female +hive-bees and the earliest butterflies, and is thus cross-fertilized to +some extent; but it is thought also to be able to effect +self-fertilization. In the case of the _hepatica acutiloba_, however, it +has been found that staminate flowers grow on one plant and pistillate +flowers on another, hence insects are essential to the perpetuation of +this species. + +After bringing us the trilliums and hepaticas in numbers, Nature pauses. +She means to give us time to inhale the fragrance of some of the +hepaticas, and to learn that other hepaticas of the same species have no +fragrance at all; that there is a variety of delicate colors, white, +pink, purple, lavender, and blue; that the colored parts, which look +like petals are really sepals; that they usually number six, but may be +as many as twelve; that there are three small sessile leaves forming an +involucre directly under the flower; that if we search we shall find some +with four, more rare than four-leaved clovers; that the plant which was +fragrant last year will also be fragrant this year; that the furry stems +are slightly pungent,--enough to give spice to a sandwich; these +preliminary observations fit us for more intricate problems later on. + + * * * * * + +Spenser, the divinely tongued, pictures April as a lusty youth, riding +upon the bull with the golden horns (_Taurus_), wading through a flood, +and adorned with garlands of the fairest flowers and buds. A better +figure would have been Europa riding Zeus. And Chaucer also makes April a +masculine month: + + _"When that Aprille with his schoweres swoote + The drought of Marche had perced to the roote."_ + +But surely April, with her smiles anl[TN-1] tears, ought to be regarded +as a feminine month. Ovid has shown that she was not named from +_aperire_, to open, as some have supposed, but from Aphrodite, the Greek +name for Venus, goddess of beauty and mother of love. She is chaste, even +cold, but grows sweeter and more affectionate every day and her tears all +end in smiles. Her flowers are pure and mostly white, fitting for a +maiden. Look at the list (if the weather is warm): + +White or whitish:--Rue-anemone, hepatica, spring beauty, blood-root, +toothwort, Dutchman's breeches, dog's tooth violet, wild ginger, +chickweed, Isopyrum, plantain-leaved everlasting, shepherd's purse, +shad-bush, wild strawberry, whitlow-grass, wind-flower, hackberry +(greenish white), false Solomon's seal, catnip, spring cress, wild black +currant, wild plum. + +Yellow or yellowish:--Marsh marigold, creeping buttercup, marsh +buttercup, small-flowered crowfoot, dandelion, yellow woodsorrel, +bell-wort, star-grass, downy yellow violet, pappoose root, lousewort, +prickly ash, hop hornbeam, white oak, mossy-cup oak, butternut, sugar +maple. + +Purple or blue:--Common blue violet, trillium (_recurvatum_ and +_erectum_) hepatica, Virginian cowslip (_lung-wort_ or _bluebells_), +woodsorrel, common blue phlox, ground plum. + +Green:--The Indian turnip, and several of the sedges. + +Pink:--Spring beauty, toothwort, dog's tooth violet, hepatica. + +Scarlet:--Columbine. + +From this list it ought to be plain that April is a dainty queen, wearing +a dress of cheerful green, a bodice of white, with violets in her hands, +pink in her cheeks, and a single scarlet columbine in her wealth of +golden hair, which indeed comes nearly being the portrait of Dione +herself. Or, as one of the poets has better described her: + + _April stood with tearful face + With violets in her hands, and in her hair + Pale wild anemones; the fragrant lace + Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair, + Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there._ + +In this long list of April flowers--some observers will be able to make +it still longer--there are many favorites. The pretty rue-anemone recalls +the tradition that Anemos, the wind, chose the delicate little flowers of +this family as the heralds of his coming in early spring. And in the +legend of Venus and Adonis the anemone is the flower that sprang from the +tears of the queen as she mourned the death of her loved one. Theocritus +put the wind-flowers into his Idylls, and Pliny said that only the wind +could open them. The Spring beauty has as rich a legend, for it was the +Indian Miskodeed, left behind when Peboan, the winter, the Mighty One, +was melted by the breath of spring. The toothwort (_dentaria laciniata_) +is sometimes known as the pepper-root, and every school boy and girl +living near the woods is familiar with the taste of its tubers and the +appearance of its cross-shaped flowers. The plumy dicentra, or Dutchman's +breeches, seems so feminine as to be grossly misnamed until we remember +that it was first discovered in the Rip Van Winkle country. The wild +ginger with its two large leaves and its queer little blossoms close to +the ground is another delight to the saunterer along the rocky slopes, +where the feathery shad-bush--the aronia of Whittier--with its wealth of +snowy blossoms and the wild plum not far away, with its masses of pure +white, are inspirations to clean and sweet lives, calling to mind the +lines of Wordsworth: + + _One impulse from a vernal wood + May teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good + Than all the sages can._ + +In rocky fields and hillsides and dry open woods, the dwarf everlasting +(_Antennaria plantaginifolia_) with its silvery-white little florets set +in delicate cups, is one of the first species of the great composite +family to bloom. We take it from between the rocks and think of those +lines of Tennyson, which John Fiske declared to be among the deepest +thoughts ever uttered by poet: + + _Flower in the crannied wall + I pluck you out of the crannies, + I hold you here, root and all in my hand + Little flower,--but if I could understand + What you are, root and all, and all in all, + I should know what God and man is._ + +Even more innocent, fresh and fair, is the bloodroot, with its snowy +petals, golden center and ensanguined root-stock which crimsons the +fingers that touch it. This is the herb, so the legend says, which the +Israelites in Egypt dipped in sacrificial blood to mark their doorposts. +As long ago as last November we dug up one of the papery sheaths and +found the flower, then about a half inch long, snugly wrapped in its +single leaf; and now the pale green leaf has pushed up and unfolded, +showing the fragile flower in all its beauty. + + * * * * * + +Strange contrasts we see in some of these April flowers. Some of them +open their star-like eyes for a day or two and dot the floor of the woods +with beauty and then their little contribution to the spring is done and +they are seen no more until another year. They bring us beauty and +sweetness and then they pass from us, like the sweet and childish but +perfect lives we all have known and loved. In contrast to such as these +there is the Jack-in-the-pulpit of the April woods which has no floral +envelope of beauty, no fragrance, no inspiration, so busy is it storing +up its swollen fortunes down in the bank, leaving behind it a tuber so +rank and tainted that even the Indians couldn't eat it until they had +first roasted it, then ground it into powder, and finally made it into a +kind of bread. But sordid-lived accumulators, herbaceous and human, have +been with us since the world began. Laban was a monopolist of pretty +daughters and fine live stock,[TN-2] and Theocritus, in his day, was +moved to say that "Money is monarch and Master," and to exclaim: + + _Fools, what gain is a world of wealth in your houses lying? + Wise men deem that in that dwells not true pleasure of riches, + But to delight one's soul.... + Only the muses grant unto mortals a guerdon of glory; + Dead men's wealth shall be spent by the quick that are heirs to + their riches._ + +Toward the end of the month, when the gelatinous masses in the water +courses have developed the little black dots sufficiently so that we can +see they are tadpoles, when the songsters have been joined by the +catbird, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the woodthrush, the whippoorwill, +the cheerful and friendly chewink and several of the warblers and +flycatchers, the rivers and creeks will be fringed with the brilliant +yellow of the marsh marigold, and we shall think of Shakespeare, walking +the meadows of Avon, getting material for that song of the musicians in +Cymbeline: + + _And winking Mary-buds begin + To ope their golden eyes._ + +And meanwhile the violet, which was among the plants sacred to Aphrodite, +was also appealing to this master poet, who was born this month, as were +Wordsworth, George Herbert, John Keble, Anthony Trollope, David Hume, and +Edward Gibbon, and who died this month as did Edward Young, who wrote +_Night Thoughts_, and Abraham Lincoln, who freed a race and saved a +nation. Who can ever forget the month of Lincoln's death after he has +once read that exquisite description of an April day and the song of the +hermit thrush, written by Whitman to commemorate the funeral of his +friend? + +The violets have been especially loved by the poets. Theocritus placed +them foremost in his coronals and put them into Thyrsis's song of +Daphnis's fatal constancy. Chaucer had them in his garlands, and +Spenser's "flock of nymphes" gather them "pallid blew" in a meadow by the +river side. In Percy's _Reliques_ they are the "violets that first +appear, by purple mantles known." Milton allows Zephyr to find Aurora +lying "on beds of violet blue." Shakespeare places them upon Ophelia's +grave and says they are "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." +Wordsworth, Tennyson, and all our own poets have loved them. + + * * * * * + +But we have lingered too long among our flowers and thoughts in the April +woods. The filmy haze which veiled the sun has thickened into threatening +clouds, and as we look across the meadow to where the silver blue haze +rested on the delectable mountain in the morning we see instead the +rain-fringe, veiling and obscuring the landscape. The wind has died to a +dead calm and the river is still. As the shower comes nearer the whole +landscape is shrouded in an ever darkening gray and presently big round +drops splash upon the surface of the river. In a moment we are surrounded +by the rain. How beautiful is the first spring rain! It does not run down +the slope as in the winter when the ground was frozen, but the thirsty +earth seems eager to drink every drop. The unfolding leaves of the shrubs +are bathed in it and the tender firstlings of the flowers are revelling +in it. It dims the singing of the birds, but the robins and the meadow +larks carol on and the spring music of the frogs in the nearby pond has +not yet ceased. + +What makes the raindrops round? And why are the drops at the beginning of +the shower much larger than those which follow? We do not know. Perhaps +it is well. Walt Whitman says that "you must not know too much or be too +scientific about these things." He holds that a little indefiniteness +adds to the enjoyment, a hazy borderland of thought as it were, like that +which rests in April mornings on enchanted highlands away across the +river, which we have never yet--as Thoreau says--"tarnished with our +feet." + +And, anyway, before we can reason it out, the rain has ceased and the +last rays of the descending sun come through an opening in the clouds in +that beautiful phenomenon known as a "sunburst.'[TN-3] The white beams +come diagonally through the moisture-laden air, as if in a good-night +smile to the tender flowers and buds. + +Warming with the sunshine and watering with the showers--that is Miss +April making her flower garden grow. + + + + +MAY--PERFECTION OF BEAUTY + + + + +V. MAY--PERFECTION OF BEAUTY + + _Among the changing months May stands confessed + The sweetest and in fairest colors dressed._ + --THOMSON. + + +Surely the poet sang truly. We would not forget Lowell's challenge "What +is so rare as a day in June," but as we sit here on the top of a +limestone cliff nearly a hundred feet above the bed of the creek, and +watch the red sun brightening the gray of the eastern sky, while the +robins and the meadow larks are singing joyous matins we steep our senses +in the delicate colorings of earth and sky that signalize the awakening +of another day and the real revival of another year. April was +encouraging, but there were many bare boughs and many of the last year's +leaves still clung to the oaks and made a conspicuous feature of the +landscape. The leafy month of June will show us more foliage, but it will +be of a darker and more uniform shade of green. Now, as the sun rises +higher and sends his rays through both the woodlands and the brushlands +we thrill with delight at the kaleidoscope of color. There are no +withered leaves to mar the beauty now. Seen in mass, and at a distance, +the woodlands are a soft cinerous purple. But the tops, where the ruddy +rays of the sun are glancing, are a hazy cloud of tender green, pink, +yellow and pale purple. Nearer trees show in their opening leaves pale +tints of the same gorgeous colors which we see in the fall. The maple +keys and the edges of the tender leaves glow blood-red in the morning +sun. The half-developed leaves of the birch and the poplar are a +yellowish-green, not unlike the yellow which they show in autumn. The +neatly plaited folds of the leaves of the oak display a greenish or +cinerous purple, a soft and delicate presentment of the stronger colors +which come in October, just as the overture gives us faint voicings of +the beauty which the opera is to bring; just as Lowell's organist gives +us + + _"The faint auroral flushes sent + Along the wavering vista of his dream."_ + +The edge of the cliff is lined with shad-trees. Each twig is a plume of +feathery dainty white The drooping racemes of white blossoms, with the +ruby and early-falling bracts among them look like gala decorations to +fringe the way of Flora as she travels up the valley. The shad-trees have +blossomed rather late. In them and under them it is fully spring. There +is a sound of bees and a sense of sweetness which make us forget all the +cold days and think only of the glory of the coming summer. There comes a +song sparrow and perches on one of the twigs. He throws back his little +head, opens his mouth and pours forth a flood of melody. Next comes a +myrtle warbler, eager to show us the yellow on his crown, on his two +sides and the lower part of his back. He is one of the most abundant of +the warblers and one of the most charming and fearless. He perches on a +hop hornbeam tree from which the catkins have just shed their yellow +pollen and goes over it somewhat after the manner of a chickadee or a +nuthatch, showing us as he does so the white under his chin, the two +heavy black marks below that, the two white cross bars on his wings, and +his coat of slate color, striped and streaked with black. He goes over +every twig of the little tree and then flies off to another, first +pausing, however, to give his little call note "tschip, tschip" and then +his little song, "Tschip-tweeter-tweeter." A pair of kingfishers, showing +their blue wings and splendid crests, fly screaming down the creek. Their +nest is in a tunnel four feet in the clay banks on the opposite side. + +Purple finches, a bit late in the season, are feeding on the seeds of the +big elm. The snows of late April and early May must have delayed their +journey northward. When the bird-designer made this bird he set out to +make a different kind of sparrow, but then had pity upon the amateur +ornithologist who finds the sparrows even now almost as difficult to +classify as the amateur botanists do their asters; so he dipped the bird +in some raspberry juice--John Burroughs says pokeberry juice--and the +finch came out of the dye with a wash of raspberry red on his head, +shoulders and upper breast, brightest on the head and the lower part of +his back. Otherwise he looks much like an English sparrow. + + * * * * * + +Now the belated April flowers are seen at their best, mingled with many +of the May arrivals. It is such a day as that when Bryant wrote "The Old +Man's Counsel." On the sloping hillsides, around the leafing hazel +"gay-circles of anemones dance on their stalks." In the more open places +the little wind flower, with its pretty leaves and solitary white +blossoms, blooms in cheerful companionship with its fellows, and the more +sterile parts of the hillside are snowed with the white plumes of the +plantain-leaved everlasting. Downy yellow violets and the common blue +violets grow everywhere and down on the sand near the river the birdfoot +violet, with its quaintly cut leaves and handsome blossoms grows +abundantly for the children who love to gather the "sand violets." On the +bottom which was flooded in March the satiny yellow flowers of the marsh +buttercup shine and the beautiful green of the uplands is spotted with +the pure gold of the buttercup. There is no longer need to be satisfied +with a few pretty flowers. May scatters her brightest and best in +abundance. On the rocky slopes the wild ginger shows its red-brown, +long-eared urns, the white baneberry its short white plumes, the +branchlets of the bladdernut are breaking into white clusters and +columbine soon will "sprinkle on the rocks a scarlet rain" as it did in +Bayard Taylor's time, although the "scarlet rain," like that of the +painted cup in the lowlands, grows less and less each year. The white +glory of the plum thickets at its height and the hawthornes, whose young +leaves have been a picture of pink and red, will soon break into blossom +and vie with the crabapple thickets in calling attention to the beauty of +masses of color when arranged by the Master Painter. + + * * * * * + +The carpet of the woodlands grows softer and thicker, and more varied +each day. Ferns and brakes are coming thickly. The flowers grow more +splendid. The large, wholesome looking leaves of the blue bell are a +fitting setting for the masses of bloom which show pink in the bud, then +purple, and lastly a brilliant blue. Jack-in-the-pulpits make us smile +with keen pleasure as memories of happy childhood days come crowding +thickly upon us. The pretty pinnate leaves of the blue-flowered +polemonium are sufficient explanation for the common name Jacobs-ladder, +even though that name does not properly belong to our species. The purple +trilliums, like the Dutchman's breeches, felt the effects of the many +April and early May frosts but now they are coming into their beauty. +Great colonies of umbrella-leaved May-apple are breaking into white +flowers. The broad, lily-like leaves of the true and false Solomon's seal +are even more attractive than their blossoms. Ferns, bellwort, wild +sarsaparilla, all help to soften our footfalls, while overhead the light +daily grows more subdued as the leaf-buds break and the leaves unfold. +The throb of the year's life grows stronger. All the blossoms and buds +which were formed last summer now break quickly into beauty. And, +already, before the year has fairly started, there are signs of +preparation for the following year. The dandelion is pushing up its fairy +balloons, waiting for the first breeze. The shepherd's purse already +shows many mature seeds below its little white blossoms. The keys of the +soft maple will soon be ready to fall and send out rootlets, and the +winged seeds of the white elm already lie thickly beneath the leafing +branches. + + * * * * * + +Each flower invites admiration and study. Dig up the root of the +Solomon's seal, a rootstock, the botanists call it. It is long, more or +less thickened and here and there is a circular scar which marks the +place from which former stems have arisen. When these leaf-bearing stems +die down they leave on this rootstock down in the ground, a record of +their having lived. The scar looks something like a wax seal and the man +who gave the plant the name of Solomon's seal had probably read that tale +in the Arabian Nights, where King Solomon's seal penned up the giant +genie who had troubled the fishermen. + +Then there's the May-apple. Who does not remember his childhood days when +he pulled the little umbrellas? Even now as they come up in little +colonies, they call up memories of the fairy tales of childhood and we +almost expect to see a fairy, or a brownie, or Queen Mab herself, coming +from under them, when the summer shower, which makes their tops so +beautifully moist gray, has passed. And they also bring to mind that +charming first edition of Dr. Gray's botany, which had in it much of the +man's humor as well as his learning. Too bad that the learned scientists +who succeeded him have cut it out. "Common Honesty, very rare in some +places," he wrote, speaking of that plant. "Ailanthus, Tree of Heaven, +flowers smell of anything but heaven," was his comment on the blossoms of +our picturesque importation from China. And when he came to the May-apple +he wrote that the sweetish fruit was "eaten by pigs and boys." This made +William Hamilton Gibson remember his own boyish gorgings and he wrote: +"Think of it boys. And think of what else he says of it: 'Ovary ovoid, +stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta, each +enclosed in an aril.' Now it may be safe for pigs and billy-goats to +tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are +eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every +township should require this formula of Dr. Gray's to be printed on every +one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of." + +Another interesting plant is the _trillium erectum_, which with the +_trillium recurvatum_, is now to be found in the woods hereabouts. The +flowers of the _trillium erectum_ are ill scented, carrion scented, if +you please. Now the botanists have found that this odor, which is so +unpleasant to the human nostrils, does the plant a real service by +attracting the common green flesh-flies, such as are seen in the +butchershops in the summer-time. They eat the pollen, which is supposed +to taste as it smells and thus as they go from flower to flower they +carry pollen from one blossom to another and so secure for the plant +cross-pollination. + +So we may walk from one flower to another until the morning wears to a +bright noon and the afternoon wanes into a songful sunset. + + * * * * * + +In the swamp, where the red-winged blackbird is building her bulky nest +between the stems of the cat tail, and the prairie marsh wren is making +her second or third little globular nest in a similar place, there is a +blaze of yellow from the marsh marigolds which make masses of succulent +stems and leaves, crowned with pale gold, as far up the marsh as the eye +can reach. In Iowa, it is in May, rather than in June, that "the cowslip +startles the meadows green" and "the buttercup catches the sun in its +chalice." And it is in late April or early May that "the robin is +plastering his house hard by." By the way, ought not the poet to have +made it "her" house? It is the mother bird who seems to do the +plastering. Both birds work on the structure, but it appears to be the +female who carries most of the mud and who uses her faded red apron for a +trowel as she moves round in her nest pushing her breast against the +round wall of the adobe dwelling to spread the mud evenly. The work on +one particular nest was done in late April when there was nothing on the +elm but the seed fringes to screen the builder as she worked. Then the +four light greenish-blue eggs were laid. A red squirrel got one of them +one day. Disregarding the squeakings and scoldings of the anxious +robins, he sat on a limb holding the egg in his forepaws and bit a hole +in one side of it. Then he drained the contents, dropped the shell to the +ground and was about to get another egg when he was driven off. +Apparently he forgot the location of the nest after that, for the other +three eggs hatched out safely. + + * * * * * + +The air is filled with bird music. It began with the larks, closely +followed by the robins, and then the noise of the crows. No change in the +program since the days of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida when: + + _"The busy day + Wak'd by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows."_ + +Then came the liquid notes of the cowbirds, like the pouring of mingled +molasses and olive oil. Three handsome fellows in ebony and dark brown +sit on the branch of a tall elm and just beneath them sit three brownish +gray females, all in a row. Cowbird No. 1 comes nearer the end of the +branch, ruffles out his head as if he were about to have a sick spell +and then emits that famous molasses and oil kind of whistle, sufficient +to identify the cowbird anywhere. The other males repeat his example and +meanwhile the females look on with approving eyes, as if it was a +vaudeville performance by amateurs in polite society. The cowbirds, male +and female, are all free lovers. There is no mating among them. The +female lays her eggs in some other bird's nest, like the English cuckoo, +as if she were too busy with the duties and pleasures of society to care +for her own children. + +A diskcissel[TN-4] sits on a tree instead of a reed or a bush as usual +and sings "See, see, Dick Cissel, Cissel." Chewinks are down scratching +among the dry leaves with the white-throated sparrows, their +strong-muscled legs sending the leaves flying as if a barnyard hen were +doing the scratching. A beautiful hermit thrush is near but he is silent. +The chewink in his harlequin suit of black, white, and chestnut varies +his sharp and cheerful "Chewink" with a musical little strain, "Do-fah, +fah-fah-fah-fah," and one of the white-throated sparrows now and then +stops feeding and flies up to a hazel twig to give his sweet and +plaintive little "pea-a-body, peabody, peabody." Very pretty, but not so +beautiful as the three broad white stripes on his crown and the white +choker under his chin. + +Suddenly a brown thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild +cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had +joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without +a peer. With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood +of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like +notes of the wood-thrush and yield ourselves wholly to the spell of his +rich recital. Make the most of it while it lasts. Like all the glories of +the May woods it is evanescent. When the nest down in the brush is +finished, and his mate "feels the eggs beneath her wings," his song will +grow less full and rich and by the time the young birds come he will have +grown silent, as if weighed down with the responsibilities of a family. + +We get too near the thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the +brush. And then, by rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He +has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and +scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides +his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing +when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. The rich contralto +thrush-like melody, with its ever recurring "sol-la," "sol-la," fills the +woodlands with beauty. It is as if the pearly gates had been opened for a +brief interval to let the earth hear the "quiring of the young-eyed +cherubims." + + * * * * * + +In later May, the season "betwixt May and June," beauty and fragrance and +melody comes in a rich flood. The flaming breast of the oriole and the +wondrous mingling of colors in the multiplied warblers glint like jewels +among the ever enlarging leaves. The light in the woodlands becomes more +subdued and the carpet of ferns and flowers grows richer and more +beautiful. The vireos, the cardinal and the tanager add to the brilliancy +and the ovenbird and veery to the melody. As good old John Milton once +wrote: "In these vernal seasons of the year, when the air is clear and +pleasant, it were an injury and a sullenness against nature not to go out +and see her riches, and partake of her rejoicing with heaven and earth." + + * * * * * + +The beauty of the world is at every man's door, if he will only pause to +see. It offers every man real riches if only he will now and then quit +his muckraking or pause from paying his life for a cap and bells. It +sweetens honest labor, helps earthly endeavor, strengthens human +affection and leads the soul naturally from the beauty of this world to +the greater beauty of that which is to come. + + + + +WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS + + + + +VI. WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS. + + _Whether we look or whether we listen + We can hear life murmur or see it glisten._ + --LOWELL. + + +As we walk along the bank of the creek on a warm afternoon in June we +realize how true are these lines of Lowell. The frog chorus is dying +down, though now and then we catch sight of a big fellow blowing out his +big balloon throat and filling the air with a hoarse bass, while another +across the creek has a bagpipe apparently as big but pitched in a higher +key. Two months ago one could not get near enough to see this queer +inflation, but now the frogs do not seem so shy. Garter snakes wiggle +through the grass down the bank of the creek and the crickets are just +beginning to chirp the love chorus which is soon to swell incessantly +till the fall frosts come. Butterflies, dragon flies, saw flies and gall +flies are busy and we see evidences of their work in the crimson galls +on the willow leaves and the purple-spotted oak apples, some of which +have fallen to the ground from the scarlet oak above. Nature's first +great law is the perpetuation of species, and everything we see in the +June woods and fields, from the giant white oak to the busy ant, is +diligently obeying that law. The red-winged blackbird circles over our +heads with sharp, anxious chirps, for we have disturbed the young +red-wings down in the sedge who are taking their first lessons in flying. +The catbird's nest, with four greenish-blue eggs, is in a wild gooseberry +bush and the catbird is up among the shad-trees feasting on the ripening +June berries. The gentle notes of soft pedal music come floating sweetly +down. Did you ever stop long enough to listen to the full song of the +catbird? First, the brilliant, ringing strains, often softening into a +subdued sympathetic melody, and then, just as the music seems almost +divine, the long cat-like squeal which ends it all--much like an old +organist and choirmaster of boyhood days who used to break in with a +horrible discord at the lower end of the keyboard when the anthem +rehearsal wasn't going to his liking. + +A fruit-lover is the catbird, beginning with the June berries on the +banks of streams near which she often builds her nest and continuing with +wild strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the +Virginia creeper--sometimes also seen busily scooping out a big hole on +the rosy side of a tempting apple in the orchard. Some observers say the +catbird eats the eggs of the fly-catcher and other birds, but this must +be seen to be believed. + +There comes an outbreak of melody from the top of a tall black willow, +much like the tones of the robin and yet suggestive of the warbling +vireo, but finer than the former, clearer, louder and richer than the +latter. We lift our eyes and see the pointed carmine shield of the +rose-breasted grosbeak, one of the most beautiful, useful and music-full +birds in the forest or the garden. Many mornings and evenings during the +month of May one of these handsome fellows was busy in my garden, +diligently picking the potato bugs from the young vines, stopping now +and then, especially in his morning visits, to pour out a happy, ringing +lyric and to show his handsome plumage. On one occasion he took a couple +of potato bugs in his "gros" beak as he flew to the nearby woodland, +probably a tempting morsel for his spouse's breakfast. A bird that can +sing better than a warbling vireo, whose carmine breast is comparable +only to the rich, red rose of June, who picks bugs from potato vines, +singing chansons meanwhile and who is so good to his wife that he does a +large share of the incubation, and takes largely upon himself the care of +their children is surely a "rara avis" and worth having for a friend. He +is a typical bird of June. His color matches the June roses, his songs +are full and sweet and rich as the June days, and the eggs of his soberly +dressed spouse are usually laid and hatched in June. There is a nest in a +hawthorn bush where the wild grape twines her crimson-green clusters and +by the time the blossoms break and fill the air with fragrance, no +accidents coming meanwhile, four young grosbeaks will be the pride of as +warm a paternal heart as ever beat in bird or human breast. + +Perceiving that we are watching him the grosbeak ceases his ringing tones +and drops into that dreamy, soft, melodious warble, which is +characteristic of this songster as it is of the catbird. But he leaves +when a belted kingfisher comes screaming along the stream. + + * * * * * + +But there is more of interest on the willow. Unseen till now, no fewer +than three nighthawks are squatted lengthwise on its lower limbs, two on +one limb and one on another. Strange we did not see them before, but the +explanation is the grosbeak was singing. They are as motionless and +apparently lifeless as if they had been mummified or petrified for a +thousand years. Their mottled back and rusty feathers, their heads drawn +down and eyes almost closed, make them look like uncanny visitants from +beyond the Styx. Poe's raven was not so ominous and strangely silent; +these will not say even the one word, "Nevermore." They look like relics +of a Saturnian reign before beauty and music and joy were known upon the +earth. If there were charred stumps of trees in the Bracken which was +shown to Faust, we should expect to see nighthawks squatted on them, +wholly indifferent to the lamentations of lost souls. We go directly +under the branch where one of them is sitting ten feet above and still he +makes no sign. We throw a clod, but yet there is no movement of his +wings. Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does +he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly +away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of +the nighthawk's wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see +him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in +some twilight hour and then he is the embodiment of strength, agility, +and swiftness. And some day we perchance find the two dirt colored eggs +on the bare ground, or the tiny young, like bits of rabbit fur, with only +the earth beneath them and the sky above them, apparently as deserted and +destitute as Romulus and Remus; and all this adds wonderfully to our +interest in this strange bird, which is so common in the June woods. + +The whip-poor-will is much like the nighthawk. Both are of about the same +size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures +that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped +patch of white on his throat; the large mouth of the whip-poor-will is +fringed with bristles. The nighthawk has a patch of white extending +through his long wings; the whip-poor-will has none. The nighthawk is not +usually heard after the twilight hours; the whip-poor-will is heard much +later. The whip-poor-will calls its name aloud, sometimes startlingly +close to the chamber window; the nighthawk only screams. + + * * * * * + +We cautiously approach a sand flat and are fortunate to see one of the +sights of a lifetime. The mud turtle is preparing to lay her eggs in the +moist sand. She digs the hole almost entirely with her hind feet, using +first one and then the other, working rapidly for perhaps eight or ten +minutes until the hole is about six inches in diameter and apparently +about three or four inches deep. Then she draws in her head, and drops, +at intervals of two or three minutes, five eggs into the hole. That done, +she scrapes the moist sand back into the hole, pressing it and patting it +from time to time with her hind feet. This process takes much longer than +digging the hole. When it is done to her satisfaction she waddles towards +the creek. You might have some trouble to find the eggs but the skunk +often gets them. Does the mother turtle watch over them till they are +hatched by the sun or is it a mere picked-up crowd of youngsters that we +sometimes see in the early fall sitting with her on a boulder in the +pond? + + * * * * * + +We follow the scarlet tanager up a wide glen where wholesome smelling +brake grows almost shoulder high. Suddenly there comes from our feet a +sharp, painful cry, as of a human being in distress, and the ruffed +grouse, commonly called pheasant, leaves her brood of tiny, ginger-yellow +chicks--eight, ten, twelve--more than we can count,--little active bits +of down about the size of a golf ball, scattering here, there, and +everywhere to seek the shelter of bush, bracken, or dried leaves, while +their mother repeats that plaintive whine, again and again, as she tries +to lead us up the hillside away from them. When we look for them again +they are all safely hidden; not one can be seen. The mother desperately +repeats her whining cry to entice us away and we walk on up to the top of +the hill and away to relieve her anxiety. Anon we hear her softly +clucking as she gathers her scattered brood. + +The scarlet tanager's nest is on the horizontal limb of a big white oak. +But it is not the familiar, striking, scarlet, black-winged bird, which +sits on the ragged nest. The female is dressed in sober olive-green above +and olive-yellow below, with dusky wings and tail. Probably many an +amateur has found this bird down by the river and tried to classify her +among the fly-catchers until the coming of her handsome husband caused +him to remember that in birdland it is usually only the male part of the +population which wears the handsome clothes, just as the Indian braves +wear the gaudiest paint and the showiest feathers. It is not till we get +to the higher stages of civilization that this rule is reversed. + + * * * * * + +The foliage of the June woods has not the delicacy of tints which was so +exquisite in May, nor the strength of color which will be so striking in +September. But it has a beauty no less admirable. The chlorophyll in the +leaf-cells is now at its prime and the leaves very closely approach a +pure green, especially those of the sycamore, which is the nearest to a +pure green of any tree in the forest. Standing in the wood road which +runs along the top of a timbered crest we look across a broad, wooded +valley where the leaves seem to exhale a soft, yellowish green in the +bright sunlight. Beyond and above them, five miles away, and yet +apparently very near, a belt of bluish green marks the timber fringe of +the next water course. Still farther, another unseen stretch of corn land +intervening, the forest crowned ridge meets the soft sky in a line of +lavender, as if it were a strata cloud lying low on the horizon. From +this distance the lavender and purple are almost changeless every sunny +day the year around. Always the Enchanted Land and the Delectable +Mountains over across the valley. How like the alluring prospect across +the valley of years! Always the same soft lavender haze there, while the +woods here run through all the gamut of color, from the downy pinks and +whites and the tender greens of spring through the deeper greens of +summer to the crimson and scarlet of the fall, and the russets, grays, +and coffee-browns of the winter. When the foliage of the forest has +deepened into one dark shade of verdure then we know that June is far +spent, spring has gone and summer is here. The uniform green is not +monotonous. See the woods in the hour before sunset when the slanting +light gives the foliage consummate glory. See them again in the white +light of a clear noon when the glazed leaves seem to reflect a white veil +over the pure verdure; and again when the breeze ripples through the +leafy canopy, showing the silvery under-surfaces of the maple leaves, the +neat spray of the river birches, the deeply cleft leaves of the scarlet +oak and the finely pinnate leaves of the honey locust. Each has a glory +now peculiar to itself and to June. + +There is much beauty of color in the woodland undergrowth. Tall torches +touched with the crimson of the sunset sky are made of the shell-bark +hickory whose inner bud scales enlarge into enormous, leathery bracts, +often crimsoning into rare brilliance. Circles of creamy white here and +there among the hazel brush mark the later blossoms of the sweet +viburnum. Sweeping curves like sculptured arms bearing thickly clustered +hemispheres of purplish white are seen on the rocky slope where the +nine-bark grows above the lingering columbines. White wands which look so +beautiful are merely the ends of the common tall blackberry, and the wild +rose sweetens the same banks. Flattish clusters of creamy white blossoms +are the loose cymes of the red osier dogwood, but it is not nearly so +beautiful now as it was last January when its blood-red stems made a +striking contrast with the snow. The bright carmine bark has faded to a +dull green and the shrub is a disappointment now, despite its blossoms. +So is the cottonwood a disappointment. Its wealth of shining green +foliage is beautiful, yet we sigh for the lost glory of the midwinter +days when the horizontal rays of the setting sun made aureoles of golden +light around its yellow, shining limbs. + + * * * * * + +It is worth while on a walk in June to sit and look at the grass. How +tame and dreary would be the landscape without it! How soul starved would +have been mankind, condemned to live without the restfulness of its +unobtrusive beauty! That is why the first command, after the waters had +been gathered into one place and the dry land appeared, was, "Let the +earth bring forth grass." The grasses cover the earth like a beautiful +garment from Kerguelen land in the Antarctic regions to the extreme limit +of vegetation beyond the Polar circle. They climb the Andes, the Rockies, +and the Himalayas to the very line of eternal snow, and they creep to the +bottom of every valley where man dares set his foot. They come up fresh +and green from the melting snows of earliest spring and linger in sunny +autumn glens when all else is dead and drear. They give intense interest +to the botanist as he remembers that there are thirty-five hundred +different species, a thousand of which are in North America and a fourth +of that number in our own state. They give him delightful studies as he +patiently compares their infinite variations of culms and glumes, spikes, +racemes, and panicles. They give joy to the farmer with their wealth of +protein and fat and albuminoid, the material to do the work and make the +wealth of the world bulging from their succulent stems. And they are +fascinating most of all to the nature-lover as he sees them gently wave +in the June sunshine or flow like a swift river across the field before a +quick gust of wind. Such variety of color! Here an emerald streak and +there a soft blue shadow, yonder a matchless olive green, and still +farther a cool gray: spreading like an enamel over the hillside where the +cattle have cropped them, and waving tall and fine above the crimsoning +blossoms of the clover; glittering with countless gems in the morning +dews and musicful with the happy songs and call notes of the quail and +prairie chicken, the meadow lark, the bob-o-link, and the dickcissel +whose young are safe among the protection of the myriad stems. Tall wild +rice and wild rye grow on the flood-plain and by the streams where the +tall buttercups shine like bits of gold and the blackbirds have their +home; bushy blue stem on the prairies and in the open woods where the +golden squaw weed and the wild geranium make charming patterns of yellow +and pink and purple and some of the painted cup left over from May still +glows like spots of scarlet rain; tall grama grass on the dry prairies +and gravelly knolls, whitened by the small spurge and yellowed by the +creeping cinquefoil; nodding fescue in the sterile soils where the +robin's plantain and the sheep sorrel have succeeded the early +everlasting; satin grasses in the moist soil of the open woodlands where +the fine white flowers of the Canada anemone blow, and slough grass in +the marshy meadows where the white-crossed flowers of the sharp spring +are fading, and the woolly stem of the bitter boneset is lengthening; +reed grass and floating manna grass in the swamps where the broad arrow +leaves of the sagittaria fringe the shore and the floating leaves and +fragrant blossoms of the water lilies adorn the pond. The three days' +rain beginning with a soft drizzle and increasing into a steady storm +which drives against the face with cutting force and shakes in sheets +like waving banners across the wind-swept prairie only adds more variety +to the beauties of the grass; and when the still, sweet morning comes, +the pure green prairies make us feel that all stain of sin and shame has +been washed from the world. + +Where the grasses grow the best, there Providence has provided most +abundantly for the wealth and the comfort of mankind. The rich verdure of +the meadows is the visible sign of the fruitful soil beneath the +fattening clouds above. The clover and the early hay fill the June fields +with fragrance and the grass in the parks and lawns invite toil-worn +bodies to rest and comfort. What wonder Bryant wished to die in June, the +month when the grasses tenderly creep over the mounds above tired dust +and gently soothe the grief of the loved ones left behind. + + * * * * * + +The cold May seemed to detract little from the beauty and interest of the +woodlands. The warblers, the humming bird, the tanager, the bob-o-link, +the ovenbird, the vireos, the chat, the red start, the oriole, the +dickcissel, the black-billed cuckoo, all greeted their friends as +numerously as ever. So with the flowers: the columbine, the shooting +star, the painted cup, the puccoon, the beautiful though inodorous large +white trillium, the delicate little corydalis, the star grass and the +lady's slipper, all came within a week of their average time in spite of +the cold, and the showy orchis was only just over into June. May added +fifty-four new species of flowers to the April list, according to the +record of a single observer whose leisure is limited. Those who added the +forty odd May arrivals in bird land to their April lists may have no such +thrilling walks in June, but they may study their feathered friends of +the summer, which is better, and if passion for new lists is not +satiated, try the flowers instead of the birds. June should yield a list +of a hundred twenty-five different species, not including the grasses, +and a very diligent flower-lover will make it much longer. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +The following typographical errors were maintained in this version +of this book. + + Page Error +TN-1 21 anl should read and +TN-2 23 live stock for livestock +TN-3 31 "sunburst.' has the wrong type of close quote +TN-4 47 diskcissel should read dickcissel + +Inconsistent hyphenation: + +bell-wort / bellwort +blood-root / bloodroot +blue-bird / blue bird +fly-catchers / flycatchers +music-full / musicful +root-stock / rootstock +whip-poor-will / whippoorwill +wood-thrush / woodthrush + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + +***** This file should be named 18227-8.txt or 18227-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/2/18227/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Spring Days in Iowa + +Author: Frederick John Lazell + +Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18227] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">The original publication did not include a table of contents. The +table of contents found in this HTML version of the book was generated from +the contents of the book.</p> + +<p class="noindent">A number of typographical errors have been maintained +in the current version of this book. They are <ins class="correction" title="correction">marked</ins> +and the corrected text is shown in the popup. A <a href="#note">list</a> of these +errors is found at the end of this book.</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + + +<h1>Some Spring Days in Iowa</h1> + +<p class="center noindent" style="margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 3em;">BY</p> + +<p class="center noindent">Frederick John Lazell</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 57px; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em;"> +<img src="images/img01.jpg" width="57" height="56" alt="Decorative mark" title="Decorative mark" /> +</div> + +<p class="center noindent"> +CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA<br /> +THE TORCH PRESS<br /> +NINETEEN HUNDRED EIGHT</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center noindent"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1908<br /> +by<br /> +Fred J. Lazell</span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<table width="80%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> + <td><a href="#FOREWORD">FOREWORD</a></td> + <td><a href="#FOREWORD">5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#IV_APRIL_BUDS_AND_BIRD_SONGS">IV. APRIL—BUDS AND BIRD SONGS</a></td> + <td><a href="#IV_APRIL_BUDS_AND_BIRD_SONGS">9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#V_MAY_PERFECTION_OF_BEAUTY">V. MAY—PERFECTION OF BEAUTY</a></td> + <td><a href="#V_MAY_PERFECTION_OF_BEAUTY">35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#VI_WALKS_IN_JUNE_WOODS_AND_FIELDS">VI. WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS.</a></td> + <td><a href="#VI_WALKS_IN_JUNE_WOODS_AND_FIELDS">53</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD</h2> + + +<p>It is indeed a pleasure thus to open the gate while my friend leads us +away from the din and rush of the city into “God’s great out-of-doors.” +Having walked with him on “Some Winter Days,” one is all the more eager +to follow him in the gentler months of Spring—that mother-season, with +its brooding pathos, and its seeds stirring in their sleep as if they +dreamed of flowers.</p> + +<p>Our guide is at once an expert and a friend, a man of science and a poet. +If he should sleep a year, like dear old Rip, he would know, by the +calendar of the flowers, what day of the month he awoke. He knows the +story of trees, the arts of insects, the habits of birds and their parts +of speech. His wealth of detail is amazing, but never wearying, and he is +happily allusive to the nature-lore of the poets, and to the legends and +myths of the woodland. He has the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> insight of Thoreau, the patience of +Burroughs, and a nameless quality of his own—a blend of joyous love and +wonder. His style is as lucid as sunlight, investing his pages with +something of the simplicity and calm of Nature herself. The fine sanity +and health of the man are in the book, as of one to whom the beauty of +the world is reason enough for life, and an invitation to live well. He +does not preach—though he sometimes stops to point to a forest vista, or +a sunset, where the colors are melted into a beauty too fair and frail +for this earth.</p> + +<p>Let us hope that the author will complete his history of the seasons, and +tell of us of Summer with its riot of life and loveliness, and of the +Autumn-time with its pensive, dreamy beauty that is akin to death. He is +a teacher of truth and good-will, of health and wisdom, of the +brotherhood of all breathing things. Having opened the gate, I leave it +open for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.</p> + +<p class="noindent right"><span class="smcap">Joseph Newton</span></p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Cedar Rapids, Iowa</span><br /> +<span class="smcap" style="margin-left: 1em;">December 1, 1908</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="section">APRIL—BUDS AND BIRD SONGS</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IV_APRIL_BUDS_AND_BIRD_SONGS" id="IV_APRIL_BUDS_AND_BIRD_SONGS"></a>IV. APRIL—BUDS AND BIRD SONGS</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><i>“Has she not shown us all?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>From the clear space of ether, to the small</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of Jove’s large eyebrow, to the tender greening</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of April meadows?”</i></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>“And whiles Zeus gives the sunshine, whiles the rain.”</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">A</span> <span style="text-transform: uppercase">strong</span> southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving +big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in turn, +pushes at the base of the waves and causes their wind-driven crests to +fall forward and break into spray. The whole surface of the river is +flecked with these whitecaps, a rare sight on an inland stream but +characteristic of April. We sit on a ledge of rock high up the slope of +the cañon and listen as they break, break, break. We may close our eyes +and fancy we are with Edmund Danton in his sea-girt dungeon, or with +Tennyson and his “cold, gray stones,” or with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> King Canute and his +flattering courtiers on the sandy shore. But a song sparrow with his +recitative “Oleet, oleet, oleet,” followed by the well-known cadenza, +dispels the fancies and calls our attention to himself as he sits on a +hop hornbeam and sings at half-minute intervals. The wind ruffles his +sober coat of brown and gray and he looks like a careless artist, +thrilling with the soul of song.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the high wind there is a heavy haze through which the sun +casts but faint shadows. Across the white-flecked river the emerald +meadow rises in a mile long slope until it meets the sky in a mist of +silver blue. To the right a big tract of woodland is haloed by a denser +cloud of vivid violet as if the pillar of cloud which led the Israelites +by day had rested there; or as if mingled smoke and incense were rising +from Druid altars around the sacred grove. As a matter of fact, it is a +mingling of the ever increasing humidity, the dust particles in the air +and the smoke from many April grass fires. To the left of the meadow +there is a sweep of arable land where disc harrows, seeders, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> ploughs +are at work. The unsightly corn stalks of the winter have been laid low, +the brown fields are as neat and tidy as if they had been newly swept; +and this is Iowa in April.</p> + +<p>Up and down the river the willow leaves are just unfolding, bordering the +stream with tender green. The tassels of the pussy willows, which were +white in March, are now rosy and gold, due to the development of the +anthers. The aspens at the front of the wood are thickly hung with the +long yellowish-white tassels and look like masses of floss silk among the +tops of the darker trees. A big cottonwood is at its most picturesque +period in the whole year. The dark red anthers make the myriads of +catkins look like elongated strawberries. Tomorrow, or the next day, +these red anthers will break and discharge their yellow pollen and then +the tassels will be golden instead of strawberry-colored. Spring seems to +unfold her beauties slowly but she has something new each day for the +faithful.</p> + +<p>The ash, the hackberry, the oaks, the linden, the locusts on the hill and +the solitary old honey-locust down by the river’s brink are as yet +unre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>sponsive to the smiles of spring. The plum, the crab apple, the +hawthorn and the wild cherry are but just beginning to push green points +between their bud scales. But the elms are a glory of dull gold; every +twig is fringed with blossoms. The maples have lost their fleecy white +softness, for the staminate flowers which were so beautiful in March have +withered now. But the fruit blossoms remind us of Lowell’s line, “The +maple puts her corals on in May.” In Iowa he might have made it April +instead of May. But that would have spoiled his verse.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For long we sit and drink in the beauty of the scene. Meanwhile the birds +on this wooded slope are asking us to use our ears as well as our eyes. +Such a mingling of bird voices! The “spring o’ th’ year” of the meadow +larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by +the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear “phe-be” of the +chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. +Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl +botany class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the +loud and prolonged “O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick” of the flicker makes us +lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the +handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their +white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful +black crescent on their breasts. When we hear the call of the flicker we +may know that spring is here to stay. They are as infallible as the +yellow-breasted larks in the meadows.</p> + +<p>“Chip-chip-chip-chip,”—yes, of course that’s the chipping sparrow; +another of the engaging creatures which almost has been driven from the +habitations of his human friends by the miserable English sparrows. Often +have we seen the little fellow set upon and brutally hurt by these +pirates. Now he stays around rural homes, and his chestnut crown, brown +coat mixed with black and gray, his whitish vest and black bill are +always a welcome sight. He takes up the chant of the year where the +departing junco left it off, throws back his tiny head and his little +throat flutters with the oft-repeated syllable, continued rapidly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> for +about four seconds. A while longer we wait and are rewarded by a few bars +of the musicful song of the brown thrasher who has just arrived with Mrs. +Thrasher for two weeks of courtship and song, after which they will build +a new home in the hazel thicket and go to housekeeping.</p> + +<p>Just as we are rising to leave there is the glimmer of the blue-bird’s +wing and the brilliant fellow and his pretty mate appear at the top of +the bank, where the staghorn sumac still bears its berries. None of the +birds of the winter seems to care much for these berries but the +bluebirds evidently love them. As another instance of their tastes in +this direction may be mentioned the fact that for the past three weeks a +pair of blue birds have made many visits every day to a Chinese matrimony +vine, by the dining room window of the writer’s home. This vine, as +everyone knows, has a wreath of juicy red berries in the fall, which hang +through the winter and are dried, but still red, in the spring. It was +the first week of March when the family first heard the pleasing notes of +the blue bird outside the window at breakfast time, and saw the +bril<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>liant male sitting on a post on the back lawn and his less +brilliant, but equally attractive mate sitting on the clothesline. A +little later and he flew to the vine, picked off one berry and ate it, +took another one in his mouth and then returned to his post, while she +followed his example. Both chirped and pronounced the berries good, +though up to that time the members of the household had supposed they +were poisonous. After a few more bites of the morning meal the birds went +all around the house, inspecting every nook and crevice. But they found +every place fully occupied by the pestiferous English sparrows, who +darted at them maliciously. For two whole days the blue birds stayed +around the lawn and garden, but the sparrows made their lives miserable +and finally they went to the timber an eighth of a mile away and selected +an abiding place in the cavity of a basswood. But every morning and +evening, sometimes many times during the day, they came for their meal of +berries from the vine. Usually they were on hand as soon as the sun was +up, and a more devoted and well behaved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> couple was never seen either in +the bird or the human world.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We rise at length and walk along the wooded slope admiring new beauties +at every step. Here is a thicket of wild gooseberry filled with dark +green leaves and the tinkling notes of tree sparrows, and we hardly know +which is the more beautiful. A little farther and we are in a tangle of +pink and magenta raspberry vines from which the green leaves are just +pushing out. The elder has made a great start; the yellowish-green shoots +from the stems and from the roots are already more than six inches long. +The panicled dogwood and the red-osier dogwood (no, not the flowering +dogwood) as yet show no signs of foliage, but the fine white lines in the +bark of the bladdernut, which have been so attractive all winter, are now +enhanced by the soft myrtle green of the tender young leaves. The shrubby +red cedar is twice as fresh and green as it was a month ago, as it hangs +down the face of the splintered rock where the farmer boys have set a +trap to catch the mother mink. But Mrs. Mink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> is wary. Here is a pile of +feathers, evidently from a wild duck, which seems to indicate that while +the duck was making a meal of a fish which she had brought to shore, the +mink pounced upon her and ate both duck and fish.</p> + +<p>While we stand looking there is a slight movement among the roots of a +silver maple at the river’s brink. A moment later Mrs. Mink comes around +the tree and towards us. She is about eighteen inches long, with a bushy +tail about another eight inches, her blackish-brown body about as big +round as a big man’s wrist, and she has a “business-looking” face and +jaw. Did you ever try to take the young minks from their nest in the +latter part of April and did Mrs. Mink fight? She hasn’t seen or smelled +us yet, but suddenly when she is within seven feet of us, there is an +upward movement of that supple, snakelike neck, a quick glance of those +black diamond eyes, and she turns at right angles and dives into the +river. A frog could not enter the water so silently.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We climb the slope again and pause in front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> of a big sugar maple, a +rather rare sight hereabouts. The sap-sucker has bored a row of fresh +holes in the bark of the tree and the syrup has flowed out so freely that +the whole south side of the tree is wet with it. Scores of wasps, bees +and flies of all sizes and colors are revelling in the sweetness.</p> + +<p>Finally we come to where there is less grass but more dead leaves and +leaf mould, and here is the first real herbaceous flower of this spring, +the dwarf white trillium, or wake-robin. How beautiful it looks, its +three pure, waxy-white petals, its six golden anthers and three long +styles, and its pretty whorl of three ovate leaves, at the summit of a +stem about four inches high. A little farther and we find a group of them +and then other clusters, fresh and pure and sweet enough to make a +bouquet for Euphrosyne.</p> + +<p>Oh, but someone says, the hepatica is the first flower of spring; all the +nature writers say so. Well, but they don’t seem to say much about the +trillium; possibly they haven’t found it so often. Indeed, it seems to be +more choice of its location. It is hardly ever, perhaps it would be safe +to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> never, found on a southern or a southwestern slope. Almost +invariably it is found on the steep slope of a river bank, facing +northeast or east. Hepaticas nearly always grow on the same slope, but +they come into blossom about two days later than the trillium. But on +another bank which faces the noon and the afternoon sun the hepaticas are +up with the trilliums in the calendar of spring. This year the trillium +was found blooming, on a northeastern slope, March 24. At this place the +hepatica did not bloom until March 26. But it bloomed March 24, on a +southwest slope, fifteen miles away.</p> + +<p>By-the-way, the list of March blooming plants for 1908, is probably one +of the longest for years: March 20, aspen; twenty-first, hazel and silver +maple; twenty-third, pussy willow, prairie willow and white elm; +twenty-fourth, dwarf white trillium and hepatica (also known as +liverleaf, squirrelcup, and blue anemone); twenty-fifth, slippery elm, +cottonwood; twenty-ninth, box elder and fragrant sumac; thirtieth, +dandelion; thirty-first, Dutchman’s breeches.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<p>How some of these early flowers secure the perpetuation of their species +is an interesting study for amateur botanists. In the case of the +trillium the fruit is a three-lobed reddish berry, but one has to search +for it as diligently as Diogenes did for an honest man before he finds +it. The plant seldom sets seed in this vicinity, but seems to depend +rather upon its tuber-like rootstocks in which the leaves lie curled all +through the winter. The hepatica attracts pollen-feeding flies, female +hive-bees and the earliest butterflies, and is thus cross-fertilized to +some extent; but it is thought also to be able to effect +self-fertilization. In the case of the <i>hepatica acutiloba</i>, however, it +has been found that staminate flowers grow on one plant and pistillate +flowers on another, hence insects are essential to the perpetuation of +this species.</p> + +<p>After bringing us the trilliums and hepaticas in numbers, Nature pauses. +She means to give us time to inhale the fragrance of some of the +hepaticas, and to learn that other hepaticas of the same species have no +fragrance at all; that there is a variety of delicate colors, white, +pink,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> purple, lavender, and blue; that the colored parts, which look +like petals are really sepals; that they usually number six, but may be +as many as twelve; that there are three small sessile leaves forming an +involucre directly under the flower; that if we search we shall find some +with four, more rare than four-leaved clovers; that the plant which was +fragrant last year will also be fragrant this year; that the furry stems +are slightly pungent,—enough to give spice to a sandwich; these +preliminary observations fit us for more intricate problems later on.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Spenser, the divinely tongued, pictures April as a lusty youth, riding +upon the bull with the golden horns (<i>Taurus</i>), wading through a flood, +and adorned with garlands of the fairest flowers and buds. A better +figure would have been Europa riding Zeus. And Chaucer also makes April a +masculine month:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>“When that Aprille with his schoweres swoote</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The drought of Marche had perced to the roote.”</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>But surely April, with her smiles <a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a><ins class="correction" title="and">anl</ins> tears,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> ought to be regarded as a +feminine month. Ovid has shown that she was not named from <i>aperire</i>, to +open, as some have supposed, but from Aphrodite, the Greek name for +Venus, goddess of beauty and mother of love. She is chaste, even cold, +but grows sweeter and more affectionate every day and her tears all end +in smiles. Her flowers are pure and mostly white, fitting for a maiden. +Look at the list (if the weather is warm):</p> + +<p>White or whitish:—Rue-anemone, hepatica, spring beauty, blood-root, +toothwort, Dutchman’s breeches, dog’s tooth violet, wild ginger, +chickweed, Isopyrum, plantain-leaved everlasting, shepherd’s purse, +shad-bush, wild strawberry, whitlow-grass, wind-flower, hackberry +(greenish white), false Solomon’s seal, catnip, spring cress, wild black +currant, wild plum.</p> + +<p>Yellow or yellowish:—Marsh marigold, creeping buttercup, marsh +buttercup, small-flowered crowfoot, dandelion, yellow woodsorrel, +bell-wort, star-grass, downy yellow violet, pappoose root, lousewort, +prickly ash, hop horn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>beam, white oak, mossy-cup oak, butternut, sugar +maple.</p> + +<p>Purple or blue:—Common blue violet, trillium (<i>recurvatum</i> and +<i>erectum</i>) hepatica, Virginian cowslip (<i>lung-wort</i> or <i>bluebells</i>), +woodsorrel, common blue phlox, ground plum.</p> + +<p>Green:—The Indian turnip, and several of the sedges.</p> + +<p>Pink:—Spring beauty, toothwort, dog’s tooth violet, hepatica.</p> + +<p>Scarlet:—Columbine.</p> + +<p>From this list it ought to be plain that April is a dainty queen, wearing +a dress of cheerful green, a bodice of white, with violets in her hands, +pink in her cheeks, and a single scarlet columbine in her wealth of +golden hair, which indeed comes nearly being the portrait of Dione +herself. Or, as one of the poets has better described her:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><i>April stood with tearful face</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>With violets in her hands, and in her hair</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Pale wild anemones; the fragrant lace</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this long list of April flowers—some observers will be able to make +it still longer—there are many favorites. The pretty rue-anemone recalls +the tradition that Anemos, the wind, chose the delicate little flowers of +this family as the heralds of his coming in early spring. And in the +legend of Venus and Adonis the anemone is the flower that sprang from the +tears of the queen as she mourned the death of her loved one. Theocritus +put the wind-flowers into his Idylls, and Pliny said that only the wind +could open them. The Spring beauty has as rich a legend, for it was the +Indian Miskodeed, left behind when Peboan, the winter, the Mighty One, +was melted by the breath of spring. The toothwort (<i>dentaria laciniata</i>) +is sometimes known as the pepper-root, and every school boy and girl +living near the woods is familiar with the taste of its tubers and the +appearance of its cross-shaped flowers. The plumy dicentra, or Dutchman’s +breeches, seems so feminine as to be grossly misnamed until we remember +that it was first discovered in the Rip Van Winkle country. The wild +ginger with its two large leaves and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> queer little blossoms close to +the ground is another delight to the saunterer along the rocky slopes, +where the feathery shad-bush—the aronia of Whittier—with its wealth of +snowy blossoms and the wild plum not far away, with its masses of pure +white, are inspirations to clean and sweet lives, calling to mind the +lines of Wordsworth:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>One impulse from a vernal wood</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>May teach you more of man,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of moral evil and of good</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>Than all the sages can.</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>In rocky fields and hillsides and dry open woods, the dwarf everlasting +(<i>Antennaria plantaginifolia</i>) with its silvery-white little florets set +in delicate cups, is one of the first species of the great composite +family to bloom. We take it from between the rocks and think of those +lines of Tennyson, which John Fiske declared to be among the deepest +thoughts ever uttered by poet:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Flower in the crannied wall</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I pluck you out of the crannies,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I hold you here, root and all in my hand</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Little flower,—but if I could understand</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>What you are, root and all, and all in all,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I should know what God and man is.</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Even more innocent, fresh and fair, is the bloodroot, with its snowy +petals, golden center and ensanguined root-stock which crimsons the +fingers that touch it. This is the herb, so the legend says, which the +Israelites in Egypt dipped in sacrificial blood to mark their doorposts. +As long ago as last November we dug up one of the papery sheaths and +found the flower, then about a half inch long, snugly wrapped in its +single leaf; and now the pale green leaf has pushed up and unfolded, +showing the fragile flower in all its beauty.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Strange contrasts we see in some of these April flowers. Some of them +open their star-like eyes for a day or two and dot the floor of the woods +with beauty and then their little contribution to the spring is done and +they are seen no more until another year. They bring us beauty and +sweetness and then they pass from us, like the sweet and childish but +perfect lives we all have known and loved. In contrast to such as these +there is the Jack-in-the-pulpit of the April woods which has no floral +envelope of beauty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> no fragrance, no inspiration, so busy is it storing +up its swollen fortunes down in the bank, leaving behind it a tuber so +rank and tainted that even the Indians couldn’t eat it until they had +first roasted it, then ground it into powder, and finally made it into a +kind of bread. But sordid-lived accumulators, herbaceous and human, have +been with us since the world began. Laban was a monopolist of pretty +daughters and fine <a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a><ins class="correction" title="livestock">live stock,</ins> and Theocritus, in his day, was moved to +say that “Money is monarch and Master,” and to exclaim:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Fools, what gain is a world of wealth in your houses lying?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Wise men deem that in that dwells not true pleasure of riches,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>But to delight one’s soul....</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Only the muses grant unto mortals a guerdon of glory;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Dead men’s wealth shall be spent by the quick that are heirs to their riches.</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>Toward the end of the month, when the gelatinous masses in the water +courses have developed the little black dots sufficiently so that we can +see they are tadpoles, when the songsters have been joined by the +catbird, the rose-breasted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> grosbeak, the woodthrush, the whippoorwill, +the cheerful and friendly chewink and several of the warblers and +flycatchers, the rivers and creeks will be fringed with the brilliant +yellow of the marsh marigold, and we shall think of Shakespeare, walking +the meadows of Avon, getting material for that song of the musicians in +Cymbeline:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>And winking Mary-buds begin</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To ope their golden eyes.</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>And meanwhile the violet, which was among the plants sacred to Aphrodite, +was also appealing to this master poet, who was born this month, as were +Wordsworth, George Herbert, John Keble, Anthony Trollope, David Hume, and +Edward Gibbon, and who died this month as did Edward Young, who wrote +<i>Night Thoughts</i>, and Abraham Lincoln, who freed a race and saved a +nation. Who can ever forget the month of Lincoln’s death after he has +once read that exquisite description of an April day and the song of the +hermit thrush, written by Whitman to commemorate the funeral of his +friend?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>The violets have been especially loved by the poets. Theocritus placed +them foremost in his coronals and put them into Thyrsis’s song of +Daphnis’s fatal constancy. Chaucer had them in his garlands, and +Spenser’s “flock of nymphes” gather them “pallid blew” in a meadow by the +river side. In Percy’s <i>Reliques</i> they are the “violets that first +appear, by purple mantles known.” Milton allows Zephyr to find Aurora +lying “on beds of violet blue.” Shakespeare places them upon Ophelia’s +grave and says they are “sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes.” +Wordsworth, Tennyson, and all our own poets have loved them.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But we have lingered too long among our flowers and thoughts in the April +woods. The filmy haze which veiled the sun has thickened into threatening +clouds, and as we look across the meadow to where the silver blue haze +rested on the delectable mountain in the morning we see instead the +rain-fringe, veiling and obscuring the landscape. The wind has died to a +dead calm and the river is still. As the shower comes nearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> the whole +landscape is shrouded in an ever darkening gray and presently big round +drops splash upon the surface of the river. In a moment we are surrounded +by the rain. How beautiful is the first spring rain! It does not run down +the slope as in the winter when the ground was frozen, but the thirsty +earth seems eager to drink every drop. The unfolding leaves of the shrubs +are bathed in it and the tender firstlings of the flowers are revelling +in it. It dims the singing of the birds, but the robins and the meadow +larks carol on and the spring music of the frogs in the nearby pond has +not yet ceased.</p> + +<p>What makes the raindrops round? And why are the drops at the beginning of +the shower much larger than those which follow? We do not know. Perhaps +it is well. Walt Whitman says that “you must not know too much or be too +scientific about these things.” He holds that a little indefiniteness +adds to the enjoyment, a hazy borderland of thought as it were, like that +which rests in April mornings on enchanted highlands away across the +river, which we have never yet—as Thoreau says—“tarnished with our +feet.”<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<p>And, anyway, before we can reason it out, the rain has ceased and the +last rays of the descending sun come through an opening in the clouds in +that beautiful phenomenon known as a <a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><ins class="correction" title="“sunburst.”">“sunburst.’</ins> The white beams come +diagonally through the moisture-laden air, as if in a good-night smile to +the tender flowers and buds.</p> + +<p>Warming with the sunshine and watering with the showers—that is Miss +April making her flower garden grow.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="section">MAY—PERFECTION OF BEAUTY</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="V_MAY_PERFECTION_OF_BEAUTY" id="V_MAY_PERFECTION_OF_BEAUTY"></a>V. MAY—PERFECTION OF BEAUTY</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Among the changing months May stands confessed</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The sweetest and in fairest colors dressed.</i></span> +<span class="i15 smcap">—Thomson.</span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">S</span><span style="text-transform: uppercase">urely</span> the poet sang truly. We would not forget Lowell’s challenge “What +is so rare as a day in June,” but as we sit here on the top of a +limestone cliff nearly a hundred feet above the bed of the creek, and +watch the red sun brightening the gray of the eastern sky, while the +robins and the meadow larks are singing joyous matins we steep our senses +in the delicate colorings of earth and sky that signalize the awakening +of another day and the real revival of another year. April was +encouraging, but there were many bare boughs and many of the last year’s +leaves still clung to the oaks and made a conspicuous feature of the +landscape. The leafy month of June will show us more foliage, but it will +be of a darker and more uniform shade of green. Now, as the sun rises +higher and sends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> his rays through both the woodlands and the brushlands +we thrill with delight at the kaleidoscope of color. There are no +withered leaves to mar the beauty now. Seen in mass, and at a distance, +the woodlands are a soft cinerous purple. But the tops, where the ruddy +rays of the sun are glancing, are a hazy cloud of tender green, pink, +yellow and pale purple. Nearer trees show in their opening leaves pale +tints of the same gorgeous colors which we see in the fall. The maple +keys and the edges of the tender leaves glow blood-red in the morning +sun. The half-developed leaves of the birch and the poplar are a +yellowish-green, not unlike the yellow which they show in autumn. The +neatly plaited folds of the leaves of the oak display a greenish or +cinerous purple, a soft and delicate presentment of the stronger colors +which come in October, just as the overture gives us faint voicings of +the beauty which the opera is to bring; just as Lowell’s organist gives +us</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6"><i>“The faint auroral flushes sent</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Along the wavering vista of his dream.”</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>The edge of the cliff is lined with shad-trees. Each twig is a plume of +feathery dainty white The drooping racemes of white blossoms, with the +ruby and early-falling bracts among them look like gala decorations to +fringe the way of Flora as she travels up the valley. The shad-trees have +blossomed rather late. In them and under them it is fully spring. There +is a sound of bees and a sense of sweetness which make us forget all the +cold days and think only of the glory of the coming summer. There comes a +song sparrow and perches on one of the twigs. He throws back his little +head, opens his mouth and pours forth a flood of melody. Next comes a +myrtle warbler, eager to show us the yellow on his crown, on his two +sides and the lower part of his back. He is one of the most abundant of +the warblers and one of the most charming and fearless. He perches on a +hop hornbeam tree from which the catkins have just shed their yellow +pollen and goes over it somewhat after the manner of a chickadee or a +nuthatch, showing us as he does so the white under his chin, the two +heavy black marks below that, the two white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> cross bars on his wings, and +his coat of slate color, striped and streaked with black. He goes over +every twig of the little tree and then flies off to another, first +pausing, however, to give his little call note “tschip, tschip” and then +his little song, “Tschip-tweeter-tweeter.” A pair of kingfishers, showing +their blue wings and splendid crests, fly screaming down the creek. Their +nest is in a tunnel four feet in the clay banks on the opposite side.</p> + +<p>Purple finches, a bit late in the season, are feeding on the seeds of the +big elm. The snows of late April and early May must have delayed their +journey northward. When the bird-designer made this bird he set out to +make a different kind of sparrow, but then had pity upon the amateur +ornithologist who finds the sparrows even now almost as difficult to +classify as the amateur botanists do their asters; so he dipped the bird +in some raspberry juice—John Burroughs says pokeberry juice—and the +finch came out of the dye with a wash of raspberry red on his head, +shoulders and upper breast, brightest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> on the head and the lower part of +his back. Otherwise he looks much like an English sparrow.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now the belated April flowers are seen at their best, mingled with many +of the May arrivals. It is such a day as that when Bryant wrote “The Old +Man’s Counsel.” On the sloping hillsides, around the leafing hazel +“gay-circles of anemones dance on their stalks.” In the more open places +the little wind flower, with its pretty leaves and solitary white +blossoms, blooms in cheerful companionship with its fellows, and the more +sterile parts of the hillside are snowed with the white plumes of the +plantain-leaved everlasting. Downy yellow violets and the common blue +violets grow everywhere and down on the sand near the river the birdfoot +violet, with its quaintly cut leaves and handsome blossoms grows +abundantly for the children who love to gather the “sand violets.” On the +bottom which was flooded in March the satiny yellow flowers of the marsh +buttercup shine and the beautiful green of the uplands is spotted with +the pure gold of the buttercup. There is no longer need to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> satisfied +with a few pretty flowers. May scatters her brightest and best in +abundance. On the rocky slopes the wild ginger shows its red-brown, +long-eared urns, the white baneberry its short white plumes, the +branchlets of the bladdernut are breaking into white clusters and +columbine soon will “sprinkle on the rocks a scarlet rain” as it did in +Bayard Taylor’s time, although the “scarlet rain,” like that of the +painted cup in the lowlands, grows less and less each year. The white +glory of the plum thickets at its height and the hawthornes, whose young +leaves have been a picture of pink and red, will soon break into blossom +and vie with the crabapple thickets in calling attention to the beauty of +masses of color when arranged by the Master Painter.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The carpet of the woodlands grows softer and thicker, and more varied +each day. Ferns and brakes are coming thickly. The flowers grow more +splendid. The large, wholesome looking leaves of the blue bell are a +fitting setting for the masses of bloom which show pink in the bud, then +purple, and lastly a brilliant blue. Jack-in-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>the-pulpits make us smile +with keen pleasure as memories of happy childhood days come crowding +thickly upon us. The pretty pinnate leaves of the blue-flowered +polemonium are sufficient explanation for the common name Jacobs-ladder, +even though that name does not properly belong to our species. The purple +trilliums, like the Dutchman’s breeches, felt the effects of the many +April and early May frosts but now they are coming into their beauty. +Great colonies of umbrella-leaved May-apple are breaking into white +flowers. The broad, lily-like leaves of the true and false Solomon’s seal +are even more attractive than their blossoms. Ferns, bellwort, wild +sarsaparilla, all help to soften our footfalls, while overhead the light +daily grows more subdued as the leaf-buds break and the leaves unfold. +The throb of the year’s life grows stronger. All the blossoms and buds +which were formed last summer now break quickly into beauty. And, +already, before the year has fairly started, there are signs of +preparation for the following year. The dandelion is pushing up its fairy +balloons, waiting for the first breeze. The shepherd’s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> purse already +shows many mature seeds below its little white blossoms. The keys of the +soft maple will soon be ready to fall and send out rootlets, and the +winged seeds of the white elm already lie thickly beneath the leafing +branches.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Each flower invites admiration and study. Dig up the root of the +Solomon’s seal, a rootstock, the botanists call it. It is long, more or +less thickened and here and there is a circular scar which marks the +place from which former stems have arisen. When these leaf-bearing stems +die down they leave on this rootstock down in the ground, a record of +their having lived. The scar looks something like a wax seal and the man +who gave the plant the name of Solomon’s seal had probably read that tale +in the Arabian Nights, where King Solomon’s seal penned up the giant +genie who had troubled the fishermen.</p> + +<p>Then there’s the May-apple. Who does not remember his childhood days when +he pulled the little umbrellas? Even now as they come up in little +colonies, they call up memories of the fairy tales of childhood and we +almost expect to see a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> fairy, or a brownie, or Queen Mab herself, coming +from under them, when the summer shower, which makes their tops so +beautifully moist gray, has passed. And they also bring to mind that +charming first edition of Dr. Gray’s botany, which had in it much of the +man’s humor as well as his learning. Too bad that the learned scientists +who succeeded him have cut it out. “Common Honesty, very rare in some +places,” he wrote, speaking of that plant. “Ailanthus, Tree of Heaven, +flowers smell of anything but heaven,” was his comment on the blossoms of +our picturesque importation from China. And when he came to the May-apple +he wrote that the sweetish fruit was “eaten by pigs and boys.” This made +William Hamilton Gibson remember his own boyish gorgings and he wrote: +“Think of it boys. And think of what else he says of it: ‘Ovary ovoid, +stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta, each +enclosed in an aril.’ Now it may be safe for pigs and billy-goats to +tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are +eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> every +township should require this formula of Dr. Gray’s to be printed on every +one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of.”</p> + +<p>Another interesting plant is the <i>trillium erectum</i>, which with the +<i>trillium recurvatum</i>, is now to be found in the woods hereabouts. The +flowers of the <i>trillium erectum</i> are ill scented, carrion scented, if +you please. Now the botanists have found that this odor, which is so +unpleasant to the human nostrils, does the plant a real service by +attracting the common green flesh-flies, such as are seen in the +butchershops in the summer-time. They eat the pollen, which is supposed +to taste as it smells and thus as they go from flower to flower they +carry pollen from one blossom to another and so secure for the plant +cross-pollination.</p> + +<p>So we may walk from one flower to another until the morning wears to a +bright noon and the afternoon wanes into a songful sunset.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the swamp, where the red-winged blackbird is building her bulky nest +between the stems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> of the cat tail, and the prairie marsh wren is making +her second or third little globular nest in a similar place, there is a +blaze of yellow from the marsh marigolds which make masses of succulent +stems and leaves, crowned with pale gold, as far up the marsh as the eye +can reach. In Iowa, it is in May, rather than in June, that “the cowslip +startles the meadows green” and “the buttercup catches the sun in its +chalice.” And it is in late April or early May that “the robin is +plastering his house hard by.” By the way, ought not the poet to have +made it “her” house? It is the mother bird who seems to do the +plastering. Both birds work on the structure, but it appears to be the +female who carries most of the mud and who uses her faded red apron for a +trowel as she moves round in her nest pushing her breast against the +round wall of the adobe dwelling to spread the mud evenly. The work on +one particular nest was done in late April when there was nothing on the +elm but the seed fringes to screen the builder as she worked. Then the +four light greenish-blue eggs were laid. A red squirrel got one of them +one day. Disre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>garding the squeakings and scoldings of the anxious +robins, he sat on a limb holding the egg in his forepaws and bit a hole +in one side of it. Then he drained the contents, dropped the shell to the +ground and was about to get another egg when he was driven off. +Apparently he forgot the location of the nest after that, for the other +three eggs hatched out safely.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The air is filled with bird music. It began with the larks, closely +followed by the robins, and then the noise of the crows. No change in the +program since the days of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida when:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12"><i>“The busy day</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Wak’d by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows.”</i></span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>Then came the liquid notes of the cowbirds, like the pouring of mingled +molasses and olive oil. Three handsome fellows in ebony and dark brown +sit on the branch of a tall elm and just beneath them sit three brownish +gray females, all in a row. Cowbird No. 1 comes nearer the end of the +branch, ruffles out his head as if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> were about to have a sick spell +and then emits that famous molasses and oil kind of whistle, sufficient +to identify the cowbird anywhere. The other males repeat his example and +meanwhile the females look on with approving eyes, as if it was a +vaudeville performance by amateurs in polite society. The cowbirds, male +and female, are all free lovers. There is no mating among them. The +female lays her eggs in some other bird’s nest, like the English cuckoo, +as if she were too busy with the duties and pleasures of society to care +for her own children.</p> + +<p>A <a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a><ins class="correction" title="dickcissel">diskcissel</ins> sits on a tree instead of a reed or a bush as usual and +sings “See, see, Dick Cissel, Cissel.” Chewinks are down scratching among +the dry leaves with the white-throated sparrows, their strong-muscled +legs sending the leaves flying as if a barnyard hen were doing the +scratching. A beautiful hermit thrush is near but he is silent. The +chewink in his harlequin suit of black, white, and chestnut varies his +sharp and cheerful “Chewink” with a musical little strain, “Do-fah, +fah-fah-fah-fah,” and one of the white-throated sparrows now and then +stops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> feeding and flies up to a hazel twig to give his sweet and +plaintive little “pea-a-body, peabody, peabody.” Very pretty, but not so +beautiful as the three broad white stripes on his crown and the white +choker under his chin.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a brown thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild +cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had +joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without +a peer. With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood +of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like +notes of the wood-thrush and yield ourselves wholly to the spell of his +rich recital. Make the most of it while it lasts. Like all the glories of +the May woods it is evanescent. When the nest down in the brush is +finished, and his mate “feels the eggs beneath her wings,” his song will +grow less full and rich and by the time the young birds come he will have +grown silent, as if weighed down with the responsibilities of a family.</p> + +<p>We get too near the thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the +brush. And then, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He +has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and +scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides +his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing +when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. The rich contralto +thrush-like melody, with its ever recurring “sol-la,” “sol-la,” fills the +woodlands with beauty. It is as if the pearly gates had been opened for a +brief interval to let the earth hear the “quiring of the young-eyed +cherubims.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In later May, the season “betwixt May and June,” beauty and fragrance and +melody comes in a rich flood. The flaming breast of the oriole and the +wondrous mingling of colors in the multiplied warblers glint like jewels +among the ever enlarging leaves. The light in the woodlands becomes more +subdued and the carpet of ferns and flowers grows richer and more +beautiful. The vireos, the cardinal and the tanager add to the brilliancy +and the ovenbird and veery to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> melody. As good old John Milton once +wrote: “In these vernal seasons of the year, when the air is clear and +pleasant, it were an injury and a sullenness against nature not to go out +and see her riches, and partake of her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The beauty of the world is at every man’s door, if he will only pause to +see. It offers every man real riches if only he will now and then quit +his muckraking or pause from paying his life for a cap and bells. It +sweetens honest labor, helps earthly endeavor, strengthens human +affection and leads the soul naturally from the beauty of this world to +the greater beauty of that which is to come.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + +<h2 class="section">WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> +<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="VI_WALKS_IN_JUNE_WOODS_AND_FIELDS" id="VI_WALKS_IN_JUNE_WOODS_AND_FIELDS"></a>VI. WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr> + <td><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Whether we look or whether we listen</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We can hear life murmur or see it glisten.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i10 smcap">—Lowell.</span> +</div></div></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span style="text-transform: uppercase">s</span> we walk along the bank of the creek on a warm afternoon in June we +realize how true are these lines of Lowell. The frog chorus is dying +down, though now and then we catch sight of a big fellow blowing out his +big balloon throat and filling the air with a hoarse bass, while another +across the creek has a bagpipe apparently as big but pitched in a higher +key. Two months ago one could not get near enough to see this queer +inflation, but now the frogs do not seem so shy. Garter snakes wiggle +through the grass down the bank of the creek and the crickets are just +beginning to chirp the love chorus which is soon to swell incessantly +till the fall frosts come. Butterflies, dragon flies, saw flies and gall +flies are busy and we see evi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>dences of their work in the crimson galls +on the willow leaves and the purple-spotted oak apples, some of which +have fallen to the ground from the scarlet oak above. Nature’s first +great law is the perpetuation of species, and everything we see in the +June woods and fields, from the giant white oak to the busy ant, is +diligently obeying that law. The red-winged blackbird circles over our +heads with sharp, anxious chirps, for we have disturbed the young +red-wings down in the sedge who are taking their first lessons in flying. +The catbird’s nest, with four greenish-blue eggs, is in a wild gooseberry +bush and the catbird is up among the shad-trees feasting on the ripening +June berries. The gentle notes of soft pedal music come floating sweetly +down. Did you ever stop long enough to listen to the full song of the +catbird? First, the brilliant, ringing strains, often softening into a +subdued sympathetic melody, and then, just as the music seems almost +divine, the long cat-like squeal which ends it all—much like an old +organist and choirmaster of boyhood days who used to break in with a +horrible discord at the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> end of the keyboard when the anthem +rehearsal wasn’t going to his liking.</p> + +<p>A fruit-lover is the catbird, beginning with the June berries on the +banks of streams near which she often builds her nest and continuing with +wild strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the +Virginia creeper—sometimes also seen busily scooping out a big hole on +the rosy side of a tempting apple in the orchard. Some observers say the +catbird eats the eggs of the fly-catcher and other birds, but this must +be seen to be believed.</p> + +<p>There comes an outbreak of melody from the top of a tall black willow, +much like the tones of the robin and yet suggestive of the warbling +vireo, but finer than the former, clearer, louder and richer than the +latter. We lift our eyes and see the pointed carmine shield of the +rose-breasted grosbeak, one of the most beautiful, useful and music-full +birds in the forest or the garden. Many mornings and evenings during the +month of May one of these handsome fellows was busy in my garden, +diligently picking the potato bugs from the young vines, stopping now +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> then, especially in his morning visits, to pour out a happy, ringing +lyric and to show his handsome plumage. On one occasion he took a couple +of potato bugs in his “gros” beak as he flew to the nearby woodland, +probably a tempting morsel for his spouse’s breakfast. A bird that can +sing better than a warbling vireo, whose carmine breast is comparable +only to the rich, red rose of June, who picks bugs from potato vines, +singing chansons meanwhile and who is so good to his wife that he does a +large share of the incubation, and takes largely upon himself the care of +their children is surely a “rara avis” and worth having for a friend. He +is a typical bird of June. His color matches the June roses, his songs +are full and sweet and rich as the June days, and the eggs of his soberly +dressed spouse are usually laid and hatched in June. There is a nest in a +hawthorn bush where the wild grape twines her crimson-green clusters and +by the time the blossoms break and fill the air with fragrance, no +accidents coming meanwhile, four young grosbeaks will be the pride of as +warm a paternal heart as ever beat in bird or human breast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>Perceiving that we are watching him the grosbeak ceases his ringing tones +and drops into that dreamy, soft, melodious warble, which is +characteristic of this songster as it is of the catbird. But he leaves +when a belted kingfisher comes screaming along the stream.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But there is more of interest on the willow. Unseen till now, no fewer +than three nighthawks are squatted lengthwise on its lower limbs, two on +one limb and one on another. Strange we did not see them before, but the +explanation is the grosbeak was singing. They are as motionless and +apparently lifeless as if they had been mummified or petrified for a +thousand years. Their mottled back and rusty feathers, their heads drawn +down and eyes almost closed, make them look like uncanny visitants from +beyond the Styx. Poe’s raven was not so ominous and strangely silent; +these will not say even the one word, “Nevermore.” They look like relics +of a Saturnian reign before beauty and music and joy were known upon the +earth. If there were charred stumps of trees in the Bracken which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> was +shown to Faust, we should expect to see nighthawks squatted on them, +wholly indifferent to the lamentations of lost souls. We go directly +under the branch where one of them is sitting ten feet above and still he +makes no sign. We throw a clod, but yet there is no movement of his +wings. Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does +he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly +away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of +the nighthawk’s wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see +him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in +some twilight hour and then he is the embodiment of strength, agility, +and swiftness. And some day we perchance find the two dirt colored eggs +on the bare ground, or the tiny young, like bits of rabbit fur, with only +the earth beneath them and the sky above them, apparently as deserted and +destitute as Romulus and Remus; and all this adds wonderfully to our +interest in this strange bird, which is so common in the June woods.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>The whip-poor-will is much like the nighthawk. Both are of about the same +size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures +that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped +patch of white on his throat; the large mouth of the whip-poor-will is +fringed with bristles. The nighthawk has a patch of white extending +through his long wings; the whip-poor-will has none. The nighthawk is not +usually heard after the twilight hours; the whip-poor-will is heard much +later. The whip-poor-will calls its name aloud, sometimes startlingly +close to the chamber window; the nighthawk only screams.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We cautiously approach a sand flat and are fortunate to see one of the +sights of a lifetime. The mud turtle is preparing to lay her eggs in the +moist sand. She digs the hole almost entirely with her hind feet, using +first one and then the other, working rapidly for perhaps eight or ten +minutes until the hole is about six inches in diameter and apparently +about three or four inches deep. Then she draws in her head, and drops,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +at intervals of two or three minutes, five eggs into the hole. That done, +she scrapes the moist sand back into the hole, pressing it and patting it +from time to time with her hind feet. This process takes much longer than +digging the hole. When it is done to her satisfaction she waddles towards +the creek. You might have some trouble to find the eggs but the skunk +often gets them. Does the mother turtle watch over them till they are +hatched by the sun or is it a mere picked-up crowd of youngsters that we +sometimes see in the early fall sitting with her on a boulder in the +pond?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We follow the scarlet tanager up a wide glen where wholesome smelling +brake grows almost shoulder high. Suddenly there comes from our feet a +sharp, painful cry, as of a human being in distress, and the ruffed +grouse, commonly called pheasant, leaves her brood of tiny, ginger-yellow +chicks—eight, ten, twelve—more than we can count,—little active bits +of down about the size of a golf ball, scattering here, there, and +everywhere to seek the shelter of bush, bracken,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> or dried leaves, while +their mother repeats that plaintive whine, again and again, as she tries +to lead us up the hillside away from them. When we look for them again +they are all safely hidden; not one can be seen. The mother desperately +repeats her whining cry to entice us away and we walk on up to the top of +the hill and away to relieve her anxiety. Anon we hear her softly +clucking as she gathers her scattered brood.</p> + +<p>The scarlet tanager’s nest is on the horizontal limb of a big white oak. +But it is not the familiar, striking, scarlet, black-winged bird, which +sits on the ragged nest. The female is dressed in sober olive-green above +and olive-yellow below, with dusky wings and tail. Probably many an +amateur has found this bird down by the river and tried to classify her +among the fly-catchers until the coming of her handsome husband caused +him to remember that in birdland it is usually only the male part of the +population which wears the handsome clothes, just as the Indian braves +wear the gaudiest paint and the showiest feathers. It is not till we get +to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> higher stages of civilization that this rule is reversed.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The foliage of the June woods has not the delicacy of tints which was so +exquisite in May, nor the strength of color which will be so striking in +September. But it has a beauty no less admirable. The chlorophyll in the +leaf-cells is now at its prime and the leaves very closely approach a +pure green, especially those of the sycamore, which is the nearest to a +pure green of any tree in the forest. Standing in the wood road which +runs along the top of a timbered crest we look across a broad, wooded +valley where the leaves seem to exhale a soft, yellowish green in the +bright sunlight. Beyond and above them, five miles away, and yet +apparently very near, a belt of bluish green marks the timber fringe of +the next water course. Still farther, another unseen stretch of corn land +intervening, the forest crowned ridge meets the soft sky in a line of +lavender, as if it were a strata cloud lying low on the horizon. From +this distance the lavender and purple are almost changeless every sunny +day the year around. Always the Enchanted Land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> and the Delectable +Mountains over across the valley. How like the alluring prospect across +the valley of years! Always the same soft lavender haze there, while the +woods here run through all the gamut of color, from the downy pinks and +whites and the tender greens of spring through the deeper greens of +summer to the crimson and scarlet of the fall, and the russets, grays, +and coffee-browns of the winter. When the foliage of the forest has +deepened into one dark shade of verdure then we know that June is far +spent, spring has gone and summer is here. The uniform green is not +monotonous. See the woods in the hour before sunset when the slanting +light gives the foliage consummate glory. See them again in the white +light of a clear noon when the glazed leaves seem to reflect a white veil +over the pure verdure; and again when the breeze ripples through the +leafy canopy, showing the silvery under-surfaces of the maple leaves, the +neat spray of the river birches, the deeply cleft leaves of the scarlet +oak and the finely pinnate leaves of the honey locust. Each has a glory +now peculiar to itself and to June.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is much beauty of color in the woodland undergrowth. Tall torches +touched with the crimson of the sunset sky are made of the shell-bark +hickory whose inner bud scales enlarge into enormous, leathery bracts, +often crimsoning into rare brilliance. Circles of creamy white here and +there among the hazel brush mark the later blossoms of the sweet +viburnum. Sweeping curves like sculptured arms bearing thickly clustered +hemispheres of purplish white are seen on the rocky slope where the +nine-bark grows above the lingering columbines. White wands which look so +beautiful are merely the ends of the common tall blackberry, and the wild +rose sweetens the same banks. Flattish clusters of creamy white blossoms +are the loose cymes of the red osier dogwood, but it is not nearly so +beautiful now as it was last January when its blood-red stems made a +striking contrast with the snow. The bright carmine bark has faded to a +dull green and the shrub is a disappointment now, despite its blossoms. +So is the cottonwood a disappointment. Its wealth of shining green +foliage is beautiful, yet we sigh for the lost glory of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> midwinter +days when the horizontal rays of the setting sun made aureoles of golden +light around its yellow, shining limbs.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is worth while on a walk in June to sit and look at the grass. How +tame and dreary would be the landscape without it! How soul starved would +have been mankind, condemned to live without the restfulness of its +unobtrusive beauty! That is why the first command, after the waters had +been gathered into one place and the dry land appeared, was, “Let the +earth bring forth grass.” The grasses cover the earth like a beautiful +garment from Kerguelen land in the Antarctic regions to the extreme limit +of vegetation beyond the Polar circle. They climb the Andes, the Rockies, +and the Himalayas to the very line of eternal snow, and they creep to the +bottom of every valley where man dares set his foot. They come up fresh +and green from the melting snows of earliest spring and linger in sunny +autumn glens when all else is dead and drear. They give intense interest +to the botanist as he remembers that there are thirty-five hundred +different spe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>cies, a thousand of which are in North America and a fourth +of that number in our own state. They give him delightful studies as he +patiently compares their infinite variations of culms and glumes, spikes, +racemes, and panicles. They give joy to the farmer with their wealth of +protein and fat and albuminoid, the material to do the work and make the +wealth of the world bulging from their succulent stems. And they are +fascinating most of all to the nature-lover as he sees them gently wave +in the June sunshine or flow like a swift river across the field before a +quick gust of wind. Such variety of color! Here an emerald streak and +there a soft blue shadow, yonder a matchless olive green, and still +farther a cool gray: spreading like an enamel over the hillside where the +cattle have cropped them, and waving tall and fine above the crimsoning +blossoms of the clover; glittering with countless gems in the morning +dews and musicful with the happy songs and call notes of the quail and +prairie chicken, the meadow lark, the bob-o-link, and the dickcissel +whose young are safe among the protection of the myriad stems. Tall wild +rice and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> wild rye grow on the flood-plain and by the streams where the +tall buttercups shine like bits of gold and the blackbirds have their +home; bushy blue stem on the prairies and in the open woods where the +golden squaw weed and the wild geranium make charming patterns of yellow +and pink and purple and some of the painted cup left over from May still +glows like spots of scarlet rain; tall grama grass on the dry prairies +and gravelly knolls, whitened by the small spurge and yellowed by the +creeping cinquefoil; nodding fescue in the sterile soils where the +robin’s plantain and the sheep sorrel have succeeded the early +everlasting; satin grasses in the moist soil of the open woodlands where +the fine white flowers of the Canada anemone blow, and slough grass in +the marshy meadows where the white-crossed flowers of the sharp spring +are fading, and the woolly stem of the bitter boneset is lengthening; +reed grass and floating manna grass in the swamps where the broad arrow +leaves of the sagittaria fringe the shore and the floating leaves and +fragrant blossoms of the water lilies adorn the pond. The three days’ +rain beginning with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> soft drizzle and increasing into a steady storm +which drives against the face with cutting force and shakes in sheets +like waving banners across the wind-swept prairie only adds more variety +to the beauties of the grass; and when the still, sweet morning comes, +the pure green prairies make us feel that all stain of sin and shame has +been washed from the world.</p> + +<p>Where the grasses grow the best, there Providence has provided most +abundantly for the wealth and the comfort of mankind. The rich verdure of +the meadows is the visible sign of the fruitful soil beneath the +fattening clouds above. The clover and the early hay fill the June fields +with fragrance and the grass in the parks and lawns invite toil-worn +bodies to rest and comfort. What wonder Bryant wished to die in June, the +month when the grasses tenderly creep over the mounds above tired dust +and gently soothe the grief of the loved ones left behind.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The cold May seemed to detract little from the beauty and interest of the +woodlands. The warblers, the humming bird, the tanager, the bob-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>o-link, +the ovenbird, the vireos, the chat, the red start, the oriole, the +dickcissel, the black-billed cuckoo, all greeted their friends as +numerously as ever. So with the flowers: the columbine, the shooting +star, the painted cup, the puccoon, the beautiful though inodorous large +white trillium, the delicate little corydalis, the star grass and the +lady’s slipper, all came within a week of their average time in spite of +the cold, and the showy orchis was only just over into June. May added +fifty-four new species of flowers to the April list, according to the +record of a single observer whose leisure is limited. Those who added the +forty odd May arrivals in bird land to their April lists may have no such +thrilling walks in June, but they may study their feathered friends of +the summer, which is better, and if passion for new lists is not +satiated, try the flowers instead of the birds. June should yield a list +of a hundred twenty-five different species, not including the grasses, +and a very diligent flower-lover will make it much longer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;"> +<p class="center noindent"><a name="note" id="note"></a><b>Transcriber’s Note</b></p> + +<p class="noindent">The following errors and inconsistencies have been maintained.</p> + +<p class="noindent">Misspelled words and typographical errors:</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 0%;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="typos"> +<tr> + <td align="right">Page </td> + <td style="padding-left: 1.5em;">Error</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#corr1">21</a> </td> + <td style="padding-left: 1.5em;">anl should read and</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#corr2">23</a> </td> + <td style="padding-left: 1.5em;">live stock for livestock</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#corr3">31</a> </td> + <td style="padding-left: 1.5em;">“sunburst.’ has the wrong type of close quote</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right"><a href="#corr4">47</a> </td> + <td style="padding-left: 1.5em;">diskcissel should read dickcissel</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class="noindent">Inconsistent hyphenation:</p> + +<p class="noindent">bell-wort / bellwort<br /> +blood-root / bloodroot<br /> +blue-bird / blue bird<br /> +fly-catchers / flycatchers<br /> +music-full / musicful<br /> +root-stock / rootstock<br /> +whip-poor-will / whippoorwill<br /> +wood-thrush / woodthrush<br /> +</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + +***** This file should be named 18227-h.htm or 18227-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/2/18227/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/18227-h/images/img01.jpg b/18227-h/images/img01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d33091a --- /dev/null +++ b/18227-h/images/img01.jpg diff --git a/18227.txt b/18227.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05d2f93 --- /dev/null +++ b/18227.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1517 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Some Spring Days in Iowa + +Author: Frederick John Lazell + +Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18227] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors and inconsistencies +have been maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked +with a [TN-#], which refers to a description in the complete list found +at the end of the text. + + + + +Some Spring Days in Iowa + + + BY + Frederick John Lazell + + + [Illustration] + + + CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA + THE TORCH PRESS + NINETEEN HUNDRED EIGHT + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1908 + BY + FRED J. LAZELL + + + + +FOREWORD + + +It is indeed a pleasure thus to open the gate while my friend leads us +away from the din and rush of the city into "God's great out-of-doors." +Having walked with him on "Some Winter Days," one is all the more eager +to follow him in the gentler months of Spring--that mother-season, with +its brooding pathos, and its seeds stirring in their sleep as if they +dreamed of flowers. + +Our guide is at once an expert and a friend, a man of science and a poet. +If he should sleep a year, like dear old Rip, he would know, by the +calendar of the flowers, what day of the month he awoke. He knows the +story of trees, the arts of insects, the habits of birds and their parts +of speech. His wealth of detail is amazing, but never wearying, and he is +happily allusive to the nature-lore of the poets, and to the legends and +myths of the woodland. He has the insight of Thoreau, the patience of +Burroughs, and a nameless quality of his own--a blend of joyous love and +wonder. His style is as lucid as sunlight, investing his pages with +something of the simplicity and calm of Nature herself. The fine sanity +and health of the man are in the book, as of one to whom the beauty of +the world is reason enough for life, and an invitation to live well. He +does not preach--though he sometimes stops to point to a forest vista, or +a sunset, where the colors are melted into a beauty too fair and frail +for this earth. + +Let us hope that the author will complete his history of the seasons, and +tell of us of Summer with its riot of life and loveliness, and of the +Autumn-time with its pensive, dreamy beauty that is akin to death. He is +a teacher of truth and good-will, of health and wisdom, of the +brotherhood of all breathing things. Having opened the gate, I leave it +open for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. + +JOSEPH NEWTON + +CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA + DECEMBER 1, 1908 + + + + +APRIL--BUDS AND BIRD SONGS + + + + +IV. APRIL--BUDS AND BIRD SONGS + + + _"Has she not shown us all? + From the clear space of ether, to the small + Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning + Of Jove's large eyebrow, to the tender greening + Of April meadows?"_ + + _"And whiles Zeus gives the sunshine, whiles the rain."_ + + +A strong southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving +big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in turn, +pushes at the base of the waves and causes their wind-driven crests to +fall forward and break into spray. The whole surface of the river is +flecked with these whitecaps, a rare sight on an inland stream but +characteristic of April. We sit on a ledge of rock high up the slope of +the canon and listen as they break, break, break. We may close our eyes +and fancy we are with Edmund Danton in his sea-girt dungeon, or with +Tennyson and his "cold, gray stones," or with King Canute and his +flattering courtiers on the sandy shore. But a song sparrow with his +recitative "Oleet, oleet, oleet," followed by the well-known cadenza, +dispels the fancies and calls our attention to himself as he sits on a +hop hornbeam and sings at half-minute intervals. The wind ruffles his +sober coat of brown and gray and he looks like a careless artist, +thrilling with the soul of song. + +Notwithstanding the high wind there is a heavy haze through which the sun +casts but faint shadows. Across the white-flecked river the emerald +meadow rises in a mile long slope until it meets the sky in a mist of +silver blue. To the right a big tract of woodland is haloed by a denser +cloud of vivid violet as if the pillar of cloud which led the Israelites +by day had rested there; or as if mingled smoke and incense were rising +from Druid altars around the sacred grove. As a matter of fact, it is a +mingling of the ever increasing humidity, the dust particles in the air +and the smoke from many April grass fires. To the left of the meadow +there is a sweep of arable land where disc harrows, seeders, and ploughs +are at work. The unsightly corn stalks of the winter have been laid low, +the brown fields are as neat and tidy as if they had been newly swept; +and this is Iowa in April. + +Up and down the river the willow leaves are just unfolding, bordering the +stream with tender green. The tassels of the pussy willows, which were +white in March, are now rosy and gold, due to the development of the +anthers. The aspens at the front of the wood are thickly hung with the +long yellowish-white tassels and look like masses of floss silk among the +tops of the darker trees. A big cottonwood is at its most picturesque +period in the whole year. The dark red anthers make the myriads of +catkins look like elongated strawberries. Tomorrow, or the next day, +these red anthers will break and discharge their yellow pollen and then +the tassels will be golden instead of strawberry-colored. Spring seems to +unfold her beauties slowly but she has something new each day for the +faithful. + +The ash, the hackberry, the oaks, the linden, the locusts on the hill and +the solitary old honey-locust down by the river's brink are as yet +unresponsive to the smiles of spring. The plum, the crab apple, the +hawthorn and the wild cherry are but just beginning to push green points +between their bud scales. But the elms are a glory of dull gold; every +twig is fringed with blossoms. The maples have lost their fleecy white +softness, for the staminate flowers which were so beautiful in March have +withered now. But the fruit blossoms remind us of Lowell's line, "The +maple puts her corals on in May." In Iowa he might have made it April +instead of May. But that would have spoiled his verse. + + * * * * * + +For long we sit and drink in the beauty of the scene. Meanwhile the birds +on this wooded slope are asking us to use our ears as well as our eyes. +Such a mingling of bird voices! The "spring o' th' year" of the meadow +larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by +the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear "phe-be" of the +chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. +Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl +botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the +loud and prolonged "O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick" of the flicker makes us +lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the +handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their +white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful +black crescent on their breasts. When we hear the call of the flicker we +may know that spring is here to stay. They are as infallible as the +yellow-breasted larks in the meadows. + +"Chip-chip-chip-chip,"--yes, of course that's the chipping sparrow; +another of the engaging creatures which almost has been driven from the +habitations of his human friends by the miserable English sparrows. Often +have we seen the little fellow set upon and brutally hurt by these +pirates. Now he stays around rural homes, and his chestnut crown, brown +coat mixed with black and gray, his whitish vest and black bill are +always a welcome sight. He takes up the chant of the year where the +departing junco left it off, throws back his tiny head and his little +throat flutters with the oft-repeated syllable, continued rapidly for +about four seconds. A while longer we wait and are rewarded by a few bars +of the musicful song of the brown thrasher who has just arrived with Mrs. +Thrasher for two weeks of courtship and song, after which they will build +a new home in the hazel thicket and go to housekeeping. + +Just as we are rising to leave there is the glimmer of the blue-bird's +wing and the brilliant fellow and his pretty mate appear at the top of +the bank, where the staghorn sumac still bears its berries. None of the +birds of the winter seems to care much for these berries but the +bluebirds evidently love them. As another instance of their tastes in +this direction may be mentioned the fact that for the past three weeks a +pair of blue birds have made many visits every day to a Chinese matrimony +vine, by the dining room window of the writer's home. This vine, as +everyone knows, has a wreath of juicy red berries in the fall, which hang +through the winter and are dried, but still red, in the spring. It was +the first week of March when the family first heard the pleasing notes of +the blue bird outside the window at breakfast time, and saw the +brilliant male sitting on a post on the back lawn and his less +brilliant, but equally attractive mate sitting on the clothesline. A +little later and he flew to the vine, picked off one berry and ate it, +took another one in his mouth and then returned to his post, while she +followed his example. Both chirped and pronounced the berries good, +though up to that time the members of the household had supposed they +were poisonous. After a few more bites of the morning meal the birds went +all around the house, inspecting every nook and crevice. But they found +every place fully occupied by the pestiferous English sparrows, who +darted at them maliciously. For two whole days the blue birds stayed +around the lawn and garden, but the sparrows made their lives miserable +and finally they went to the timber an eighth of a mile away and selected +an abiding place in the cavity of a basswood. But every morning and +evening, sometimes many times during the day, they came for their meal of +berries from the vine. Usually they were on hand as soon as the sun was +up, and a more devoted and well behaved couple was never seen either in +the bird or the human world. + + * * * * * + +We rise at length and walk along the wooded slope admiring new beauties +at every step. Here is a thicket of wild gooseberry filled with dark +green leaves and the tinkling notes of tree sparrows, and we hardly know +which is the more beautiful. A little farther and we are in a tangle of +pink and magenta raspberry vines from which the green leaves are just +pushing out. The elder has made a great start; the yellowish-green shoots +from the stems and from the roots are already more than six inches long. +The panicled dogwood and the red-osier dogwood (no, not the flowering +dogwood) as yet show no signs of foliage, but the fine white lines in the +bark of the bladdernut, which have been so attractive all winter, are now +enhanced by the soft myrtle green of the tender young leaves. The shrubby +red cedar is twice as fresh and green as it was a month ago, as it hangs +down the face of the splintered rock where the farmer boys have set a +trap to catch the mother mink. But Mrs. Mink is wary. Here is a pile of +feathers, evidently from a wild duck, which seems to indicate that while +the duck was making a meal of a fish which she had brought to shore, the +mink pounced upon her and ate both duck and fish. + +While we stand looking there is a slight movement among the roots of a +silver maple at the river's brink. A moment later Mrs. Mink comes around +the tree and towards us. She is about eighteen inches long, with a bushy +tail about another eight inches, her blackish-brown body about as big +round as a big man's wrist, and she has a "business-looking" face and +jaw. Did you ever try to take the young minks from their nest in the +latter part of April and did Mrs. Mink fight? She hasn't seen or smelled +us yet, but suddenly when she is within seven feet of us, there is an +upward movement of that supple, snakelike neck, a quick glance of those +black diamond eyes, and she turns at right angles and dives into the +river. A frog could not enter the water so silently. + + * * * * * + +We climb the slope again and pause in front of a big sugar maple, a +rather rare sight hereabouts. The sap-sucker has bored a row of fresh +holes in the bark of the tree and the syrup has flowed out so freely that +the whole south side of the tree is wet with it. Scores of wasps, bees +and flies of all sizes and colors are revelling in the sweetness. + +Finally we come to where there is less grass but more dead leaves and +leaf mould, and here is the first real herbaceous flower of this spring, +the dwarf white trillium, or wake-robin. How beautiful it looks, its +three pure, waxy-white petals, its six golden anthers and three long +styles, and its pretty whorl of three ovate leaves, at the summit of a +stem about four inches high. A little farther and we find a group of them +and then other clusters, fresh and pure and sweet enough to make a +bouquet for Euphrosyne. + +Oh, but someone says, the hepatica is the first flower of spring; all the +nature writers say so. Well, but they don't seem to say much about the +trillium; possibly they haven't found it so often. Indeed, it seems to be +more choice of its location. It is hardly ever, perhaps it would be safe +to say never, found on a southern or a southwestern slope. Almost +invariably it is found on the steep slope of a river bank, facing +northeast or east. Hepaticas nearly always grow on the same slope, but +they come into blossom about two days later than the trillium. But on +another bank which faces the noon and the afternoon sun the hepaticas are +up with the trilliums in the calendar of spring. This year the trillium +was found blooming, on a northeastern slope, March 24. At this place the +hepatica did not bloom until March 26. But it bloomed March 24, on a +southwest slope, fifteen miles away. + +By-the-way, the list of March blooming plants for 1908, is probably one +of the longest for years: March 20, aspen; twenty-first, hazel and silver +maple; twenty-third, pussy willow, prairie willow and white elm; +twenty-fourth, dwarf white trillium and hepatica (also known as +liverleaf, squirrelcup, and blue anemone); twenty-fifth, slippery elm, +cottonwood; twenty-ninth, box elder and fragrant sumac; thirtieth, +dandelion; thirty-first, Dutchman's breeches. + +How some of these early flowers secure the perpetuation of their species +is an interesting study for amateur botanists. In the case of the +trillium the fruit is a three-lobed reddish berry, but one has to search +for it as diligently as Diogenes did for an honest man before he finds +it. The plant seldom sets seed in this vicinity, but seems to depend +rather upon its tuber-like rootstocks in which the leaves lie curled all +through the winter. The hepatica attracts pollen-feeding flies, female +hive-bees and the earliest butterflies, and is thus cross-fertilized to +some extent; but it is thought also to be able to effect +self-fertilization. In the case of the _hepatica acutiloba_, however, it +has been found that staminate flowers grow on one plant and pistillate +flowers on another, hence insects are essential to the perpetuation of +this species. + +After bringing us the trilliums and hepaticas in numbers, Nature pauses. +She means to give us time to inhale the fragrance of some of the +hepaticas, and to learn that other hepaticas of the same species have no +fragrance at all; that there is a variety of delicate colors, white, +pink, purple, lavender, and blue; that the colored parts, which look +like petals are really sepals; that they usually number six, but may be +as many as twelve; that there are three small sessile leaves forming an +involucre directly under the flower; that if we search we shall find some +with four, more rare than four-leaved clovers; that the plant which was +fragrant last year will also be fragrant this year; that the furry stems +are slightly pungent,--enough to give spice to a sandwich; these +preliminary observations fit us for more intricate problems later on. + + * * * * * + +Spenser, the divinely tongued, pictures April as a lusty youth, riding +upon the bull with the golden horns (_Taurus_), wading through a flood, +and adorned with garlands of the fairest flowers and buds. A better +figure would have been Europa riding Zeus. And Chaucer also makes April a +masculine month: + + _"When that Aprille with his schoweres swoote + The drought of Marche had perced to the roote."_ + +But surely April, with her smiles anl[TN-1] tears, ought to be regarded +as a feminine month. Ovid has shown that she was not named from +_aperire_, to open, as some have supposed, but from Aphrodite, the Greek +name for Venus, goddess of beauty and mother of love. She is chaste, even +cold, but grows sweeter and more affectionate every day and her tears all +end in smiles. Her flowers are pure and mostly white, fitting for a +maiden. Look at the list (if the weather is warm): + +White or whitish:--Rue-anemone, hepatica, spring beauty, blood-root, +toothwort, Dutchman's breeches, dog's tooth violet, wild ginger, +chickweed, Isopyrum, plantain-leaved everlasting, shepherd's purse, +shad-bush, wild strawberry, whitlow-grass, wind-flower, hackberry +(greenish white), false Solomon's seal, catnip, spring cress, wild black +currant, wild plum. + +Yellow or yellowish:--Marsh marigold, creeping buttercup, marsh +buttercup, small-flowered crowfoot, dandelion, yellow woodsorrel, +bell-wort, star-grass, downy yellow violet, pappoose root, lousewort, +prickly ash, hop hornbeam, white oak, mossy-cup oak, butternut, sugar +maple. + +Purple or blue:--Common blue violet, trillium (_recurvatum_ and +_erectum_) hepatica, Virginian cowslip (_lung-wort_ or _bluebells_), +woodsorrel, common blue phlox, ground plum. + +Green:--The Indian turnip, and several of the sedges. + +Pink:--Spring beauty, toothwort, dog's tooth violet, hepatica. + +Scarlet:--Columbine. + +From this list it ought to be plain that April is a dainty queen, wearing +a dress of cheerful green, a bodice of white, with violets in her hands, +pink in her cheeks, and a single scarlet columbine in her wealth of +golden hair, which indeed comes nearly being the portrait of Dione +herself. Or, as one of the poets has better described her: + + _April stood with tearful face + With violets in her hands, and in her hair + Pale wild anemones; the fragrant lace + Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair, + Dawn-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there._ + +In this long list of April flowers--some observers will be able to make +it still longer--there are many favorites. The pretty rue-anemone recalls +the tradition that Anemos, the wind, chose the delicate little flowers of +this family as the heralds of his coming in early spring. And in the +legend of Venus and Adonis the anemone is the flower that sprang from the +tears of the queen as she mourned the death of her loved one. Theocritus +put the wind-flowers into his Idylls, and Pliny said that only the wind +could open them. The Spring beauty has as rich a legend, for it was the +Indian Miskodeed, left behind when Peboan, the winter, the Mighty One, +was melted by the breath of spring. The toothwort (_dentaria laciniata_) +is sometimes known as the pepper-root, and every school boy and girl +living near the woods is familiar with the taste of its tubers and the +appearance of its cross-shaped flowers. The plumy dicentra, or Dutchman's +breeches, seems so feminine as to be grossly misnamed until we remember +that it was first discovered in the Rip Van Winkle country. The wild +ginger with its two large leaves and its queer little blossoms close to +the ground is another delight to the saunterer along the rocky slopes, +where the feathery shad-bush--the aronia of Whittier--with its wealth of +snowy blossoms and the wild plum not far away, with its masses of pure +white, are inspirations to clean and sweet lives, calling to mind the +lines of Wordsworth: + + _One impulse from a vernal wood + May teach you more of man, + Of moral evil and of good + Than all the sages can._ + +In rocky fields and hillsides and dry open woods, the dwarf everlasting +(_Antennaria plantaginifolia_) with its silvery-white little florets set +in delicate cups, is one of the first species of the great composite +family to bloom. We take it from between the rocks and think of those +lines of Tennyson, which John Fiske declared to be among the deepest +thoughts ever uttered by poet: + + _Flower in the crannied wall + I pluck you out of the crannies, + I hold you here, root and all in my hand + Little flower,--but if I could understand + What you are, root and all, and all in all, + I should know what God and man is._ + +Even more innocent, fresh and fair, is the bloodroot, with its snowy +petals, golden center and ensanguined root-stock which crimsons the +fingers that touch it. This is the herb, so the legend says, which the +Israelites in Egypt dipped in sacrificial blood to mark their doorposts. +As long ago as last November we dug up one of the papery sheaths and +found the flower, then about a half inch long, snugly wrapped in its +single leaf; and now the pale green leaf has pushed up and unfolded, +showing the fragile flower in all its beauty. + + * * * * * + +Strange contrasts we see in some of these April flowers. Some of them +open their star-like eyes for a day or two and dot the floor of the woods +with beauty and then their little contribution to the spring is done and +they are seen no more until another year. They bring us beauty and +sweetness and then they pass from us, like the sweet and childish but +perfect lives we all have known and loved. In contrast to such as these +there is the Jack-in-the-pulpit of the April woods which has no floral +envelope of beauty, no fragrance, no inspiration, so busy is it storing +up its swollen fortunes down in the bank, leaving behind it a tuber so +rank and tainted that even the Indians couldn't eat it until they had +first roasted it, then ground it into powder, and finally made it into a +kind of bread. But sordid-lived accumulators, herbaceous and human, have +been with us since the world began. Laban was a monopolist of pretty +daughters and fine live stock,[TN-2] and Theocritus, in his day, was +moved to say that "Money is monarch and Master," and to exclaim: + + _Fools, what gain is a world of wealth in your houses lying? + Wise men deem that in that dwells not true pleasure of riches, + But to delight one's soul.... + Only the muses grant unto mortals a guerdon of glory; + Dead men's wealth shall be spent by the quick that are heirs to + their riches._ + +Toward the end of the month, when the gelatinous masses in the water +courses have developed the little black dots sufficiently so that we can +see they are tadpoles, when the songsters have been joined by the +catbird, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the woodthrush, the whippoorwill, +the cheerful and friendly chewink and several of the warblers and +flycatchers, the rivers and creeks will be fringed with the brilliant +yellow of the marsh marigold, and we shall think of Shakespeare, walking +the meadows of Avon, getting material for that song of the musicians in +Cymbeline: + + _And winking Mary-buds begin + To ope their golden eyes._ + +And meanwhile the violet, which was among the plants sacred to Aphrodite, +was also appealing to this master poet, who was born this month, as were +Wordsworth, George Herbert, John Keble, Anthony Trollope, David Hume, and +Edward Gibbon, and who died this month as did Edward Young, who wrote +_Night Thoughts_, and Abraham Lincoln, who freed a race and saved a +nation. Who can ever forget the month of Lincoln's death after he has +once read that exquisite description of an April day and the song of the +hermit thrush, written by Whitman to commemorate the funeral of his +friend? + +The violets have been especially loved by the poets. Theocritus placed +them foremost in his coronals and put them into Thyrsis's song of +Daphnis's fatal constancy. Chaucer had them in his garlands, and +Spenser's "flock of nymphes" gather them "pallid blew" in a meadow by the +river side. In Percy's _Reliques_ they are the "violets that first +appear, by purple mantles known." Milton allows Zephyr to find Aurora +lying "on beds of violet blue." Shakespeare places them upon Ophelia's +grave and says they are "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." +Wordsworth, Tennyson, and all our own poets have loved them. + + * * * * * + +But we have lingered too long among our flowers and thoughts in the April +woods. The filmy haze which veiled the sun has thickened into threatening +clouds, and as we look across the meadow to where the silver blue haze +rested on the delectable mountain in the morning we see instead the +rain-fringe, veiling and obscuring the landscape. The wind has died to a +dead calm and the river is still. As the shower comes nearer the whole +landscape is shrouded in an ever darkening gray and presently big round +drops splash upon the surface of the river. In a moment we are surrounded +by the rain. How beautiful is the first spring rain! It does not run down +the slope as in the winter when the ground was frozen, but the thirsty +earth seems eager to drink every drop. The unfolding leaves of the shrubs +are bathed in it and the tender firstlings of the flowers are revelling +in it. It dims the singing of the birds, but the robins and the meadow +larks carol on and the spring music of the frogs in the nearby pond has +not yet ceased. + +What makes the raindrops round? And why are the drops at the beginning of +the shower much larger than those which follow? We do not know. Perhaps +it is well. Walt Whitman says that "you must not know too much or be too +scientific about these things." He holds that a little indefiniteness +adds to the enjoyment, a hazy borderland of thought as it were, like that +which rests in April mornings on enchanted highlands away across the +river, which we have never yet--as Thoreau says--"tarnished with our +feet." + +And, anyway, before we can reason it out, the rain has ceased and the +last rays of the descending sun come through an opening in the clouds in +that beautiful phenomenon known as a "sunburst.'[TN-3] The white beams +come diagonally through the moisture-laden air, as if in a good-night +smile to the tender flowers and buds. + +Warming with the sunshine and watering with the showers--that is Miss +April making her flower garden grow. + + + + +MAY--PERFECTION OF BEAUTY + + + + +V. MAY--PERFECTION OF BEAUTY + + _Among the changing months May stands confessed + The sweetest and in fairest colors dressed._ + --THOMSON. + + +Surely the poet sang truly. We would not forget Lowell's challenge "What +is so rare as a day in June," but as we sit here on the top of a +limestone cliff nearly a hundred feet above the bed of the creek, and +watch the red sun brightening the gray of the eastern sky, while the +robins and the meadow larks are singing joyous matins we steep our senses +in the delicate colorings of earth and sky that signalize the awakening +of another day and the real revival of another year. April was +encouraging, but there were many bare boughs and many of the last year's +leaves still clung to the oaks and made a conspicuous feature of the +landscape. The leafy month of June will show us more foliage, but it will +be of a darker and more uniform shade of green. Now, as the sun rises +higher and sends his rays through both the woodlands and the brushlands +we thrill with delight at the kaleidoscope of color. There are no +withered leaves to mar the beauty now. Seen in mass, and at a distance, +the woodlands are a soft cinerous purple. But the tops, where the ruddy +rays of the sun are glancing, are a hazy cloud of tender green, pink, +yellow and pale purple. Nearer trees show in their opening leaves pale +tints of the same gorgeous colors which we see in the fall. The maple +keys and the edges of the tender leaves glow blood-red in the morning +sun. The half-developed leaves of the birch and the poplar are a +yellowish-green, not unlike the yellow which they show in autumn. The +neatly plaited folds of the leaves of the oak display a greenish or +cinerous purple, a soft and delicate presentment of the stronger colors +which come in October, just as the overture gives us faint voicings of +the beauty which the opera is to bring; just as Lowell's organist gives +us + + _"The faint auroral flushes sent + Along the wavering vista of his dream."_ + +The edge of the cliff is lined with shad-trees. Each twig is a plume of +feathery dainty white The drooping racemes of white blossoms, with the +ruby and early-falling bracts among them look like gala decorations to +fringe the way of Flora as she travels up the valley. The shad-trees have +blossomed rather late. In them and under them it is fully spring. There +is a sound of bees and a sense of sweetness which make us forget all the +cold days and think only of the glory of the coming summer. There comes a +song sparrow and perches on one of the twigs. He throws back his little +head, opens his mouth and pours forth a flood of melody. Next comes a +myrtle warbler, eager to show us the yellow on his crown, on his two +sides and the lower part of his back. He is one of the most abundant of +the warblers and one of the most charming and fearless. He perches on a +hop hornbeam tree from which the catkins have just shed their yellow +pollen and goes over it somewhat after the manner of a chickadee or a +nuthatch, showing us as he does so the white under his chin, the two +heavy black marks below that, the two white cross bars on his wings, and +his coat of slate color, striped and streaked with black. He goes over +every twig of the little tree and then flies off to another, first +pausing, however, to give his little call note "tschip, tschip" and then +his little song, "Tschip-tweeter-tweeter." A pair of kingfishers, showing +their blue wings and splendid crests, fly screaming down the creek. Their +nest is in a tunnel four feet in the clay banks on the opposite side. + +Purple finches, a bit late in the season, are feeding on the seeds of the +big elm. The snows of late April and early May must have delayed their +journey northward. When the bird-designer made this bird he set out to +make a different kind of sparrow, but then had pity upon the amateur +ornithologist who finds the sparrows even now almost as difficult to +classify as the amateur botanists do their asters; so he dipped the bird +in some raspberry juice--John Burroughs says pokeberry juice--and the +finch came out of the dye with a wash of raspberry red on his head, +shoulders and upper breast, brightest on the head and the lower part of +his back. Otherwise he looks much like an English sparrow. + + * * * * * + +Now the belated April flowers are seen at their best, mingled with many +of the May arrivals. It is such a day as that when Bryant wrote "The Old +Man's Counsel." On the sloping hillsides, around the leafing hazel +"gay-circles of anemones dance on their stalks." In the more open places +the little wind flower, with its pretty leaves and solitary white +blossoms, blooms in cheerful companionship with its fellows, and the more +sterile parts of the hillside are snowed with the white plumes of the +plantain-leaved everlasting. Downy yellow violets and the common blue +violets grow everywhere and down on the sand near the river the birdfoot +violet, with its quaintly cut leaves and handsome blossoms grows +abundantly for the children who love to gather the "sand violets." On the +bottom which was flooded in March the satiny yellow flowers of the marsh +buttercup shine and the beautiful green of the uplands is spotted with +the pure gold of the buttercup. There is no longer need to be satisfied +with a few pretty flowers. May scatters her brightest and best in +abundance. On the rocky slopes the wild ginger shows its red-brown, +long-eared urns, the white baneberry its short white plumes, the +branchlets of the bladdernut are breaking into white clusters and +columbine soon will "sprinkle on the rocks a scarlet rain" as it did in +Bayard Taylor's time, although the "scarlet rain," like that of the +painted cup in the lowlands, grows less and less each year. The white +glory of the plum thickets at its height and the hawthornes, whose young +leaves have been a picture of pink and red, will soon break into blossom +and vie with the crabapple thickets in calling attention to the beauty of +masses of color when arranged by the Master Painter. + + * * * * * + +The carpet of the woodlands grows softer and thicker, and more varied +each day. Ferns and brakes are coming thickly. The flowers grow more +splendid. The large, wholesome looking leaves of the blue bell are a +fitting setting for the masses of bloom which show pink in the bud, then +purple, and lastly a brilliant blue. Jack-in-the-pulpits make us smile +with keen pleasure as memories of happy childhood days come crowding +thickly upon us. The pretty pinnate leaves of the blue-flowered +polemonium are sufficient explanation for the common name Jacobs-ladder, +even though that name does not properly belong to our species. The purple +trilliums, like the Dutchman's breeches, felt the effects of the many +April and early May frosts but now they are coming into their beauty. +Great colonies of umbrella-leaved May-apple are breaking into white +flowers. The broad, lily-like leaves of the true and false Solomon's seal +are even more attractive than their blossoms. Ferns, bellwort, wild +sarsaparilla, all help to soften our footfalls, while overhead the light +daily grows more subdued as the leaf-buds break and the leaves unfold. +The throb of the year's life grows stronger. All the blossoms and buds +which were formed last summer now break quickly into beauty. And, +already, before the year has fairly started, there are signs of +preparation for the following year. The dandelion is pushing up its fairy +balloons, waiting for the first breeze. The shepherd's purse already +shows many mature seeds below its little white blossoms. The keys of the +soft maple will soon be ready to fall and send out rootlets, and the +winged seeds of the white elm already lie thickly beneath the leafing +branches. + + * * * * * + +Each flower invites admiration and study. Dig up the root of the +Solomon's seal, a rootstock, the botanists call it. It is long, more or +less thickened and here and there is a circular scar which marks the +place from which former stems have arisen. When these leaf-bearing stems +die down they leave on this rootstock down in the ground, a record of +their having lived. The scar looks something like a wax seal and the man +who gave the plant the name of Solomon's seal had probably read that tale +in the Arabian Nights, where King Solomon's seal penned up the giant +genie who had troubled the fishermen. + +Then there's the May-apple. Who does not remember his childhood days when +he pulled the little umbrellas? Even now as they come up in little +colonies, they call up memories of the fairy tales of childhood and we +almost expect to see a fairy, or a brownie, or Queen Mab herself, coming +from under them, when the summer shower, which makes their tops so +beautifully moist gray, has passed. And they also bring to mind that +charming first edition of Dr. Gray's botany, which had in it much of the +man's humor as well as his learning. Too bad that the learned scientists +who succeeded him have cut it out. "Common Honesty, very rare in some +places," he wrote, speaking of that plant. "Ailanthus, Tree of Heaven, +flowers smell of anything but heaven," was his comment on the blossoms of +our picturesque importation from China. And when he came to the May-apple +he wrote that the sweetish fruit was "eaten by pigs and boys." This made +William Hamilton Gibson remember his own boyish gorgings and he wrote: +"Think of it boys. And think of what else he says of it: 'Ovary ovoid, +stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta, each +enclosed in an aril.' Now it may be safe for pigs and billy-goats to +tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are +eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every +township should require this formula of Dr. Gray's to be printed on every +one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of." + +Another interesting plant is the _trillium erectum_, which with the +_trillium recurvatum_, is now to be found in the woods hereabouts. The +flowers of the _trillium erectum_ are ill scented, carrion scented, if +you please. Now the botanists have found that this odor, which is so +unpleasant to the human nostrils, does the plant a real service by +attracting the common green flesh-flies, such as are seen in the +butchershops in the summer-time. They eat the pollen, which is supposed +to taste as it smells and thus as they go from flower to flower they +carry pollen from one blossom to another and so secure for the plant +cross-pollination. + +So we may walk from one flower to another until the morning wears to a +bright noon and the afternoon wanes into a songful sunset. + + * * * * * + +In the swamp, where the red-winged blackbird is building her bulky nest +between the stems of the cat tail, and the prairie marsh wren is making +her second or third little globular nest in a similar place, there is a +blaze of yellow from the marsh marigolds which make masses of succulent +stems and leaves, crowned with pale gold, as far up the marsh as the eye +can reach. In Iowa, it is in May, rather than in June, that "the cowslip +startles the meadows green" and "the buttercup catches the sun in its +chalice." And it is in late April or early May that "the robin is +plastering his house hard by." By the way, ought not the poet to have +made it "her" house? It is the mother bird who seems to do the +plastering. Both birds work on the structure, but it appears to be the +female who carries most of the mud and who uses her faded red apron for a +trowel as she moves round in her nest pushing her breast against the +round wall of the adobe dwelling to spread the mud evenly. The work on +one particular nest was done in late April when there was nothing on the +elm but the seed fringes to screen the builder as she worked. Then the +four light greenish-blue eggs were laid. A red squirrel got one of them +one day. Disregarding the squeakings and scoldings of the anxious +robins, he sat on a limb holding the egg in his forepaws and bit a hole +in one side of it. Then he drained the contents, dropped the shell to the +ground and was about to get another egg when he was driven off. +Apparently he forgot the location of the nest after that, for the other +three eggs hatched out safely. + + * * * * * + +The air is filled with bird music. It began with the larks, closely +followed by the robins, and then the noise of the crows. No change in the +program since the days of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida when: + + _"The busy day + Wak'd by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows."_ + +Then came the liquid notes of the cowbirds, like the pouring of mingled +molasses and olive oil. Three handsome fellows in ebony and dark brown +sit on the branch of a tall elm and just beneath them sit three brownish +gray females, all in a row. Cowbird No. 1 comes nearer the end of the +branch, ruffles out his head as if he were about to have a sick spell +and then emits that famous molasses and oil kind of whistle, sufficient +to identify the cowbird anywhere. The other males repeat his example and +meanwhile the females look on with approving eyes, as if it was a +vaudeville performance by amateurs in polite society. The cowbirds, male +and female, are all free lovers. There is no mating among them. The +female lays her eggs in some other bird's nest, like the English cuckoo, +as if she were too busy with the duties and pleasures of society to care +for her own children. + +A diskcissel[TN-4] sits on a tree instead of a reed or a bush as usual +and sings "See, see, Dick Cissel, Cissel." Chewinks are down scratching +among the dry leaves with the white-throated sparrows, their +strong-muscled legs sending the leaves flying as if a barnyard hen were +doing the scratching. A beautiful hermit thrush is near but he is silent. +The chewink in his harlequin suit of black, white, and chestnut varies +his sharp and cheerful "Chewink" with a musical little strain, "Do-fah, +fah-fah-fah-fah," and one of the white-throated sparrows now and then +stops feeding and flies up to a hazel twig to give his sweet and +plaintive little "pea-a-body, peabody, peabody." Very pretty, but not so +beautiful as the three broad white stripes on his crown and the white +choker under his chin. + +Suddenly a brown thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild +cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had +joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without +a peer. With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood +of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like +notes of the wood-thrush and yield ourselves wholly to the spell of his +rich recital. Make the most of it while it lasts. Like all the glories of +the May woods it is evanescent. When the nest down in the brush is +finished, and his mate "feels the eggs beneath her wings," his song will +grow less full and rich and by the time the young birds come he will have +grown silent, as if weighed down with the responsibilities of a family. + +We get too near the thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the +brush. And then, by rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He +has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and +scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides +his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing +when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. The rich contralto +thrush-like melody, with its ever recurring "sol-la," "sol-la," fills the +woodlands with beauty. It is as if the pearly gates had been opened for a +brief interval to let the earth hear the "quiring of the young-eyed +cherubims." + + * * * * * + +In later May, the season "betwixt May and June," beauty and fragrance and +melody comes in a rich flood. The flaming breast of the oriole and the +wondrous mingling of colors in the multiplied warblers glint like jewels +among the ever enlarging leaves. The light in the woodlands becomes more +subdued and the carpet of ferns and flowers grows richer and more +beautiful. The vireos, the cardinal and the tanager add to the brilliancy +and the ovenbird and veery to the melody. As good old John Milton once +wrote: "In these vernal seasons of the year, when the air is clear and +pleasant, it were an injury and a sullenness against nature not to go out +and see her riches, and partake of her rejoicing with heaven and earth." + + * * * * * + +The beauty of the world is at every man's door, if he will only pause to +see. It offers every man real riches if only he will now and then quit +his muckraking or pause from paying his life for a cap and bells. It +sweetens honest labor, helps earthly endeavor, strengthens human +affection and leads the soul naturally from the beauty of this world to +the greater beauty of that which is to come. + + + + +WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS + + + + +VI. WALKS IN JUNE WOODS AND FIELDS. + + _Whether we look or whether we listen + We can hear life murmur or see it glisten._ + --LOWELL. + + +As we walk along the bank of the creek on a warm afternoon in June we +realize how true are these lines of Lowell. The frog chorus is dying +down, though now and then we catch sight of a big fellow blowing out his +big balloon throat and filling the air with a hoarse bass, while another +across the creek has a bagpipe apparently as big but pitched in a higher +key. Two months ago one could not get near enough to see this queer +inflation, but now the frogs do not seem so shy. Garter snakes wiggle +through the grass down the bank of the creek and the crickets are just +beginning to chirp the love chorus which is soon to swell incessantly +till the fall frosts come. Butterflies, dragon flies, saw flies and gall +flies are busy and we see evidences of their work in the crimson galls +on the willow leaves and the purple-spotted oak apples, some of which +have fallen to the ground from the scarlet oak above. Nature's first +great law is the perpetuation of species, and everything we see in the +June woods and fields, from the giant white oak to the busy ant, is +diligently obeying that law. The red-winged blackbird circles over our +heads with sharp, anxious chirps, for we have disturbed the young +red-wings down in the sedge who are taking their first lessons in flying. +The catbird's nest, with four greenish-blue eggs, is in a wild gooseberry +bush and the catbird is up among the shad-trees feasting on the ripening +June berries. The gentle notes of soft pedal music come floating sweetly +down. Did you ever stop long enough to listen to the full song of the +catbird? First, the brilliant, ringing strains, often softening into a +subdued sympathetic melody, and then, just as the music seems almost +divine, the long cat-like squeal which ends it all--much like an old +organist and choirmaster of boyhood days who used to break in with a +horrible discord at the lower end of the keyboard when the anthem +rehearsal wasn't going to his liking. + +A fruit-lover is the catbird, beginning with the June berries on the +banks of streams near which she often builds her nest and continuing with +wild strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the +Virginia creeper--sometimes also seen busily scooping out a big hole on +the rosy side of a tempting apple in the orchard. Some observers say the +catbird eats the eggs of the fly-catcher and other birds, but this must +be seen to be believed. + +There comes an outbreak of melody from the top of a tall black willow, +much like the tones of the robin and yet suggestive of the warbling +vireo, but finer than the former, clearer, louder and richer than the +latter. We lift our eyes and see the pointed carmine shield of the +rose-breasted grosbeak, one of the most beautiful, useful and music-full +birds in the forest or the garden. Many mornings and evenings during the +month of May one of these handsome fellows was busy in my garden, +diligently picking the potato bugs from the young vines, stopping now +and then, especially in his morning visits, to pour out a happy, ringing +lyric and to show his handsome plumage. On one occasion he took a couple +of potato bugs in his "gros" beak as he flew to the nearby woodland, +probably a tempting morsel for his spouse's breakfast. A bird that can +sing better than a warbling vireo, whose carmine breast is comparable +only to the rich, red rose of June, who picks bugs from potato vines, +singing chansons meanwhile and who is so good to his wife that he does a +large share of the incubation, and takes largely upon himself the care of +their children is surely a "rara avis" and worth having for a friend. He +is a typical bird of June. His color matches the June roses, his songs +are full and sweet and rich as the June days, and the eggs of his soberly +dressed spouse are usually laid and hatched in June. There is a nest in a +hawthorn bush where the wild grape twines her crimson-green clusters and +by the time the blossoms break and fill the air with fragrance, no +accidents coming meanwhile, four young grosbeaks will be the pride of as +warm a paternal heart as ever beat in bird or human breast. + +Perceiving that we are watching him the grosbeak ceases his ringing tones +and drops into that dreamy, soft, melodious warble, which is +characteristic of this songster as it is of the catbird. But he leaves +when a belted kingfisher comes screaming along the stream. + + * * * * * + +But there is more of interest on the willow. Unseen till now, no fewer +than three nighthawks are squatted lengthwise on its lower limbs, two on +one limb and one on another. Strange we did not see them before, but the +explanation is the grosbeak was singing. They are as motionless and +apparently lifeless as if they had been mummified or petrified for a +thousand years. Their mottled back and rusty feathers, their heads drawn +down and eyes almost closed, make them look like uncanny visitants from +beyond the Styx. Poe's raven was not so ominous and strangely silent; +these will not say even the one word, "Nevermore." They look like relics +of a Saturnian reign before beauty and music and joy were known upon the +earth. If there were charred stumps of trees in the Bracken which was +shown to Faust, we should expect to see nighthawks squatted on them, +wholly indifferent to the lamentations of lost souls. We go directly +under the branch where one of them is sitting ten feet above and still he +makes no sign. We throw a clod, but yet there is no movement of his +wings. Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does +he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly +away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of +the nighthawk's wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see +him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in +some twilight hour and then he is the embodiment of strength, agility, +and swiftness. And some day we perchance find the two dirt colored eggs +on the bare ground, or the tiny young, like bits of rabbit fur, with only +the earth beneath them and the sky above them, apparently as deserted and +destitute as Romulus and Remus; and all this adds wonderfully to our +interest in this strange bird, which is so common in the June woods. + +The whip-poor-will is much like the nighthawk. Both are of about the same +size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures +that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped +patch of white on his throat; the large mouth of the whip-poor-will is +fringed with bristles. The nighthawk has a patch of white extending +through his long wings; the whip-poor-will has none. The nighthawk is not +usually heard after the twilight hours; the whip-poor-will is heard much +later. The whip-poor-will calls its name aloud, sometimes startlingly +close to the chamber window; the nighthawk only screams. + + * * * * * + +We cautiously approach a sand flat and are fortunate to see one of the +sights of a lifetime. The mud turtle is preparing to lay her eggs in the +moist sand. She digs the hole almost entirely with her hind feet, using +first one and then the other, working rapidly for perhaps eight or ten +minutes until the hole is about six inches in diameter and apparently +about three or four inches deep. Then she draws in her head, and drops, +at intervals of two or three minutes, five eggs into the hole. That done, +she scrapes the moist sand back into the hole, pressing it and patting it +from time to time with her hind feet. This process takes much longer than +digging the hole. When it is done to her satisfaction she waddles towards +the creek. You might have some trouble to find the eggs but the skunk +often gets them. Does the mother turtle watch over them till they are +hatched by the sun or is it a mere picked-up crowd of youngsters that we +sometimes see in the early fall sitting with her on a boulder in the +pond? + + * * * * * + +We follow the scarlet tanager up a wide glen where wholesome smelling +brake grows almost shoulder high. Suddenly there comes from our feet a +sharp, painful cry, as of a human being in distress, and the ruffed +grouse, commonly called pheasant, leaves her brood of tiny, ginger-yellow +chicks--eight, ten, twelve--more than we can count,--little active bits +of down about the size of a golf ball, scattering here, there, and +everywhere to seek the shelter of bush, bracken, or dried leaves, while +their mother repeats that plaintive whine, again and again, as she tries +to lead us up the hillside away from them. When we look for them again +they are all safely hidden; not one can be seen. The mother desperately +repeats her whining cry to entice us away and we walk on up to the top of +the hill and away to relieve her anxiety. Anon we hear her softly +clucking as she gathers her scattered brood. + +The scarlet tanager's nest is on the horizontal limb of a big white oak. +But it is not the familiar, striking, scarlet, black-winged bird, which +sits on the ragged nest. The female is dressed in sober olive-green above +and olive-yellow below, with dusky wings and tail. Probably many an +amateur has found this bird down by the river and tried to classify her +among the fly-catchers until the coming of her handsome husband caused +him to remember that in birdland it is usually only the male part of the +population which wears the handsome clothes, just as the Indian braves +wear the gaudiest paint and the showiest feathers. It is not till we get +to the higher stages of civilization that this rule is reversed. + + * * * * * + +The foliage of the June woods has not the delicacy of tints which was so +exquisite in May, nor the strength of color which will be so striking in +September. But it has a beauty no less admirable. The chlorophyll in the +leaf-cells is now at its prime and the leaves very closely approach a +pure green, especially those of the sycamore, which is the nearest to a +pure green of any tree in the forest. Standing in the wood road which +runs along the top of a timbered crest we look across a broad, wooded +valley where the leaves seem to exhale a soft, yellowish green in the +bright sunlight. Beyond and above them, five miles away, and yet +apparently very near, a belt of bluish green marks the timber fringe of +the next water course. Still farther, another unseen stretch of corn land +intervening, the forest crowned ridge meets the soft sky in a line of +lavender, as if it were a strata cloud lying low on the horizon. From +this distance the lavender and purple are almost changeless every sunny +day the year around. Always the Enchanted Land and the Delectable +Mountains over across the valley. How like the alluring prospect across +the valley of years! Always the same soft lavender haze there, while the +woods here run through all the gamut of color, from the downy pinks and +whites and the tender greens of spring through the deeper greens of +summer to the crimson and scarlet of the fall, and the russets, grays, +and coffee-browns of the winter. When the foliage of the forest has +deepened into one dark shade of verdure then we know that June is far +spent, spring has gone and summer is here. The uniform green is not +monotonous. See the woods in the hour before sunset when the slanting +light gives the foliage consummate glory. See them again in the white +light of a clear noon when the glazed leaves seem to reflect a white veil +over the pure verdure; and again when the breeze ripples through the +leafy canopy, showing the silvery under-surfaces of the maple leaves, the +neat spray of the river birches, the deeply cleft leaves of the scarlet +oak and the finely pinnate leaves of the honey locust. Each has a glory +now peculiar to itself and to June. + +There is much beauty of color in the woodland undergrowth. Tall torches +touched with the crimson of the sunset sky are made of the shell-bark +hickory whose inner bud scales enlarge into enormous, leathery bracts, +often crimsoning into rare brilliance. Circles of creamy white here and +there among the hazel brush mark the later blossoms of the sweet +viburnum. Sweeping curves like sculptured arms bearing thickly clustered +hemispheres of purplish white are seen on the rocky slope where the +nine-bark grows above the lingering columbines. White wands which look so +beautiful are merely the ends of the common tall blackberry, and the wild +rose sweetens the same banks. Flattish clusters of creamy white blossoms +are the loose cymes of the red osier dogwood, but it is not nearly so +beautiful now as it was last January when its blood-red stems made a +striking contrast with the snow. The bright carmine bark has faded to a +dull green and the shrub is a disappointment now, despite its blossoms. +So is the cottonwood a disappointment. Its wealth of shining green +foliage is beautiful, yet we sigh for the lost glory of the midwinter +days when the horizontal rays of the setting sun made aureoles of golden +light around its yellow, shining limbs. + + * * * * * + +It is worth while on a walk in June to sit and look at the grass. How +tame and dreary would be the landscape without it! How soul starved would +have been mankind, condemned to live without the restfulness of its +unobtrusive beauty! That is why the first command, after the waters had +been gathered into one place and the dry land appeared, was, "Let the +earth bring forth grass." The grasses cover the earth like a beautiful +garment from Kerguelen land in the Antarctic regions to the extreme limit +of vegetation beyond the Polar circle. They climb the Andes, the Rockies, +and the Himalayas to the very line of eternal snow, and they creep to the +bottom of every valley where man dares set his foot. They come up fresh +and green from the melting snows of earliest spring and linger in sunny +autumn glens when all else is dead and drear. They give intense interest +to the botanist as he remembers that there are thirty-five hundred +different species, a thousand of which are in North America and a fourth +of that number in our own state. They give him delightful studies as he +patiently compares their infinite variations of culms and glumes, spikes, +racemes, and panicles. They give joy to the farmer with their wealth of +protein and fat and albuminoid, the material to do the work and make the +wealth of the world bulging from their succulent stems. And they are +fascinating most of all to the nature-lover as he sees them gently wave +in the June sunshine or flow like a swift river across the field before a +quick gust of wind. Such variety of color! Here an emerald streak and +there a soft blue shadow, yonder a matchless olive green, and still +farther a cool gray: spreading like an enamel over the hillside where the +cattle have cropped them, and waving tall and fine above the crimsoning +blossoms of the clover; glittering with countless gems in the morning +dews and musicful with the happy songs and call notes of the quail and +prairie chicken, the meadow lark, the bob-o-link, and the dickcissel +whose young are safe among the protection of the myriad stems. Tall wild +rice and wild rye grow on the flood-plain and by the streams where the +tall buttercups shine like bits of gold and the blackbirds have their +home; bushy blue stem on the prairies and in the open woods where the +golden squaw weed and the wild geranium make charming patterns of yellow +and pink and purple and some of the painted cup left over from May still +glows like spots of scarlet rain; tall grama grass on the dry prairies +and gravelly knolls, whitened by the small spurge and yellowed by the +creeping cinquefoil; nodding fescue in the sterile soils where the +robin's plantain and the sheep sorrel have succeeded the early +everlasting; satin grasses in the moist soil of the open woodlands where +the fine white flowers of the Canada anemone blow, and slough grass in +the marshy meadows where the white-crossed flowers of the sharp spring +are fading, and the woolly stem of the bitter boneset is lengthening; +reed grass and floating manna grass in the swamps where the broad arrow +leaves of the sagittaria fringe the shore and the floating leaves and +fragrant blossoms of the water lilies adorn the pond. The three days' +rain beginning with a soft drizzle and increasing into a steady storm +which drives against the face with cutting force and shakes in sheets +like waving banners across the wind-swept prairie only adds more variety +to the beauties of the grass; and when the still, sweet morning comes, +the pure green prairies make us feel that all stain of sin and shame has +been washed from the world. + +Where the grasses grow the best, there Providence has provided most +abundantly for the wealth and the comfort of mankind. The rich verdure of +the meadows is the visible sign of the fruitful soil beneath the +fattening clouds above. The clover and the early hay fill the June fields +with fragrance and the grass in the parks and lawns invite toil-worn +bodies to rest and comfort. What wonder Bryant wished to die in June, the +month when the grasses tenderly creep over the mounds above tired dust +and gently soothe the grief of the loved ones left behind. + + * * * * * + +The cold May seemed to detract little from the beauty and interest of the +woodlands. The warblers, the humming bird, the tanager, the bob-o-link, +the ovenbird, the vireos, the chat, the red start, the oriole, the +dickcissel, the black-billed cuckoo, all greeted their friends as +numerously as ever. So with the flowers: the columbine, the shooting +star, the painted cup, the puccoon, the beautiful though inodorous large +white trillium, the delicate little corydalis, the star grass and the +lady's slipper, all came within a week of their average time in spite of +the cold, and the showy orchis was only just over into June. May added +fifty-four new species of flowers to the April list, according to the +record of a single observer whose leisure is limited. Those who added the +forty odd May arrivals in bird land to their April lists may have no such +thrilling walks in June, but they may study their feathered friends of +the summer, which is better, and if passion for new lists is not +satiated, try the flowers instead of the birds. June should yield a list +of a hundred twenty-five different species, not including the grasses, +and a very diligent flower-lover will make it much longer. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +The following typographical errors were maintained in this version +of this book. + + Page Error +TN-1 21 anl should read and +TN-2 23 live stock for livestock +TN-3 31 "sunburst.' has the wrong type of close quote +TN-4 47 diskcissel should read dickcissel + +Inconsistent hyphenation: + +bell-wort / bellwort +blood-root / bloodroot +blue-bird / blue bird +fly-catchers / flycatchers +music-full / musicful +root-stock / rootstock +whip-poor-will / whippoorwill +wood-thrush / woodthrush + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Some Spring Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SPRING DAYS IN IOWA *** + +***** This file should be named 18227.txt or 18227.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/2/18227/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Julia Miller, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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